People Don't Like Hard Questions (or How Feminism is Killing the Left))
I expect a lot from the authors and posters here. I expect that you're informed on the issues of the day. I expect your stories to be true when portrayed as true, to the very best of your abilities. It is expecting a lot perhaps, but I've seen a sliver of your souls. And I'm comforted. For I am certain that you expect a lot of yourselves also. You hold yourselves to high standards here. Standards of intellectual honesty and compassion, among other nobler qualities. Evidence and reality.
You deserve my trust.
That trust is the only reason I can dare to write what's to follow.
Please keep in mind that I didn't write this to fight with people.
I'm just asking you to look outside your comfort zones.
I think that feminism, as it manifests itself in the world today, is hurting us very, very badly. Primarily in the societal and political realms (which is basically everything of course).
Outrage, rubbish, stop reading now you cry, Blasphemy!
Crucify me if you must but pray riddle me this.
How many more states have to go red before you're damn sure to drive a long, long way to get an abortion. Can you really tell me that this toxic, unopposed feminism has NOTHING to do with the political map?
Google how many women are feminists. Stick to the more reputable sites people. I trust in your self pride. Trending low, like the Democratic party I'd say. Women support equality, but feminism? Not so much comparably. Why is this?
Take a look at how the right is absolutely (omg, I'm gonna say it) eviscerating the left through so obviously just attacks on feminism for a clue. The right calls us delusional because (among a host of other reasons) we insist on the wage gap and the rape culture as accepted core beliefs. Both of which are completely false! Proven false by math and science yet we cling to them. How wrong are they to ridicule us?
Have you really not been paying attention? The left is a joke of lesbian unicorn snowflakes who's safe space requirements include the excising of the word 'violates' from a LAW COURSE at a law school. Swarthmore(The Quaker College) is a rape culture!. Compare youtubes videos of the 'Pussy Hat' Women's March with video's of the pro-life Woman's march the day before. The difference is those optics are gonna win some elections by god!
Falsehoods, pussy hats and free safe spaces for everyone! (Cheaper than those Obama phones!)
Politics and society go hand in hand of course. It's a better world now that we know that gender roles are completely transferrable with no consequences of any kind. Right? The good people here believe that, right?
That's what feminism pushes. But feminism goes further than that, it's a woman=good, man=bad religion! It's open war on maleness, for 50 years now. It's no wonder our testicles are shrinking. And while we hear a lot of 'yeah but's' (yeah men have it bad, but) there seems to be very little pushback against this.
The worst consequence of feminism is what it's done to fatherhood. You may try hard to deflect and deceive yourself but the truth is that this male hating, privilege seeking, victimhood feminism has catastrophically damaged fathers and fatherhood itself.
Yeah but ....
(switching back to political for a moment, umm, yeah but, men vote too)
What's the story in the bible about splitting the child? Better to give the child to the mother than to split the child in half. That's how I remember it. Apparently feminism believes this ancient patriarchal value is just and right and needs to be protected at all costs.
Feminism is equality? Seriously people, when was the last time you heard feminism call for equality in custody?
Is non-custodial visitation and child support what fathers can expect from, divorce on demand, abortion on demand, feminism? What a deal!
Is that the most likely lot of our young men? Do you moms think that's a good idea?
Feminism says 'we must have no fault divorce though, and custody' because feminism? Women=good. Man=bad. Women > Men.
So the system gets set up, with feminism's guiding hand, to discourage men from leaving harmful relationships and to encourage women to leave harmful relationships, or if they get bored. Don't worry about the kids, the men are gonna pay.
We'll get those bastards through taxing them to pay for that system and get em on the back side through garnishments and automatic deductions (if they can keep a job after the damage done to them).
Women are and I quote 'Raped by the male gaze'. But we scoff at hurting fathers and quite honestly, we don't care. We bathe in male tears. We don't need fathers because women can do everything.
I've asked a lot of questions in posts here lately, regarding feminism. I got an answer too, a trusted, respected professor told me no, no trigger warnings required in his physics class. I was honestly glad to hear that. I got some sympathy and you poor thing, you just don't understand.
All save that one question went unanswered.
I may have found that elusive right I've been looking for though.
That right a man has that a woman does not.
I can legally have my testicles taken by the state and a woman can not.
Maybe soon we can let the victim perform the castration. That would be just indeed, no? You think we couldn't sell this as restorative therapy?
After all, howls of laughter rang out on 'The Talk' over the tale of a man who's penis was cut off and ran through the garbage disposal, over suspicions of cheating. No reattachment chance for him! Now THAT's some great humor I tell ya.
But you know what's not funny? Being raped by the male gaze.
I can't see how feminism can justify it's selfishness and disregard of others.
We can't think about or talk about these things because feminism is known by all to be all about equal rights and justice and good and her body, her choice. How could any sane person be against any of that? Right?
It wouldn't be proper to consider that maybe while the 'good feminist' was championing equality and occasionally wagging their fingers at the fringe, the fringe was making the laws, making the rules, setting the standards and limiting debate and speech.
I saw a poster that said '1 in 7 homeless are women. Support your local Women's shelter'. Every time I see these kinds of things I die a little inside and it's everywhere. Try to google what percent of homeless are men. Bet you'll find out how many children and women are homeless.
I read a very long report on homelessness, it was very long. The words men or man could not be found in it. I read another that mentioned Jerome and that 5,000 of the 57,000 homeless veterans are women. No mention among the top ten facts about the homeless, that men are the vast majority of homeless.
This is feminism.
Feminism must marginalize the male and promote the female. And that's just what you're 'fringe' has been doing.
In any case, that's how you win elections and protect the right to abortion.
Male tears, lies and safe spaces FTW !
Good luck with that.
I won't be voting for females who dismiss men's issues as 'not a problem, not worth the time'. Not any more I'm not.
PS: For the irony lover. As I saved this as a draft it required tags, I wrote 'feminism, politics, social justice and men's rights' and as I typed in men's rights it auto corrected to 'women's rights'
I shit you not.
Comments
The Bible story about splitting the baby
I'm no bible expert by any stretch, but just FYI, that story is about two women both claiming to be the baby's mother.
This story has nothing to do with courts favoring mothers over fathers in custody disputes. Which they do, of course, although not as much as in the past. This stems from millennia where it was accepted without question that raising children is the job of women. Whether they want that job or not. Not just their job, but the very essence of being a woman requires motherhood in many people's mind, even now. The belief that men work, while women produce and care for children, is the root cause of this disparity. It was the feminist movement that started changing this view, by the way.
I don't have time to address more of your post in detail, I'll just say I agree with some of the points you raise, and I'm very disappointed and disturbed at what feminism has become.
I am however a big believer in no-fault divorce "on demand" because being trapped in a bad or abusive relationship is a hell that no one deserves, man or woman.
I also strongly believe that no woman should be forced to bear a child against her will. Going back to the days of women being nothing more than breeding stock and chattel is not the way to go.
Modern feminism has indeed lost the plot - I agree with that. But let's not throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.
