That’s what your entire argument amounts to, yes.
No, that’s you misinterpreting my argument to a ridiculous extent. As @TroutMan says, if you really believe that critiques of patriarchy, systemic sexism, rape culture, etc., are accusing men as a group of just being fundamentally bad people, then you’re misunderstanding the entire thread to a degree that makes you basically unreachable.
Can you square that with the snippet I quoted earlier; that an article about improving education for boys goes out of its way to say that it will help girls, too? I also see TV ads for a service that recommends senior housing facilities called “A Place for Mom”. The message seems to be that social progress and compassion will get more traction if they’re pitched as improvements for women. Is that also evidence of patriarchy and the importance of men?
You mean this one?
I can’t read the entire article at the paywalled link, but I’m puzzled why you describe it as “an article about improving education for boys”. It seems to be an article about improving relationship potential between men and women, not primarily boys-focused.
Why did you think the article was meant to be chiefly about boys and only tangentially “go[ing] out of its way” to mention effects on girls?
Which of course is sexist, but the reason doesn’t seem far to seek: marketing, innit?
In the first place, there are far more elderly women than elderly men, and the senior housing population reflects that. This article says:
In the second place, how would potential male residents react to a senior-housing slogan advertising “A Place for Dad”? The image of being old and frail and feeble and needing a secure place where they can be watched over for their safety, with considerable loss of autonomy, tends to be a lot more challenging for men to accept than for women.
Elderly men on average are notoriously more resistant than elderly women to all aspects of losing their independence, from giving up driving, to seeking major medical procedures, to moving into assisted-living facilities. Deferring to men’s self-image of masculine autonomy and competence, even when the facts of old age contradict it, is, yes, one of the default expectations of a traditionally patriarchal society.
Note, since it may need to be explicitly pointed out here, that nobody in this thread is claiming that patriarchal society doesn’t inflict bad things on men too. It certainly does.
- Toxic-masculinity expectations of men needing to be too “tough” to seek necessary medical care or elder care, or honestly express sadness or insecurity, or refuse to get into fights, etc., etc., etc., are bad things.
- Societal acceptance of male-male prison rape as an extra-legal “punishment” for criminals by sexually violating them and thus derogating their manhood is a HUGELY bad thing.
- Homophobic/gender-conformity prejudice that maintains it’s not sufficiently “manly” for men to be attracted to other men, or to wear earrings or nail polish or long hair or skirts, etc., is likewise a bad thing.
- Sexist taboos that discourage boys from engaging with anything that’s perceived as being “for girls” or girl-dominated, because boys supposedly demean themselves if they do “girl things”, are bad. And IMHO they’re a significant part of the problem with boys’ educational development these days; because the recent improvement in girls’ academic achievement has meant that a lot of important attainments, like reading, or being good at schoolwork, or being active in student government, etc., are starting to be perceived as “for girls”, causing boys to avoid them.
So absolutely, of course men deserve sympathy for all the ways that patriarchal society undermines them and screws them over, and nobody in this thread is suggesting that they don’t. But where these concerns go off the rails is in mistakenly interpreting the societal fussing over women’s safety as meaning that patriarchal society actually considers women more important as people, more deserving of autonomy and authority, more entitled to respect and deference, than men. Nope, that’s not what’s going on here.
I didn’t read the article either, but that tag line (“Better schooling might narrow the gulf between young men and women. Educating boys will help girls, too.”) suggests that it’s about improved education for boys, but which can only be justified if it helps girls, too.
Marketing, sure, but isn’t that essentially the same argument that @Der_Trihs made in his posts over the last few hours? If advertisers can gain more sympathy by pitching a service to provide help to women than they can to men, how is that substantially different from a movie director gaining greater audience sympathy by portraying harm done to women?
Also, whether elderly men would balk at “A Place for Dad” is irrelevent. The ads for “A Place for Mom” are not pitched to the infirm, elderly potential residents. As the name suggests, it’s aimed at children trying to find a place for a parent. It seems to me that they think their target audience care more about finding a place for their moms than for their dads.
The actual title says it’s about improving male-female relationships. I do not see why we would consider the impact of boys’ education on women as at all irrelevant or “out of the way” in that context.
I guess we’ll have to wait till somebody can read the article and say what it’s about.
