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So, I found a very interesting article in the current edition of Men's Health, and it instantly got me thinking of what you guys here may think.

http://www.menshealth.com/best-life/what-men-do-well


I have many thoughts of my own on this, but want to hear what you guys think before weighing in too much.

Seems like a bunch of biased gak really, not entirely sure what I just read but I want five minutes of my life back. My favourite bit is when he talks in the begining about how men and women are equal but society now sees women as being better and then goes on later emphaise how much smarter and stronger men are really.

All the stuff about men taking on the hard jobs like firefighting, police, coal minning blah blah blah and how so many men die on the job compared to women, completely ignoring the fact that women don't have much relevance in these areas due to the fact that society has and still does see women as the weaker sex mentally and physically.

If there's a war against men then were definitely on the winning side, feth I love being a white male gak doesn't get much better than that in Canada.

I think that the whole 'war on men' thing is kind of overblown and all, but there is a salient point... how often do you see women portrayed as being just plain stupid or ignorant on TV? All the sitcoms I see it's men being stupid, and women at worst being portrayed as kind of bitchy, which is saying they are right but not gracious.

Yes, there is a really bad bias against men in popular culture.

Now its not as big a deal most of the time because guys really don't care.

But in many areas it is a real problem. As cited in the article.

It's a ridiculous premise.

Men get mocked because they're still the guys in power. You offend people less by mocking the powerful. Even the guys getting mocked. Most of us know how good we have it, so it rolls off our backs.

Eh... mostly we don't care...

That's why we're seeing all these "Man Up" publications now...

The traditional social model are shifting...

Mostly you see this kind of whining from jerks who lose out in family court. They act like donkey-caves, then are shocked when the family court favors the mother, then they go on crusades for "men's rights", where "men's rights" = "I don't lose to my bitch ex-wife.' Most of that type seem to have the fantasy that they can roll things back to the 50s or 60s, and that if we did they'd get to be Don Draper in Mad Men. I suspect that most of them are also massive fans of the filmTaken, which is the ultimate bitter divorced dad fantasy movie.

Not to say that no men are mistreated or suffer genuine injustices. But the incidence is pretty minor, really, and overall we're still the more privileged sex.

Just because something happened in the past doesn't make doing the same thing now but in the opposite direction ok.

This is why Affirmative Action is wrong.

It does nothing to remove prejudices and discrimination, it just changes who is getting discriminated against.

It punishes people for something people in the past did.


Those who claim there isn't discrimination against men are blind. Its not as bad as discrimination against women was in the past, but it is present and it is socially acceptable in many ways. Which in many ways is worse.

If a women gets fired, those who fired her have to worry that it might seem as if they fired her because she was a women. If a man gets fired, nobody would think twice. "well obviously he was bad at his job or broke a company policy" I doubt a women getting fired would automatically elicit that response in the majority of people.

Mannahnin wrote:It's a ridiculous premise.

Men get mocked because they're still the guys in power. You offend people less by mocking the powerful. Even the guys getting mocked. Most of us know how good we have it, so it rolls off our backs.

Not me! As an upper-middle-class white male, aged 25-40 and living in Canada, I am constantly reminded of how much better I have it, and I do not appreciate that. I am being deprived of my right to rule the world in blissful naivete of my own fortunate social circumstances.

My self-esteem has been negatively impacted as a result of my awareness that I have the "easy path" in life, and don't need to struggle to overcome anything.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Mostly you see this kind of whining from jerks who lose out in family court. They act like donkey-caves, then are shocked when the family court favors the mother, then they go on crusades for men's rights. Most of that type seem to have the fantasy that they can roll things back to the 50s or 60s, and that if we did they'd get to be Don Draper in Mad Men.

Not to say that no men are mistreated or suffer genuine injustices. But the incidence is pretty minor, really, and overall we're still the more privileged sex.

That's the problem with being a white middle-classed male we don't have real problems to complain about, other people worry about getting there heads chopped off we complain about our Tim Horton's coffee taking 45 seconds to make, it's just not fair,

The middle class white male is constantly discriminated against. Especially in education.