I think it's really important
As we consider all of this, I think it's really important to remember that how things are in the year 2017 is not how things were in 1800, 1900, 1960, or even the 1980s.
It's only been very recently that women and men have approached a level of parity, economically and legally. This includes settlement of child custody and financial affairs during divorce. Many men may feel they're on the short end of the stick now, but as recently as the 1980s, that was very much not the case.
So for millennia, yes, it's been accepted by most cultures that raising children is the job of women. But that's not the same thing at all as women having control over the affairs of those children. That has always been the exclusive domain of men.
Historically, up until the 1970s in the US, men have had the legally-granted, cultural role as head of their family, of their wife and children. In my grandparents' generation, men could beat their wives with no legal repercussions. They had the exclusive power to make financial decisions for their families.
Women were in a vulnerable and powerless place. If they were lucky, they married a man who worked with them as a partner to create a successful marriage and family. My paternal grandmother seemed to have been one of the lucky ones. My maternal grandmother was not so lucky.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Well crap, grrrr. I remembered it wrong.
I hate that when that happens. Well the 1st part of that paragraph is blown all to hell.
Thanks for setting me straight. I did not intend to deceive. I guess I should fix/adjust it now. Sorry bout that folks.
I support no-fault divorce too. For childless couples. If custody was more equitable I may be able to get on board fully with no-fault divorce. As things are, father's in abusive relationships are screwed. No shelters, no help, if you leave, you lose your kids.
I'm not pro-forced birth CS. Her body, her choice. Painful as issues like fetal viability and trimester abortions are, I keep running into her body her choice. I don't think men can have a say in these issues. I think women have to decide. Though, there are profound moral issues of human life involved and so, if women voted (women only) to limit abortion, I would support that also.
Thanks for your thoughts CS.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
Seriously? More Divide & Conquer Identity Politics?
The corruption and subsequent rejection of the "Left" is all feminism's fault? Give me a break!
Hillary's Undead Campaign, including the Women's March (reportedly funded largely by Soros, a man), is not feminism, by the way.
It is this kind of attack on other abused groups, diverting attention from the real issues hurting us all, that is the reason the neocons and neoliberals have been winning. It is not because women want to finally be treated like full and equal human beings.
@Sunspots Well, that's another
Well, that's another way to look at it. But if we want to discuss this issue, we should take very seriously the phenomenon of creating reality through what people see. That's both in terms of what gets presented to people via the media over and over (and what gets a media blackout) and in more direct psychological manipulation of people's perceptions. When you look at the issue of feminism in that way, it becomes pretty clear that Hillary 2016 was like a behemoth, crashing through multiple social movements with proud histories and leaving only rubble. It's OK for us to say that we know Hillary feminism ain't real feminism. But if that's what a hundred million people think feminism is, because that's what's called feminism over and over and over, at some point it becomes reality--of a sort. Not the sort of reality that people dedicated to the pursuit of complete truth (like good scholars) talk about, but the sort of reality that people live in society. And unfortunately, movements exist in society. If you shift the perceptions of movements, you shift how the movement can function in society, and how it can't, and ultimately, you change what the movement-in-action IS--it becomes whatever people believe about it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal I agree that we do
I agree that we do need another name for the new 'feminist' movement. The old name carries too much baggage and too many lies. I have always loved the line in the song Bread and Roses that "the rising of the women means the rising of the race."
TOP 'feminism' is the offensive face of what is now called feminism. It is used to intimidate and humiliate people; there is no interest in making life better for anyone. The word 'racism' is abused the same way. Someone at TOP commented to me that the Hillary people dropped Black Lives Matter like a dirty diaper as soon as it was not longer useful for attacking Bernie.
But that's not what he's talking about.
Look at his examples, look at his title. Look at his denial of any gender inequality - it's essentially poor abused men - with a lot of flattery of this community to mute opposition.
I see feminsim doing this a lot, stating falsehoods and
dismissing men.
So, CSTS comments about the perception of feminism. You say that's not what I was talking about.
Which is FALSE. The entire political (as opposed to the social) section of the essay is near entirely about the perception of feminism.
Maybe I am to dumb to understand but don't that look a lot like feminism dismissing men AGAIN !
I think I actually want to scream.
Here's a trigger warning
Some animals are more equal than others when it comes to feminism.
Haven't you read Andrea Dworkin and Valerie Solanas?
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
@Sunspots I agree that he
I agree that he doesn't seem to be talking about what I'm talking about, but I think that it's important to bring up these issues of perception whenever we talk about feminism or anti-racism now.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Acceptable? - "Black Lives Matter is killing the Left"?
No, I don't think so. But it's OK to do it to feminism? Not.
Or, maybe even, is it OK for men to decide what a women's movement should be? Poor struggling creatures that we are. That's stunningly condescending.
Your answer to the worlds problems is more safe spaces?
I think we're gonna need a map.
YES, criticism of black lives matter should allowed.
YES, criticism of feminism should be allowed.
You can't safe space the world. People won't let you.
Comon' Sunspot, telling someone, you don't like what they're doing, isn't deciding for them what to do.
Feminism needs safe places free of criticism because of all the strong women we have in it? Feminism is too weak to take criticism?
Condescending. Of course Sunspot. All Male speech is by definition condescending. I learned that in feminism 101.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
@dennis1958 I think the
I think the issue would be what the criticism consists of, and how it's done. I myself have criticized one kind of feminism here. There are other criticisms I could make if I were minded.
However, there's a difference between criticism and attack. Simply being angry and resentful because women have claimed a position of victimhood--in general--and men have been made the bad guys--in general--is not what I'd call criticism. It's a backlash, or a counter-attack. Done in the abstract, and in general terms, it's just a way of swatting feminism because you don't like the challenge to male behavior that feminism brings. And that's basically the same as me, in general, not being OK with anti-racist movements because I don't like the challenge to white behavior anti-racist movements bring.
Now if you are dealing in specifics, rather than generalities, it's quite different. Any specific woman could do something that is specifically bad to an individual man, and I'd judge any such alleged mistreatment on its merits. If it turns out the specific woman were doing something shitty, and using feminism to justify it, that would be bad. And it's perfectly possible that such instances exist. There's a lot of people on this planet, and we're not all saints. Some of us are shitheads. Some of us aren't shitheads most of the time, but occasionally we are.
But such instances don't invalidate the whole of feminism, or the whole of the Civil Rights movement or Black Lives Matter or Occupy or whatever. And the idea that feminism is killing the Left is, if you'll pardon my saying so, overkill and only my perception of your pain kept me from saying so before. Feminism couldn't possibly kill the Left for the same reason that a person in a complete vegetative state attached to a machine couldn't possibly commit assault. Of course, I don't count the Women's March and other astroturf as "feminism" in this context.
And anyway, I'm not sure there currently is a Left. We have to invent it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Sunspots I'm not sure what
I'm not sure what I said that you're responding to. Sometimes the structure of the threads confuses me & I'm not certain what a comment is responding to. Clarify? What did I say was acceptable?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
CSTS, It wasn't you - the threads ARE confusing
I was responding to Dennis, and meant to ask if people thought it would be acceptable to substitute Black Lives Matter in his title. I thought that might shed a different light on it. I guess I abbreviated too much, trying to fit it all in.
