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You don't consider Die Welt to be a reliable source?

The article did specifically mention women who were employed full-time, not part-time. And it was talking about Germany specifically, I was posting it in response to your statement that all genders are paid equally in Germany, which doesn't seem to be the case.

 Melissia wrote:

It's like if an Iraqi talked about how they had it rough and then an American decided that they should hijack the thread to talk about how rough it is not to be able to afford a third car and having to skimp on how many times they eat out a month-- then got mad every time the Iraqi pointed out how their life was objectively worse.

Sorry, but when people are bashing on modern Feminism, I am going to mention that men will benefit too. It's too good a point not to use.


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 Mr Hyena wrote:

if you think feminism "has no soul" because it focuses on the plight of women, I'm going to put you back on my ignore list-- you obviously have nothing of value to add to any discussion on the topic.

No, I meant about how you had pessimistic views about the ability to help everyone.

A human being should want to help everyone.

Was the civil rights movement racist? While it was talking about all races, it really did focus nearly all of its time and money on blacks. Does that make it "soulless"?

Of course not. You're allowed to focus narrowly on particular types of discrimination. You're not actively working against the others, you are just focusing more on your pet area.


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 easysauce wrote:
except you are making some pretty blanket, and sweeping statements about men there, I say its crossing the line when you say that most men are that cruel that they love to mock women, its not true, you seem upset that people would lay blanket stereotypes over feminists, yet dont hesitate to apply stereotypical labels to men.

Two things, starting with where you are right.

1. It's DEFINITELY more appropriate to discuss sexism as coming from "people" and not blanket "men", since the system promotes judgement of women in general and not just by men. Saying "people", even though a blanket statement, allows for the acknowledgement of people who do not do that.

2. Misogyny is absolutely Dakka's blindspot. I actually would say that "most" dakkas, where most means 51% of registered users, have weird judgey ideas about women and have expressed them on the forum. A lot of this comes from the average age being pretty low. Teenage boys really love to use misogyny to sound edgy.

 Hordini wrote:
You don't consider Die Welt to be a reliable source?

The article did specifically mention women who were employed full-time, not part-time. And it was talking about Germany specifically, I was posting it in response to your statement that all genders are paid equally in Germany, which doesn't seem to be the case.

Oh, I wasn't referring to your example, I was referring to e.g. Melissia using a FEMINIST blog to prove her point. Extremely biased sources are trash.

Die Welt certainly is a reliable newspaper, but we're talking about statistics here and sadly, more often than not, newspapers rely on the "key points" of studies without having read the entire study themselves, therefore overlooking important details

 Rented Tritium wrote:
Sorry, but when people are bashing on modern Feminism, I am going to mention that men will benefit too. It's too good a point not to use.

Yes, feminist efforts can and do help men. But it should not be the focus in a topic about feminism. If you want to focus on how to improve the lives of men, that should be an entirely separate topic.

As a collective group, men are used to getting a lot of attention and focus on themselves, without even realizing they're doing it-- most films are about the male protagonist; so are most video games, anime, comic books, etc. Being masculine is even the default in the English language-- with feminine as the "other" that it is compared to. As a result, when a woman comes up and talks about womens' problems-- she is immediately shouted down* and the topic invariably turns in to "how can women and feminists serve me, a man?"

Which is frankly one of the most sexist attitudes you can ever have, yet it's displayed here on Dakka openly by numerous people. Feminism is unashamedly about women. Men can benefit from it, but that isn't where a discussion on feminism should go.

A bit of helpful reading from a familiar website might help explain it a bit better...
... and another one here.

*Before the inevitable ignorant whining, no, I am not saying "all the time" or "every time".

Yep, there it is.

A textbook example, too.

 Melissia wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
I guess what I was trying to say, albeit in a pigheaded man way, was that I don't get why the ladies are so fussed about body image. Men are quite laid back beasts, to an extent.

