Discrimination against Men

I'll open up by saying that I am grateful that feminism enabled me to go to college and have more choices now. I feel that women nowadays have equal rights overall whereas historically we were very much the underdog, we can thankfully wave those days goodbye. Sadly though I do think that the pendulum has swung too far and that feminism of today is hurting men and women.

I feel men do suffer some aspects of discrimination and I feel that a lot of men do not help themselves, although this thread is a positive step in the right direction.

In the area of childcare and parenting men are largely discriminated, the courts tend to favour the mother over the father, men as parents have less rights and this is discrimination. A stay at home Dad is looked down upon by some women, and a figure of ridicule by some men, attitudes around this need to change, espicially now there is the recession where more men are unemployed and their wives are the main breadwinners. Parenting manual, courts, etc should recognise that either the mother or father can be the main carer. I'd like to see changes in this area.

The other area men are badly discriminated is in the criminal courts, espicially in relation to sex crimes, for instance a woman teacher who seduces an underage boy tends not to be sent to prison or receive as stiff a sentence. Women who sexually abuse on the whole tend to have shorter prison sentences.

The way men are portrayed in adverts is sickening and sexist, I hate male bashing jokes or anything else that is derogatory towards men, so if I see this going on in an advert I won't buy their product.

I think men need to help themselves out more, they need to take responsibility for their health, parental issues, education and so forth and swing into action like feminists did previously. If women get a bit scared it is because we are afraid that men might try to put us back in the dark ages but that is a fear we have to overcome. I would like to see true equality between the sexes, that we are human first, and male and female second. I hate all this division stuff of men are this and women are that. I think patriarchy and matriarchy are dangerous ideologies because they confine both sexes into fixed and rigid roles. I'd like to see more fluidity and this can only be realised if we change policies, laws, literature, adverts and culture to show that men and women can either be full time parents, or full time workers, or whatever.

nouggatti wrote: »

GIven that section 4 b states that
( b ) penetration (however slight) of the vagina by any object held or manipulated by another person.
[GA]

would that not supercede the earlier act and potentially include the offence of woman on woman rape as rape? Sorry, am being very pedantic here, but as later acts tend to supercede previous, that's a technical crime of rape by a woman? Feel free to correct me.

It does however preclude the idea that a woman can rape a man.

On the subject of education, for years it's been proven that girls perform better in mixed classes than boys do, and with the trend towards coeducation in recent times, that is going to have an impact.

Yes according to section 4, a woman could rape a woman, however the point i was trying to make is that a woman cannot be charged with the rape of a man.

I know we're going slightly OT but just to add - I started 1st year Science (Omnibus entry) in UCD in 2004 (jaysus I feel old ) and the Maths requirement was a B3 in *Ordinary* level.

While different courses will have a greater emphasis on Maths, I'd imagine the C3 at higher level requirement hasn't been around for a long time.

The Corinthian wrote: »

Whether because of its cosmetic or, supposed, sexual benefits, I suspect you'd still get plenty doing it - there's guys who happily get a steel bar put through their penis out there, not to mention all the body alterations that women volunteer for.

Touche!
You are of course, perfectly correct!