Am I at TOP?
No criticism allowed because it might hurt our team?
Are you saying (well yes you are) that the raising of men's issues is forbidden because 'other peoples' problems are more important, so it's wrong to raise them?
I would think that a 'Women's March' would be by definition feminism.
Don't you dare use identity politics to criticize feminism! huh what? ain't there some irony there?
Let me mansplain to you as you bathe in my male tears and I manspread,
THAT if feminism was only about women being full and equal human beings THEN this criticism and warning would likely not have been written.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
You are attacking your own straw man.
Although what I actually wrote is right there - and it isn't your reimagining of it.
Quick ! call Sean Michael Carroll . . .
and tell him the multiverse really exists, and I can port back and forth between at least two 'branes. Otherwise, how is it possible for the Nebraska I presently inhabit to be so enlightened with respect to the issues of your comment. What you write is about old male judges, and does not reflect a bias of the female assistant district attorney I have known for many-many years, nor her (largely) female staff.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding you and the effects of this new way of thinking have yet to appear in Nebraska. To be clear: There is no obvious anti-male movement in this state, unless it is so far underground as to be moribund.
Oh, and by the way, OP, the wage gap is a real thing here. I could write a article about same if anyone would be interested. So, to claim the wage gap does not exist just sounds stupid for this observer.
You write it up and I'll read it.
I've spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the truth about the wage gap, over a very long period of time now. I've never seen a wage gap in my personal life. All the women I've worked with were paid the same, basically the same or more than me based on experience and skill sets. So I wondered what they were talking about.
What I found was that pro-wage gap studies seemed to all compare apples to oranges.
I seek studies that compare apples to apples.
A key punch operator IS not the same job as a computer operator. A librarian is not the same job as a lawyer.
My research of the various studies leads me to conclude that given apples to apples jobs. Any gap in pay is insignificant.
I'm willing to listen though, I'm not to old to change my mind.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
As a public sector employee
I live (lived) in a goldfish bowl. So, sure, I will, in the next few days, put together an article about the situation here vis-à-vis salaries and gender issues.
I've heard that before
Yeah, I've heard that argument before. I heard it in 1970 to justify women's income being less than that of men. "It has nothing to do with women or men. Teachers and nurses just make less than lawyers and doctors." The fact that women were culturally and as a matter of practice discouraged or outright prevented from having higher-paying careers was supposedly irrelevant.
I didn't expect to (I really hoped that I would not) hear that same tired old argument 45 years later. I had hoped that we would have progressed a bit farther over my life time. It's jarring to hear it now, especially since we have hindsight to see what was going on then and a presumably more evolved mindset now.
In a world where everyone has the same access to the same jobs, it might be a valid argument. In a world where 99% of lawyers are men, and where women are discouraged or actively prevented from becoming lawyers (or from progressing in legal career on the same footing as men), nope, that argument fails completely.
I entered law school in the autumn of 1975. 25% of my law school class were women. In the previous year, perhaps 5% of the class were women. Earlier years, even less. Checking the alumni records of my law school, most years before 1970 had zero women students.
I was in the very first year of the first wave of women lawyers, although we didn't call it that. We knew we were doing something different, but I don't think we quite realized how many women would come after us, or how quickly it would happen.
How many male lawyers have ever applied for a job and been told, "Well, we've hired a man before to be a lawyer, and maybe we'll do it again some day, but not now"?
Early in my career as a young woman lawyer, I was told that kind of thing. More than once. I was not alone. Our law school went to bat for us, and the law firms and companies dealing with us quickly learned what they were doing is illegal. I hope no women nowadays have to hear that kind of tripe.
Dennis1958, since you have that 1958 behind your name, I am assuming that you are in your late 50s. That means you were alive and probably in the work force at the time I was a young woman lawyer. We're not living in the same world today, and things have changed for the better. But in your comment, you said "I've never seen a wage gap in my personal life. All the women I've worked with were paid the same, basically the same or more than me based on experience and skill sets."
If you have statistics to prove that during your lifetime women were not subjected, as a matter of routine, to the kind of discrimination I'm describing, bring 'em on.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Milo Yiannopoulos On: The Gender Wage Gap
It's all in the numbers. To your point, Milo has his Millennial audiences roiled when he takes the same numbers and adds demographic context that shows the wage gap is actually the opposite. ymmv.
I'm not willing to accept Milo on this yet- edit update
Edit update *There are much better Milo videos where he explains without the impolite interruptions. I think Milo should be heard, but this isn't the best video to understand his view on the wage gap.**
I haven't seen the research. I don't know the methods and groupings and all that stuff you have to look at to judge if it's in the legit range.
I have spent hours and days going over some data presented by Christina Hoff Sommers. I'm more impressed with the, oh umm, gravitas, of those works than most other studies I've seen.
However, what's the first thing we learn about statistics? That you can lie with statistics. Until moved, I'm skeptically (extreme skeptics are always skeptical) on the no wage gap camp.
Peeps don't like that but ... prove you're right and I'll change camps.
Must say you're a bit of a brave dog Pluto. Milo is hilarious but not a standard fare of the left. (hope ya laughed there cause that was intended as extremely subtle understatement).
Here's why we have President Trump. Jazz hands!
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3MY3016FAk width:420 height:315]
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
To tell you the truth
I couldn't find the version of Milo's wage gap argument I had seen. I endured the BBC version, below, but saw that one in the sidebar at Youtube and posted it instead. It shows Milo at a B-list venue, just as provocateur he is. In the BBC version, he is more restrained delivering the same message. His debates at US universities over the past two months have created a sensation. Folks here have been on the bleeding-edge frontline, looking at what is real without flinching, for the past 18 months, and discussing what it means.
I don't pretend to know the answer to the pay gap question. I'm just adding Milo's paradigm, since he's impacting the national conversation. Personally, I think men have it hard in several ways, and have for awhile. Certain groups of American men are dying at a fierce rate for a reason. It seems to be an American thing.
At the same time, women will have all the rights of livestock if the infantile politicos get their way, which isn't making them happy, pay gap or not. Having the entire nation obsessing about what's going on between your legs is creepy and demeaning. It seems to be an American thing.
I'm hear to listen and learn.
Milo is entertaining and charismatic
He is also a good polite proper debater. And he's smart.
The left thinks he's full blown (kinda a pun there) right but that ain't so.
If the left invited him to talk about issues of the right, I believe he'd be just as effective. There's stuff he doesn't like on the left and there's stuff on the right he doesn't like too.
To the meat of your comment.
Well friend, you know why women commit soo many more suicide attempts then men do don't you. Of course you do. It's cause men get it right the first time. Men kill themselves like what? 10 times the numbers that women do?
*ribbit, ribbit, ribbit*
Is it gender self-hatred to be glad that only 1 in 7 homeless are women?
Or is it men's natural compassion for others (a compassion I find lacking in feminism) in spite of no one giving a crap about them?
