Eh sorry, not a great link. This is better "including women and children" news - Google Search
Do you support equally distributed rights no matter what?
From your own cite:
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Fathers Rights groups continue to promote the myth that courts are biased in favor of mothers. In litigated cases, father who sue for custody almost always win. In fact, fathers are often awarded sole custody even when sexual and physical abuse of the children is alleged and substantiated. According to The American Judges Association, 70% of the time the abuser convinces the court to give him custody.
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Existing law currently says that there is no preference for shared parenting in New York. The court may award joint custody, but in practice rarely does so. Legislators should be aware that the reason that more mothers have custody after divorce is that most arrangements are worked out between the parents. 95% of the litigated cases, including matrimonial cases, are settled out of court.
Once again, you seem unwilling or incapable of comprehending the whole story in its complexity.
Ever hear of Thomas James Ball? You can read about him and the “Father’s Rights” movement here and here.
It’s certainly interesting that the quote you provided was edited to remove any reference to the actual subject of the article. It’s a memorial piece about feminist and former NOW president Karen DeCrow, who was also an advocate for men’s rights and specifically argued in favor of shared child custody. The article does make it clear that many feminists disagreed with DeCrow’s views, but it also says “She certainly never stopped being a feminist.”
Here’s some of the text that was cut from LinusK’s quote, in bold:
The article continues on for several paragraphs about DeCrow’s work – which included talking about the kind of things you’ve claimed feminists don’t talk about – before the point where your edited quote picks up again.
A quick look at the Salon article reveals that it’s about women who support the father’s rights movement and, according to a passage you edited out of your quote, “many of whom consider themselves feminists.”
So according to your own cites, feminists are notably present on both sides of this issue. It’s fascinating that you failed to notice this while reading these articles, choosing passages to quote, and carefully editing out the evidence that disproves your claim to the contrary.
Lamia drops the mic
Let me just point out that declaring that another poster - or potentially group of posters - is on your ignore list is a violation of the rules of Great Debates. This far, no further.
It’s astonishing to me that one could so selectively edit one’s cites, and still feel righteous in one’s stance.
What do you see as the best argument against it? (I’m not expecting LinusK to aknowledge this any more than he aknowledged the sinking of his Titanic argument, but hope springs eternal).
Are you saying that sex-selective infanticide and abortion is a thing of the past? That the sex ratios among e.g. the Chinese and Indian populations are due only to the natural differences in sex rate at birth?
I’m no expert in the field, but I did a brief search and looked at some of the most reputable looking sites (not just wikipedia) before posting, and what I saw certainly indicates that it’s still an issue, although slowly getting better.
Do you have any suggestions for where I can read more about this? I’ve heard something similar, but I’m trying to figure out what kind of research could be done to find out if the difference of sex ratios a birth was due to increased chance of survival of the species, versus random noise or disadvantages that weren’t serious enough to be bred out of the population, like wisdom teeth, the appendix, or the lost ability to produce c-vitamins. I doubt we have good data of life expectancy for different genders very far back, not to mention in prehistoric times.
It’s contrary to basic principles of evolution. The argument is usually put on a biological foundation and something along the line that men are disposable because one man can impregnate a bunch of women, so it doesn’t matter so much if a few men dies, other men will just make up for it by having multiple women. But that is based on a misunderstanding on how evolution works, this would require group selection which doesn’t seem to be a thing. It’s irrelevant to the genetic legacy of one man, that a bunch of other men can impregnate a bunch of other women.
This chivalric ideal that men should risk, or even lay down, their lives to protect women also seems to be rather absent from other cultures. As far as I know, it’s not really found in Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Arab or any African cultures I know of. It also wasn’t found in ancient Greek or Roman mythology, religion, literature, etc, or mentioned anywhere in the Bible, not in old Nordic or Germanic mythology or literature, never heard of it in Ancient Greek/Sumerian/Babylonian texts. In fact it appears to be a unique Western cultural trait.
I personally have the theory that it’s a fusion of Christianity and Germanic warrior culture which appeared sometimes in the High Middle Ages. I.e., the Germanic people (Franks, Saxons, Normans) loved a good war, but since Christianity expressly forbade this, they had to come up with proper justification: so they invented the idea of A Just War. War fought in protection of the Church and the weak (the sick, old, holy people, and women – not so much children though, that came much later. And nowadays you Americans seem to have added Sacred Democracy to the list of things that makes for a Just War).
No. Sex-selective abortions (also some infanticide, but abortion is the main driver) is absolutely a big thing in places like China and India and other places; in the ancient Greek/Roman world infanticide also happened but I don’t know if it was mainly girls. But when we go beyond that, further into prehistory, biology seems to tell us (through skewered sex rates at birth) that boys died at a somewhat higher rate than girls.
