Equal right - Losing it's balance in favour of women?

Irishcrx · 21-03-2016 05:06PM #1

Just a conversation that popped up recently when out with friends and I guess something that has been on my mind for a while now as I watch differant friends, situations etc.

Has radical feminism and a push for equal rights gained so much momentum , pressure in the press , the workplace , social media that it has actually now swung the other way and it is men that are looking at oppression?

A couple of scenario's swing to mind , the company I work for have had several pushes to be seen to be an equal opportunity employer , which they are , however this also included women in positions of ppwer (IE Unit leaders and Directors) they have often appointed women to these positions to make up their numbers balance while more qualified men were turned down for the job in favour of the news letter saying we have met the European quota - This isn't right.

Single father rights - Or lack there of, absolute joke of a system - Several friends of mine are single fathers and being dragged through hell to see their children even though they are great fathers. All the power with the ex girlfriend and the bitterness , the law says it protects the children but it really is protecting the mother and many abuse this position to exact revenge on an ex - Good father need rights equal to mothers regardless of marriage - Bad ones don't.

Add to this the rise of feminism , the extreme feminism , the talk of all men being scumbags , the belief of some that's it's ok to say horrible thing's to men , female on male domestic violence being laughed at and generally looked upon as not being as serious as male on female, a man smacks a girls ass in a club it's sexual assault , a woman does it and it's funny, from looking at these boards alone from day to day you can tell most men have become almost afraid to approach a girl or say boo to them even when they are very in the wrong.

So has it never been a worst time to be a man? Are men becoming less of men because of this? And has that balance changed to a position where it's now men in need of equal rights?

Jayop · 21-03-2016 05:09PM

In pretty much every circumstance apart from the family courts the male will have an advantage. Woman are still the more oppressed of the two sexes.

AnonoBoy · 21-03-2016 05:10PM

Nah. I wouldn't say say so.

discus · 21-03-2016 05:10PM

It's a great time to be a man. Just ignore all that **** like marriage, internet feminism, feminism in the press etc, and just enjoy a relationship with a decent partner if you can find one.

No point moaning about it, it's only a phase after all. Sure feminism is eating itself at the minute, just watch it destroy itself this year.

discus · 21-03-2016 05:12PM

Jayop wrote: »

In pretty much every circumstance apart from the family courts the male will have an advantage. Woman are still the more oppressed of the two sexes.

Who's oppressing them? There's no laws oppressing women. Neither are there any discriminatory hiring practices out there, unless you account for the 2:1 hiring ratio for women being hired into certain fields... but we don't talk about that, do we?

mansize · 21-03-2016 05:12PM

We have bodily autonomy though

Chips Lovell · 21-03-2016 05:14PM

Here's a discussion that's never been had on the internet.

AnonoBoy · 21-03-2016 05:15PM

You know what?

Feminism is class.

See ye later. I'm bored of these conversations already.

21-03-2016 05:16PM

Irishcrx wrote: »

Single father rights - Or lack there of, absolute joke of a system - Several friends of mine are single fathers and being dragged through hell to see their children even though they are great fathers. All the power with the ex girlfriend and the bitterness , the law says it protects the children but it really is protecting the mother and many abuse this position to exact revenge on an ex - Good father need rights equal to mothers regardless of marriage - Bad ones don't.

A mother will invariably get custody of young children, which is understandable and is consistent with other countries with similar legal systems, Britain, the USA etc.

I wouldn't draw generalisations about fault and bitterness and who is the good parent in a thread about the sexes. Some bitterness and some "coaching" may creep into the frame when a relationship breaks down. I wouldn't say many mothers are abusing the legal process to exact revenge, but some certainly do.

R.D. aka MR.D · 21-03-2016 05:16PM

The issues you mention are very different topics and while it might appear at first glance that feminism is to blame for them, I don't think that's strictly true.

In particular, I think it's the sexist idea that women should take care of the children that causes fathers to have so few rights. It's yet another thing in Irish law that needs updating to modern times.

So how that can be related to women getting jobs just because they are women, I don't know.

It's also the less well informed who still laugh at female on male domestic violence or sexual assault.

super_furry · 21-03-2016 05:17PM

Yeah........no thanks.

dav3 · 21-03-2016 05:18PM

First world problems tbh OP. I don't know how you'd cope if we actually were oppressed.

