MEETING THE ENEMY A feminist comes to terms with the Men’s Rights movement

I am staying away from home for the first time in 5 months and turned to TED Talks for company.

This was the third one I watched and struck a chord for some debates on here recently.

I hope this does not go Pete Tong.

Worth a watch in my opinion. The presenter is way more articulate/intelligent then me so I don’t want to comment further.

yeh…

Because what this place needs right now is yet another contentious topic to argue the **** out of…

*pops in, immediately exits*

Because what this place needs right now is yet another contentious topic to argue the **** out of…

Oh no it doesn’t!

🙂

TL;DW

Feminist discovers not all men’s rights activists are incel lunatics and occasionally they have a point about certain issues?

YouTube popped this one up in my feed and I watched it a few months back, I did wonder about posting on here but thought better of it! (Was probably because I’d watched a JP interview before someone starts Going through my posting history). It’s definitely a shame we can’t discuss these things without them getting out of hand but I agree it seems a bit too contentious right now given a few recent threads. It is a shame all discourse has to be so binary/partisan/polarised.

I regard myself a feminist, I do think it problematic that lots of people view feminism and gender equality as just getting women into high flying jobs and there’s much less promotion of Dads taking a more active roll in family life. It seems much more socially acceptable to say disparaging things about a stay at home Dad or a man not being the primary breadwinner. I guess as an example hearing women complain about men being ‘under the thumb’, fairly subtle things but they hold both genders back. As a gender men do have it pretty good, lots of privilege etc… but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that can be fixed.

I do worry about airing these sorts of views those, that it fuels MRA types or people think I am one.

yeh…

Because what this place needs right now is yet another contentious topic to argue the **** out of…

You can of course, if you feel you have a measure of self-control, refrain from commenting on threads where you feel you’re not informed enough to productively contribute. Just ignore them and be content.

Or just be an angry chimp flinging shit from your cage. It’s up to you.

Looks like good weather across a lot of the county today.

Hope everyone has a good day and even gets a bit of riding in if they get a chance.👍

Yes,I know which thread I’m posting in.

I for one will certainly be riding my bike again.

Marin must be popular over there. Being TED, that was fairly non-contentious. Problem is the system is built on capital and class not gender and ethnic inequalities. The Tory front bench is more ‘diverse’ than the opposition but is eg Priti Patel very good for migrants or the ‘out’ Alan Duncan (now retired local MP) very progressive? Some people place great emphasis on ‘calling out’ someone on the net with a variety of 57 newfangle stereotyped ad hominems referring to eg their sexuality, skin colour, age or horticultural hobbies, that’s the OK type of prejudice. ‘Cis’ is ok, ‘cissy’ less so. Calling out means insulting and bullying someone into silence and feeling nicely self-righteous as a result. I share the concerns of feminists and anti-racists over inequalities but it would be a shame if they spent all their time snapping at the wrong target and getting nowhere as a result. Attacks on Sure Start, EMA, the benefits system, austerity were all voted for by ‘diverse’ MPs representing their class interests. They are the enemy.

What billmc says.

The only observation i have is the suicide rate in men is beyond any reasonable expectation and there needs to be some serious work done around this.

The only observation i have is the suicide rate in men is beyond any reasonable expectation and there needs to be some serious work done around this.

One thing to be careful of there is whether it’s the successful suicide rate or the attempted suicide rate. A long time ago I saw some statistic that men were much more likely to succeed at suicide because they tended to use guns, crash cars, throw themselves off buildings, etc., whereas women were more likely to try overdosing, poison, slashing wrists, etc., which are more likely to fail. I don’t know how true that is, the point is that a single headline statistic can hide really important details.

B and B check out Richard Wilkinson on TED, well worth a squiz.

It seems much more socially acceptable to say disparaging things about a stay at home Dad or a man not being the primary breadwinner

I’ve always supported “equal opportunities” or whatever the correct phrase is, but only since I became the main “carer” and MrsMC became the main breadwinner have I properly understood how hard it has been for (traditionally) women to balance everything and keep a meaningful “career” progressing.

I even had to fight on the grounds of gender discrimination via the union to be able to have a term time contract, despite several female colleagues having one. The idea of a man wanting that option seemed to pass them by, while it seemed accepted that women should have that option automatically.

I have also had to accept that working 4 days a week and term time meant that I could not do pretty much every role on the next rung of the greasy ladder.

Kids now older, I start a new higher grade, higher paid job on Monday. No regrets that I’ve “lost” maybe 10 years of my career, despite the money and pension implications, I’ve been lucky to have 10 great years with my kids that must of my colleagues will not have with theirs.

May I – well I will that women have never had it so good and yet still…

ME ME ME!!!

Let the battle commence 😁

MCTD I think your experience shows it’s not a gender issue, it’s the practicalities of life, bringing up a family often requires one person to have that as their main focus. It only becomes a gender issue if it’s expected the woman is the one who will focus on family life at the expense of a career.

