I wonder if she realizes that doing this would actually probably *empower *those 10% of men, not weaken them. In a 10% men, 90% women world, men would be considered scarce. From a dating/relationship perspective, the men would have an immense advantage.
As a mainstream feminist, I find your abuse of logic absurd.
As a thinking human being, I find your abuse of logic absurd.
You can be Jewish by birth, or by religion. There are plenty of Jews who reject the religion, for example. It doesn’t work that way with feminism: you can’t be feminist by birth.
Then substitute some other classification. It would be ridiculous to expect an egalitarian, or a humanist, to accept that a egalitarianism-hater or humanism-hater better understands what it means to be an egalitarian or a humanist. It’s no less ridiculous to expect a feminist to accept that you, a staunch opponent of feminism (and probably a feminism-hater), better understand what it means to be a feminist than they (we) do.
And similarly, Jews aren’t likely to accept that a Judaism-hater (or Judaism opponent) better understands what it means to be Jewish than they do; Christians aren’t likely to accept that a Christianity-hater or Christianity-opponent better understands what it means to be Christian than they do; etc.
Yes. Some people look at so-called 3rd wave feminism, and say they’ve lost the path… But misandrist feminism has been there all along.
Suppose - hypothetically - that women and men were treated equally by law and society. Is it possible women and men might nevertheless make different choices?
Maybe, maybe not.
This could be a long conversation, but I want to understand where you’re coming from: if all men bear the stain of any bad acts committed by other men, do all men also get the credit for good acts committed by other men?
Does the collectivization of shame apply only to men, or also to women?
You brought up BLM. To my knowledge, most of the police shootings have been of men - and by the way, white men also get shot. If it’s true that it’s mostly black men who’ve been shot, should it the name be changed to Black Men’s Lives Matter? Or is black a higher-order category than male?
Finally, does the collectivization of shame apply to race, or only to gender?
The problem with this is that people can’t even agree on what “equality” means.
One debate I once read over Selective Service went like this:
Person A: “It’s inequality that only men, but not women, are required to register.”*
Person B: *"No, that **is fair, because only women get pregnant and have to deal with other problems unique to women. To require both genders to register would be unequal."
There’s nothing wrong with a fish riding a bicycle? I’m trying to imagine that, but I’m having trouble: fish don’t have legs, for one, so they couldn’t move the pedals. Plus, they’d probably have a hard time mounting a bicycle in the first place. I wonder if male and female fish need each other?
I would absolutely agree that toxic femininity is rampant, and that it pressures women to be insecure just as toxic masculinity pressures men to be insecure.
Women thinking that it’s always very important for them to look pretty irrespective of the conditions or professional context? Toxic. Women thinking that it’s some kind of “failure” if they go to a party or wedding without a date? Toxic. Women thinking that it’s okay for strange men to buy them drinks at a bar because their social presence and participation automatically deserves payment just for existing? Toxic as hell. And the list goes on forever.
I wish you would let go of the idea that when feminists say that toxic masculinity promotes insecurity, they’re somehow sneering at men for being innately insecure. We’re not. There is nothing about the natural human condition of being a man that automatically requires one to be insecure or violent or angry or oppressive. But there’s a lot about the rigidly gendered traditional expectations of being a man that encourages those negatives.
[QUOTE=Rune]
The problem with “toxic masculinity” in this context is that it has been made a stock phrase, and that the obverse “toxic feminism” is almost a joke, but men are no worse or better than women, so why has one phrase become commonplace and the other not?
[/quote]
No, the “obverse” of “toxic masculinity” is not “toxic feminism” but “toxic femininity”. Both of them refer to the traditional socially imposed gender roles that attempt to police what men and women must or mustn’t do because their gender “requires” it.
I would certainly believe that there are culturally enforced stereotypes of “being Jewish” or “being black” that are toxic for those communities. But they’re less universal conditions than gender so they’re harder to identify.
[QUOTE=Rune]
I reserve the right to define how to be a man
[/quote]
Of course you have that right, as long as you’re the one doing the defining. What feminists are pointing out is that society is trying to cram a lot of socially constructed expectations of your gender down your throat and tell you that that’s the only way to be a man.
It’s not a pro-child position. It’s the status quo. It’s the one that results in children living with one parent, and visiting the other.
NOW uses gender neutral language, but they know perfectly well family courts overwhelming give custody to women. And not because 85% of women are stay-at-home moms. NOW is happy with the status quo because it’s what’s best for women - not because it’s what’s best for kids.
Right. So let’s take a look at them:
The assumption here is that a child has a “primary caregiver,” rather than two primary caregivers. If this were the 1950’s, and dad went out and worked while mom stayed home, that might be a fair assumption. In 2014, the percentage of all mothers with children who were working or looking for work was 70.1%, however. The percentage of married women with children was slightly lower: 67.8%. Nevertheless, most mothers work these days, as do most fathers.
In other words, in most two-parent households, both parents worked.
NOW is abusing an outdated stereotype: that children in two-parent homes have one primary caregiver.
If, on the other hand, most children have two primary caregivers, to “arbitrarily” assign one of them as the “primary caregiver” would create an “unstable, even traumatic situation for the children.”
That’s the status quo, and that’s what NOW supports.
That’s kind of sly, since “not necessarily” could be used on almost anything. For example: Increased mother involvement does not necessarily result in positive outcomes for children, is an equally true statement.