Greenmachine · 21-03-2016 05:18PM

For all the talk of the Patriarch from feminist, it is more women who hold other women back.
Gender quotas are idiotic, and serve no one. Both sides of the debate love to just sling mud at one another.

Jayop · 21-03-2016 05:20PM

discus wrote: »

Who's oppressing them? There's no laws oppressing women. Neither are there any discriminatory hiring practices out there, unless you account for the 2:1 hiring ratio for women being hired into certain fields... but we don't talk about that, do we?

It's my opinion not a researched viewpoint so I'm not going to be handing out sources.

1) 2:1 hiring rations I take it you're referring to things like nursing and teaching? If so then it's much much more likely that it's purely down to the fact that that's the ratio of people entering those fields and not discriminatory hiring practices. In fact in the case of NS teaching I've been told that schools are crying out for male teachers.

2) Surely the ratio of men Vs woman in other trades is skewed even more in favour of men. Bricklaying, carpentry, auto mechanics etc.

3) There's laws against discrimination in hiring but it's very hard to prove that it takes place. I work in a HR type job now and I can assure you that certain employers will favour white male new hires over most others including more qualified candidates.

4) There's more discrimination or sexism than just in employment. Go to a pub on a Saturday night and see woman being harassed constantly by plebs who seem to assume that just because the woman are out then they're fair game to annoy for the night.

Maximus Alexander · 21-03-2016 05:24PM

When women are treated like human beings, everybody wins. I find it hard to be annoyed about feminism making the deck less hilarious stacked in my gender's favour.

osarusan · 21-03-2016 05:29PM

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Here's a discussion that's never been had on the internet.

We might have had it once or twice before, but we'll solve it for good this time.

seamus · 21-03-2016 05:35PM

I can totally understand the "feminism is only about women and is detrimental to men's rights" point of view, but an actual offshoot of feminism is the increasing recognition that, "Hey, wait a sec, men actually do have it pretty sh1tty in some regards too".

The shrill "all men are rapists" stuff is few and far between. The internet makes it sound like they're everywhere, but realistically you don't encounter many of them in real life.

An author friend of my wife's would be a hippie-dippie type, very strong on her feminist stuff and once of the "destroy the oppressive patriarchy, all women should wear shirts and pants so they don't conform to male-imposed ideas about beauty" ilk. Then she wrote a blog post about how she'd decided to let her toddler son watch Peppa Pig one day and the realisation hit her like a tonne of bricks - men are just as heavily subjected to stereotypes, expectations of behaviour, and discriminatory practices as women are.

And contrary to the idea that men are ignored, feminism has actually brought men's rights more to the front. If women's rights and the shackles imposed on women by society weren't discussed in the 1950's, then neither were men's.

Gender-based discrimination is not male-imposed oppression. It's oppression that society foisted upon itself. And the vast vast majority of people who call themselves feminist, recognise this.

Far from this idea that the "gains" by feminism are making life increasingly more difficult for young men growing up, it's in fact freeing them. Freeing them to be who they want to be rather than what they think they're expected to be.
There is perhaps something of an imbalance in some regards where young boys are still being raised to conform to a particular way of life. But young women are not being raised to "fit" into the opposite side of that puzzle. And some commentators are claiming that this is resulting in increased disenfranchisement among young men who don't have the skills to cope in society.

That doesn't mean that we're raising women wrong, it means we're raising men wrong.

Junkyard Tom · 21-03-2016 05:41PM

We're all God's children lads.

Maximus Alexander · 21-03-2016 05:42PM

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

We're all God's children lads and lasses.

Excuse you.

orubiru · 21-03-2016 05:46PM

Nah, I'd say things are pretty bad for everyone. Or pretty good. Depends on who you ask.

Yeah, you might be able to look at individuals and say this woman has it better than this man. Or you might end up saying that man has it better than that women.

Looking at "Men" and "Women" in a general sense and trying to come up with a model that accurately reflects reality is a near impossible task.

Everyone is different. Society "oppresses" all kinds of different people in all different kinds of ways. Everyone has their struggles and successes. The game might be rigged in your favor over here and rigged against you over there. Good luck to anyone who wants to come up with a grand unified theory for human society.

In countries like Ireland, the UK, Canada etc Feminism simply is the worlds most privileged women whining about how oppressed they are. Coming up with ever more convoluted hypotheses on how women just have it so bad.

