A different form of sexism

The Corinthian wrote: »

Where one stands and the actual reality are two different things, and unfortunately we must live in the latter World.

There is a limit to what an individual can do, especially where the cards are already stacked against them. You may see organizing as simply creating a splinter group, but what else would you suggest - join with feminism which is often positively hostile twoards many men's rights? Or what? All ears.

You could always work from the inside as a double agent. :pac:

Seriously though, once you start thinking that individuals don't have the means to change what they don't like, even if just a little bit, then you are building barriers in your own head. There was an article in psychology today about this in relation to women a couple of months ago, but I have forgotten the title and can't find it now. I will see if I can try to find it again. It's worth looking at.

Feminism or women's rights activists have been working on things for over a century. Things take time,sometimes longer than a few lifetimes. And those are in countries that are open to change and reform, nevermind a country that introduced divorce fairly recently.

But again, I'm an abberation and look at things more issue based. The right to vote for example was obscured by making it a gender issue, when in fact it was also a class, race and property issue. On top of that, being generally nervous about adopting blanket ideologies, whichever ones they may be.

And Im not a particular fan of post 1960s feminism so I would hardly be one of masculinism either.

You haven't been specific about what discriminatory laws you want to see changed, given the topic of this thread, do you mean to say the right not to get fined if you solicit a prostitute because are mostly men who would be vulnerable to this punishment? Can you not see how that could be argued to also be a misandrist angle?

There's a lot to talk about in what you posted.

I assume you are talking about an Irish context here.

Marriage and cohabitation. Let's start with that one. No one is forced to get married, that is a choice and unlike women once upon a time, men are not dependant on marriage for livlihood. It's hard for me to take that seriously as a point of oppression. Now with gay marriage issue, when I hear of so many men wanting to get married, I thought it might be the apocolypse. :)The broader question might be, though radical, why is there marriage in the first place? What place does the state have in relationship?

Cohabitation bill. Yes it's a crock of ****. Again, more state interference that cherry picks marriage and very obviously financially motivated. If it weren't you would see the rights of marriage universally applied, as in spousal visa rights, etc. But you don't -it's basically about palimony.


Quotas. Again the state interfering with the democratic process. What's next, traveller quotas, disability quotas, gay quotas, ethnic minority quotas? How this is even a viable option put on the table is beyond me. More evidence of a bunch of communists running things inside government.

Rape laws and minors. Agree with you there, blatant discrimination. Must be changed.

Sentencing and leniency. Well I have to say, I think this is very class based. Look at the pedo and rapist charges over all, very light. I think probably a connected man will get far lighter sentence than a man with the wrong address. You'd have to cross correlate your sentencing analysis with class in Ireland. Just as you would with class and race in the US.

Family law and children. This is complicated. You mention father's rights. I've heard alot about this. But...if you read the LL on the maternity thread, if you look at the Children's Rights referendum, and the new reporting laws that mandate people snitch on their neighbours, it sort of smacks to me that no one has particularly more rights over their children than the Irish state does. It even sometimes appears to me, that mothers are seen as babysitters for the state with the current government. I've heard arguments for the abolition of family court altogether, mostly from American libertarians, and there is some sense in them, but I don't know. Because we can't actually access the facts of cases I can't make a call on that, it's all hearsay. You could argue about the problem of enforcement, but that is an overall problem with Irish courts too isn't it?

And another thing, the risk of being hoisted on your own petard. Take car insurance. So, the result was not that men get their rates lowered, but that women get their rates increased. Now, in so many cases with stay at home mothers and fathers with daughter, guess who is paying more for car insurance? So men are probably now more out of pocket than they were. Same as feminism, the blah blah blah about equality can end up in a situation, where the bar on dignity is lowered and everyone loses out.

Overall though, change is hard here with the status quo in Ireland and making any adjustments is like climbing a mountain made of ice and that is for anyone who is outside their cozy little circle of the fascists and communists currently in government. I would tackle it from a state interference point of view, rather than more gender apartheid.

clairefontaine wrote: »

And another thing, the risk of being hoisted on your own petard. Take car insurance. So, the result was not that men get their rates lowered, but that women get their rates increased. Now, in so many cases with stay at home mothers and fathers with daughter, guess who is paying more for car insurance? So men are probably now more out of pocket than they were. Same as feminism, the blah blah blah about equality can end up in a situation, where the bar on dignity is lowered and everyone loses out.