On the face of it, one should expect there to be many more females of any species than males, since again, one male can impregnate many females. So a higher female-to-male ratio could lead to a much higher reproductive potential for the species. But again, evolution doesn’t work on the species or group level, and what is advantageous or detrimental to the species is evolutionary irrelevant. So the theory (Fisher’s principle) is that there is an even 50/50 distribution of men and women in the breeding age, because that (for each individual) is the evolutionary strategy that offers the best prospect of passing on genes. The sex ratio a birth for the USA is around 1.05 boys to 1 girl (stats), but this small imbalance is evened out once they’re in the age group 25+. (and of course 55+ there’s an overabundance of women, but that’s irrelevant, since they’re not having any children)
There does seem to be an exception to the 50/50 Fischer rule. In periods when resources are abnormal scarce, animals will tend have a greater ratio of female offspring. This may also work for humans: Spending on Daughters Versus Sons in Economic Recessions. This is because (evolutionary speaking) females are the safe bet - a lot more women manage to reproduce than men. But some men have a great number of children with a lot of women. For humans, throughout history, around 80% of girls have managed to reproduce vers. only 40% of men. Meaning that only the top 40% of male offspring is likely to reproduce, the most fittest and healthy, etc. And if your resources are scares it’s unlikely that you’ll manage to foster a son to be in this top bracket. So better go for a daughter, the potential is smaller, but the chance is higher.
We aren’t talking history. We’re talking today, in many parts of the world but especially in China and India. According to The Economist, there are almost 4 million “missing women” in the world due to sex-selective abortions, female infanticide, and high levels of maternal mortality in childbirth.
You are correct in saying that males are conceived and born at higher rates than females. Consider that in China, 120 boys are born for every 100 girls. This isn’t nature, it’s the ability of parents with a strong preference for boy children aborting their female fetuses. Gender disparities in China and India (to few females in relation to males) are so significant as to cause a significant increase in transnational sex trafficking and wife buying. Nature isn’t acting here–people living in cultures which devalue female lives are.
Besides the fact of your quotes being debunked, I think you asked a similar question in the other “What do you think a feminist is?” thread. And multiple people argued that men should have more parenting responsibilities (and consider themselves feminists as well).
My position is that it is something that should be worked out for the ultimate benefit of the child(ren), not for the adults’ wishes. And that primary guardianship does not necessarily imply limiting or eliminating the father’s role in raising his own kids.
Yes, I’m aware of that. Which is why I wrote in historic times. Which includes today. But it didn’t seem to have been the rule throughout human prehistory, so it is is a cultural phenomenon not a biological rule.
Here’s a list of the sex ratio for all the nations of the world:CIA World Fact Book. Every single one of them have a higher rate of boys than girls at birth (except Nauru, and the USA which has -9 males per female at birth. The stats for Qatar also seems to be fucked). In general for Western nations this seems to be around 104 -107 boys per 100 girls. This is not because Western nations practise sex-selective abortions in great numbers. China seems to have the worst ratio of 115 boys per 100 girls. Ironically this ought to create an evolutionary pressure to have girls, since that’ll lead to greater reproductive success. But of course evolution is a slow process.
Haha thanks, it didn’t occur to me to search it due to video having been mentioned but that does indeed show me what I was looking for.
As far as I can tell, everyone you’re talking to in this thread is talking about cultural phenomena, not biological rules.
Then you need to reread the OP. “…the reality of male disposability…Humans are thought to have evolved in Africa 5-8 million years ago…When you think about human physiology, humans are very strange creatures. We combine two evolutionary traits…” The OP presents a biological/evolutionary reason for male disposability. This is an argument which is often put forward by certain Men’s Rights proponents. And it is simply wrong.
[quote=“Stanislaus, post:871, topic:725390”]
It’s hardly the only study.
Here’s Lisak and Miller, (2002), Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending among Undetected Rapists:
Looking at the first study first:
The study found that 6.4% “met criteria for rape or attempted rape,” 80.8% of which “reported committing rapes of women who were incapacitated.”
While 6.4% is a “a disturbingly high percentage,” it’s still a minority.
When I tried to look up the second cite, I got to a page marked “South African Journal of Psychology,” which required a subscription. The abstract you quoted, however, said, “six per cent reporting an act of sexual aggresssion that met the legal definition of rape or attempted rape.”
The headline number for the third study seems to come from page 168: “The results indicated that, since the age of 14, 27.5% of college women re- ported experiencing and 7.7% of college men reported perpe- trating an act that met legal definitions of rape, which includes attempts.”
For the last one, I was unable to find anything other than the abstract, which you already quoted.
In summary, for the four studies, the rates of male perpetration were 6.4%, 6%, 7.7%, and 14.8%.
While those numbers still too high, they represent percentages far below the 33% study that Rune was criticizing. If your attempt was to support the 33% number, you failed.
Finally, if you’re going to look at sexual assault by men, you should look at whether women are doing it too.
From Slate:
I’m not a Men’s Rights proponent, but I’d be curious to know what you think is wrong with the “biological/evolutionary reason(s) for male disposability”.
Lack of evidence for any such thing countered by evidence of cultural, not biological, reasons for the events you choose to interpret as male disposability that do not appear to actually be male disposability.
Absence among any other species in nature.
Here. Because it’s contrary to basic principle of evolution. No individual is ever disposable for any other individual who does not share his genes. That is, a person (man or woman) is disposable to some extend to his own children, and much less to other immediate family, and pretty much nobody else. Certainly not an unrelated woman.
You weren’t talking to the OP in the post I was responding to or in any of the most closely relevant posts in that conversation.