We have plenty to complain about. Yet we legally cannot do anything about it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The middle class white male is constantly discriminated against. Especially in education.

We have plenty to complain about. Yet we legally cannot do anything about it.

This is so funny it's sad, or so sad it's funny.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Mostly you see this kind of whining from jerks who lose out in family court. They act like donkey-caves, then are shocked when the family court favors the mother, then they go on crusades for "men's rights", where "men's rights" = "I don't lose to my bitch ex-wife.' Most of that type seem to have the fantasy that they can roll things back to the 50s or 60s, and that if we did they'd get to be Don Draper in Mad Men. I suspect that most of them are also massive fans of the filmTaken, which is the ultimate bitter divorced dad fantasy movie.

Not to say that no men are mistreated or suffer genuine injustices. But the incidence is pretty minor, really, and overall we're still the more privileged sex.

Hey... man... I went thru divorce.

I love my kids dearly...

My attorney told me that if my ex made minimal effort to take full custody / alimony / child support... I'm basically screwed. (luckily, that didn't happen as the split was amicable and 50/50)

It's a scary time dude.... and my attorney and her practice collegue mentioned how lucky I was and told me nurmous accounts of how bad it can be (I've talked to this one dude who got screwed royally).

So... at least where I live... the bias towards the mother/wife is so blatant, that it's institutionalized. So, I'd argue against that the "incidence is pretty minor" with respect to divorces.

However... as a single dude now... ya... being a bachelor male now rocks

So... if you want my opinion on the whole marriage thing (the premise of the recent "Man Up" publications)... if you want kidz, get married. If not... just. say. no.

Grey Templar wrote:The middle class white male is constantly discriminated against. Especially in education.

We have plenty to complain about. Yet we legally cannot do anything about it.

Oh, please do tell me about this.

 whembly wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Not to say that no men are mistreated or suffer genuine injustices. But the incidence is pretty minor, really, and overall we're still the more privileged sex.

Hey... man... I went thru divorce.

I love my kids dearly...

My attorney told me that if my ex made minimal effort to take full custody / alimony / child support... I'm basically screwed. (luckily, that didn't happen as the split was amicable and 50/50)

It's a scary time dude.... and my attorney and her practice collegue mentioned how lucky I was and told me nurmous accounts of how bad it can be (I've talked to this one dude who got screwed royally).

So... at least where I live... the bias towards the mother/wife is so blatant, that it's institutionalized. So, I'd argue against that the "incidence is pretty minor" with respect to divorces.

Are you kidding right now? You conclude that bias toward the woman is institutionalized based on the words of "one dude who got screwed" (at least in his own, no doubt TOTALLY unbiased account), and what your lawyer told you? You do recognize that the lawyer's job is in part to get you to shut up and not mess up your own case, and to appreciate how good a deal you get? By your account you did not get screwed, and the only data you've got on guys getting screwed is anecdotal.

 Mannahnin wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The middle class white male is constantly discriminated against. Especially in education.

We have plenty to complain about. Yet we legally cannot do anything about it.

This is so funny it's sad, or so sad it's funny.

Really?

I remember my Ma/Pa "made too much money" to qualify for college grants/scholarship.. and yet, there was no fething way they could afford to help me out.

Likewise, one of my best friend who lived a couple houses down got a scholarship in the same school I went to... why?
-Not because he was poor... in fact, both his parents made more than mine
-Not because he scored higher on the ACT... I don't remember how high, but it was much higher
-Not because he was a sports jock... that man hated sports...

I tease him all the time that he got preferential treatment 'cuz of his skin... he'd laugh and says it's true , 'cuz he knows I have no ill will towards him. (honestly, if the opportunity is there... TAKE IT).

So... that's an example.

Now with respect to being male and being descriminated... yeah, that happens, but I don't think it's pandemic.

Look, I'm pretty reasonable about this whole thing, but there seems to be a lot of "White men have had it so good for so long that they got nothing to complain about."... but how long does that gak last?

Seriously, when is the last time, outside of a cartoon, where you have seen a bumbling, ignorant character that isn't a white male? I bet it wasn't on prime time TV.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:The middle class white male is constantly discriminated against. Especially in education.

