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Patriarchy or feminism to blame for male oppression?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
"Are men the new second sex?" article from the observer
and
"Its not feminism that hurts men" from the F-word
Have a read of both and then state your opinion.
Ok, I will first and formost say I am a Feminist, and thus my default is to defend feminism, but I'm also a human who wants equality for all. I've read both (which are both written by women) and I can't really see the validation behind the first article. Yes I totally agree that there are many vaild points behind the men's rights movement, but I really do agree with the second article in saying they need to take a really good look at where they are placing the blame - is it one political movement (i.e. mainly second wave feminism) or the societal structures i.e. patricarchy thats the bigger issue? I really feel its the latter.
and
"Its not feminism that hurts men" from the F-word
Have a read of both and then state your opinion.
Ok, I will first and formost say I am a Feminist, and thus my default is to defend feminism, but I'm also a human who wants equality for all. I've read both (which are both written by women) and I can't really see the validation behind the first article. Yes I totally agree that there are many vaild points behind the men's rights movement, but I really do agree with the second article in saying they need to take a really good look at where they are placing the blame - is it one political movement (i.e. mainly second wave feminism) or the societal structures i.e. patricarchy thats the bigger issue? I really feel its the latter.
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I'd like to think there isn't a distinction to be made between Feminism and equality of opportunity. Stating that you're a feminist primarily and then going on to qualify by saying "but I also want equality for all" sounds like you do make a distinction. Is this the case? And where do you draw distinctions?
I also think framing it separately as men's rights and women's rights is to rather miss the point. We should be striving to raise everyone up to the highest level, regardless of gender.
Yeah, this.
I had an argument with someone once who said he wasn't a feminist because he believed in equality for EVERYBODY and was therefore a humanist. I tried to argue that that made him a feminist as that's encompassed in equality-for-everybody, but he was stupid, basically.
I also think that the MRA's vs. Feminists crap is...er...crap. There's inequality on both sides (and while I'm aware that women historically have had it much worse, I also appreciate that trying to argue inequality as a man must be HARD since the focus these days does seem to be on improving things for women) and that's wrong. Arguing with each other isn't going to make anything better.
:yes: I just think that either movement could now be used as an excuse for why the other gender is suffering from oppression.
I would probably tweak how you identify your position in that case - being drawn to particular issues in the sphere of equality isn't what you initially stated.
If FGM is an acronym for Female Genital Mutilation then male circumcision is your male equivalent, a less physically damaging but significantly more widely practised and accepted mutilation.
Still, as I fear we're all in danger of agreeing and engaging in an all-too-boring round of backslapping, I'll state that I wouldn't identify as a feminist and that the term "male privilege", or more precisely how the term is typically employed, makes me want to choke out the person who uttered it.
Why is it you wouldn't call yourself a feminist? Just out of curiosity
Because it focuses attention on one gender and doesn't give the impression that it's about total equality. It gives the impression that it's only about women. Equality is wider than that, isn't just gender specific etc (as you would argue yourself)...
However, anyone who tries to argue that white males are "down trodden" or "second class" is going to get short shrift from me I'm afraid.
But asides from the language, there are two things really:
1. Without a doubt the pre-existing social frameworks placed limitations on both women and men, though now the limitations on men is something we are talking more about, and people are researching more into this area. Blame patriarchy if you want though it can be a bit of a loaded term so personally I would try to avoid it - it implies a male agenda which from the get-go will put men on the defensive and make women feel they've had this society 'imposed' on them.
2. The men's rights movement is quite interesting as a phenomena on its own. On the one hand, there is the just common-sense folk who want the previously mentioned limitations to be explored and where possible resolved. Then there are quite angry reactionaries or polemics who basically want to attack the foundations of feminism, "women have gone too far!" etc. But on the other side, there are people reacting to the reactionaries and it's causing actually quite a large volume of very negative stereotypes about men's rights activists. There is so much raw emotion around these topics that it's really hard to progress our understanding of them, and moreso to develop agreeable points of action everyone can sign up to.
The problem is in this noise the people who are able to sit down and think aren't loud enough and don't get heard. Even then, you still have the problem that nobody can take the neutral ground. Everyone is a man, or a woman (well, nearly everyone ). As such whether you want to or not you are implicitly assigned a 'side' of the argument. I mean, it's not hard to find apologists of either gender, there was even a gentleman recently on a blog asserting that 'men are fundamentally the worse sex', but you are still assigned a gender and people will prejudge you and what you have to say.
Personally I just enjoy trying to find out more, and in all honesty the more I've learnt the more I've realised how huge a gap of knowledge there is and I really can't take anyone seriously who believes with 100% faith they have the answers. 99% is parroted rhetoric these days and unless you have the spare time to be getting mad (because you will, either way) its best to leave the parrots to squawk amongst themselves and go on a journey of self discovery.
