Anti-male Sexism

While typing a response in the "Pregnant parking spots" thread, i got sidetacked into a pet peeve of mine. (so sidetracked that my post is probably a load of crap).

This peeve is as the title of this thread sugggests. Anti-male sexism. Two relatively recent examples from the sporting world.....the awarding of equal prizemoney to female tennis players as men and the circus around the female American golfer Michelle Wie taking part in a men's tournament.

In the tennis example, why should ladies tennis get just as much prizemoney when the men's tennis is a) much more popular than the women's, b) attracting a larger amount of sponsorship, c) more physically demanding and d) on for a lot longer than the womens (in terms of sets).

In the golf fiasco, mizz Wie took part in a men's tournament, and therefore took the place of a male golfer in that tournament and thus deprived him of the potential to make a living. It was also one of the less successful men, lower down in the rankings, and this prizemoney would mean a lot more to him than her.....(maybe even the difference between making it as a pro and fading into obscurity). The fact that she's good enough shouldn't come into it. 90% of the men would be good enough to play on the women's tour, but if one of them tried to enter, they'd be lambasted. And rightly so.

If they didn't have a women's tour, it would be understandable but they do have one. It was nothing other than a media circus.

I think Michael Moore wrote about a Feminism club in his college years ago, with female only membership. He objected, citing discrimination as a reason. The dean of the college dismissed him, until he set up a Chauvinism club that attracted huge membership. There was uproar, and eventually both clubs were disbanded.

So why is Feminism socially acceptable and Chauvinism is not?

P.S......I actually prefer to watch women's tennis, but that's cos i'm a chauvinistic pervert.


Edit: What would happen if a man tried to enrol in the Women's mini-marathon? (Rss O'Carroll Kelly style)

Collie D

Men do enter in the women's mmini-marathon, usually in drag, bar a couple of token competitive entrants it's more about fun and charity so nothing barring men from it, I do agree about the Wimbledon thing though,

It's just people being a hypocrite. I mean it's exactly the same as black people being extraordinarily racist. We'll never be equal- man or woman, black or white, dog or cat, we'll never be the same. It's not in our nature.

Alter-Ego

We never should have given them the vote.:)

I've only just noticed the other gender-based threads. I didn't even know it was womens day or whatever.

Am........Am i subconsciously getting in touch with my feminine side?.....Am i having my period?

So Glad

Down with this sort of thing....

connundrum

It's been in favour of men for ever, for the next while it will swing in favour of women, and in 2030 +/- it will even out.

I'll stick a quid on it.

Feral Mutant

So Glad wrote:

Down with this sort of thing....

Careful now.

Bean_Ghrinn

Deleted User wrote:

Edit: What would happen if a man tried to enrol in the Women's mini-marathon? (Rss O'Carroll Kelly style)

You would end up chasing the girls!

maxi-twist

Deleted User wrote:

In the tennis example, why should ladies tennis get just as much prizemoney when the men's tennis is a) much more popular than the women's, b) attracting a larger amount of sponsorship, c) more physically demanding and d) on for a lot longer than the womens (in terms of sets).

They had that in the paper,with equal earnings in the games up to the final Amelie Mauresmo would earn 24,000 more an hour than roger federer.Kinda bent.

Talliesin

Thank you Feminists, for reducing the amount of stereotyped and artifically-roled behaviour influencing how men are expected to live our lives.

Thank you Feminists, for enabling us to meet with friends of either sex throughout our youths without a chaperone.

Thank you Feminists, for enabling us to have sexual relationships with any other adult with only that person having the legal right to say prevent it.

Thank you Feminists, for a world were sex as play, rather than as duty or as exploit or as hidden vice, is allowed to us.

Thank you Feminists, for touch. For our society allowing us to be more tender with our loved ones.

Thank you Feminists, for enabling us to legally purchase barrier contraception and for our female lovers to legally obtain oral contraception (a right that will soon apply direct to us men too).

Thank you Feminists, for enabling us to have a life-partnership with any other adult, no matter what sex they are.

Thank you Feminists, for enabling us to interview the best candidates for a job we can get, rather than just the best men.