I'm not familiar with Irish car insurance, however my experience of insurance in general is that it tends not to go down. If it increased for both, then I suspect the insurance companies chanced their arms at an across the board increase and got away with it.

Overall though, change is hard here with the status quo in Ireland and making any adjustments is like climbing a mountain made of ice and that is for anyone who is outside their cozy little circle of the fascists and communists currently in government. I would tackle it from a state interference point of view, rather than more gender apartheid.

That's an interesting angle, as much of the problem does seem to trace back to lobby-group backed social policies which are then enacted by the government.

clairefontaine wrote: »

The problem in my opinion of framing it as an inequality issue, is you risk the maximum sentence being 7 years for men too. You have equality, but that does not mean you have suitable justice. So you have to decide if your issue is with the discrimination or with the sentencing itself.

I think this point is a bit of a red herring. Such discriminatory laws are throwbacks of the belief that women were weaker, less in control of their actions and irrational. Correcting such a law would mean removing such a prejudice and thus naturally it would not mean that women would enjoy a 'reduced' consequence, but suffer the same consequence of men. If you can cite any public argument to the contrary that's been made, feel free, but I think you won't find any.

If your problem is with the sentencing of this woman, yes the law is discriminatory, but wouldn't it be far more productive to overhaul all of the sentencing and get it done in one framework? That way you can bring about more suitable sentencing for both men and women?

If a complete overhall can be brought about, then by all means, but if not I would consider such sexist laws to be of a higher priority than many others.

Car insurance was changed because of an EU directive. So you have equality but you have more families out of pocket now.

There's a price to equality. Women's jobs are protected when they get pregnant, for example, and there's a cost to this to business which then gets passed on inevitably to the consumer. Should this protection be removed so that the consumer is not burdened?

You could also argue this is the government sticking its fingers into small business again.

Indeed you could, so would you feel that the government should not stick it's fingers into employment law in the case of pregnant women, as I mentioned above?

clairefontaine wrote: »

I don't feel it is a red herring. Sex assault laws need to be overhauled, top to bottom, left to right.

My point was really about curing one injustice can lead to creating another one, if you are not careful.

I understand, and you suggested that the sentience for both could end up reduced to the lower one and I explained why it would not.

So yes, I think what you've put forward is a bit of a red herring - more correctly FUD. If you disagree, feel free to rebut my argument in my previous post.

Do you know what the max sentencing is for a man? I have no idea.You haven't shown me the discrimination. I believe you but I don't know what the max is, I just see sex offenders getting off lightly regularly.

As I said, in the case I cited the maximum for a man would be life imprisonment - it's in the article I posted.

When women get maternity leave in Ireland , is it the state covering the cost of leave in Ireland or is it the business?

The business, however the point I was making is that she is essentially protected by law from losing her job, during the pregnancy and for a period after, which a company may want to do anyway because she may no longer be as committed to her role as before. I believe similar protections exist in the US.

Should the state not protect her job? Should they keep out of it because there's a cost to business and the consumer? Or because it's not the state's business in the first place?

clairefontaine wrote: »

Ok that is somewhat ridiculous and should be changed.

Only somewhat?

Is it possible that it is a hangover from the days where you could just lock women up in a lunatic asylum? That way she could be locked up without trial, jury or due process. There was a documentary on RTE on this, with astounding statistics.

It is precisely a hangover of patriarchy.

Prior to the mid, or even late, twentieth century, women were essentially classified as somewhere between children and men. The prejudice was that women were weaker, irrational and incapable of fully controlling their emotions, and thus unstable.

Of course, on the flip side this gave women certain advantages. Being irrational by nature meant that they were not fully responsible for their actions; women were far less likely to suffer the death penalty, for example, for acts of murder (the exception being infanticide as this went against another sexist prejudice) than men and more likely to be declared insane than compos mentis.

This prejudice persists today and is best exemplified by the Lorena Bobbitt where after her mutilation of her husband successfully was able to plea of insanity, to avoid incarceration. To this day, pleas of temporary insanity and marital coercion are significantly more likely to be made by women than men, in court.

