Quote: (12-04-2013 02:27 PM)Ocelot Wrote:
You made the claim that men's legitimate issues are minor compared to women's, based on the fact that most politicians and heads of large companies are male.
I made the claim that men's issues do not suffice to qualify them as an "oppressed group", based on the fact that, as a whole, we as men are indisputably the dominant gender on this planet. The fact that we are the dominant gender is made obvious by the fact that we are overrepresented in every hierarchal structure…anywhere, at any level. Whether this is due to some sort of discrimination, inherent superiority, or simply more men trying to reach these positions than women is irrelevant, and it does not change the fact that we are the dominant group. To claim that the dominant group in a society is simultaneously an oppressed group is a self contradicting statement.
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It is not irrelevant that the same reason men are over-represented at the top leads more men than women to be homeless, or to work in dangerous jobs and die young. It's like saying people who don't play the lottery are oppressed by pointing to all the people who have won it. For the evidence to back your claim, it would have to also be true that as many women as men try to become successful politicians or businessmen and that they are, on average, equally capable of doing so. Furthermore, it would have to be true that any systemic reasons they are not able to do these things do not advantage them equally in other ways (although in the present day, there aren't any systemic reasons women can't pursue these careers).
This has nothing to do with the point I made. Again, collectively, we are the dominant gender on this planet. If that is the case, then the idea of men as a whole being oppressed is a contradiction.
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Again, you made the claim that women have more legitimate problems than men... by pointing to the top 0.1% of men...
I said absolutely nothing about women’s problems. I disputed the claim that men are an oppressed group. Again, we dominate in practically every aspect of government, business and religion. We as men
are the dominant gender. Therefore, as a gender, we are not oppressed victims. To think otherwise is delusional. Get used to it.
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This is the first thing a search turned up, but it's a claim I make from having worked with gifted children for many years.
Fair enough.
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White supremacists generally believe a) their race is superior, b) their race is under threat by an anti-white conspiracy and c) they must try and "purify" their countries of origin by making them all-white [...] Your analogy quite simply doesn't hold up.[/
MRAs generally believe a) their gender is superior, b) their gender is being oppressed by an anti-male conspiracy. The only thing that does not generally apply to them is c.)
Then of course, there's this...
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Women, as a class, have never been oppressed or systemically exploited in any society, ever.
Which has to be one of the most ridiculous statements I’ve ever read.
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What you need to understand is that agency and safety are inversely linked. You cannot increase the agency of a class without also increasing the risks they are exposed to,[…]
This is exactly the reason why no one takes the MRAs seriously.
Being allowed to choose who one marries, receiving an education, being allowed to vote, being allowed to own property pose no significant risk to the individual whatsoever. You have no case here.
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[…]so to make the claim that women were historically "oppressed", when they have always been the most protected class in society is absurd.
Not being allowed to vote, to choose who you marry, own property, leave the home without a male chaperone, not being allowed to drive, not being allowed to hold a job without your father’s/husband’s permission, being denied education, being disproportionately subject to infanticide, honor killings, foot-binding, and probably thousands of other things I could list that have occurred somewhere or at some time.
Remember, you’re claiming women have never been oppressed in any society in any historical contexts. Saying that the above things when applied to any population of adults do not count as some form oppression is horseshit. If anyone here had to choose between being born a man or a woman in Saudi Arabia or Rural India, I doubt many would choose the latter.
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If you had to choose between being born as a working class woman or man in 1700s England, I can't imagine many people choosing the latter if they weighed up their odds thoroughly.
You can always tell someone doesn't know what they’re talking about when they make these kinds of statements. Working-class women and children during the Industrial Revolution largely spent their days in factories and coalmines. Peasant women in pre-industrial times largely sent their days doing backbreaking work on the farm like anyone else. It was mainly women from wealthy pre-industrial families who could really afford to spend all day at home (which is why many cultures idealize fair-skinned women – lacking a tan was a sign of the upper class, as it implied she could afford to stay indoors). On top of that, after returning home from the factories they also took care of the house and kids. The average person in these times could not afford to keep women "protected". So if I had to choose between being a working class man or woman in the 1700s-1800s…I wouldn’t want to be either, but I’d choose to be a man without a second’s thought. That women collectively were one of societies butt-monkeys in is a firmly established fact of history. To attempt to argue otherwise is delusional.
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Then I suppose it's quite fortunate that they're not arguing for the existence of an international conspiracy against men.
You may not word it literally as “international conspiracy”, but that’s what it essentially boils down to.
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Also, what does "white" have to do with anything? Black men have been more negatively affected by feminism than any other class.
I used “white” because I stand by the statement that MRAs are not only a mirror image of feminazis but the gender counterpart of guys who complain about “white oppression”, saying they’re under threat by an implied conspiracy to take away rights they, for the most part, never lost in the first place. There are several other parallels I could think of. Your attempts to dismiss this analogy do not hold up.
Of course, this doesn’t mean none of the Men’s Right’s issues are legitimate. Child custody and divorce settlements are a legitimate concern, and it’s something that needs to be dealt with. Plus, I’m sure there are MRAs who are not batshit-insane or reactionary drama queens. However, that doesn’t make the MRM as a whole legitimate, nor does that change the fact that collectively we are still and always have been the dominant gender in practically all human societies, making the notion of us being oppressed victims ridiculous. It’s not only the false victimhood, but other claims they make, but I’m not going to delve into that here.
To be clear, I am
not defending modern-day feminism by any means, nor am I talking about any type of exaggerated organized "patriarchy" feminazis complain about. Honestly, I don’t give two shits about feminists either way (I know someone here is going to start throwing around the word "white knight", anyway, but personally, I care). My main concern is not as much with women as it is with the whining and false self-victimization that MRAs tend towards.