Not to disagree that the common portrayal of men as useless lumps in commercials (especially commercials for products traditionally aimed at women, cooking and cleaning products) exists and is Not A Good Thing; but being female, I’ve noticed women are portrayed about as often as bimbo-type ‘sexual rewards’ in commercials aimed at men (see any health/scented product aimed at men for a start).
Wear this suit, get a free girl!
For the record, I know men who have been thoroughly shafted by the child custody/divorce system in the UK, including one guy who paid child support for over a year, (living at his parents’ again in his mid 30s, cos she got the house and he couldn’t afford both his own flat and to pay up), without being allowed to see his kids, because his ex just locked the door or wasn’t in every time he came to pick them up. This was despite a court order giving him full visitation rights, and the children wanting to see him. It only ended when her parents made her quit messing with him. No official enforcement, ever.
It’s striking to me how exactly some of the purportedly feminist rhetoric in this thread has begun running parallel to standard bigoted rhetoric.
I would have thought that the obvious feminist answer to the suggestion that a man can be be discriminated against if he wants to perform a traditionally female role like dental hygienist would be “yeah, and that sucks,” not the same old shopworn protestations we hear from the other side all the time. Clinging to the idea that women are inherently more susceptible to discrimination or are the only possible class of victims of it, which some posters seem to be coming very close to doing, is incredibly anti-feminist in the long view. And if men have trouble getting hired as dental hygienists or secretaries or schoolteachers or babysitters or hosts or whatever, even when they’re well qualified, that’s bad for women as well as men. Why the resistance? Mild discrimination is still discrimination. That’s an argument I’ve raised a million times trying to convince people to accept feminist thinking, and I’m sure a lot of the people in this thread have, too.
Edited to add: that’s not to say there aren’t some of the same horrible people saying the same horrible things in this thread in the traditional way, of course.
So the dentists in my town-- the most backwards, redneck part of California-- just happen to be incredibly more progressive than the ones where you live. Got it.
Which, ironically enough, suggesting that groups of women who work together in a professional setting are akin to sex slaves, is wildly appropriate given the topic at hand. Bravo, Rig, bravo. Keep fighting the good fight, man.
Well it was basically stated a couple pages back until men start getting set on fire like women are, we should shut our pie holes about the little things.
Meant to add this in but missed the time: you are 100% correct and several of us have agreed that the very serious problems that men deal with are just that- very serious.
But do you understand how absurd it sounds for him to so strongly suggest that male dental hygienists don’t exist? At all. They just don’t. Is it potentially harder for guys to get certain, traditionally female jobs? Absolutely! And that’s bullshit. But he is doing his case no benefit by exaggerating the reality of the status quo. There are lots of legitimate ways men are discriminated against in our society-- suggesting that a male dental hygienist is some sort of medical assistant chupacabra isn’t helping anything.
Well, you know, he said his buddy had a hard time getting a job, and the response he got was exactly equivalent to the response that racists give when confronted with racism: can you prove what they were thinking when they didn’t hire him?
I’d probably answer that with a flippant rhetorical question, too. If we all agree that it’s probably harder for a guy to get a job as a dental hygienist, then that’s an answer to the question in the OP, I think.
You’re right, it does suck. Which is why I said that the examples of men not being hired for traditionally female roles because the presumption is that they will become pedophiles upon being granted access to children is absolutely discrimination. What we are saying also, though, is that the rest of this bullshit being brought up is absolutely not gender discrimination in the sense that it causes any harm to the way men are viewed culturally. I don’t care if a guy is a secretary, or a dental hygienist, or a school teacher, or a nurse. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and denying a man the opportunity to take on that role is discrimination. Requiring men to pay cover charges at bars is not gender discrimination. Income-based alimony agreements that favor the lower income earning woman is not gender discrimination. TV commercials that reinforce the gender stereotype that household chores are a woman’s work that men are too flummoxed to be able to perform correctly is not discriminatory against men. Women are inherently more susceptible to gender discrimination because there is a long history of women being discriminated against. That is not an outrageous thing to think or even very difficult to demonstrate in 2012.
So you’ll forgive those of us who are questioning the validity of “alimony is discriminatory against men because they don’t subtract the cost of having to hire a maid!” as being a bullshit argument intended to demonstrate actual systemic discrimination against men that harms the gender. Not every example has been as bullshit as that one. But many of them have.
Huh, yeah. This is a thing I have observed in the past. If you ignore the entire social context, sometimes, if you squint hard enough, the things feminists write seem as bad as the things that the mens’ rights crowd write. You really have to squint hard, though, which (I don’t want to get into this stuff about dental hygienists) but you should probably talk with your optometrist or your para-optometrist about how much you squint in order to make those things seem comparable. Because you may possibly injure your eyes in the process. Try not to squint to hard. If you keep your crazy-ass squinting to a minimum you’ll see that the crazy “purported feminists” have not actually said anything comparable to the standard bigots. Not in this thread, anyway.