Ironically, this doesn't exactly help women's equality, as it still frames women as not in full mental control of themselves. Yet the women's rights movement has made little or no attempt to change this perception, and (as in the Bobbitt case) will often reinforce it by publicly citing marital coercion or abuse, leading to a loss of control, as a justification for such actions.

You'll find that many of such 'advantageous' prejudices have been left untouched by feminism, btw. There's never been a campaign to challenge the old "women and children first" principle, or that women are the natural primary child carers, for example. All of which ironically ends up harming women's equality to men when seeking traditional male roles.

That's a tough one. I don't know. And I don't know if that should be under business regulation or contract law or dependant on unions.

You can fire someone once they demonstrate that they have lost interest or commitment in their job, but you can't really fire someone on speculation, that would go for anyone pregnant or not. You can but you'd be on fire for a potential lawsuit [unfair dismissal.]

Unfair dismissal depends on what criteria the law (and thus the government) considers to be unfair for dismissal though - still the government sticking their nose into private business.

Personally, I'd have a Keynesian approach to government involvement and thus would favour some legislation. Given this, there's a difference between necessary legislation to protect people and a 'nanny state'.

clairefontaine wrote: »

Saying that, I see what you are saying, but at the same time I cant see how it was of benefit to be able to be locked up without a trial and jury on grounds of insanity with such liberty.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather be imprisoned than hung (in the bad way).

Also, some of these things have changed. 'Im not sure if its due to feminism or just more evolution in mental health issues. The recent case in Cork of the man who committed murder suicide with his young daughter and was buried with her. There has been very little if any condemnation of this act and I'm guessing it's being chalked up to male depression after his wife decided to break up from the marriage.

I never suggested that men did not get judged as criminally insane - it's not like asylums were women-only, after all. Only that the prejudices about female mental instability were such that it made it a far easier defence for women.

The historical diagnosis of female hysteria is an interesting one to consider in this respect.

You pointed out Lorena Bobbit. That case was the 1980s wasn't it? We are now in 2013. Things have changed. That is ONE case you pointed out. I could point out the OJ Simpson case to try to demonstrate that black males get off lightly or scott free for domestic violence, but hardly that is the case is it?

It's not that unknown a phenomenon, in particular in domestic violence cases. As another example, a very similar and recent case, is also planning the same defence.

As to OJ Simpson, he was able to successfully leverage the jury's perception of racism in the LAPD, which while also an appeal to emotion, was not an insanity plea, which we're talking about.

However, there has been some change, although it has been at snail-space speed; the recent rejection of Vicky Pryce's 'marital coercion' defence, could be shown to be a sign of this.

Nonetheless, these prejudices have continued, along with the idea that women are always the victim, and modern feminism has if anything promoted them rather than sought to dispel them.

Women and Children First. I saw a documentary on Channel 4 about that ships that sink, it was around the time of the ship that sunk and the captain abandoned it. It said that the woman and children first protocol is a myth and not reality. People believe in it because of the Titanic story, but it was and is an exception, mostly to to British old fashioned "good form" but the reality is everyone for himself [or herself].

Not really true. While the HMS Titanic popularized it, and it was not part of maritime law, it wasn't exactly a myth either. One can hardly deny that it (not "children first" or "children and the weak first") is certainly included as a virtue in Western culture today.

It has it's roots in chivalry, which contends that a knight should protect the weak and European literature is full of tales exposing the virtues of knights who would brave danger or even die to protect a (virtuous) woman.

As far as regulation on what happens in business, I'd be of the as minimal as possible but not entirely. I'm sure that is as clear as mud, but that's as far as I get with it.

Fair enough, but that's a different discussion. My position would be that whether minimal or not, it should reflect gender equality.

clairefontaine wrote: »

I'm losing track of the discussion here, so I want to back track a little.

Firstly, I'm not denying that there are injustices and there is discrimination.

I'm not suggesting you did; you only asked for examples, which is how we essentially lost track of the discussion.

So the reason I am using an American example is to illustrate the combination of older patriarchies with progressive feminism that hasn't truly been thought out or foreseen. It's a starker example than anything you could use in Ireland, because Ireland is murkier.

