What are the consequences of what I said? What I said was that “one doesn’t need to think that it’s of the same severity to think it is of the same kind. There can be mild sexism all the way to egregious sexism.” What are the (non-hyperbolic) consequences of thinking that?
One dude knows a dude who went to school to be a dental hygienist, and now allegedly cannot get a job in that field. That is the extent of our evidence for this “good example”. We don’t know anything about this person’s educational experience, his suitability for the job, where he applied, or any of a hundred factors that could have led to his needing to seek another career path. And no, the fact people in this thread have pooled their anecdata and have come to the conclusion that there are like, totally no male hygienists does not support this one friend-of-a-friend account of sexism against men.
The fact that you think that this one dubious example was so much better than the others given in this thread just proves how ridiculous the argument for the existence of institutionalized discrimination against men is.
I can’t help the fact that you said things you can’t stand behind (or, more particularly. that you can’t stand behind their consequences.)
But, in context, I’m sure plenty of other unappealing men will tell you you were in the right to say what you said.
Uh, why?
Why are we obligated to pretend that there are relevant comparable examples of women being discriminated against that somehow justify the shit that these SDMB blowhards complain about?
Talk about turning the tables . . . obviously, Dopers come to the defense of other Dopers who can’t come up with even the vaguest examples to support their typical claims about how horribly men are abused. That’s unsurprising. The question is why everyone else should believe that these failures would have succeeded if it weren’t for the horribly unfair treatment of white men.
GOSH those poor white men! If only everyone could be so smart as to understand the horrible plight of the poor white men! If only everyone was a Doper and could see how much the white men suffer!
By the way, according to this source, three quarters of dentists in the United States are men. I would venture to say that it’s entirely likely that the reason that hygienists skew towards female is because they are most likely encouraged to take that position and leave the actual dentistry (with its higher pay and prestige) to their male counterparts.
Hey, you stay out of here with those “facts” ok? Have you ever met a male dentist?
Wait.
Bigotry/discrimination can be and are done to anyone based on which group they are perceived as belonging to.
Sexism and racism (and their equivalents like anti-gay homophobia or anti-Semitism) are a substantially different equation:
Gender bigotry/discrimination + a system of privilege/power established in favor of only one gender=sexism. It only goes one way.
Racial bigotry/discrimination + a system of privilege/power established in favor of only one race=racism. It only goes one way.
The important difference is the established system of privilege and power favoring male gender, white race, heterosexuality, etc. It’s a gigantic thumb on the scale and it’s permanently there. Not to mention the cumulative weight of it lasting for hundreds or thousands of years that has permanently warped the social fabric, such that it cannot be done away with overnight. I think people get sidetracked into the mud when they make the sexism debate about men and women. The same system that privileges male gender and white skin also privileges the upper classes over the working classes. Who benefits from it is not, simply put, men in the abstract. The ones who really benefit from it are a numerically tiny élite of white men, the infamous “1%” as they’ve been tagged. All other men are burdened by the system in relation to the upper classes just as women are burdened for being female, people of color are burdened for having dark skin, LGBT are burdened for being who they are, etc. So focus on the system that is not in the interests of the 99%, and lay off bashing each other, is the answer I think.
Edit: Which is why “reverse racism” and “reverse sexism” are oxymorons.
Never? As in never, ever? See, the problem with making absolutely ridiculous assertions as this is that it takes (literally) less than a minute on Google to see that you’re absolutely wrong.
And no, I’m not going to waste a single minute more of my time to find you more examples because (after reading everything you’ve written here) it would be useless.
Protip: try to stay away from ALWAYS and NEVER when you’re trying to make people believe you. I’d also tell yo to lay off the anecdotal evidence, but I know when a cause is lost.
Johanna: I appreciate that explanation - it seems to be at the core of why these sorts of conversations seem to lean a little on the train-wreck side. Namely, we have a person who I shall call B. They say “One time, someone assumed something negative about me because I’m a man - that’s sexist.” Now if we define sexism as being only ever a one way street (as you have), and assume B is speaking with that definition in mind, then B has effectively just said “Sexism happened to a man at least once, therefore it never happens to women at all”. An objectionable and dumb opinion, certainly. But if B wasn’t working with that definition of sexism, he will be extremely confused when people start accusing him of believing that men have it much harder than women.
For what it’s worth, I have a friend who once described their definition (of racism, not sexism) more or less exactly as you just have. I’m very curious - how widely understood would you say that definition is?
By the way:
High five for that, I say.
There are several legitimate issues. Of course, many of them have distaff counterparts.
Women are abused more, but men are more likely to be killed or seriously injured (because women perceive themselves as weaker and are more likely to use a weapon or just plain not pull punches).
Some precincts have it unofficially on the books that the man always gets detained in domestic abuse cases. Men can fight back against a female abusing them and get mobbed for their trouble (I saw a video once in a UK convenience store where a girl is beating on a man for a full minute, until he firmly grabs her wrist and then INSTANTLY gets swarmed and beat on, unfortunately I lost the link). Men are more likely to get reported than women for abuse in public. Of course, this is because women are weak and must be protected.
Even though I think most anti-male abuse and sexism has corresponding female sexism attached doesn’t invalidate noting it as a problem and working to fix it. To suggest so is, itself, sexism (even if minor) against men. It’s basically the same silly rebuttal as screaming at someone who says “shit, my internet went down” with “OH BOO HOO YOU HAVE IT SO BAD! WAKE UP! CHILDREN ARE STARVING IN AFRICA!” No, men don’t have it that bad, all things considered, but to turn the blinders on sexism against men just because women also have problems is disingenuous, especially since they’re symbiotic problems anyway.