Thank you Feminists, for creating the resources; legal, psyciatric and medical, that we men can make use of if we're victims of sexual assault.

Thank you Feminists, for probably at least 10 years onto our life-expectancy. Probably more.

And that's before all the things that Feminists have thought for alongside their brothers outside of Feminist causes per se. In the joking about suffrage we're forgetting that not only do women now have the vote, but men in the North have the vote even if they don't own property, as just one example of something that Feminists helped fight for.

After all. It's not as if the whiney maggots who complain because once in a blue moon something isn't stacked in their favour would have done it.

brianthebard

I think you should be thanking the men who started WWI-if it wasn't for them feminism at the turn of the 20th century would never have been able to getyou all that stuff.

Bean_Ghrinn

Talliesin wrote:

Thank you Feminists,

You're welcome?

Kinetic^

Feral Mutant wrote:

Careful now.

Or else what exactly? The ****ing douche bags can let us have nothing..........nothing!!!!!!! We can't even have a damn golf club to ourselves without you moaning about it :rolleyes:

Peter Collins

Deleted User wrote:

Two relatively recent examples from the sporting world.....the awarding of equal prizemoney to female tennis players as men and the circus around the female American golfer Michelle Wie taking part in a men's tournament.

If you want to see the upside of this merging of sexes in sport, check out this video of Katherine Legge, English Champ Car driver in US, where women in motorsport is common:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGk16hK5IFE

She should get paid MORE!

But she is one of only a few exceptions. Pus, there is no "women only Nascar" so to ban her would be discriminatory.

brianthebard

Nascar? Shere you just hold the wheel to one side, there's no skill there! Any gobsheen could do it! And does, come to that...

thelordofcheese

Hey now, this years Nascar Daytona 500 ended in absolute carnage with one brave soul crossed the finish line upsidedown and his car on fire.... best ending to 500 laps of mind melting boredom ever. More sports should end with people upsidedown and on fire.

jor el

brianthebard wrote:

Any gobsheen could do it! And does, come to that...

Ah, but could a female gobsheen do it? To that end, is a female gobsheen a gobshette?

So a woman played in a golf game, depriving some poor man of an income, boo hoo. Perhaps he should get a real job.

Peter Collins

jor el wrote:

Ah, but could a female gobsheen do it? To that end, is a female gobsheen a gobshette?

So a woman played in a golf game, depriving some poor man of an income, boo hoo. Perhaps he should get a real job.

Champcar, not NASCAR

Different sport.

Nevyn

For every girl who is tired of acting weak when she is strong,
there is a boy tired of appearing strong when he feels vulnerable.

For every boy who is burdended with the constant expectation of knowing everything,
there is a girl tired of people not trustng her intelligence.

For every girl who is tired of being called over-sensitive,
there is a boy who fears to be gentle, to weap.

For every boy for whom conpetition is the ony was to prove his masculinity,
there is a gurl who is called unfeminine when she competes.

For every girl who throws out her tea set,
there is a boy who wishes to find one.

For every boy struggling not to let advertising dicate his desires,
there is a girl facing the ad industry's attack on her self estime.

For every girl who takes a step toward her liberation,
There is a boy who find the way to freedon a little easier.

A lot of people ( both male and female ) don't understand the history behind
the changes in our society.
We are not taught how we got to here, how long it took and why changes started to happen and how much has already happen and what still needs to be done.

It is far from perfect, it maybe better then it was but there is still a lot of work we need to do as people to make the changes to how things are.

Women's rigths, father's rights, gay rights are all human rigths.

thebman

Talliesin wrote:

Thank you Feminists, for enabling us to interview the best candidates for a job we can get, rather than just the best men.

Right, that's nonsense. Most companies will hire a woman over a man if there are none/few women in a department for fear of being accused of being sexist. The best candidate doesn't always get the job, never has and never will.

tba

Sexism has always existed much like racism.

Feminism is a hardcore meaning that has been corrupted to be a buzzword by people who think that it is a movement, its simply a desire for the same opportunities not treatment.

To be fair most women don't want to do certain things, but they certainly don't want to be banned from doing it.