Gosh, imagine what kind of psycho would rank women getting set on fire as being more important then men being “abused” in men-friendly tv commercials that relieve men of the responsibility of vacuuming.
What the fuck what? Please read what I am writing.
Not inherently. In practice, in fact, as a historical matter, yes, but not necessarily. Right? Equality is the idea. But Aqualung said that men literally cannot face sexism. That is an incredibly sexist statement standing alone, and devastating to feminism if taken seriously. He seems to be taking it seriously as far as I can tell. I was mostly talking about him, but also about some posts that seemed to agree with his general stance, which I think is a terrible one. If men are getting discriminated against (and again, most of us seem to agree that in certain small respects they are), I really don’t see the profit in pretending that it’s somehow not real or not harmful in proportion to its scope. It strikes me as, well, kind of protective. Fatherly, even.
With all due respect, mister nyx, it doesn’t seem like you’re saying anything. I’d like to avoid turning this into some hot male-on-male who’s feminister action just for the sake of doing it. What’s your problem, exactly?
Okay, I’ll phone up my friend Abdullah and ask him to not burn as many women this year. As a member of the same big men’s club, I’m sure he’ll listen to me. Being looked at as a potential predator is totes worth it since I can gleefully go to bed at night cackling about how my brothers halfway around the world oppress the evil gender.
Yes, inherently. If we are still litigating against companies and organizations for discriminating against women, which has long been the historical norm, and many of the gender stereotypes that lead to this type of discrimination still being perpetuated are still out there, then women are inherently more likely to be discriminated against. This is not a statement about the possibility of men being discriminated against due to their gender, it is merely reinforcing the idea that yes, due to historical discrimination and subjugation of women, they are inherently more likely to be discriminated against than men.
You’d have to show me the quote where he said that it is literally impossible for men to face sexism, I must have missed it. What many of us have been arguing is that the examples given throughout most of this thread do not constitute actual harmful discrimination. Not that it doesn’t exist, in fact I believe many have said quite the contrary. Nobody is pretending that it doesn’t exist. But cover charges don’t fall under that heading.
So, in your eyes, discrimination against men is at least nearly equivalent to discrimination against women – nearly enough that they deserve to be recognized by the same word.
Wow. Men are the victims of sexism, at least nearly equally, as women are. I don’t want to assume this is your viewpoint, but it’s hard to see otherwise.
That isn’t the point he’s making at all, and I suspect that you know it. He’s saying that a lot of people in this thread have been saying (in his opinion, not mine) that minor discrimination should be ignored because there is more severe discrimination, which is ridiculous. It should be treated far less seriously, but not ignored.
This might be more an ageism thing, but it really pisses me off how suspicious people are of teenage males. My girlfriend, and most of the other girls I know, waltz through a store, no problem. Me, and my male friends (individually, not in a group) are usually tailed by an employee. Every once in a while the cashier will even ask you to turn out your pockets, especially if you’re wearing a coat (and in the winter, everyone wears a coat where I am). We don’t even look suspicious (I don’t think). If anything we look like nerds. It’s not a huge deal, but it pisses me off.
Actually, this must be the post that you are referring to earlier. Let me attempt to parse what Aqualung is saying here.
Sexism, if you will permit me to enter a definition, would be the belief in the inherent inferiority of a gender, much like racism is the belief in the inherent inferiority of a specific race. What he is saying, I believe, is that due to the fact that historically men have never been viewed as the inferior gender, it is not the same to cherry-pick examples in which men have been discriminated against and put that forth as an equal to sexism as a broader concept. Men can never be the victims of sexism because they have never been viewed as inherently inferior, as women have. They can be the victims of gender discrimination, yes. But not sexism.
To note: this is only my interpretation of another poster’s words, and any criticism of those thoughts should be directed at me, not him.
So, you’re saying, the thing I should be worried about is the men who are perceived as potential rapists?
Not the women who are raped? Because I know a fair number of people and among them are dozens of women who have been raped. The fact that you bring up men who were perceived as possible rapists, but not men who are actual rapists, makes it hard to believe you are as worried about the victims of these “potential predators” as you should be.
For the record, of the top of my head, and I sat and did the math, I know well more than a dozen women who have survived sexual assault. I don’t know anywhere near as many men who were victims of false accusations (of course, in reality, the number tells us that it is vanishingly rare for a man to be victim false reporting, whereas most of the perpetrators of sexual assault commit many offenses. I mean, sorry, I shouldn’t bring math into this, but well.)