The issue under debate here is whether this “sympathy” factor is reflecting greater societal importance as autonomous individuals. And if you think it is, then are you saying that the uber-sympathetic puppies and kittens are assigned more respect and autonomy too?
This flailing is just getting silly. The fact that it’s more socially acceptable to portray dogs and cats and children and women as helpless sufferers in need of protection does not mean that they are more socially important and respected as individuals than men are.
I mean, for Pete’s sake. Since when do infantilizing portrayals of vulnerable sufferers with no agency who need rescue and protection signify their societal superiority? You’re literally lumping together “sympathetic” depictions of vulnerable helpless women, children and pets and trying to argue that it means women are more socially important and prioritized than men.
Can you even try to put yourself into that place? If you watched a movie where a smart, strong, independent female protagonist with lots of responsibility is struggling against a wealthy, powerful, brilliant female antagonist with a sinister plan, and the protagonist’s male romantic interest is portrayed as a vulnerable helpless “lad in distress” to spark audience sympathy and motivate the protagonist, would that make you feel that society cares about and values men more than women? Because look, that vulnerable guy is in danger and the audience wants him rescued! Are you even listening to yourself here?
(And also for Pete’s sake, if you imagine that senior-living marketing is pitched only to children of potential residents and just ignores the sensibilities of the people who’ll actually live there, that suggests you’ve never shopped for such an establishment.)
LSLGuy included that article among a list related to male/female relationships, but nothing in the title of this particular article references that.
Reread my posts and tell me where I mentioned pets (or children, for that matter).
And a lot more of those children are trying to find a place for their mom than for their dad; because she’s probably outlived him.
I’m sorry to have dumped this point of contention into the fray. Remembering that their editors gathered that collection of articles intending to explore various trends in male / female social relationships, mostly with an eye to their impact on dating, marrying, and reproducing.
That said …
I did read the article. It’s a couple pages long. It goes into some stats about girls and later women’s scholastic achievements improving in almost every advanced country while boys / men move the other way. It goes on speak of that driving a left/right divide in political attitudes, again in nearly every advanced country. And fears that the pernicious “That’s for girls so boys can’t be seen doing it” effect might be about to attach itself to schooling as a whole.
Here’s their closing paragraph, which is a small enough bit of the whole that I think it’s well within fair use to quote entire:
I leave it to you two to hash out what that means in the context of your more narrow disagreement.
I will point out that my own view on the patriarchy is that there are not two groups of people. There are three.
- The 1% of males who are the power & the leaders.
- The 99% of males who are victims of the 1% but are made to feel as if supporting the 1% supports themselves too. The “consumables” in @Der_Trihs’s valid term.
- The women, children, dogs, and cats who are just chattel “resources” to use @Kimstu’s valid term.
Misunderstandings arise when folks mistakenly conflate the first two groups.
Both groups 2 and 3 are getting screwed by group 1. Just differently screwed. And yes, a lot of what group 1 does is persuade group 2 to pick on group 3 so as to prevent them both uniting against group 1.
One last closing paragraph after the buzzer:
A bicker between a group 2 person and a group 3 person where each side’s position amounts to “You’re not a victim; I’m a victim” serves group 1 very nicely. Each position is half right: they are a victim.
Basic marketing. You advertise to the market demand.
As to the angle of The Economist article …
Yes it is written knowing that their audience is a self selected group, generally of higher than average education, men and women both, who are existing in personal realities in which women are generally not as well represented in leadership roles as men are.
Honestly their male readership has to be convinced that there is a reality of boys falling behind, and that it is something that they, part of the more highly educated class whose sons and daughters are getting good educations, should care about.
And their female readership, who are often experiencing discrimination in the workplace, male privilege, as their lived realities, need to be convinced that helping boys is something they should care about too.
The impact on relationships, on finding compatible partners, on having families and the problematic decreasing birthrate, resulting from males becoming underrepresented in the more highly educated class, is the hook, is the “huh, interesting” bit for their readers.
But yes it is true that the default reality of sexist impact in our world makes empathy for negative inequalities on males something that needs context for many to accept or to care about.
IMHO.
FWIW my take is that LSL’s take is simplistic. I don’t need to be in the 1% to have benefited from male privilege.
Good points all. Of the several articles in that set, that one was particularly weak.
As to this bit:
Yep. Agreed. I was painting in very black and white terms on purpose.