The case of the sports is a good example, I assume to get into the "mens" golf tournament Michelle Wie didn't simply have to be a woman, she can play golf, but did she earn a place in the competition that wasn't a result of her genes? By all means she should not been prevented from competing in the quailifiers for major tours, but she shouldn't be flung in the deep end if she can't swim.

That's sexism, giving somebody an opportunity they did not earn because of their gender.

If practices like this continue then boys in secondary school will be given more points so that a few boys can get 600 points in the leaving certificate.

dr.bollocko

Women's rights had its numerous champions, such as the suffragette movement, many others. The gay rights movement has its champions too, but the fathers rights movement has been thoroughly demonised by the media. Fathers 4 Justice are seen as nothing more than a terrorist organisation, not worthy of a voice or to be listened to. Perhaps they are. But since their series of stunts pushed the issue of fathers rights to access to children to the media, nothing has changed. The hullabaloo has died down, and the media or the government has done nothing to improve the plight of fathers rights to have access to a child.
But when we look at this further. we see similarities between how the Fathers 4 Justice movement IS viewed and how the suffragette movement WAS viewed at the time of its inception, merely a silly voice of disquiet to be silenced. The world has not moved on that much. We are just varying whats accepted and what isn't. Its merely accepting the illusion to think that the pattern of pointless human hatred is not cyclical, always varying, never ceasing.


***Ninja edit.

Slow Motion

There are a couple of things going on here, as mentioned in another thread there is the issue of positive discrimination, being given an unfair advantage because of the accident of birth, whether that relates to your gender or ethnicity, there is also the issue of equal rights, as long as you have positive discrimination you cannot have equal rights and I think this is a case of minorities / oppressed people getting recognition and then the more radical elements of said group swinging the balance to the other side. There are also traditional elements of our society that assist the swing of this balance, a simple example of this would be the single father issue as was briefly mentioned above, a separated / divorced man has to leave his home and his kids simply because of gender with no thought given to whether he is the better parent or not. Then there are (to my mind) some blatant examples of minorities being racist but no-one mentioning it, like the proverbial elephant in the corner, take the Black Music awards, I wonder what people would say if a White music awards was launched ? Anyway that’s my 2cent.

SM

Edit P.S. sorry for going a little off topic but i think the issues are related

NutJob

Deleted User wrote:

But she is one of only a few exceptions. Pus, there is no "women only Nascar" so to ban her would be discriminatory.

Not yet but women are making there way very successfully into many other forms of motorsport and have been for a long time.

E.g Michelle Mutton

As for the golf club argument no one said golf was a mens club did they.

edit: since when was nascar a motor sport (only in America)

mawk

aah sexism and feminism are topics that grind my gears.

i mean.. if you can compete on a level footing. well for ya.

women shouldnt bitch and moan because they cant compete in mens heavyweight boxing. nor should they complain that that is discrimination. just fact. and yeah thats obviously a heavy handed example, but it stands to everything. And if some ladytype could genuinely hammer Shannon Briggs or Lennox Lewis in the ring; that would be fine. who'd give a ****?

its when women demand special treatment AND equal recognition then i get pissed off.

Standing on a soapbox yelling that your just as good as me only tells me that you dont believe yourself.

if you did then you wouldnt need to tell me.

jesus dont get me wrong, im not saying chauvenism is good, but i just see that feminism is more right by screaming "women are equal! more equal than men!"


ah ill put together a more coherent argument later. im not awake enough yet

super_furry

thelordofcheese wrote:

More sports should end with people upsidedown and on fire.

It would certainly improve tennis.

Wibbs

Talliesin wrote:

Thank you Feminists, for reducing the amount of stereotyped and artifically-roled behaviour influencing how men are expected to live our lives.

We're getting there, but we have a long way to go. The stereotypes seem to be still very strong. Sure there is lip service, but the explosion of anorexia in young women, suggests that all too many stereotypes exist

Thank you Feminists, for enabling us to meet with friends of either sex throughout our youths without a chaperone.

More like getting the religion out of our noses. Feminism would be a part sure. Though there are many parts of the world where this is still sadly not the case.