We have plenty to complain about. Yet we legally cannot do anything about it.

Oh, please do tell me about this.

Pick up any college scholarship list and go through it.

Look at how many are for underpriviledged people, and note the amounts.

Then look at how many are still open to anyone.

And finally, note how many scholarships still ask for your race.


The fact race is an issue for many scholarships is evidence of discrimination. Being white is not going to make you more likely to recieve a scholarship. Being black or latino will.


And finally, college doesn't cost any less for a White person then anyone else.

Just because someone is middle class doesn't mean they are any more able to pay for their education.

A non-white person can get more scholarships and end up with less college debt then a white person simply because there is more financial aid avaliable.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Mostly you see this kind of whining from jerks who lose out in family court. They act like donkey-caves, then are shocked when the family court favors the mother, then they go on crusades for men's rights. Most of that type seem to have the fantasy that they can roll things back to the 50s or 60s, and that if we did they'd get to be Don Draper in Mad Men.

Not to say that no men are mistreated or suffer genuine injustices. But the incidence is pretty minor, really, and overall we're still the more privileged sex.

That's the problem with being a white middle-classed male we don't have real problems to complain about, other people worry about getting there heads chopped off we complain about our Tim Horton's coffee taking 45 seconds to make, it's just not fair,

Can I complain that I can't get Tim Horton's here?

I will say as another divorcee, it's SHOCKING how bad the courts can be, and it's fascinating how bad the double standard is.

I don't mind talking about it now, three years out and after a lot of expensive therapy but my ex-wife was abusive as hell and tried to kill me. Embedded a frying pan in the wall right above my skull. I'm typing today because I have quick reflexes. However the DAY I filed for divorce she immediately went to the MPs and said I'd been physically abusing her. I was a hair shy of ending up in the brig but there was no evidence of any sort and any one with eyeballs could tell I was in no state to physically threaten a fly much less my ex. She tried the same BS in court but no evidence, no impact, no idea. Only reason she didn't completely gut me and skin me is I had a savvy lawyer who knew his gak and she was in a rush to get divorced so she could marry her new fiancee. My unit had my back and I'm eternally grateful to those Marines for taking care of me during that clusterfeth... but look at the double standard. I admit to being abused by a woman, it's either something to mock or laugh off 98% of the time. She makes a whisper about me possibly hitting her and I'm in handcuffs in an interrogation room.

Is there a war on men? No not really. Is discrimination and the double standard a thing? Are we drifting from the whole "equality" ideal? Yes absolutely.

 Mannahnin wrote:

Spoiler:

 whembly wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Not to say that no men are mistreated or suffer genuine injustices. But the incidence is pretty minor, really, and overall we're still the more privileged sex.

Hey... man... I went thru divorce.

I love my kids dearly...

My attorney told me that if my ex made minimal effort to take full custody / alimony / child support... I'm basically screwed. (luckily, that didn't happen as the split was amicable and 50/50)

It's a scary time dude.... and my attorney and her practice collegue mentioned how lucky I was and told me nurmous accounts of how bad it can be (I've talked to this one dude who got screwed royally).

So... at least where I live... the bias towards the mother/wife is so blatant, that it's institutionalized. So, I'd argue against that the "incidence is pretty minor" with respect to divorces

.

Are you kidding right now? You conclude that bias toward the woman is institutionalized based on the words of "one dude who got screwed" (at least in his own, no doubt TOTALLY unbiased account), and what your lawyer told you? You do recognize that the lawyer's job is in part to get you to shut up and not mess up your own case, and to appreciate how good a deal you get? By your account you did not get screwed, and the only data you've got on guys getting screwed is anecdotal.

GreyTemplar, that may be to compensate for the fact that, statistically, black dudes (and dudettes) are hired less often and paid less than white dudes.

 whembly wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The middle class white male is constantly discriminated against. Especially in education.

We have plenty to complain about. Yet we legally cannot do anything about it.

This is so funny it's sad, or so sad it's funny.

Really?