“Committing terrorism”? 
It’s been mentioned earlier in the thread, but not nearly as much as other examples, so I’ll reiterate it: it’s crazy to me that I had to register for the draft when I turned 18 and my sister and female friends and classmates didn’t. Never mind that it’s highly unlikely the draft will be put into use any time soon; this, at least, is one example of overt sexism, and ought to be changed.
Gardisil can stop men being infected with HPV, being a vaccine, and it’s nice to have an innoculation against genital warts and so on, or whatever it is HPV does in men, but the main benefit is in stopping a common and obviously potentially fatal cancer in women, their being no similar result to HPV infection in men, and no similar vaccine for something like testicular cancer. The NHS, in fact, pays for Cerverix, rather than Gardasil, only for girls, on that basis.
No, I didn’t.
And indeed, the line directly before the one you just quoted explains what my argument was:
Good lord, this turned into a massive trainwreck. Clearly we should just shut the whole thread down as no one here has any grounds to complain about anything that has ever happened to them because, you know, Holocaust.
Or, what Jragon already said.
This ignores the fact that there are women who suffer from classism, women of color, queer women, disabled women etc who also suffer because of those issues and have to deal with misogyny as well.
I’m white, straight, and cis. Those things give me a certain privilege in this society. The fact that I am also a woman doesn’t make my white, straight and cis privilege go away. In a discussion about racism, homophobia or transphobia, it would be really erroneous for me to say, “hey leave me alone, I’m oppressed, too” - and so it’s erroneous, in a discussion about sexism, to say men don’t benefit from misogynist culture even though some of them happen to be black or gay or poor or what have you.
We don’t live in Saudi Arabia, presumably. I certainly don’t. So, while the negative images of men persist, the associated restrictions on women have fallen by the wayside.
The Southern Poverty Leadership Conference recently announced that anti-feminism is a terrorist movement, based on a man who set himself on fire to protest against a family court decision. Also, they found an objectionable blog comment.
Because only the ugly can disagree with feminism. Good looking men know their place and stay silent.
Tell that to every woman who’s ever been blamed for her own sexual assault because of the way she was dressed.
Actually, please don’t.
I agree fully - time and place - but in this time and place - its either or…
you either allow both or disallow both - you cant say its sexist to have a male only organisation but say have a female only on.
NOW agrees with you.
[QUOTE=http://www.now.org/issues/military/policies/draft2.html]
** OPPOSITION TO DRAFT AND REGISTRATION**
1/80 **BE IT RESOLVED, **that NOW opposes the reinstatement of registration and draft for both men and women. NOW’s primary focus on this issue is on opposition to registration and draft. However, if we cannot stop the return to registration and draft, we also cannot choose between sisters and brothers. We oppose any registration or draft that excludes women as an unconstitutional denial of rights to both young men and women. And we continue to oppose all sex discrimination by the volunteer armed services.
[ul]
[li] This policy was adopted by the NOW National Board in January 1980.[/li][/ul]
[/QUOTE]
So the organization that most people in the US think of as THE feminist organization addressed this issue 30 years ago…and STILL people will bring up single sex draft registration as something that feminism ignores or condones.
I define sexism as “discrimination based on sex” (as do dictionaries and wikipedia).
Under that definition, I think it is very valid to remark that the representation of men in advertisements for cleaning products aimed at women can be sexist and discriminatory. That can be entirely separate to the level of discrimination faced by women in that very same advertisement. I think it is entirely reasonable to feel offended as a man watching that form of gender stereotyping.
A cleaning product advertisement might show two things as negative stereotypes of men: 1) men are too stupid to clean properly 2) men don’t regularly participate in cleaning activities. (Yes, alongside many awful & worse things the ad says about women, take a deep breath and get back to the subject of the thread.)
My father and my SO would have legitimate reasons to be upset at this portrayal. As these images tie in to other gender stereotypes (male and female) they can be read as statements pertaining to all men: the ad is making a claim about the nature of men, ie discriminating based on sex. My father and SO are both intelligent, they know how to clean and they participate in cleaning. Claiming otherwise is offensive on different levels: it invalidates the work they do or it could be seen as emasculating them by telling them that if they do not conform to the advert’s description of masculinity they are not ‘real men’.
I really don’t see how the depiction of women in these adverts in any way diminishes the discrimination of men. It’s the equivalent of claiming women aren’t really discriminated against because they’re not being shipped off to Poland and gassed. Compared to all the awful things that happen in the world I’m sure my father and my SO will be able to get over being told by idiotic adverts that they are incapable of performing simple cleaning tasks and that they are not real men if they do clean, but denying such adverts sometimes discriminate against them is ridiculous.
As to men lecturing on The Right Way of Being a Feminist: my father taught me to be a feminist. He could certainly lecture anyone about how to be a feminist, and he does when he finds women who participate in their own oppression. And why on earth should he not? Is he somehow inferior because of his gender, perhaps?
I’m not ignoring it.
Intersectionality is what you’re describing and I’m fully on board with it. I agree with you totally about it, and I consider that perspective essential to making sense of these debates. In fact, leaving out intersectionality is what keeps getting people veering off into the mud. I meant to imply this concept in what I said above, though it looks like I didn’t do that so well. I just kept my post down to one point I wanted to make about the definition of sexism and racism so as not to dump a whole dissertation on this thread. I kind of anticipated somebody would bust me on not going into intersectionality… actually I would have been disappointed if nobody had… so thanks. 