Thank you Feminists, for enabling us to legally purchase barrier contraception and for our female lovers to legally obtain oral contraception (a right that will soon apply direct to us men too).

Good one

Thank you Feminists, for enabling us to interview the best candidates for a job we can get, rather than just the best men.

In an ideal world maybe. There's still a lot of discrimination, sometimes against men as well as women.

Thank you Feminists, for probably at least 10 years onto our life-expectancy. Probably more.

I'm pretty much with you up to here. I think you'll find sanitation, antibiotics, immunisation have far more relevance than feminism.

You can also thank world war 2. Without it and all the women working in the factories when the men were away, anything like the equality we see today may have taken much longer to take hold.

Wibbs

Thaedydal wrote:

Women's rigths, father's rights, gay rights are all human rigths.

Ain't that the truth.

Wibbs

Slow Motion wrote:

There are also traditional elements of our society that assist the swing of this balance, a simple example of this would be the single father issue as was briefly mentioned above, a separated / divorced man has to leave his home and his kids simply because of gender with no thought given to whether he is the better parent or not.

That's a biggie. The automatic assumption by the courts that the woman is the better parent. I've seen this up close and personal with a friend of mine. He was by far the better parent(and not cause he was a mate either). His ex even thought so, but she got the house and the kids on the back of the divorce. Even with obvious signs of lack of care from her, it took years before he had the kind of access he wanted. She still has primary custody too. It's only my suspicion, but if the genders were reversed he would have been in far more trouble for doing half of what she did or didn't do.

Slow Motion

Wibbs wrote:

I've seen this up close and personal with a friend of mine. He was by far the better parent(and not cause he was a mate either). His ex even thought so, but she got the house and the kids on the back of the divorce. Even with obvious signs of lack of care from her, it took years before he had the kind of access he wanted. She still has primary custody too. It's only my suspicion, but if the genders were reversed he would have been in far more trouble for doing half of what she did or didn't do.

Ditto, In the case of two good friends of mine, one had to bring his ex to court just to get the right to see his kid on Christmas day, even though it was HIS access day as previously aggreed in court, the judge said "ah sure but a child should be with his mammy on Christmas morning, you can see him for an hour in the afternoon". WTF ? This is the attitude of our leagal system towards fathers, he had spent 4 years and thousands in legal fees to get the right to see his son on a regular basis and not just when she felt like it and then had the agreed upon rules arbitrarily changed. :mad:

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

r3nu4l

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Agreed.
Television adverts where men are portrayed as stupid or sex objects are as wrong as those portraying women as the same. If you can't have one, you shouldn't have the other. Just because for many eyars women were portrayed as ditzy, unintelligent beings does not mean it is now right (or funny) to portray men as such.

Again, this is gender discrimination, not clever at all.

Plissken1

All adverts are geared towards women, but you can't really have a go at the advertising firms, because women are more likely to buy crap they see advertised on TV, so it makes good business sense. They are more gullible when it comes to the unrealistic dreams of advertising. Although I always think its interesting how its ok for a woman to be violent and not a man, even in adverts.

NutJob

r3nu4l wrote:

Agreed.
Television adverts where men are portrayed as stupid or sex objects are as wrong as those portraying women as the same. If you can't have one, you shouldn't have the other. Just because for many eyars women were portrayed as ditzy, unintelligent beings does not mean it is now right (or funny) to portray men as such.

Again, this is gender discrimination, not clever at all.

maybe we should protest more about being portrayed this way

Wibbs

TBH I reckon protesting because you feel oppressed by some dumb ads portrayal of men would be a bit silly. It would make us look like poor little dears. Water of a ducks back myself.

brianthebard

That's why there will never be a men's movement-half the men will want to do it, half will tell them to suck it up, and it all end down the pub.

nesf

brianthebard wrote:

That's why there will never be a men's movement-half the men will want to do it, half will tell them to suck it up, and it all end down the pub.

That pretty much exactly sums it up imho.

tba

pint?