There are a lot of problems in the world. Everyone has some kind of problem. Men are good at rationalizing who to save first. We're built for that. We give up our place in the lifeboats. (That's a man thing. Women can't understand.)
We don't ask for help unless we really need the help because we don't want to burden others.
But to feminism men are broken females, damaged by testosterone, utterly lacking in value.
The men of the 60's should have stopped this crap back then. The demonization and denigration of men should never have been allowed to be the basis of a movement to remake society.
They must have been to busy getting high and getting laid.
There is much noble and altruistic and wonderful in the qualities of men. Even given our faults.
For my male readers. I beg you, don't forget this, don't let them convince you otherwise.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
@Pluto's Republic At about six
At about six minutes statistics are presented by a female participant pointing out that there is a real wage gap. Milo agrees that the statistics are correct.
Milo make unsupported assertions that are obviously wrong even if he is much more charming than Rush Limbaugh. In fact, women are strongly discouraged from going into STEM fields. I have personally been told that "no real woman could have a degree" in my field. I have been told that I "have no right to take a job from a man who needs it". We get called 'dykes' and this is not a comment about sexual orientation. Our notes are stolen. Our work is sabotaged. We get threats, including rape threats. Sometimes there is physical abuse. I am speaking from personal observation and a lot of conversations in ladies rooms with women who I knew to be trustworthy.
I once had to quit a job because my boss liked to back me into a corner and grab at me. Filing an EEOC complaint is a way to get professionally blacklisted. Clarence Thomas was once the head of the EEOC. They do not care at all about the problems of women.
That's a horrific situation.
The constant innuendo is enough to drive one mad.
I've never understood why women raised their boys to be like that, down the ages. Do they hate other women so much that they couldn't instill a sense of decency and respect in them? You'd think that somewhere along the line, high-minded women would have put a stop to it with their own boys. Yet, a million years later we are still producing monsters who can't sort laundry.
To make matters worse, other women were quite willing to stab you in the back in the work place. In my experience, it was much more common to have a man step up to be a mentor and reach back down to give a girl a hand up. It was rare when one of the "dynamic" women would help another woman to reach the next rung on the ladder below her. Perhaps it was the times or the competitive nature of capitalism.
I don't dwell on it, but the way women belligerently insisted they wanted a woman president — that it was time — struck me as simply wrong. I wanted a president I could vote for who would represent my interests, I didn't care a bit if it was a he or a she. The presidency is not an affirmative action program. I want the very best I can get. Someone I can work with.
Perhaps its the culture that is regressive and perverse. Whatever it is, it hit a wall in this last election, and also managed to split the nation. The Millennials were appalled by the "feminism" on display and that filled me with optimism that we can finally put these self-destructive cultural behaviors behind us.
Wait? Pluto is a woman?
Upon completing the first two sentences of your post I thought 'This guy is WAY braver than me'.
Then it dawned, only women can wield the dagger with such razor sharp wit.
Men can't do it like you just did.
I knew this old feminist when I was growing up. One of my mom's friends. She loved men. She demanded equal legal rights and Her Body, Her Choice. She always said, let me in, I have things to do. She had your razor sharp wit. She protected me from the 'loving men not so much' part of the crowd. Protected me in spectacular fashion. No one could best her.
Your post reminds me of those days.
Did you ever see Armageddon? 5 words Pluto.
Mighty damn glad to see ya here!
Gender Peace !
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
Sounds like he is lying using statistics.
I know, from my experience in classroom discussions, many people have difficulty understanding even the most basic of mathematics, and statistical techniques. So, convincing them of almost any stupid proposition is "a piece of cake". That was what made teaching a real challenge and once again a Garry Trudeau cartoon pops into my head, it's an old one, funny as hell, and the "punch line" is students will believe anything · · · if it is going to be on the exam.
I know nothing of this agent provocateur but I am very suspicious as my point of view is grounded in the reality of pay stubs, court actions, and corrective actions directly effecting me and my colleagues. On the other hand maybe it is only a problem in Nebraska.
I don't know the numbers involved
But anytime the argument involves numbers, I am interested, because we are working with data. You can do something with that.
In the human realm, the interpretation of data can be expanded. Intangibles can be commodified, like personal security, or satisfaction with an experience, or long-term outcome. Seems to me that's the wheel of the argument.
What no one talks about is the employer who sets the wages based on his perceived value of the worker. His decision to pay women less (or invest less in them) for the same job is the cause of the problem. The boss is either exploiting women for better profits, or he sees her as a greater risk with less reliable output.
Women blur the line between business bosses and male fellow-employees, blaming them both — instead of forming alliances with the men. That's where the trouble starts, in my opinion.
Divide and Conquer
The nice thing about an academic institution (where we are cooperating colleagues) as opposed to business venue (where we would be competing drones) is that it is easier to perceive the commonalities. At least that has been the pattern I have experienced in my time at this academic institution.
@Pluto's Republic The trouble
The trouble starts when any worker doesn't respond to the wage troubles of their fellow workers with sympathy and solidarity.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
no-fault divorce
Dingdingdingdingding!! Give CS in AZ a Marijuana! (I live in Colorado; I can say that!)
Amen again!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Calling something what it says it is is NOT opposing that thing
NO ONE, Not I, no poster, in this essay or thread, voiced ANY support of forced child birth. ZERO people.
But hey, I'm down, Amen?
Who is going to oppose easy out marriage for childless couples?
Children change the equation.
If your a woman in an abusive marriage, You're gonna get the kids. You have full freedom to leave.
If you're a man in an abusive marriage, you're most very likely to lose the kids, because you're not a woman. You must choose freedom, or kids.
Feminism may say, tough, deal with it and think they hold the moral heights. But let me suggest to you that that dingdingding you're hearing isn't the correct answer bell. It's the start of the next round and I think the gloves are coming off.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
@dennis1958 OK, can I speak to
OK, can I speak to this as a child who was in a family with an abuser?
The divorce was the best thing that ever happened to me. It saved my life.
The presence of children doesn't mean divorce should be harder. The determination of whether to have a divorce or not should be based on what the conditions are in the relationship. And that's assuming that it's right for the State to be able to award or deny divorces to people in the first place. One of my fundamental gripes with legal marriage has always been that I don't get what all these lawyers and priests are doing running around in what should be some of the most intimate private decisions of a person's life.
But I don't expect to get a lot of support for that view, because to Americans, legal marriage is sacred. More Puritanism, I guess.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Divorce for cause is not an issue....
No one should have to live with an abuser, drunk, addict. But divorce because "the thrill is gone", "I'm bored", "he takes me for granted", "I made a mistake because I was too you" is tough shit. If you divorce for this kind of bullshit and you have kids, you need to go out the door with nothing - no money, paycheck, kids, car, house or anything else. Getting married AND having children is like getting a dog. You made a commitment. You don't get rid of them because they shed hair on the furniture or didn't realize they would be so much work.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Processes are changing
Divorce is becoming more of a mediation process and less of a court process. This is a much more meaningful process, as it cuts out the kind of crap of which you speak.