Only in your heads. Men judge women harshly on appearance all the time. People on this very forum judge women off of our appearances all the time. People in this very thread, including yourself, judge women off of our appearances. Yes, including the men. Or even especially the men...

And when a woman doesn't stand up to that judgement, they are treated harshly and cruelly for it, viciously mocked by men. Men seem to love mocking the physical appearance of women whose personalities or political beliefs that they don't agree with-- and it's almost inevitably the first way that they think of to attack a woman.

 Melissia wrote:

 Rented Tritium wrote:
Sorry, but when people are bashing on modern Feminism, I am going to mention that men will benefit too. It's too good a point not to use.

Yes, feminist efforts can and do help men. But it should not be the focus in a topic about feminism. If you want to focus on how to improve the lives of men, that should be an entirely separate topic.

As a collective group, men are used to getting a lot of attention and focus on themselves, without even realizing they're doing it-- most films are about the male protagonist; so are most video games, anime, comic books, etc. Being masculine is even the default in the English language-- with feminine as the "other" that it is compared to. As a result, when a woman comes up and talks about womens' problems-- she is immediately shouted down* and the topic invariably turns in to "how can women and feminists serve me, a man?"

Which is frankly one of the most sexist attitudes you can ever have, yet it's displayed here on Dakka openly by numerous people. Feminism is unashamedly about women. Men can benefit from it, but that isn't where a discussion on feminism should go.

A bit of helpful reading from a familiar website might help explain it a bit better...
... and another one here.

*Before the inevitable ignorant whining, no, I am not saying "all the time" or "every time".

your words speak for them selves ,

As a collective group, men are used to getting a lot of attention and focus on themselves, without even realizing they're doing it

 Melissia wrote:


Men are fething vicious about the appearance of a woman they don't like.

 Melissia wrote:
As noted in one of the articles I linked:

That is what is being acted against-- there's no "anti-male rhetoric". Men are not being hated, rather, what's hated is the socio-economic power structure which puts limitations on political minorities.

The "anti-male rhetoric" is, to paraphrase an old saying, the hobgoblin of little minds..

really? you call out "men", as all the above and its not anti male?

not only is that completely untrue, it is sexists and a double standard/hypocritical. I could easily make that stereotype about women, and would be (rightly) lynched for it, because sexism against women is wrong, but you seem to think against men it is OK/non existent.

you keep going on and on about people bashing feminism when all they are doing is saying that men are not these "neanderthals" you keep describing them as.

obviously you think you are surrounded both on and off the net by men who act as cruelly as you describe, and feel justified talking like this kind of thinking is the norm in men.

 Melissia wrote:

As a collective group, men are used to getting a lot of attention and focus on themselves, without even realizing they're doing it

While male privilege exists, it is reinforced and accepted by all kinds of people. Focusing the fire on men as a group is just going to pick fights. You want to go after male privilege? Rock on, I will be there. But don't go after the men themselves for having it. The blame for male privilege's existence lies with the larger system. Men themselves didn't get together and decide to have privilege (at least not any that are alive now). it was a multi-thousand year process.

If you want to change the minds of people who were raised and indoctrinated with male privilege, don't attack the people themselves. They didn't come up with this and impose it on themselves. Think about how Louis CK jokes about how great it is to be a white guy. See how he doesn't attack people for being white guys, while still pointing out successfully how privilege works? That's a fantastic approach IMO.

In these last few comments, you've gotten kind of second wavey.

 Rented Tritium wrote:
Focusing the fire on men as a group is just going to pick fights.

So you're telling me that having a discussion specifically about womens' issues and concerns without deviating to discuss mens' concerns... is the same as opening fire on men?

Because I would disagree there. Tell me, if you're honestly concerned about the plight of men in regards to the patriarchal social structure, why does every single feminism thread have to be hijacked to talk about it, with hostility being directed at anyone who wishes to focus on womens' issues? Aren't mens' issues important enough to talk about in their own discussion threads?


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 easysauce wrote:
[...]