BrianD3

About 2 weeks ago in the Sunday Times main section there was a ridiculously sexist article. It was bascially about how much better women are at.....everything...than men are. Eg women are so much better academically than us stupid men yet in the workplace the poor women get paid less by their penis wielding oppressors. It went on to say that men have 5 times more car crashes than women (from what I've read before women actually have more crashes but men have more expensive crashes) Then at the end of the article it was stated that women are apparently "genetically superior" to men.

Imagine the outcry if a similar article was written but instead of pointing out the "limitations" of men it pointed out "limitations" of women, blacks, Jews, gays, the disabled, Muslims, travellers etc.

Wibbs

BrianD3 wrote:

About 2 weeks ago in the Sunday Times main section there was a ridiculously sexist article. It was bascially about how much better women are at.....everything...than men are.

Yeah well if you look around you, the vast majority of the technology you use, your car, your PC, your phone, the music you listen to, the literature that you read, the science the arts, the religions people belong to, the clothes you wear, etc. has been invented/designed/built by men.* So don't sweat the small stuff.

Seriously, though I would be worried about myself if the opinion of some "journalist" with an axe to grind got me going. Storm in a herbal teacup really.

* there's always the bombs and stuff too, but hey nobody's perfect.

Talliesin

Wibbs wrote:

Yeah well if you look around you, the vast majority of the technology you use, your car, your PC, your phone, the music you listen to, the literature that you read, the science the arts, the religions people belong to, the clothes you wear, etc. has been invented/designed/built by men.

Most of the music I listen to was made by women.
I'd say they wrote about 40% of the literature I read.
They make most clothing in the world (how did you even get that one if you, with a few exceptions [haute couture, bespoke tailors] clothing-manufacture has traditionally been "women's work").
Women had a lot of influence in the development of the PC (programming was "women's work" for a while too).
Doreen Valiente, Dafo and Maxine Sanders might well have had even more input into the religion I belong to as Gerard Gardner and Alex Sanders. It's hard to say, and the balance was probably with Gerard and Alex, but they certainly had a lot of input.

You need better examples than those.

Talliesin

dr.bollocko wrote:

the fathers rights movement has been thoroughly demonised by the media. Fathers 4 Justice are seen as nothing more than a terrorist organisation, not worthy of a voice or to be listened to.

I think that's deeply unfair to terrorists. Some terrorists have been in a situation where they genuinely had no option but to take up arms. I'm not saying violence and vandalism should be anything but last resort, but it has happened that that last resort has done some good (you are comparing the father's rights movement to the women's and gay liberation movements, and I do think acts of vandalsim like Pankhurst's helped the women's movement at the time and the violence of the Stonewall Riots helped the gay movement probably more than any single event in modern history).

Fathers 4 Justice are just a bunch of self-serving whiney attention-seekers whose high-ranking members includes a man who engages in publicity stunts to fight for access to a child of his and yet never visits another child he has access to.

As a single father, every time I see some Fathers 4 Justice gobsheen scaling a building I hope he falls off.

Wibbs

Talliesin wrote:

Most of the music I listen to was made by women.

It's not just you though. I said most of the music the world listens to has been and is composed, played and produced by men.

I'd say they wrote about 40% of the literature I read.

Again that's you and fair enough, but if you look around today and back through history the vast bulk of what passes for literature has been authored by men.

They make most clothing in the world (how did you even get that one if you, with a few exceptions [haute couture, bespoke tailors] clothing-manufacture has traditionally been "women's work").

They do make it, but who designs it in most cases? Just because some poor lassie who works herself to the bone, it doesn't make her part of the fashion industry. Who heads up most of the companies and design houses?

Women had a lot of influence in the development of the PC (programming was "women's work" for a while too).

They did, especially during the very early stages and indeed there have been and are notable women in that field. The list is long, but compared to the men involved?

Doreen Valiente, Dafo and Maxine Sanders might well have had even more input into the religion I belong to as Gerard Gardner and Alex Sanders. It's hard to say, and the balance was probably with Gerard and Alex, but they certainly had a lot of input.

As a religion Wicca would have far more female involvement than most. I'd be surprised if it wasn't the majority involvement. Maybe that's me though, I've met many Women Wiccan, but only two men. Again though the fact remains that men are in the majority in all the other faiths in positions of power, etc. Don't personally think that's right, but there you go.