Not to this American
Legal marriage is a contract. In the State of Oregon (back in the day at least) seven years of cohabitation triggered a de facto legal marriage, to account for the potential civil actions should a subsequent separation become contentious.
The various religious ceremonies are just "window dressing", the actual "marriage" is the signing of documents by the primaries and witnesses and can be done in a room with no other interested parties.
Puritanism
And like all other fruits of Puritanism, the legal construct known as "marriage" needs to be rooted out of the human race. It is obsolete, related to chattel slavery, and as a general rule is a source of only misery and hardship, accomplishing little or no good.
The rights and privileges currently afforded only through marriage should be transferred to simple adulthood, A.S.A.P.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@thanatokephaloides If you cut all
If you cut all the crap away, what most of it is really about is inheritance. So clean up inheritance law and make it clear as crystal: an owner (if we're still in a private property paradigm) has an absolute right to leave their stuff to whoever they want, or to nobody. The second thing it's about is health issues: if one partner is ill, comatose, or whatever, does the other partner have rights of visitation or health decision-making? I'd say that those issues should be addressed in a living will format, which should be something everyone is required to do at 18 (and has the option to change anytime they want, because one's views at 18 might not be the same as one's views at 68). Finally, it's about who gets to raise the children, if any. That part is complicated, because our policies on children in this culture are such an incredible clusterfuck that it would take a lot to disentangle the BS and put some life-affirming, humane policy in place. Would take more than a quick comment, which is all I've got time for now.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
cut the crap away
+1!!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
the same
All restriction on abortion is forced child birth. The available options here are: abortion on demand or forced child birth. There are no gray areas here. It's one or the other. No method of contraception is perfect, and humans use sex for other things than simple procreation -- a feature we share with many of our fellow primates. The resultant math provides exactly what I just stated.
And you did assault the concept of abortion on the sole demand of the woman:
To answer your question with respect to abortion on the sole demand of the woman, the answer is unequivocally yes. It is also basic humanity. The right of the woman to control her body, both before and after having sex, is the only consideration here. Whether you like it or not, all abortion restrictions constitute enforced pregnancy and in most cases, forced child birth. You certainly have the right to not like it; but it is and forever remains the way things are. No number of human beings can change this. It is the nature of the issue and will forever remain such.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I thought I had my thoughts on abortion well settled
But reading your thoughts on abortion in this thread, I find myself moving, much, much closer to becoming Pro-Life.
These kind of things have always troubled me greatly
Vs Guns
Vs War
It's like there's this evil, base, callous, selfish, narcissistic, sociopathy underlying all this.
Your words are helping me bring this into a renewed focus.
Please write more.
Thanks!
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
This really confuses me.
I would really like to understand how this thinking works, because it is so very outside my ability to process. How do you reach a state of mind wherein you can even have an opinion of someone else's decision on a matter of this magnitude? Or, how can you even think it is reasonable to think it is any of your business?
That's two easy questions
Is there a list of things that I (or anyone) is not allowed to have an opinion about?. If there were such a list (which there is not) I certainly would politely express what should be done with that list.
I live in this society. I'm part of this society. societies make rules for themselves on how to live together. If there's an issue on the rules of that society, then it involves me. And if I have a voice (or vote) in regard to these rules, it involves me even more. Currently, we are free to advocate and vote on issues of the day.
That's how our reality is, whether we like it or not. In some other (or hoped for) reality it may be different.
However, we're in this reality. Soo....
I don't plan on having a fight with the people here over abortion views.
I see no positive benefits in doing so.
I will say only this, (and I'll be part of no argument over this)
thanatokephaloides opened my eyes these last couple days. She advocates for the right to murder a full term child, a week from delivery, should she decide to, should her husband piss her off. Or for any flippant reason. Because that child hasn't escaped her body yet.
I'm not down with that.
You can scream and holler and attack me all you want to. Scream yourself hoarse for all I care. I won't argue this point. Nothing can be said that would allow me to be down with that.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
I see, I missed that part of the conversation.
I am interested in knowing the process by which someone would think they should have any say about someone else's private affairs.
I have heard individuals yell "No abortions ever you evil so-and-so" with absolutely no understanding of human biology, or concern for the well being of anyone. I am unable to understand that sort of mindset.
So, if your perception is that this is about someone that treats abortion as a trivial matter, I suppose I could say I understand your concerns. I have not met anyone that treats abortion as a trivial matter, so I would not share your point of view. And to be clear, comments via anonymous denizens of the internet count as zero content.
I expect my comments to be understood as originating from a real person as I am most certainly NOT anonymous.
Aww man .. PR ...
Almost all my of elders were teachers. So I'm going to try to answer your question out of respect for educators.
To start, I don't know what this means.
Or this
Getting on with it.
I actually already answered. I live in the society.
When you say, what process by? I think. What was my rationale, my internal logic. Are we talking different things?
If you're saying who the hell do you think you are? then
I'll again refer you back to the my being a member of our society.
We regulate all manner of private affairs currently PR.
Ya can't legally screw a goat for example. Screwing goats would a pretty personal, (and I hope) private thing I'd say. I'm not down with screwing goats, for the record.
Societies set rules that some times are a burden to private lives. That's actual real reality land. Not, wish it were so land.
Not, everything in life is fair land.
Abortion is one of the issues society has felt strongly enough about to make rules about.
I'm not here to win you over to a position PR but this statement makes me beg to ask? If you had met someone who treats abortion as a trivial matter,
Then you would share my point of view?
Wanna meet my ex-wife? Her doctor told her to find another doctor after her 5th abortion He wasn't helping her again. (Yes it tormented her, for years. She's more at peace now and the headaches have stopped. I'm glad for her for that.) The abortions happened before we met. I've conceived ONE child, in wedlock.
You miss two important points here I think.
1. This isn't about a person, this is about what the law allows.
2. Intellectual honesty needed here friend. If you can understand my concern IF there was a trivial player. What are you saying? That the act of killing that 1 week from delivery child is ok as long as the murderer has a concerned look on her face? but not ok if she's smiling? WHAT WHAT WHAT?
How do we define trivial?
My point good professor is that I can not, I will not, support a right to kill that 1 week from deliver child for whim, leisure or convenience. It's not less wrong if they're serious about it.
It's hard stuff, morally challenging and there is no good answer.
I'll support abortion with limits. I can live with the standards under Roe v Wade.
If my only option is to support unlimited abortion on demand which would mean acquiescing to the possibility of that murder of that 1 week from delivery child. Then I'm out. Then I'm pro-life.
I'll have to stand opposed to such a right.
We all have things we will not do.
thanatokephaloides has helped me find one of those things.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
Either you trust women, or you do not
and your ranting about "killing a healthy child 1 week from birth" (which is Extreme Right Wing horseshit - no rational woman does that, and no doctor would go along with it) shows that you DO NOT.
Very Nasty Things can happen 1 week, or even 1 day, from birth - but that's a medical emergency and an entirely different case. And in those cases you are almost certainly not dealing with a "healthy" child, but a dead one. (One of my closest friends had a much-desired and anticipated son strangle in his umbilical cord just about a week from birth. Yes this does happen.)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Of course there are emergencies, medical issues
That's why I worded this sentence the way I did
Which Is a right claimed in comments here.