NOW has switched off the gender neutral language. Now it’s only involvement by fathers we’re worried about. However, let’s try the assertion the other way around: This involvement by the mother will have positive consequences only when it is the arrangement of choice for the particular family and when there is a relatively cooperative and low conflict relationship between the parents.
I wonder if NOW is still with me. Surely if “involvement” by fathers is only positive when there’s “low conflict” between divorcing parents, involvement by mothers would only be appropriate in the same circumstance. Right?
High levels of conflict between parents are bad for children no matter what the scenario: it’s bad if they’re seeing dad every other weekend, it’s bad if they’re seeing dad every other week, and it’s bad if they’re seeing mom every other weekend.
The statement, in other words, is nonsense.
Here’s what they’re really saying: “If mom talks smack about dad to the kids about dad during the divorce, she should get custody, because otherwise it would be stressful for the kids.”
Agreed. Of course, if a parent alleges domestic violence during a divorce for tactical reasons, that doesn’t necessarily mean there was any domestic violence. Right?
I’m not sure that legislating something has ever “made it so”. If “guarantees” are the standard, legislation is a waste of time. I admit confusion, though, because if legislating shared custody won’t make it so, why are they against it?
It’s a bald statement, and a bald lie. If someone is a custodial parent, they’re a custodial parent. Nothing in the bill they’re opposing changes that.
I’m sure some women do use custody arrangements to try to maintain control over their their former partners’ lives. But that’s would be true, regardless of the arrangement.
That’s not what the evidence shows. What is true is that feminists want women to have control of the children after the divorce, although the evidence shows children do best with involved fathers.
“Myth” is not the right word. “Open secret” might be better.
There is literally no basis for this statement.
Pure bullshit.
Does anyone really believe that - given women get custody almost 85% of the time - that proven sexual abuse increases the odds of getting custody?
No link. Perhaps because the now defunct webpage they got it from itself provides no link or reference to any study. And there is no study that shows anything like that. Which shouldn’t be surprising, since it’s an absurd claim.
Excellent. Since “the reason that more mothers have custody after divorce is that most arrangements are worked out between the parents,” then changing the law won’t make a difference. Right?
Wow. That sounds horrible. Does the law really say that?
Well, let’s look as far as the second paragraph of the same document:
[Bolding mine.] Huh. It doesn’t look like it says that. In fact, it seems like it says the opposite. NOW must believes its target audience has a very short attention span.
There’s no basis for any of this, unless pairing “abusive” with “father” proves something.
But maybe NOW isn’t really interested in proving anything. Maybe it’s just political propaganda, designed to confuse the weak-minded.
Interested readers might like to know more about parental time use. Since we’re now familiar with the BLS ATUS, thanks to the quoted citation below, we can see that the same data set tells us that for dual-income households, women provide about 2/3 of childcare time. About 3/4 of them earn less than their husbands. And of course, that’s ignoring the stay-at-home parents, only of whom 3% are fathers.
In other words, in most two-parent households, women provide more childcare, and men are the primary earners.
I find myself somewhat swayed by NOW’s reasoning – it makes sense that a primary custody arrangement results in far more stability and far less chaos for children than joint custody. When custody is contested, then judges should rule in the best interests of the children.
No, that describes you.
You made some good points. Perhaps they support your position about custody. They do not prove that feminists are a bunch of man-hating evil bitches. That’s the larger point, and the fact that you were forced to actually address their points, after ignoring them and substituting your own straw man, shows your real agenda and why it is corrupt.
If you want to argue against certain policy ideas, just do so. You don’t have to beat up a label to do that. Your agenda has nothing to do with justice, it’s about getting even with women who you feel wronged by for some reason. It’s pathological. Just argue about custody laws and stop bashing feminism, if that’s your real concern.
In a lot of cases, no. A lot of fish mate by being in proximity. Female leaves eggs behind, males leave sperm, maybe they get together. Maybe they make baby fish. And maybe the adult fish will eat them, but what the hell, life’s hard in the aquarium.
Also, I have never bought a mollie without buying 50 mollies (sooner or later). I’m not sure how they do it, but they certainly don’t need a male fish around for long.
a) is an issue of equality before the court; b) is about partner choice; c) is a matter for the police and the court system.
I’m just flabbergasted to be honest that you think your friend’s poor choice of a husband, and poor life choices in general, is a problem for the whole of society. Why did she have a second child with him? That seems like extraordinarily bad decision on top of an already bad decision of the first child. Why doesn’t she divorce him? Not wanting to deal with your own kids is not acceptable or anywhere normal behaviour. Society is already such that she can deal with the situation. She’s not forced to stay with him, she can even have the state force him to pay substantial amount to help raising the children. What more can you expect? That the state mandate that he love his children?
This is really 101: Don’t stick your dick in crazy, don’t have kids with scumbags.
That’s not how feminism sound like from here. On the contrary they sound more like piling on with the cramming. Like when they drone on about “male privilege” this is pretty much indistinguishable from saying “man up”, “suck it up” when coupled with a guy who has problems. And of course, the public discourse about “female privilege” is about as absent as the debate on “toxic femininity”.
This seems incredibly obvious to me – because these people and their children live in society, and any negative ramifications are likely to affect society.
We all live in society, everything we do affects society. My uncle Bob is dissatisfied that his wife is not giving him blowjobs at a rate at which he could desire. This negatively impacts his work performance. So we need a societal solution to this. State Brothels for instance.
Assuming all truly consent, makes sense to me. 