The US is culturally quite different to Europe in general. In some respects, much of Europe is very patriarchal and still steeped in old traditions, but from what I can make out, many of the patriarchal presumptions that still exist in the US are even more so and at this stage quite alien to us.

For example, the notion that a woman should change her professional surname, upon marrying, is a bit bizarre in most of Europe - some still do here, but it is certainly not seen as expected as it appears to be in the US. Even the idea of cohabitation or children outside of marriage seem far more acceptable here - one American woman of my acquaintance once explained to me that having children out of wedlock was just "something that n****rs do" there.

Simultaneously you can see some seriously misandrist attitudes amongst women's rights groups there.

For me, given these conflicting value systems, it's not surprising that the US is, as a result, very much the birthplace of 'cake-and-eat-it' post-feminism, whereby women should have a choice to follow both the traditional and modern models. However, overall I can't comment that much on the US, as it's limited and largely second hand. I can only comment on the European and, in particular, Irish situation.

Now my concern with jump starting a masculinism movement, which has already started so my concern is pretty inert and insignificant, is that it is going to produce all sorts of other harmful unforseen consequences nas feminism did because it looked at things in isolation.

Given your date-rape example, I don't see how masculinism would spark this. It seems clear that the problem is not the pressure caused by conflict between feminism and masculinism, but between feminism and traditional patriarchy.

Indeed, one of the goals of masculinism, is to deconstruct patriarchy from a male perspective, and with it men's role in society, much as feminism did once upon a time for women. Questioning the very notions of what is 'manly' and 'girlish' which actually continues to trap men in traditional roles and behaviours. Not only is this essential if men are going to evolve to meet the changing gender landscape, but it's pretty essential that we do this self-examination ourselves, just as women did.

So if this is your objection to masculinism, then I think it unfounded. Masculinism is not patriarchy 2.0, or if it is, is so removed from patriarchy as to be unrecognisable.

My own point with regards to masculinism as a 'counterbalance' really comes down largely to Realpolitik. In gender politics we presently have only one gender being represented, and this gender has absolutely no incentive to represent or even compromise. It's like a factory without a trade union; the management have no need to compromise until the workers organize and essentially force them to rethink their approach.

Nonetheless, in the case of gender equality, my hope would be that eventually we would both abandon partisan movements in time, in favour of an inclusive one - but that's just not going to happen as things stand.

clairefontaine wrote: »

I never heard of the name changing expectation. Interesting.

That is not quite right about having kids out of wedlock.

As I said, I'm no expert on the US and am only reporting what I've either read or been told by Americans themselves.

I think whatever you are trying to do here is going to be very complex in an Irish context for a lot of reasons. For one thing it's a marian centred culture in some regards and with high levels of absenteeism for the men HISTORICALLY, with either emmigration or addiction taking them away . And you were left with a lot of priests around ruling the roost, especially the family - so ultimately the women were instruments of the theocracy even if you called it a matriarch. You had a brief reprieve from this with the celtic tiger where the men didn't have to leave, and religiosity was diluted though not forgotten, but now you have a situation where the men AND the women are being forced to emmigrate so maybe you will have an equality of the genders left behind, and maybe those left behind will want to change things- will they die out [beyond the elderly population left here] or they struggle to pay off their negative equity or cope with homelessness.

So in terms of what remains in Ireland, is it a patriarchy or a matriarchy or just a ghost town? So my guess is with different problems on the foreground, gender issues will be on the back burner.

I've not said that I'm trying to achieve anything. Nor do I believe than it would be easy for any kind of masculinist counter-balance to take root. Only that it's the only realistic option and one that almost certainly will take root in time as resentment and realization kicks in with men of their increasingly secondary status - it's basically a historical inevitability as was the trade union movement or, ironically, feminism.

As to the bulk of your argument, I really don't know what to say other than it being a serious non sequitur to anything I've written. If there is relevance to it, I genuinely can't see it.

clairefontaine wrote: »

Well if you believe it is a destiny than you can also believe that it will create more oppositional thinking and bi products too and then you will be a never ending game of blame and resentment.

I've never said destiny, only that it is inevitable given there appear to be no likely alternatives and present trends continue. And I do agree there is that danger of an endless negative circle, which is why I keep on asking you if you think a likely alternative exists.

With all the emmigration of young people, I wouldn't necessarily bet on it being an inevitability.