Either you can accept my previous clarification of what I said and we can move on, or you can't accept it, and I will ignore you.

Which one is it?

 Melissia wrote:

 Rented Tritium wrote:
Focusing the fire on men as a group is just going to pick fights.

So you're telling me that having a discussion specifically about womens' issues and concerns without deviating to discuss mens' concerns... is the same as opening fire on men?

Because I would disagree there.

You want to have a conversation and tell half of the people affected by it that we're not going to talk about that?

Just so you can keep ideological purity?

Feminism is unashamedly about women. Men can benefit from it, but that isn't where a discussion on feminism should go.

Do you want to fix things or not? You're turning down perfectly good talking points that are GOING to win people over and fix the negative baggage that the term feminism has so that you can keep a female centric ideology? Women unquestionably have it worse. Saying that men will benefit from fixing these things and will not be particularly hurt by the elimination of privilege is absolutely something that needs to happen.

When you tell people that they have a special privilege they are not aware of, and that you want to take it away, you HAVE to include some reassurance that the end result is quite nice and they will be happy with it. If you do not, you are absolutely sending an oppositional message.

Are men used to it being about them? Sure. But "I want to take something away from you that you didn't even know you had" would be a bitter pill for even someone WITHOUT privilege. It's not "making it about men" to reassure people that what you want will improve everyone's lives, since just about anyone would want to hear that.

Again, you're acting like any particular man you might be talking to set out to create his own privilege. They don't know they have it, they are unwitting pawns in the system. Treat them like people with valid concerns or you will NEVER win them to your side.

 Rented Tritium wrote:
You want to have a conversation and tell half of the people affected by it that we're not going to talk about that?

No. I want to have a feminist conversation which doesn't devolve in to a discussion about men's issues. Womens' issues get ignored all the time. Pushed aside to pay attention to what men want to hear instead. Wanting to talk about womens' issues in a thread about womens' issues is not some kind of a sin.

You're actually being part of the problem despite the fact that you're trying to help-- because again, you refuse to give space to a minority group to have their issues aired.


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Or to give an analogy:

Imagine if a group of people went in to every single Space Wolves thread and started talking about Grey Knights instead. Then, whenever someone tries to steer the topic back on to Space Wolves, this Grey Knights fangroup attacks them and tells them to shut up because Grey Knights are marines, too so it's okay to talk about them here and completely ignore or mock the Space Wolf stuff.

Every single thread. No one can ever talk about Space Wolves lore any more because this happens every single time it's brought up, no exception.

This is what it is like watching every single feminism thread devolve in to "let's talk about how feminists can serve men".

 Melissia wrote:

 Rented Tritium wrote:
You want to have a conversation and tell half of the people affected by it that we're not going to talk about that?

No. I want to have a feminist conversation which doesn't devolve in to a discussion about men. Womens' issues get ignored all the time. Pushed aside to pay attention to what men want to hear instead. Wanting to talk about womens' issues in a thread about womens' issues is not some kind of a sin.

Activism is showmanship. You are selling a concept and trying to win hearts and minds. Knowing your audience is part of that. If you don't at least try to paint a picture of a bright future free of male privilege that EVERYONE will like, you're going to lose a lot of ears.

I agree that you don't want to get rabbit holed into talking only about how it matters to men, and the blog you posted got into that a bit, but you've made it sound like you don't want to talk about the impact on men at all and you've seemed hostile to the idea that some men might want that reassurance.

Men are people and they are 50% of the audience for your activism. If you are not aiming 50% of your conversation in their direction, then you're not going to win 50% of the hearts and minds.


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A pretty major component of the civil rights movement was a subtle reassurance that white men had nothing to fear and would not have anything taken from them. Is it sad that it had to be said? Yes. Was it mandatory for the movement to succeed? Without a doubt.

 Melissia wrote:
snip

wow! debating is much easier when I completely edit out the pertinent information!

The constructive element of the discussion seems to have reached its terminus.