Catapultam Habeo

runxctrack:

To deny male dominance in cultures all over the world is insanity. Surely from the beginning of civilization, males have played a dominant role in society in nearly all aspects. Men were held in high regard and considered more valuable in society, while women were second class citizens and property, and were looked at as those to birth children and tend to those children. Luckily, in the 19th century, women began to rise up and call for equality. To create the idea that women are not subordinate to men and to create a cultural change for the betterment of women.

And yet for the entirety of this time men have, as a rule been obligated to protect and even die for women.  In fact, a simple look at history will very rapidly tell us that those “more valuable” men have been considered expendable in virtually every historical society, while women have been entitled to protection regardless of merit.  That “high regard” was why men played along: a man only got that high regard if he conformed to the rigid and dangerous protector/provider archetype.  It was the cookie, not the cause.

Girlwriteswhat discusses the idea of women as subordinate to men here.

The modern feminist movement continues to strive to achieve this equality where it is absent, such as in unequal payment in job positions, discrimination of sorts, and even misogyny. A worthy cause indeed, much like the NAACP. Now, I may not agree with everything the movement strives for, but the idea as a whole I can get behind. Of course, as this movement continues, there are always “side effects,” and in this case, quite harmful.

The problem is that the leader there, “unequal pay,” is something that isn’t actually true and hasn’t been for a very long time.  While women as a group within employees do indeed earn less money, when we control for factors such as age, years employed, years with the specific employer, job description, education, overtime, stated hours per week, industry, etc….the gap suddenly narrows drastically or disappears entirely.

Sure, we can get behind the idea of “equality for all,” but I can also get behind the idea of peace.  Just because I like peace, doesn’t mean I support blowing up mostly innocent Iraqis to get there.  The theoretical premise of feminism is fine but the execution is not just lacking, it’s actively counterproductive to the goal of equality.

The problem is that feminism believes it’s striving for equality in areas where it is absent, but it forgets to bother with little details like, you know, figuring out where exactly it is or isn’t absent.

In some cases, the feminist movement has bread this hatred of men (no, I don’t think all feminists hate men, just it has been a side effect of the movement for some women). Some feminists call for the complete swap of gender roles and for women to be the superior sex, rather than equality. This hasn’t been the only harmful side effect of the movement, but the loss of rights for men in the realm of law.

In some stances, the courts heavily favors women (undeniably, the courts can also heavily favor men sometimes). This is evident in divorce courts, trials for child custody,  and even the laws pertaining to men and children. Divorce settlements typically favor the woman so much that there are no ads for divorce attorneys appealing to women, only men. For child custody, though a branch of the divorce, nearly 83% of all custody cases go to the mother. For those men that are “lucky” enough to receive custody in the clearly biased system, only 40% receive alimony for the child. Of course on top of that, men typically receive less than woman for alimony, on average of course. The gap of amount of money due to either sex has been closing since 2001 to 2007, but the gap still remains. Unfortunately, the only subject that isn’t biased is the amount of alimony received (source). The abortion laws are also extremely biased towards women. Though the child grows and develops inside the woman, without the man there would be no child. 50% of the child is the father’s child. He should have a say as to whether the child lives or dies rather than the woman being the only voice ( do not be mistaken, I am vehemently against abortion, however, I’m using the current laws of the legality of abortion to illustrate a point). This biased system does not stop at our laws, but is apparent in our culture too of the “strong, independent woman.” Domestic abuse ideology is strongly in favor of women.

This actually misses the biggest issues, as we should be starting off with outright and clear disparities in conviction rates and the length of sentences.  The abortion issues fall under the blanket label of “reproductive rights,” which are indeed something women have and men don’t.

When one thinks of domestic abuse, one generally thinks of a man beating his girlfriend, wife, etc. But what about the other way around? When people see a man physically or verbally abusing a woman in public, people tend to step into action, call the police, etc. However, when a woman is physically or verbally abusing a man in public, the mentality is quite different. People tend to think, “you go girl” or some variation. It looks like the woman is “rising up against the oppression of men.” That’s not at all what it is. The reality is a woman is physically/verbally abusing a man. This is a very unfortunate side effect of the feminist movement. The focus has been to much on “girl power.” As much as people don’t want to recognize, abuse against men and rape against men is a real problem (yes, men can get raped.) There has been so much advocacy and push for women to rise up and report domestic violence and rape cases. This is a wonderful thing, don’t get me wrong, but the problem is, there has been absolutely nothing for the men that have been raped or abused.

The bigger issue, though, is the active concealment of a massive body of evidence showing that in fact, domestic violence is roughly 50/50.  (Women are actually slightly more likely to abuse.)  Despite this, of course, there is virtually no support for male victims, and as you mentioned no push for reporting.

My message is not that Feminism or feminists are evil, or we should take our focus off of women, but that we need to include men in this scope of equality, even if it seems men have the advantage. Men, in certain issues, are actually at a disadvantage to women and culture and the law are biased against men. This is not to advocate more laws biased toward men, but take our laws and our culture and take away the biased aspect of them. Men should have an equal chance at child custody as women. Men should have an equal chance during a divorce settlement. There should be ads and advocacy of men coming out and reporting abuse and rape against them. Along with tearing down misogyny, we should be tearing down misandry.

Good point, but this misses the elephant in the room: what biased laws is feminism fighting against?  The closest we’ll get to an answer is various comments about abortion and reproductive rights, and it’s hard to justify complaint about laws restricting for women rights men simply don’t have at all.  Most feminists can’t come up with a single example of legal discrimination against women in the U.S. today, and we have a laundry list of legal discrimination against men, yet people still persist in pushing the notion that women are the ones “really” being discriminated against, and we need to help men too, on certain issues, because sometimes it’s men being discriminated against.

The problem with modern feminism is its simultaneously exaggerating (and sometimes outright fabricating) issues faced by women, while dismissing and outright ignoring the issues faced by men.  An honest assessment of the legal discrimination faced by the genders doesn’t lie.  Feminism can, will and has done anything to avoid that.

I get where you’re coming from, I really do….but most of what you’re saying hinges on a couple things that simply aren’t true.