I'm not sure emigration makes a difference, as these issues will still be here and there will still be people in Ireland.

Unless of course all the men emigrate because of this, and I'll have to admit that gender politics in Ireland is one of the reasons I left, and since the cohabitation bill, I've heard it cited by more recent emmigrees.

clairefontaine wrote: »

I've offerred alternatives, but you don't like them or don't think they will work.

The only alternative that I can make out you've proffered is very unlikely to get anywhere; I gave my reasoning why it won't go anywhere and you've not yet rebutted that.

Emigration does make a difference. The country is hemoraging people, mostly young people. Ireland is a very conservative country [think the whole country -not just Dublin] and the older populations will remain and so will the status quo and most injustices. It's the young who have the time and energy to do things. Emmigrants don't even have the right to vote once they leave, never mind conduct social reform from abroad. And that is why nothing will change, and not just gender politics.

I agree, at least in the short to medium term, that nothing is likely to change - indeed, for men, it's more than likely to get worse, with more laws effectively discriminating against us on the basis of protecting women's or everyone else's rights.

But emigration stabilizes in time, recessions end and new generations grow up, and so with no change in this trend it probably is only a matter of time.

clairefontaine wrote: »

A question. Overall,not just men's rights, how do you perceive Ireland's relationship with the notion of "rights"?

Much like most Western nations; when people think of rights, they tend to see them as entitlements - the consequences of rights are seldom considered and when they are people tend to want more 'rights' so that they can avoid those consequences.

Do you think rule of law is enforced and practised?

A joke.

Do you think civil rights are a genuine concern in the national conciousness?

Only when it affects the citizen directly or they can be swayed by media campaigns to act.

So before you can address anyone's rights, you have to establish a meaningful relationship with rights in the first place.

I'm sorry, but all this philosophizing isn't really going anywhere. Unless, you want to suggest that the women's rights movement also suspend activities until we all "establish a meaningful relationship with rights" or is it only men's rights movement that should do this? I would certainly oppose the latter and doubt the chances of the former.

Emmigration now is different from previous years in that the people left behind are not having 10 kids at a time to replace the hemoragging population, and my guess is the kids today will grow up and leave too, unless they are part of the protectionist rackets running things or grow up to be farmers. And you also have the women emmigrating with the children for those who are seperated or single because they have to work too. It's a different picture altogether.

Already addressed this earlier, indeed I've addressed most if not all of this already, so we're at a point that you're just asking the same questions or making the same points, without addressing the fact that many have already been addressed or rebutted.

The IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT YOU CAN LEAVE axiom will remain.

And as I pointed two pages ago this is already the case.

Personally, I don't believe that the 'opt-out' strategy is a viable long-term one in a country even like Ireland. If the level of inequality continues to increase (and all signs point to this), then eventually such a strategy will be insufficient to act as a 'safety valve' for the resentment that men feel at being increasingly treated as second class citizens.

But I've already written this here, along with rebuttals to all your points, so unless we actually progress in this discussion, is there any point continuing it?

clairefontaine wrote: »

So have you written to your legislators? What did they say to you about it?

Are you just going to ask me questions and ignore my previous rebuttals?

clairefontaine wrote: »

I accept your points, am just asking a question.

Very well. To respond to your question about letter writing, I've made my opinion on this very clear on a number of occasions.

clairefontaine wrote: »

But if you feel rule of law is a joke here, which I agree with you there, then what is the point of fighting for anyone's rights? You can't have rights without a rule of law. You still have in Ireland this post colonial quaint attitude with the law.

With regards to men's rights, it'll probably have to get a lot worse before there is any actual action taken; both by men and women who recognise that it's gone too far.

I can see that happening. We already have noises being made on things like the abolition of custodial sentences and the effective abolition of guardian rights - instead placing all rights in the hands of the custodial parent - and I suspect that there are plenty of other initiatives in the pipeline that will further marginalize and discriminate against men.

Eventually this will go too far and force the apathetic majority to actually do something, but as I already mooted, it's not going to happen for a while.

Emigrants don't even have the right to vote.

I'm sure they'll introduce that for the purposes of introducing double taxation before long.

Do I have a solution? Not one other than emigrate, and you have already done that.

Atlas Shrugged, Irish style.