If you're talking about the physical damage to an individual woman's genitals and the subsequent long-term effects then there isn't a male equivalent, certainly not in terms of circumcision.
The term feminist is both loaded and restrictive. I believe in equality of opportunity and I don't think that contradicts Feminism, in fact, I'd argue that is Feminism in its purest sense, but I don't find the label 'feminist' particularly useful; gender inequality needs to be addressed along with all inequality in opportunity.
I'll also agree with this: It's definitely true that if you're a man speaking about how men are mistreated or a woman speaking about how women are mistreated you'll be paid far less attention than if it was the other way around, which is unfair.
Generally, constructing a social idea about an adversary to blame for the aspects one is unable to argue well for is a widely known type of rhetoric, but it is not very reasonable nor very hard to penetrate. For some feminisms this idea of adversary always comes down to the good old "patriarchy" without a very good definition of it or an explanation how it applies to people in terms of living in a modern society. It's just not good enough to apply old social models to the term "patriarchy", i.e. by making comparisons to the way men treated women hundred years ago and applying the very same social model to modern standards.
there's two reasons...
one is the narrative promoted by "second wave" feminists according to which men are oppressors as a group and women are victims as a group, an idea that has permeated society on all levels and can be traced back to the Frankfurt School, where in the light of the proletariat's failure to revolt as Marx had predicted the decision was made to redraw the lines of conflict - the proleteriat against the bourgoise was dropped with women against men one of several replacements.
the other reason is the self-serving failure of feminists and so-called progressives to abandon the aspects of the "patriarchy" women like to fall back on...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18127469
Granted, I haven't read his book... Just what I've read and heard from the experiences of South African people I've known, that there's a huge divide between different ethnic groups and a lot of racism which makes social mobility very difficult. Could this factor in to his research?
I think that a lot of the low paid jobs mentioned, are more male orientated because of the hours, or the physical labour involved, which may put women off. Also, would a woman feel secure working in such a masculine environment? According to stats, the [URL="http://tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/economics/comments/unit-1-micro-highest-and-lowest-paid-jobs-in-the-uk[/URL] in the UK, tend to be jobs which younger people (bar staff, retail) because they may be more flexible around studies. School mid-day assistants, florists, jobs in childcare, hairdressers and so on, tends to be a more female dominated job market.
Can't really say a lot about health statistics, but a lot of women I know who work part time (which may affect statistics on working hours) do so because they are considered the primary carers.
And about jokes... Whilst I don't make sexist jokes myself, I do know a lot of people who make jokes about women being raped. The "so easy, even a man can do it" is a parody of old sexist advertisements about women. Kinda like the ones Harry Enfield parodised.
I wouldn't say that gender dynamics don't disadvantage men in some areas, but in that when we talk about education, or work, I think that the problem is more down to economics, poverty and masculinity, especially in working class kids. I can't remember exactly who wrote the research, but there was one about a kind of anti-academic machismo which a lot of working class people have, which could affect school performance. There could be several reasons. Statistics also state differences in achievement of different socioeconomic and ethnic groups.
I have seen men however, fight for their children and I do feel that sexism has a role to play. I think it's a double edged sword. On one hand, a woman is socially expected to be a primary care giver and this can affect her employability, income and social mobility compared to men. This disadvantages men in the terms of sometimes a child is used as a weapon against them.
I didn't read the whole of the F-Word essay though (I do read the site sometimes). I don't think feminism disadvantages other men. 'Feminism' is just a word used to cover a range of movements about female empowerment and/or equality. I don't have an issue with considering myself a feminist, though in feminist circles tend to avoid certain grouping of 'feminists' for some of their perspectives... But that's another story.
Nothing like a sweeping (and untrue) generalisation to emphasise a point
I'm about 10 mins in and the content is interesting but it's driving me potty having her read out an essay.
Delivering a lecture and reading an essay aloud are two distinct things: one, if done well, is engaging and feels natural; the other is always shit, particularly if it's of length - it sounds so stilted and contrived.
Religion is just a codification of a phenomena. I think the salient point in the video IWS linked to is that the relationship between men and women has always been lopsided. And while women certainly haven't had equality of opportunity they've also not had equality of responsibility, either.
Totally worth reading if you haven't already, the explicit inclusion of a feminist writer in putting it together should hopefully dispel any concerns about 'woman hating'. I think it is unfortunate that it's really difficult to engage critically with feminism without being associated with misogyny, or from a man's point of view, being told how I enjoy men's privilege.
If you want to take it deeper, it could be about who holds the power; who holds the ability to get what they want. Without a doubt, men had the authority insofar as legal and social structures, but I think it's an interesting thing to think about how much men were expected to do for 'society', with what 'society' is being defined as much as by women as it was by men.