Unfortunately your post reads like the same thing from a male perspective. Men have problems, yes, but it's not the fault of women. It's not "oppression".

There is a double standard in some aspects of life but that works both ways, I think. In Ireland, we basically all have equal rights when it comes to employment, education etc. So it's probably not that bad, even when it seems like it's not that good either.

The worlds 62 richest people have as much wealth as the worlds 3 billion poorest. That's inequality.

SterlingArcher · 21-03-2016 05:47PM

Definitely getting ridiculous.

I had a woman recently threatening me with court. I refused to pay for wheelchair access to her apartment. She claimed I had impeded her right to walk properly.

Junkyard Tom · 21-03-2016 05:54PM

SterlingArcher wrote: »

Definitely getting ridiculous.

I had a woman recently threatening me with court. I refused to pay for wheelchair access to her apartment. She claimed I had impeded her right to walk properly.

That's not gender specific. That's an accessibility issue.

Jayop · 21-03-2016 06:02PM

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

That's not gender specific. That's an accessibility issue.

I assumed it was a joke that I didn't get.

orubiru · 21-03-2016 06:04PM

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

When women are treated like human beings, everybody wins. I find it hard to be annoyed about feminism making the deck less hilarious stacked in my gender's favour.

Um, men have gone to war to be killed and mangled up by the tens of thousands. Who were they doing that for? It has happened before and it'll happen again.

Who historically worked dangerous, hard, labour intensive jobs to support their families?

My grandfathers certainly didn't work themselves into an early grave providing for wives and daughters that they didn't even consider to be human.

Now, and in the past, women have asked men to put their bodies and lives on the line. Men have answered the call.

We don't treat them like human beings though right?

No. Most men love the women in their lives and would even go so far as to sacrifice themselves for those women. Ah, we just don't treat them like human beings though, right?

Hey, we are more likely to be unemployed or homeless. We're more likely to commit suicide.

Sure, the deck is totally stacked in our favor.

21-03-2016 06:05PM

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

That's not gender specific. That's an accessibility issue.

I think the joke is that he knocked her bandy while engaging in indoor sports. Now she can't walk.

It's rare I get a subtle joke and even rarer I get to explain one.

You've made my day.

Junkyard Tom · 21-03-2016 06:10PM

Jayop wrote: »

I assumed it was a joke that I didn't get.

Maybe it is? Regardless, there are people out there who will consider all behaviour by women that appears assertive or confrontational as 'that krrrrrrazzzy feminazism' regardless of the merits of the issue.

AnonoBoy · 21-03-2016 06:13PM

Candie wrote: »

I think the joke is that he knocked her bandy while engaging in indoor sports. Now she can't walk.

It's rare I get a subtle joke and even rarer I get to explain one.

You've made my day.

Way too subtle a joke about riding for AH.

Junkyard Tom · 21-03-2016 06:13PM

Candie wrote: »

It's rare I get a subtle joke and even rarer I get to explain one.

I'd be fairly tuned into that type of thing and even with your explanation I had to read it twice to get it.

You've made my day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFloZbT99oE

Jayop · 21-03-2016 06:13PM

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Maybe it is? Regardless, there are people out there who will put all behaviour by women that appears assertive or confrontational as 'that krrrrrrazzzy feminazism' regardless of the merits of the issue.

Oh without a doubt.

Jayop · 21-03-2016 06:16PM

orubiru wrote: »

Now, and in the past, women have asked men to put their bodies and lives on the line. Men have answered the call.

We don't treat them like human beings though right?

:pac::pac::pac:

Yep, all those wars started by woman with woman leadership sending the boys off to fight.

orubiru · 21-03-2016 06:19PM

Jayop wrote: »

:pac::pac::pac:

Yep, all those wars started by woman with woman leadership sending the boys off to fight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather

In August 1914, at the start of the First World War, Admiral Charles Fitzgerald founded the Order of the White Feather with support from the prominent author Mrs Humphrey Ward. The organization aimed to shame men into enlisting in the British Army by persuading women to present them with a white feather if they were not wearing a uniform.

This was joined by some prominent feminists and suffragettes of the time, such as Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel. They, in addition to handing out the feathers, also lobbied to institute an involuntary universal draft, which included those who lacked votes due to being too young or not owning property.

Equal right - Losing it's balance in favour of women?

Comments