Usually after this kind of argument you see 'And that proves you're a misogynist'. I won't say it was implied. Because I attempt to use intellectual honesty when dealing with others, as best as I am able.
At the heart of your personal feelings on abortion, is trust the core of it? Do you know that trust is at the core of mine?
If everyone was trustworthy, why would we need laws? Please don't argue that women are more trustworthy.
Is it just me TOM? Doesn't everyone do this? When someone asks for a new legal right, doesn't everyone with interest look at the law? Think about the outcomes, the loopholes, then if then but's. Test the extremes??
I do anyway. I hope to hell it's just not me.
When thinking about unlimited on demand abortion, which is a new legal right advocated by some here, I apply the same methods. The same if then but's. The same 'what does it mean' questions to the issue. Is it fair to say I try look at the issue logically?
If my example of a if, then, but, the 1 week from delivery child,
has been thought of and expressed by that gawdawful other peoples, then I am a gawdaful other people? Apparently.
I'm sorry they came up with the same kind of scenario, don't blame me, blame logic.
What is at the core of my personal feelings on abortion? Love, right and wrong and life.
I thinks it's fair to say that for most people abortion has moral issues.
For some it's on par with taking out the trash. (Ya, I know that wasn't as fair but not entirely inaccurate).
I think it's all soo horrible and sad, I really even don't want to think about it.
I don't hate women. I don't oppose on demand abortion up to birth as a legal right, because I hate women. It's because I'm a moral creature.
I don't criticize feminism in this essay because I hate women. It's because I'm a moral creature. And because I love women. Yes, that's right (how DARE he!) When you see someone you love doing stupid, foolish, harmful things do you stay silent?
And because I'm appalled at the treatment of men in our society.
When you see men suffering, do you look away? Because women have suffered more? Because history, nature, ... God?
eh .. Trust. I say, if people can't trust that men could be born, raised, grow, learn, love, experience life, form decisions, without it all being about the oppression of women and misogyny (or victimhood), if we disagree.
Then just kill us. Oh deciders of good and right, of life and death.
The Goddess is beyond criticism.
It's becoming insufferable.
There are reason why there are pro-life female liberals, none of them are the patriarchy.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
Please understand this:
Your opinion is YOUR OPINION. It is not a Law of the Universe, and should not be a Law of the State.
You have no right to force anyone else to conform to your opinion of how they should behave. And you can scream about it all you like, but that won't change a thing (other than causing other people to stop listening and tune you out).
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
right wing equine excreta
And it is crystal-clear he does not trust any woman.
Exactly. And stated far better than I could.
Gramercies!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
You ask what does this mean:
It means I have no clue if you are even a real person. When talking with real people I have yet to encounter anyone that has a flippant attitude concerning abortion. If I were to encounter such a person I would question their judgment and sanity. There are established protocols for dealing with such people. I have no reason to believe that a genocide or holocaust like slaughter of innocents is occurring at this time.
@dennis1958 This issue
This issue gives our society fits because we base our morality on two things: the god-given rights of a whole, separate, and intact person, distinguishable from all other people, and the idea of the contract.
A fetus is both its own being AND a part of the mother's body. The process of maturation (and eventually parturition) is its increasing ability to be distinguished from its mother's body and separable from it/her. We're fine as soon as it can be considered completely distinguishable and separable from her, and our ethics ticks along like clockwork (more or less). What it is prior to that, we have no concept for in our ethics, and so it does something roughly like this:
So people either trend toward the one or the other. And there's a deep, dark pit at your feet with either choice, and whichever pit frightens you the most is likely to be the pit you avoid, and the position you oppose. That's assuming that everybody is acting/talking in good faith, which of course is not always so. In this case, I'm currently assuming everybody is.
So, are you most afraid of murder or slavery? Which is more important to you, liberty or life?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I know a very good Assistant District Attorney
that would "beg to differ" with this:
I feel I am in the minority here. Hell, I even know some cops that are decent human beings. Maybe I shouldn't leave this bastion of sanity after all, the world you-all live in sounds scary. And, that is not funny!
In Kearney NE we are out of touch with Reality.
This place lags the coasts by several years, decades maybe. I am sure the "feminism" of which you speak exists, but I have yet to see it here. I travel, mostly to the Pacific NorthWest, and again I do not doubt your words, but I, personally, have yet to encounter anything that would suggest that I should not call myself anything other than a radical feminist. But to do so on this site invites disparaging retorts. Sigh, such is the nature of the world.
I could write lots of articles, but that would violate so many principles I hold dear, so if you believe me or not is of no consequence.
So, I will continue to be a radical feminist as I provide support for those women that are being oppressed in this location. If anyone here wishes to vilify me for my choices, I will try best to ignore your comments. Oh, and yes I still use the word "progressive" to identify my political tendencies.
Been in Kearney --
... fairly frequently, actually; and my primary memories involve --
Was out there working an irrigation project some years ago (CNPPID) -- hot in the summer; VERY cold in the winter. Glad that I now live in a place where MJ is legal
--
When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.
@PriceRip You get flack on this
You get flack on this site for being a radical feminist? Or for calling yourself one?
That's confusing. When did that happen? (honest question)
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I used that as a self descriptive term
and got a disparaging comment about same in response. I was rather surprised.
I am a radical feminist as far as some of my colleagues at UNK are concerned. You see I actually like and respect my female colleagues and students (aka, junior colleagues). In fact, some of "them" are actually more competent than some of "us", I know, I know, I am just a rogue, heretical, self-hating wimp.
Nebraska
In Anywhere, NE they're out of touch with Reality.
(I'm in regular contact with the only non-Rethug in Broadwater....)
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I know the location well.
It is on a "drive through" segment of the highway. But, I did stop for gasoline at the Broadwater Country Store a few weeks ago.
Broadwater, NE
Next time you're there, stop at the Library (Broadwater's Librarian is my ex) or watch for a Navy Veteran raising and lowering the town flags (he's the Librarian's husband, and knows me very well by both my "mundane" name and my userID which is the same here as at TOP). If you contact either, as they said in Shakespeare's day, "recommend me well unto them".
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
On my way to Oregon
As I type this I am at a motel in Cheyenne, WY. The largest U-Haul truck available sets outside containing most of my worldly possessions. I doubt I will be traveling through Broadwater NE again any time soon.
Your arguments don't seem
to make much sense, and I don't see a cohesive train of thought developed in this piece. This piece looks to me like it's mainly a word jello-salad with occasional chunks of 'men are really the oppressed ones' thought-burps from the 'Mens' Rights' ideology tossed in here and there.
Good thing I'm not a writer huh?
I'd get fired I'm sure.
You're probably right of course. The idea that feminism is hurting the left and women's rights is laughable on it's face. And truly further, men have problems? Cry me a river. The idea of men's rights? HAHAHAHA.
I see it now, thank you.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
@dennis1958 I think you need to
I think you need to consider that the concept of men's rights has suffered from the exact same thing that feminism is also currently suffering from: some terrible bad-faith actors doing some fairly shitty things.
