| Jaicee said: Please don't validate his "points". Some of the factoids that Louie provides are true, but here's the catch: none of them (in aggregate) are caused by women and thus they do not count as gender oppression! For example, Louie suggests that males are just as likely to be domestic violence survivors as women. First of all, that's just not true (ESPECIALLY when it comes to sexual violence); women are more likely both to be attacked by an intimate partner and also to be attacked more severely. Secondly though, and more importantly, almost all of that violence is also conducted by men. The perpetrators of domestic violence (indeed of violence in general) tend overwhelmingly to be male. As in more than 90% of the time (and 99% of the time in cases of sexual assault). (It should be understood here that no, I am not counting "verbal abuse" in the domestic violence category.) Likewise, men may die younger, but that is not the fault of women, but rather that of men's own biology and lifestyle choices. The trade-off is that you tend to get more sex. Or, on a less serious note, we could talk about the psychological impact of gendered toys, particularly insofaras toys did not used to be so gendered, believe it or not. That's more of a new thing and the experts say it's causing harm. The larger point here though is that Louie's arguments are logically akin to saying that more men die in war than women. Well yes, but...who tends to control the military and the levers of government (decide when to go to war, how to fight, and who goes to war and who doesn't) and who most likely freely (especially here in the U.S.) signs up and is actually allowed to participate in all branches and roles in the army of any given country? In all cases, the answer tends to be: men. How are WOMEN responsible for this? You see my point? Seriously, look at the demographic composition of America's corporate board rooms or Congress or the White House or the police or your college professors or the Internet (including not least this message board) or the pro sports teams you watch or who the center of the media's attention is (be it movies, video games, TV, comic books, whatever) or who owns that media, etc. Men control basically everything in America, to say nothing of the world writ large. There are marginal exceptions here and there that you can point to, but that's really a matter of reaching, not an honest look at the big picture. The big picture is that women still make 20% less than men overall despite working longer hours (once you take both paid and unpaid labor into account) and being better educated, both. And yet Louie complains of being oppressed by women. You see how that's kind of disingenuous from where I'm standing? Men don't get to blame women for the the actions and choices of other men. That's not fair at all. But let's face it: so-called men's rights activism has nothing to do with fairness. |
You totally mis-interpreted my post ;)
You accuse me of feeling opressed by women or blaming women for men's hardships. That's basically the single argument in your post. Where did I say that? Please point me to the part of my post where I said women are responsible for any of the statistics I cited. I don't feel opressed by women in the slightest. I'm not a victim. I have my life in my own hands, I'm a grown up person and I am responsible for the choices I make in life. What annoys me is when people make up false statistics, make claims that can't be verified or use measures of "inequality" that are simply bogus, like the report you cited in an earlier post. These things have a bad effect on women's lives when all is said and done. Nobody profits from "rape statistics" on campus ("1 in 4 women on campus get raped") when most of the reported cases are drunk sex (where both parties are drunk). Believe me, I know this from personal experience. I was a witness in a case of sexual abuse and the police was extremely critical of the woman (and I knew for a fact that she was telling the truth). When I got angry at the two police-women they apologized and said that false rape accusations are so common for them that they have to be so critical. See? The real victims suffer because the small minority of women who simply have a bad character will abuse this stuff like crazy.
Here's what you say: "Women are opressed."
Here's what I say: "It's a complicated mix of privileges and hardships for both genders."
See the difference? I'm simply pointing out that women are not the opressed class you are making them out to be. At least not in the west. Never in the history of mankind has an opressed class lived longer, committed less suicides, died a lot less at work, had equal rights, worked less, could participate politically at will and had equal medical care.
The domestic violence part is simply not true lol. In another post I linked a collection of over 200 studies that all show the same picture: Women are as violent as men in relationships. The single website you cited posts feminist tweets on twitter! That hardly beats hundreds of studies across dozens of countries that show the same picutre: Women are as violent as men. And I'm also not counting verbal abuse here. At least cite independent studies.
Life expectancy: I totally agree that lifestyle choices are a part of this. It's great that you say that! You know why? Because all your arguments later presented in your post are also caused by personal choices! Women are less interested in sports, less interested in politics (in Germany, 40% of all males but only 20% of all females are "highly interested" in politics), less interested in making a high paying career. As for life expectancy: Again, my argument is not that men are opressed lol. It's that women are not and that they get equal medical treatment! And the numbers prove my point in that they don't show opression of women. Once more, I'm not saying that men are opressed or don't get equal medical treatment. But to suggest that in the west women get treated worse medically is hilarious. And the sex part, oh my god! :P That has nothing to do with life expectancy at all! "Oh yes, you die earlier. But hey, you get more sex!" It's a bit random, huh?
Military: How you can spin having to register for draft (which is what things have been like in most countries for most of the time) into "men are opressing women" is beyond me. The military is not a place you want to go. In most cases, it's a place you have to go to. Also, in most western countries women are free to join the military these days but in case of war only men will have to fight. Equality!
In general: You seem to confuse "men opressing women" with "powerful people opressing powerless ones". Aren't you a communist? Because you (not me) are the one missing the bigger picture: Those 0.1% of men (and women) who own the media, do politics, control the military, are extremely rich, etc. who are powerful are hardly representative of the male population. Do you think the average working man out there has "power" over lots of things? These things are by-products of capitalism, not opression against women. 99.9% of all men do not have these privileges. You are attacking the wrong enemy.
One last time: I'm not saying men are opressed. I think you've been reading a lot into my post if you came to that conclusion because feminists always argue that women are opressed. It's a complicated mix of privileges and hardships for both genders. What I'm saying is that to see the full picture we have to look at the male side, too.