I remember my Ma/Pa "made too much money" to qualify for college grants/scholarship.. and yet, there was no fething way they could afford to help me out.

I found it fascinating that I didn't qualify for grants or anything based on my parent's income... even though I'm in my midtwenties and don't live with them and have been running my own life since I enlisted at 17 (as much as an enlisted man can run his own life)

 LoneLictor wrote:
GreyTemplar, that may be to compensate for the fact that, statistically, black dudes (and dudettes) are hired less often and paid less than white dudes.

Unfortunate for sure, but why should that make it ok to marginalize white people?

White people who had absolutly nothing to do with the reason black people tend to get hired and paid less.

And maybe black people get hired less because there are less of them?

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The middle class white male is constantly discriminated against. Especially in education.

We have plenty to complain about. Yet we legally cannot do anything about it.

This is so funny it's sad, or so sad it's funny.

Really?

I remember my Ma/Pa "made too much money" to qualify for college grants/scholarship.. and yet, there was no fething way they could afford to help me out.

I found it fascinating that I didn't qualify for grants or anything based on my parent's income... even though I'm in my midtwenties and don't live with them and have been running my own life since I enlisted at 17 (as much as an enlisted man can run his own life)

Yeah... I was supporting Grey Templar's assertation that there is some discrimination agains white midde-class males... but you know what, I didn't give a feth... I just dealt with it to the best of my ability.

But... that's horse gak that in your mid-twenties, those forms STILL asked for your parent's income. If I had to do that, I'd lie.

All of the "discrimination" cited against white middle class dudes is pretty minimal efforts to compensate for the systemic advantages we've got at pretty much every stage along the way. That being said, there's a stronger argument about wealth inequality and class, and how many lower-middle class folks, of all races, have an expensive road to get educated. College debt is no joke.

Whembly, I'm not going to go into divorce stuff with you. I'm pleased to hear that your ex was reasonable and you got an amicable settlement. To my knowledge and from my experience with most of the divorced dads I know, that's the case most of the time.

I feel like the article ranged from hypersensitive to outright paranoid.

My team at work is entirely white males except for one Columbian. My previous team was <50% white males, with the majority of the rest being immigrants from other countries. Sounds like the "majority" is "safe" there.

The white guy being the buffoon is sort of a tired piece of sit-coms (really, pop culture in general). Pop culture is pretty lame-sauce though. Anyone getting their feathers ruffled about that should take into account that the white female is usually a bitch (and often promiscuous), and people of other races are there to remind you of how well they bust out of their stereotypes (or don't). It's crap, and you shouldn't be taking it seriously.

I've heard nightmare stories about the courts, but having never been relevant to my life, I don't know what's real. I know that those stories are almost always told from the point of view of the (almost always) embittered ex-husband, so I have to get my salt shaker.

I fall into the "My Parents Made too much Money, Yet Not Enough" camp regarding college. I got a small scholarship, and then I worked my ass off. I'm unsure why anyone else cannot do that, regardless of their race. I'm uncertain about the scholarship stuff that Grey mentioned, but I know there do exist scholarships solely for specific races. I vaguely even recall quite some time ago a (white) South African student getting denied a scholarship intended for African (read: black) students. As I go back to look for articles, I do not see anything reliable short of people talking about it on the Snopes forum, so for all I know, it wasn't real.

Personally, I enjoy being a middle-class white dude. I get to smoke middling cigars, play golf, and try to beat the rat-race. If there's a war on men, then I can't see it from the home-front.

Now, the thing you should ALL be concerned with is the war on the middle-class. That gak is here and real.

..and has been going on in an economic sense for 30+ years. Even the relatively prosperous times in the 90s and 2000s were inflated by bubble markets and over-use of credit. Part of why the crash hit so hard was that we're reaching a bit of a critical mass in personal debt (as opposed to national). A lot of people spent a lot of time accruing debt on credit cards, student loans, and home equity lines of credit to make up for our shortfalls in real income growth since the 70s.

 daedalus wrote:
I feel like the article ranged from hypersensitive to outright paranoid.