I'm personally connected with people who do men's work, following Robert Bly, and certainly the idea of men, as human individuals, having rights is an assumption of that work. I see nothing wrong with any of that. But the men's rights movement is, in many places, something quite different, and just as loathsome in its way as the "feminism" of Hillary 2016.
I'd like to warn against the danger, here, of treating human rights the same way that we're encouraged to treat wages: one group struggling against another for a limited and steadily-shrinking pool. Nothing less than full human rights for everyone is acceptable.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
one group struggling against another
I used to get into arguments with some of the harder-core pseudo-feminists about that. They'd keep demanding that we ordinary male working stiffs were cheating them out of their rightful wages. Well, in essence, dennis1958 is now correct: ordinary working women now get the same wages as the men they work alongside. But was that done righteously, by raising the wages of the women to what the men were getting? Of course not! The equality was achieved by cutting the men's wages to what the women were getting, in nearly all cases! Truth be told, as a 1958 model myself, I've never worked anyplace where ordinary worker-bee men made more than the women working the same job. And yes, I'm painfully aware that this means my wages were pretty shitty too!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Yes, red flag flying.
What is the state of this human? Feminism may have morphed to a point that I don't recognize it. But we got screwed figuaratively for so long. Screw spelling, too. Worked my adult life, after grad school. Until at 57, boom, off by another woman. Two children, now adults in the workforce. Dead spouse. Fun. Not. Just getting by on my own, with my own mind. Graduated HS in 1971. A girl's school. Now co-ed.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Dennis, let's talk the Scarlet Letter.
Or maybe the whore that used her hair to wash Jesus' feet.
Or, perhaps men who are sluts and ho's. (That would be a very brief chat, no?)
Or, men who are raped by women. (Another really, really short chat.)
How about women earning maybe 80 cents on the dollar for the same work men do? Or less? I can't keep up with the measures.
What genitalia and or body part on a man is regulated by government? Or bodily function other than pissing or shitting in public? (Women breast feeding is so icky.)
Any reports from anywhere in the world that equates with genital mutilation of women being done to men to insure sex is NOT a pleasure?
Any reports on men being killed and burned because the little woman wants a newer, younger hunk husband? (India, perhaps?)
I thought the women's marches were co-opted by Shillary, who has about as much empathy to women of the county and the world as my hound dog, Blue Belle. (Bless her heart.)
Women in power and women in equality is apples and oranges.
Don't get your man panties in a wad over this.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
equality and power
Please don't deprecate Blue Belle so! Your noble pup knows altogether well about empathy with the women of the 99%! After all, is she not your dog, loyal and kind to you? She deserves far better than to be likened to Shillary!
One reason I try to avoid the term "bitch" when describing the likes of Shillary or Sarah Pain is that I have too much love and respect for female canids of all persuasions! I love puppies, and their mothers. Given a choice between Shillary/Sarah and a bitch, I will unhesitatingly choose the latter every time (and twice on Sundays)!!
And the Lemma of Lord North (power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely) is still a truism -- and a gender-independent one at that.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Lord Acton, not Lord North
Lord North was the stupid jerk who came up with the schemes for oppressing the Colonies in order to refill the British treasury for the cost of the Seven Years/French and Indian War. Maybe we would still be in the Dominion of North America if he and his colleagues hadn't been so stupid/greedy. And maybe that might not have been altogether a bad thing. But we'll never know.
Lord Acton was shrewd, witty, and deeply cynical, and belonged to the century after Lord North.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
oops.....
Got the wrong peer there, oops....
I knew the saying was coined as a reaction to the Papal Decree Pastor Aeternus, promulgated by Pius IX, establishing Papal infallibility with respect to faith and morals. Therefore, 19th Century. I get the Pope right every time, but sometimes glitch the British half of the event.
My apologies.
That Papal Decree paved the road for Paul VI's notorious Humanae Vitae, which is where this entire thread eventually hails from.
And those two Decrees, between them, will eventually render Christianity no more relevant than Scientology is, unless some Pope with a severe case of cojones has the nerve and the backing to yank Pastor Aeturnus as erroneous. Otherwise, there can be no reunification of the faith, as no Protestant or Orthodox communion will submit itself to its odious terms, and unless Christianity recovers a single faith-wide communion (i.e., all Christians recognizing all other Christians as Christians regardless of which community they belong to), it's going to see hurtin' days in the future. Divided, it will be conquered -- if nothing else, by the shrinking proportion of humanity that is theistic at all.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I agree
but speaking of genital mutilation, millions of baby boys have the foreskin removed from their penis (circumcised) in this country and elsewhere without their consent and for no good reason according to most medical organizations. A practice that needs to stop and should have never been started Imo.
@on the cusp @pro left Agreed. No effing
Agreed. No effing clue why religion just sort of gets its way on things like this.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It is the doctor's fault 100%
If the parent says, "No." the doctor is obligated to not snip. So either the parents are okaying the procedure, or the doctor is violating his oath.
It had its points when sanitation was less common
and it wasn't as easy to come up with clean water for washing every single nook and cranny. Nowadays that's less of an issue most places.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
It doesnt matter
if it was done for religious, hygienic reasons or doctors just padding the bill, it serves no purpose. The fact that it is still being practiced on infants is an atrocity. If an adult male wishes to have himself cut that's his business, but if that were the case I can just about guarantee that almost every swinging you know what will be uncut.
bunched up panties
Let us go to victim court
There we'll make our pleas
We surely have been wronged in life
And demand our victim fees
I'll tell them how you torment me
and how you've never been my friend
I'll tell them of my suffering
Since time itself began
You'll tell them of your burdens
And how I never was your friend
You'll cry out blood and death and toil
that never ever ends.
Yes we'll go to victim court
We'll make each other pay
One of us alone I'm sure
is sure to get our way
Walk with me to victim court
We can talk along the way
I fear we'll both be poorer
at the end of this long day.
What cost of retribution
can I pay to make this end.
All I ever wanted
was for you to be my friend.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
male genitalia regulations
None while Donald "Small Hands" Trump is President, I guar-on-tee!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
You are touching on a sensitive and divisive issue here.
The term "feminism" is a heavily loaded word, meaning a variety of different things to different people. In this respect it is like many current "isms" that are often more passionately debated than well understood.
During the past century or so, the entirety of "western" culture has undergone a sexual revolution that is without precedent, and we are still "feeling our way" through it, so to speak. Very pleasurably so, in many instances. And very painfully so, in many other instances.
In other words, our entire sexual paradigm, as it relates to the family and the accepted roles of male and female within it, has been turned on its head. To the extent that the whole moral and philosophical and religious justification for our traditional sexual orientation appears to be in danger of extinction.
Understandably, this has got a lot of people upset, including yours truly. Not to mention billions of devout Muslims and Christians. Thus the sexual revolution is also widely perceived to be an attack on fundamental religious values... which in fact it probably is.