Among the men it’s not as simple as a black vs. white, 1% vs 99%, period. Within the totality of men there’s a smooth gradation of privilege from yugely large to lots to some to not much. And the more privilege one has, the less they fit the “consumable” mold. Of course there are far more folks at the low end and extremely few at the pinnacle. The distribution may be smooth, but it isn’t even.
And as in so many other areas of politics, if one can persuade somebody anywhere on that continuum that they are upwardly mobile, they’ll support the system. In other contexts I’ve said that the 0.01% rich need the top 10% demi-rich as their footsoldiers to make the system work. If it really was 0.0001% own everything and everyone else is a shoeless beggar, the system would fail. The same logic applies to the more cultural = non-economic aspects of patriarchy that we’re discussing here.
And yes, to the degree patriarchy converts the majority of women (my “group 3”) into an even lower class of citizen than the lowlier group 2 men, every one of those men benefits. LBJ’s famous quote is apposite:
If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.
The second sentence is the key point here in the gender context: “Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
You’re basically describing a variation the “Woman in the Refrigerator” trope. Where a female character (usually a love interest) is murdered, forcing the hero (ostensibly “begrudgingly”) out of his quiet, peaceful “retirement” to use his “particular set of skills” to kill a small army to avenge… whatever the heck her name was.
Well, I’m a 6’3", 220 lb guy and that’s certainly not how I read it. I fully recognize that I benefit from not only white privilege, but almost everything privilege. I can, within reason, walk almost anywhere safely and comfortably at any time of day or night. I also would never hurt someone unless it was super-obvious and necessary self-defence; I will avoid confrontation if possible. So I am not a threat to women, however, I don’t have a piece of metadata floating over my head that indicates that. So it’s totally reasonable for any woman to feel concern if I happen to inadvertently follow her when there’s nobody else around.
Given those circumstances, I will cross the road so that I’m overtaking her without seeming to be a threat. I will do whatever I can to not seem to be a threat.
Am I insulted? Of course I’m not - it’s simply a pragmatic reality. Even if an average woman tried to attack me, I wouldn’t have to do anything to defend myself than simply falling on her.
Respectfully @Der_Trihs , but I think that you are making this about yourself.
To be fair, I’m a 5’5" 148 lb guy, old bald and grey bearded, who I suspect you could pick up by the shirt collar and toss across the street, and I think “it’s totally reasonable for any woman to feel concern if I happen to inadvertently follow her when there’s nobody else around.”
Let me be very clear.
The threat of rape >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> threat of a man feeling bad. I mean, duh, of course it is.
But by the same token, we just had a poster self-ban themselves because they thought the concept of a white cisgender man expressing that it doesn’t feel good to be labeled a potential rapists was too much for them. I get that the concept doesn’t bother you. But some of us have different life experiences than you do that make us much more vulnerable to being falsely labeled.
I submit that is extremely counterproductive to tell someone they aren’t allowed to feel bad when they are labeled as a potential rapist. Again, I totally agree that a women being safe is more important but I draw the line when you say I am not allowed to even have feelings on the issue.
Isn’t the fact that the poster was banned (at their own request, but it would have been only a matter of time anyway) that you CAN’T go apeshit on someone expressing this opinion and remain a poster in good standing. I mean there are at least two posters who are making the case, and the responses are civil and reasoned at least.
If you want people to just validate your feelings uncritically, this probably isn’t the forum for it.
Falsely labeled? Basically all humans, with the exception of infants and the severely disabled, have the physical ability to rape someone. “Potential” isn’t a comment on the likelihood of it, it’s just a fact.
Yes, it really sucks to realize we all have the ability to do horrible things. But we don’t need to pretend that that it’s impossible to protect someone’s feelings.
I’m not sure what “feelings” you’re having (general you, not specific you) after you’ve realized the completely justified desire by women to feel safe. (or at least “safer”) If you understand why it’s happening, there’s nothing to have hurt feelings about. Hell, I’m a man and I’m not always comfortable with men following me on the street. I’ve been randomly assaulted by a man. and even without the threat of sexual violence (in my case), it sucked. If a woman crosses the street to avoid me, I’m not insulted in the least. I can’t even wrap my head around someone “feeling bad” in such a situation. Other than the sadness that we live in such a world.