I accept your point about attitudes around flexible working, it’s either ok for everyone in a certain role or no one. Certain roles and seniority don’t lend themselves to this approach for anyone.

Thank you stumpyjon for explaining my post way better than I managed to 🤦‍♂️

I’ll come back when I’ve had another coffee….

That was a pretty good video, leaving aside the surface issue, it makes some excellent points about bias and viewing issues from an entrenched position

There is a really good article in the Guardian about unconscious bias and how we judge information based on our pre-existing viewpoints.

Facts v feelings: how to stop our emotions misleading us

Worth a read

The more we get into the habit of counting to three and noticing our knee-jerk reactions, the closer to the truth we are likely to get.

All of us would do well to remember this. The alternative is just flinging shit at each other from our fixed positions.

This place actually isn’t bad in that regard but it still happens quite a lot.

It only becomes a gender issue if it’s expected the woman is the one who will focus on family life at the expense of a career.

Don’t know if you meant it this way, but to me this sounds like an assumption that a career is somehow more “worthy” than running and home and bringing up a family.

To me this is part of the issue – we are conditioned to believe the the high flying career person has somehow won in life, while the person who runs a home and watches their kids group up has accepted second place.

stumpyjon
Full Member

MCTD I think your experience shows it’s not a gender issue

I think it is, just in different ways for each gender.

I’m a man and was quite heavily pressured not to take my paternity leave and met with complete bemusement and hostility when I asked for adjusted hours to suit school drop-off. It was just assumed my wife would be doing all the parenting.

Worth a read

Thanks @richmtb, 20 of my time well spent, thanks for sharing

I think it is, just in different ways for each gender.

Possibly – I was the first male to request term time in a civil service department of 4000 staff. It was a case of “computer says no”. A couple of male colleagues have since done similar with no barriers

To me this is part of the issue – we are conditioned to believe the the high flying career person has somehow won in life, while the person who runs a home and watches their kids group up has accepted second place.

Couldn’t agree more. It’s sad that our society places so much value on status acquired through money/highly paid work. The whole focus on equality often seems to mean ‘let people have an equal chance to fight and try to be the winner’ rather than let’s value everyone’s contribution.

I’m far from a ‘meninist’ but I think there should be more recognition of the fact that the patriarchal systems we have harm men as well as women, even though men do have many advantages.

To me this is part of the issue – we are conditioned to believe the the high flying career person has somehow won in life, while the person who runs a home and watches their kids group up has accepted second place.

Cant argue with that.

I’m a stay at home dad and I get a lot of grief for it off people, mostly “banter” but there’s often a bit of venom behind it. Whenever I’m out with the boy I get all the babysitting comments and when my wife spent a few days in hospital last week, she and at least 3 of her friends were terribly worried that I wouldn’t be able to cope on my own for four days with a 2 year old. I spent more time on the phone assuring people I could manage than I did parenting.
It’s interesting to me how people just assume that my wife is in charge of all the parenting, even she sometimes forgets I’m a competent parent and starts telling me how to do the simplest things. I’ve never really been career minded and she’s a company director so me being the stay at home parent was always going to be the setup. We’re having a second in a couple of weeks and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s like I’ve finally found something I’m good at, but if I dare to show off about it in any way I’m often either called something fairly homophobic or accused of trying to diminish my wife’s contribution.
Obviously these are all minor annoyances and women have suffered far worse over the years but they’re symptoms of the same patriarchal nonsense.

somewhatslightlydazed no that wasn’t what I meant, what I meant was for most people it’s career or family first, both are valid and equally worthy and necessary. It shouldn’t assumed its woman – family and man – career, this is ironically an area male equality needs to catch up as seen by some of the posts above.

mostly “banter”

I do so despise that term. It’s basically legitimising bullying with a side order of victim blaming.

You get the piss ripped out of you, often fairly brutally and / or by someone you barely know, then when you protest you get “come on mate, it’s only ‘bants,’ what’s wrong with you?” What’s wrong with me is you’re a ****.

Couldn’t agree more

Fin25 I did the stay at home thing for a bit
I learnt that middle aged women are incredibly sexist when it comes to looking after kids .
Edit : not all of em of course.

@richMTB

That was a pretty good video, leaving aside the surface issue, it makes some excellent points about bias and viewing issues from an entrenched position

That was the sort of thinking I had. I was worried this would degenerate into another multipage frothing and point scoring, but that does not seem to have happened and now I (and others) have some more reading/watching/thinking to do.

I was worried this would degenerate into another multipage frothing and point scoring,

Me too. I was very wrong. Nice one to everyone keeping it on track.

Quote – I hope this does not go Pete Tong

if in doubt listen to Pete Tong ffs!

problem sorted!

So I am away again and once again turned to TED Talks. This is another similar concept to the ‘Meet The Enemy” talk.

Why I, as a black man, attend KKK rallies

Once again I don’t feel intelligent enough to comment further, but thought it was worth sharing.

Thanks for the other suggestions, I will work though them.