I think we should be looking at "feminism", however that is defined, as being a part of a broad historical and sociological context. In the evolution of human society, the roles that men and women have assumed in relation to one another have been in many ways constant, but in other ways not. Evolving technology seems always to have been a major factor in determining the division of labor and the control of assets.
IMO your concern about "feminism" being a political force strong enough to overcome and usurp the authority of centuries of patriarchy is unwarranted. It's a bit of an over-reaction perhaps. I think women are just beginning to "feel their oats" now, as well they deserve, after many long years of secondary status at best, and abject subjugation at worst. I also think that most women are as yet very unclear about what they think their new role should be.
If we men really do love women (and what real man does not love women?) then it would behoove us to try to help them in this very challenging endeavor. If on the other hand we consider women to be our competitors rather than our helpmates, we are liable meet with stiff resistance.
native
I love your reply
Reasoned, thoughtful, honest. I had hoped for this kind of reply. (Not saying other replies are lesser here folks)
We are surely in a time of change.
I have a rule, a code.
You do your friends no favors by being blind to their faults.
It's what prompts me to dare write such criticism.
Rather than fearing some 'usurpation of authority', I fear a loss of rights via electoral losses.
In that same vein I ask, is bathing in male tears going to win elections?
Beyond elections, and way more importantly is how are we going to get along in these changing times.
Let me offer this. you speak wisely here
Is it no less wise if we were to replace 'men' with 'women' and 'women' with 'men'?
But what native? We can't turn that message around because of history?
We live in this day.
Regardless of the sins of our fathers I demand a right to say, 'You really should stop punching me in the face if you want to get along better, cause this ain't working for me'.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
I would say that yes, the proposition
is perfectly reversible. I'd also say that your essay is courageous, thought-provoking, and timely. Which is not to say that I agree with the whole of it.
native
And just think how many women said
just your last line to the many abusers back in the day while no one ever stopped punching her in the face. Boy, I get that you're super angry at women right now, and you make some good points about just how "far" feminism has gone, but you do seem inordinately obsessed by that wage gap you so like to pooh-pooh and that almost makes me feel that much of your screed is merely a personal rant of how you were victimized.
I'll add this - my mother got divorced in 1972. There was indeed a stigma on women who did that back then and while my father did pay child support, there were months when he too felt that was somehow unfair. I'll NEVER forget the visual of him finally showing up to write her a check after she'd bitched about it and his angry scrawl for a signature doing it. Made us kids feel oh so good. She could not even get a credit card in her own name for a couple of years after that divorce. Would you like us to go back to that? Why, then at least the man would have all the financial power, is that the goal here?
As for the remarks about no fault divorce and how some should be condemned for not sticking in a less than full on abusive situation, I think its VERY easy to sit in judgment of others when you have NO clue about their lives. So easy to sit on the outside and criticize while feeling somehow morally superior. Republican perhaps?
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Women and credit in 1972
Your mother would have had trouble getting a credit card in her name in 1972, no matter what the circumstances. Back then, it was uncommon and difficult for a woman to be extended credit or granted a loan, either secured or unsecured, without having a man co-sign for her. It didn't matter whether she was married, divorced, or single. It didn't matter whether she was employed with a good income.
And if a married couple applied for a loan, the woman's income would not be counted. It was assumed that she would most likely get pregnant and leave her paying job.
Such was the state of affairs in 1972.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
This is very true
I was also divorced from my unemployed husband in 1972. I was the one working and could not get a credit card in my own name either. I was told that I might get pregnant and not be able to make my payments. So our joint credit card and credit history which my money maintained went with him.
A lot of younger people here do not understand just how recent history is in giving women equal access to credit and pay.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Yes, thank you
Yes, thank you. This is exactly what I see going on.
I'll add, for millennia, in most cultures, women have been required (forced? expected? it's just how things are, and woe be to any woman who dared to act differently?) to always put other people's needs before their own. Especially men's needs. In many cultures today, they still are.
Asking us, after only a few decades of beginning to emerge, to squash ourselves back into that cage ... no, no, no. It's not reasonable to ask us to do that. I don't think human evolution would support us going back into the cage.
What it means to be human is changing. IMO this is part of it. So is the emergence of being LGBT as a matter of normal life. It's happening. This is where we (ALL humans, not just women) are in the process of it happening.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Very true, all of what you say.
Yet I think we should be careful, in a political sense, to avoid attacking too dogmatically communities and cultures and people that are very firmly rooted in tradition. Deep cultural transformations can take several, or even many generations for communities to be fully acclimatized to a new paradigm. Patience, respect, and tolerance of this slow pace of evolution can help a great deal in easing the pain of it all.
I do not agree with the Leftist program of attacking American traditionalists as if they represented the Devil incarnate. In many if not most cases, these are thoroughly decent people whose social environment precludes the possibility of entertaining any viewpoint other than the one that is locally recognized. There is no need to declare them morally deficient, or even inferior to our more "progressive" selves.
I think that politics and politicians in general often tend to divide people far more than is necessary, natural, or desirable, exacerbating conflicts and exaggerating differences for the sake of private advantage.
native
Karpman Drama Triangle
We do seem to be in an accelerated phase of human evolution right now. It's not clear to me how much taking it slow and easy we're going to be able to do, especially given the state of the planet.
That said, have you heard of the Karpman Drama Triangle? It is a Transactional Analysis model of dysfunctional interaction among people, in which the roles played by each person keep switching from victim to rescuer to persecutor, ad infinitum.
Since it's dysfunctional, it's not a constructive way of relating or of mutual, cooperative creation. It just perpetuates the pain, drama and destruction. From what I can see, it's pretty common nowadays. (Seems we're living in a sea of dysfunction.)
It seems to me that part of what's happening here, which Dennis is sensing and describing, may be that dysfunctional "victim becomes persecutor" switcheroo. Replace one set of persecutors and victims with another.
As a progressive, I don't think that's where we're wanting to go. Historically, we've had a matriarchies, we've had patriarchies. Seems to me we need to advance to something new, a world more cooperative, inclusive and holistic. Not just with regard to gender, but all aspects of human life, everyone.
www.karpmandramatriangle.com/articles.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Good thinking there, Centaurea.
native
I call it the Gender Peace movement
No one wants my mailing list yet.
I feel compelled to tell you (that's a man thing, feeling compelled) that,
Your post and Natives input here have brought actual real tears to my eyes. (not enough to fill a bath or anything. I am kind of manly after all. it's only like one tear per post).
I feel relieved actually. I knew there were people here who would 'get it' even if I'm a bad writer. If I dared to try.
2018 is right around the corner.
Demonizing men most likely won't win elections going forward for awhile me thinks.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
to be human: it's changing
No "IMO" about it. It's fact. That your worldview aligns and agrees merely shows us that you're sane.
And humanity's not going back.
We can plainly see the fruits of the unfiltered Abrahamic views of sex, gender, etc., in the cradle of the Abrahamic religions today. (Yes, I know the USA's fertilized the living crap out of that ground, but the planting of the crop goes back before Moses.)
And we don't want any of it. We refuse to live that way any more.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
we are liable.....
..... to fuck all of ourselves over quite seriously!
United we stand; divided we fall!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
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