My team at work is entirely white males except for one Columbian. My previous team was <50% white males, with the majority of the rest being immigrants from other countries. Sounds like the "majority" is "safe" there.

The white guy being the buffoon is sort of a tired piece of sit-coms (really, pop culture in general). Pop culture is pretty lame-sauce though. Anyone getting their feathers ruffled about that should take into account that the white female is usually a bitch (and often promiscuous), and people of other races are there to remind you of how well they bust out of their stereotypes (or don't). It's crap, and you shouldn't be taking it seriously.

Luckily we have a whole range of experiences to draw from, instead of just yours. That is why you listen to other people, because somehow your experience might not be typical of the majority. With that said, how long is it morally justified to portray the white male as a buffoon, the white female as a bitch and other minorities as stereotypes? No matter how lame sauce it is, if it's kept up for sixty years because that is the safe bet, has it not now gone toward reinforcing the very preconceptions it 'mocks'?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Just because something happened in the past doesn't make doing the same thing now but in the opposite direction ok.

This is why Affirmative Action is wrong.

It does nothing to remove prejudices and discrimination, it just changes who is getting discriminated against.

It punishes people for something people in the past did.

It's a complete nonsense to pretend that injustices in the past don't resonate down through the generations. Whether or not affirmative action is a way to fix that is a whole other issue, but just pretending that it no longer has an impact is to ignore basic socio-economic realities.

If a women gets fired, those who fired her have to worry that it might seem as if they fired her because she was a women. If a man gets fired, nobody would think twice. "well obviously he was bad at his job or broke a company policy" I doubt a women getting fired would automatically elicit that response in the majority of people.

That is a thing that exists entirely in your head.

In reality, every firing is potentially perilous, because if they're the kind who wants to make trouble then there's always some kind of claim they can make to drag the situation out, woman or man.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
Really?

I remember my Ma/Pa "made too much money" to qualify for college grants/scholarship.. and yet, there was no fething way they could afford to help me out.

Likewise, one of my best friend who lived a couple houses down got a scholarship in the same school I went to... why?
-Not because he was poor... in fact, both his parents made more than mine
-Not because he scored higher on the ACT... I don't remember how high, but it was much higher
-Not because he was a sports jock... that man hated sports...

I tease him all the time that he got preferential treatment 'cuz of his skin... he'd laugh and says it's true , 'cuz he knows I have no ill will towards him. (honestly, if the opportunity is there... TAKE IT).

It is completely flying rodent gak crazy to look at modern society, look at the average earning difference between white and black people, and conclude that society is mean to white people because black people can access scholarships more easily.

It's focussing in on the one area where they get it better, and ignoring all the areas where you get it better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bromsy wrote:
Look, I'm pretty reasonable about this whole thing, but there seems to be a lot of "White men have had it so good for so long that they got nothing to complain about."... but how long does that gak last?

Until it stops being true.

Seriously, when is the last time, outside of a cartoon, where you have seen a bumbling, ignorant character that isn't a white male? I bet it wasn't on prime time TV.

Would you trade 'earns about two thirds of what white people earn' with 'my race is always cast as the bumbling idiot on TV shows'.

Even then, race is all kinds of screwed up in films, so picking out the one example of white men getting the short shrift and only worring about that seems like you're trying to make yourself into the victim. I mean, films will regularly take people who in real life, or in the original source material were asian or black and recast them as white people, and have you ever heard of the opposite happening? Have you ever seen a mainstream movie where a black guy hooks up with a white woman?

Then there's the cliche about the black guy always dying in horror movies... which is a cliche because it keeps happening.

Or the feminist test for movies, which says a movie passes if it has two female characters have a conversation that isn't about their love interests. Which is a pretty simple test, that maybe around 95% of mainstream movies fail (including most romantic comedies that are nominally written for women, which might explain why no-one watches them).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Unfortunate for sure, but why should that make it ok to marginalize white people?

It doesn't. Affirmative actions is bad policy.

But it doesn't mean people should look at only that issue and start pretending it's white people that are actually the ones that are hard done by. Just go look at the numbers for average income for each race.

And maybe black people get hired less because there are less of them?

It's per capita.