3 Ways Feminism Has Made the World a Better Place for Men (Article)
05-07-2014, 03:07 AM
All right, I'll bite. Here's my refutation of each of the points:
1. It gave our economy a huge, long lasting boost.
Various refutations:
a) The majority of female jobs are make work and completely unnecessary. They're either low-level service jobs or they're totally unnecessary office jobs. They could all disappear tomorrow and civilisation would not even blink. Any argument that would talk about the advancement of society in scientific or technological terms would need to admit that women have contributed virtually nothing on those fronts.
b) The average male's wage has stagnated or declined in real terms over the past forty years, yet at the same time, it now takes the average family twice as many man (person?) hours as it used to in order to afford the same basic necessities (i.e. housing, food, etc.) because it requires two full time workers to afford what one used to. So what this actually means is that the real wages of men have halved in the time period we're discussing. The economy hasn't had anything even remotely resembling a boost, and certainly not one that's either huge or long lasting. The complete opposite is true.
2. It helped men achieve better relationships and more satisfying sex.
Divorce statistics, amongst other things, would seem evidence enough that the first part is completely bogus.
As for the second part, yes, but for a small subset of alphas. For the average beta who is not getting any, things are worse than ever before.
3. It successfully overturned laws that discriminate against men.
The entire field of family law is massively stacked against men. Kangaroo courts on campus regarding sexual harassment would be another example of how this is wrong.
4. It made life a little easier for single men.
I assume they're not talking about divorced fathers, amongst others.
5. It expanded the possibility of more sexy time opportunities.
Two points. Firstly, see my point above about alpha vs beta males. Secondly, the average family is working more hours than ever before just to enjoy the same lifestyle (see my response to point 1). Further to this, my grandfather's generation worked from 9-5 exactly, and no weekends. They came home and everything was taken care of. People actually had lots more free time than they do now, and they were far less stressed. You tell me how much sex the average harassed wage slave and his wife are having these days.
6. It gave men more reproductive control through abortion legalization.
Men have no say in this. If a woman wants to keep a baby, a man can't legally stop her. If a woman wants to abort a baby, a man can't legally stop her.
7. It triggered the FBI to change the definition of rape to include men.
So feminists are advocating for men who have been raped? Can we call massive bullshit on this one?
8. It gave men some well deserved time off from work.
Certainly in the Anglosphere, men work far more hours than they did two generations ago. As mentioned above, my grandfather's generation worked from nine, on the dot, until five, on the dot. The weekend was sacrosanct. They took their annual leave. In practice, how many men can, or do, actually take the theoretical twelve weeks mentioned for family or medical-related leave off?
9. It helped male survivors of violence in the military pursue justice.
I don't know enough about this to comment.
10. It ensured that the burden of war doesn't only fall on male shoulders.
I've read often enough that women in the army are more likely to get pregnant than see combat or die in combat (can't remember which). Likewise, given that the average female in the military can't do a single chin up, who is really going to believe that they're going to schlep 20kg+ of gear around in a combat situation?
11. It made the struggle for civil rights a reality.
This has nothing to do with feminism, which, at the time, was confined to academia and white, upper class females. Arguably, it's still largely confined to white, upper class females who can hire brown nannies (who thus, can't even afford to spend time with their own children) so they can go off and "lean in" Sheryl Sandberg style. Everyone else is struggling like shit just to stand still economically.
12. It kept prisons safer for male inmates.
I've already covered the laughable notion that feminists give two shits about male rape, doubly so for those in jail.
13. It enabled men to spend more time with their children.
In a sense, it has, but I've already addressed the fact that mass female labour force participation has effectively halved male incomes. The notion that men can afford to work less is completely laughable. No one can afford to work less. If feminists constantly lament that women can't afford to take time off work to care for children (when they aren't demonising women who wish to not have a career), why would the same logic not also apply to men wishing to take time off. Feminists can't have it both ways on this issue.
14. It expanded the definition of hate crimes to include all identities.
Let's be serious here. They're talking about gays and the like. They represent ~3% of the population. For the other 97%, they're more likely than ever to get hit with a criminal charge for something bogus. Not a net win for men.
15. It helped shatter stereotypes about HIV/AIDS patients.
Again, this is largely irrelevant to most men. This is gay activism posing as men's activism. Completely disingenuous.
16. It ensured that men get the vital reproductive health services.
Definitely. Forcing men to have insurance covering female issues is definitely of immense benefit to them. In the meantime, funding for prostate cancer is a fraction of that for breast cancer or cervical cancer.
Again, the men that it has helped are...you guessed it, gays. Extrapolating from them to men as a whole is disingenuous.
17. It built a more inclusive world, one feminist celebrity at a time.
Christ on a fucking pogo stick with the geyz already! Also, not quite sure that Beyonce's underwear line constitutes a major breakthrough for civilisation. The combustion engine, yes. Mass polio immunisations, yes. Black undies with pink letters, no.
18. It protected men's precious marbles during sports.
Not quite sure what any of that had to do with feminism. Again, what we'll do is pick a couple of female inventions (I see another poster has already refuted at least one anyway) and insinuate that women have helped built civilisation by contributing inventions. In reality, for every female invention, there have been thousands or more male inventions.
19. It made men's lives better and happier.
Okay, now they're just rubbing it in. Sure, if you're some sort of Don Draper alpha. For every other Al Bundy-esque schmuck modern life is an unmitigated disaster, both pre- and post- the inevitable divorce.
20. It demanded that the media change its representation of men.
It certainly did, but not in a good way for men. The average father of a TV show in the 50s or part-way into the 60s (I say part-way, because think of the show Betwitched in which Darren was a hen-pecked clown) was a god-damn patriarch. There even used to be a show called Father Knows Best for crying out loud! The average modern TV father is a fat loser who is the butt of everyone's jokes. Not even the family dog respects him.
21. It fought for men's right to become nurses and teachers.
I call utter bullshit on teachers, at least at primary/elementary school level. Tons of kids go through their entire primary/elementary school education without encountering a single male teacher. I would put money on the number of male teachers in those schools declining across generations and I've seen it firsthand in my experience working as a teacher.
22. It encouraged men to rethink outdated masculinity standards.
Not only is this intuitively bullshit, statistics on male mental health bear it out. Men used to be pretty comfortable in their masculinity. Male suicide rates have skyrocketed in recent decades. So have male incarceration rates. Conversely, male labour force participation has plummeted. Boys drop out of school in droves. There is a complete crisis in masculinity.
23. It pushed for immigration reform to help countless American families.
Christ, where to begin on this one? How about the destruction of lower and middle class male jobs and communities, their entire sense of identities? At best it has helped some men.
Anyway, that will have to do because I've run out of time. (Sorry if there are mistakes, but I don't have time to proof read this.)