You need better examples than those.

Only if you take one sample, your good self. In any event it was a flippant jokey remark.

Laslo

Eh... aren't human beings generally wildly different, regardless of gender?

nesf

Laslo wrote:

Eh... aren't human beings generally wildly different, regardless of gender?

Yes, but also the species has a nasty preference of simplification through drawing broad and general lines in order to define groups and the properties thereof.

Plissken1

BrianD3 wrote:

About 2 weeks ago in the Sunday Times main section there was a ridiculously sexist article. It was bascially about how much better women are at.....everything...than men are. Eg women are so much better academically than us stupid men yet in the workplace the poor women get paid less by their penis wielding oppressors. It went on to say that men have 5 times more car crashes than women (from what I've read before women actually have more crashes but men have more expensive crashes) Then at the end of the article it was stated that women are apparently "genetically superior" to men.

Imagine the outcry if a similar article was written but instead of pointing out the "limitations" of men it pointed out "limitations" of women, blacks, Jews, gays, the disabled, Muslims, travellers etc.

"genetically superior" ??

How come the women I work with are always out sick ? and when they are in they are always complaining that they maybe "coming down with something" ?

its a funny old world

Mushy

Must agree with the OP here, it just one of those annoying, small little things. I should go into the All-Ladies gym near my school and ask can I use it. If they say no, tell them its sexist. Plus for the fact that theres a big banner outside the place, advertising it as a Female-only gym, surely that shouldnt be allowed?

Imagine the outcry if a similar article was written but instead of pointing out the "limitations" of men it pointed out "limitations" of women, blacks, Jews, gays, the disabled, Muslims, travellers etc.

Exactly!

Villaricos

This whole thing is quite interesting but I think what people forget when they get caught up in this argument is the basic fact that women and men are different. Shocker I know but think about that for a second...

We are in now in a position in society that women are coming out the other side of being the discriminated gender but I dont like the whole equality thing in some senses because women and men arent exactly equal. I know thats a tad controversial but thats because I think society hasnt evolved to a point where we know where women stand and what their role is just yet. Ok its no longer tied to the kitchen sink but where is it? women are only just finding their way in a lot of senses and the whole thing has to play out over time.

Unfortunately this puts men in an awkward spot as there is now a certain double standard in society such as fathers being discrimenated against in access to children. I really think this is a serious issue but its a result of it no longer being ok to do anything that could be viewed as discriminatory at against women.

but society is ever evolving, these are the issues we are dealing with at the moment, hopefully we will evolve into some real equal standing for both genders some day

dublinario

Villaricos wrote:

Unfortunately this puts men in an awkward spot as there is now a certain double standard in society such as fathers being discrimenated against in access to children. I really think this is a serious issue but its a result of it no longer being ok to do anything that could be viewed as discriminatory at against women.

Agreed. In its fervour to redress the inequalities suffered by women, society has overshot the mark (thanks in no small part to the brainlessness prevalent in much of feminist dogma) and created a whole new set of inequalities toward men. The louder these hairy dykes (just kidding!) scream, the more intolerantly PC the climate becomes for men, and this is evidenced in a number of areas e.g.,

- as mentioned numerous times in this thread, parenting rights and family law is hugely biased toward mothers
- one poster briefly touched upon gender-based academic disparity. For a long time now, women have consistently outperformed men in the educational arena. If the opposite was true, there would be outcry, studies and programs to correct the issue. Because men are the sufferers of this imbalance, nobody gives a sh*t, and the differential is lazily ascribed to a pathetically anecdotal stagger between the relative ages of maturity in the sexes.
- men are overwhelmingly the committers of suicide in Ireland and the UK. The problem still gains little attention, in comparison to problems of similar mortality rates, such as road carnage. If the stats showed women to be the majority suicide victims, this issue would have be at the vanguard of political discourse.

In general, loud feminists annoy me. They aren't true egalitarians: they concern themselves with the furtherance of only one half the world's population's rights, often causing direct erosion to the other half's, which doesn't concern them at all.