This is a blog post/essay supposed posted on Scott Adam’s on website, but then later taken down (for obvious reasons.)
It strikes me as pretty controversial, and therefore perhaps a great place for Great Debate.
Some things never change; whenever someone is telling you something like “be a man about it” or “don’t be a pussy”, they are telling you to do something stupid. Something that makes them happy, but is stupid for you.
I figured that out as a kid, it’s an obvious enough pattern. I mentioned it to my mother once back then, and her response was "For us, it was ‘ladylike’ 'Ladies don’t do that! You shouldn’t do that, it’s not ladylike!’" The difference is that since she was a girl women have largely gotten over it, while men are mostly still stuck with the old cliches.
That’s dated March 7, 2011.
I’d agree MRAs are mostly silly. Especially when they traffic in stereotypes but then whine and complain like a woman. Deal with it, tough guys.
This is a good rule of thumb:
If women aren’t happy, it’s men’s fault.
If men aren’t happy, it’s men’s fault.
No, men don’t get paid more for the same job. Men get paid more for doing more hours. Men get paid more when choosing jobs with higher rates of pay. The fact that the difference in pay hardly exists among the unmarried shows why it happens.
In my experience a more common counterargument would be that men make up the vast majority of those in the worst jobs, the most dangerous and unpleasant jobs.
Okay, would anyone like to defend the idea that you shouldn’t defend yourself against an attack by someone who is violently insane?
Anyway, morally and factually the path of least resistance is rarely the best. It is, however, the pussilanimous way to do it.
So I’ll be a pussy and treat people as individuals, and demand women act reasonably and fairly, and not like juvenile mental patients.
Not even insane. Why let yourself be hit by anyone?
If a woman hits a man she *should *expect to be hit back.
Indeed, who is being the pussy here?
Men should just always say ‘Yes, dear’ and do as they’re told?
No confrontations please, ‘save the energy’ for supposedly “imoportant stuff”.
This blog post is the moral equivalent of ‘Go back to the kitchen and make me a sandwich.’
I agree that there are areas where the societal expectations placed upon men are unfair and that perhaps we should try to reconsider our words and behaviors to avoid being part of the problem.
I also agree that MRAs tend to be a bunch of hypersensitive whiners looking to magnify those areas disproportionately and that they suffer from an overblown sense of entitlement.
And I thirdly agree that Scott Adams is an asshole.
That about sums it up.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I took it as more of him trying to send men into the kitchen.
The MRAs have a point…to a very short end. But they then go so far into the deep end I think they dropped their drug stash down there or something.
It usually means we don’t want to solve your stupid problem for you.
Yes, that’s what I meant.
It is the same dismissiveness that was shown to women that complained about their position in society. Before they got emancipated.
I’ve learned never to read Scott Adams in any medium longer than 4 panels.
Well, a lot of that is silly, but I do think he hit on one thing that resonated with me.
The fact that most everything that goes one around me I don’t actually give a damn about. And if I don’t care about it, I don’t want to argue about it.
I’ve long called this the ‘curtain’ rule. I don’t care what color the curtains are so whatever is fine. I’d rather save my discussion and debate energy for things that I do care about.
I agree wholeheartedly with this except for how Scott Adams is characterized. Not that he’s not an asshole, but because I never spent much time researching the guy or anything so I have no idea.
The rape culture link was not necessarily asshole behavior, but it did show an aloofness and insensitivity towards the subject that made me roll my eyes a bit. And even the OP screed I have a few things I disagree with (not only men save people from burning cars) even though I generally agree that MREs are pussies.
I have advantages in this world as a white male due to my skin color and my gender. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages almost all the time.
I wouldn’t be so sure of this.
Both male and female hirers give lower starting salary to woman than to identical man in study.
Unemployed black woman pretends to be white, job offers skyrocket.
Man named “Kim” specifies that he’s a man on resume, job offers come rolling in.
There’s a lot more in play than “Woman just don’t work as hard or work as good jobs”.
Pressuring or outright telling someone else to not solve a problem but to simply endure it goes well beyond a desire to not solve their problems yourself.
You’re missing the part of his post where the problem in question is stupid. It’s embarassing that there are people who think it’s a worthwhile thing to spend mental energy trying to “solve.”
I think he went too far with some of his comparisons and some of his conclusions, but I do think there is a valid point to be made here about the Men’s Rights movement. There are some things that these guys complain about that they should just shut up about. His example about it being assumed that women are served first in a restaurant, being expected to hold the door open for someone, etc. Besides the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone complain about it outside of the context of Men’s Rights, they’re small things that aren’t worth fighting about. Society just expects certain things out of certain people based on them being parts of certain groups, whether its gender, age, class, or whatever. Many of those expectations are completely innocuous or so minor that most people who have to deal with them just plain don’t care or at least don’t see them worth making a stink about.
At the same time though, like with any group, there are certain aspects about how society treats men that probably are worth making a stink about. I think inequities in the justice system are a big deal, that men are convicted more often and get harsher sentences than women is a bad thing for everyone, not just the men involved. That men are often in a bad spot dealing with divorce and custody is a bad thing for everyone. That men victimized in domestic violence are often either assumed to have done something to deserve it or told to man up is a bad thing for everyone.
But the way I look at this, these aren’t Men’s issues because, these issues affect more than just men, and there are inequities with virtually every group out there. As a society, we can’t just fix everything overnight, so what we need to do is pick out the most egregious inequities and focus on those first. And that’s where Men’s Rights Activists fail, by lumping in a lot of benign crap with some very real and important issues, they’ve done everyone a disservice by expending energy and awareness on minor issues and detracted from the few major issues they might address.
The real point here shouldn’t be to pick the path of least resistance, because that generally means never changing anything, as the path of least resistance is almost always just to keep doing what we’ve always done. The point should be to pick your battles, because some things aren’t worth the time and energy to change, but some things are. And, moreso, that it shouldn’t be about men’s rights, it should be about human rights and equality. I want to see everyone with equal rights and fair treatment, not just the groups I’m a member of.