Yashar Ali believes it’s our responsibility, as men and human beings to try to understand what discrimination is like for the women we claim to love.
Originally appeared at The Current Conscience
Last week, I was having a conversation with friend, when she made mention of a mutual friend, who has been generally very supportive of my writing about women. She shared with me that he saw my writing and advocacy on behalf of women as an “overreaction,” that I was overly emotional about it and that my views on what women really face in our culture is overblown.
As much as I may be frustrated by my friend’s opinion and angered that he is so dismissive of what women face, as a man, I don’t deal with the same kind of dismissal that women are subject to.
In their case it’s personal.
Women who attempt to address or discuss concerns they have with the men who claim to love them too often get a wave of the hand, and hear “Yeah yeah, women’s rights, it’s important, I know, whatever.”
The men who dismiss these women treat their desire for equality as if it were a hobby or a pet project. But in these moments, men are fundamentally dismissing the women they are speaking with.
While I wish my friend had the chutzpah to actually tell me his opinions himself, I understand, but don’t accept why he thinks my work is an overreaction.
For men to really understand the obstacles women face on an everyday basis, they are going to have to come out of their comfort zone in order to break the seemingly equitable surface between the genders.
I’ve written about men and their understanding of what it’s really like to be a woman in our culture before, in a piece entitled “Men Will Never Truly Understand A Day In the Life Of Women. But Shouldn’t We Try?” In the piece, I write about how men will never truly understand what it’s like to be a woman moving about in her day, but that we must make an effort to learn what it’s like in order to better understand what they face, in order to properly combat gender discrimination.
But, I have never really examined why it is that men don’t dig deeper into the gender inequality question.
Why is the discussion about gender inequality such an inconvenient and annoying bore to men, especially socially progressive men who would otherwise advocate on behalf of any other oppressed group or population?
What really frustrates me is my male friends’ willingness to stand up for women only if the situation involves rape or domestic violence—and even then, their support is at best tepid and never pro-active.
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The same progressive male friends who accuse me of overreacting when it comes to advocating for women’s rights… would not dare accuse me of overreaction if I were writing and talking about issues related to race or sexual orientation.
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I am not discounting the efforts of men who do advocate for women who are facing, or have faced, sexual and physical abuse, but if we think that we’ve done our part to balance the gender scales and can go home after fighting for women on these critical matters, we’re fooling ourselves.
The same progressive male friends who accuse me of overreacting when it comes to advocating for women’s rights or who say things like (in jest…but not really in jest), “Oh god, here we go again” when I try to address an issue related to gender inequality, would not dare accuse me of overreaction if I were writing and talking about issues related to race or sexual orientation.
Why?
Because as much as we live in a racist, homophobic culture, gender inequity is a great equalizer in a way—the hatred for women is universal and knows no race, sexual orientation…or sometimes gender.
Some men seem to believe that gender issues are no longer relevant because most of us are looking at the man/woman balance in terms of statistics, anecdotes, and governmental change.
If we look only at statistics, there is lots of evidence that things are better for women (and lots of evidence that we’re still in the gutter), especially since the women’s movement of the 1960’s and 70’s. For example, the numbers show that in the United States, more women attend college than men. To be exact: 57 percent of women vs. 43 percent of men.
A recent TIME Magazine cover story outlined that over the past twenty years, the percentage of women who make more than their husbands has risen by 14 percent. This article also pointed out that since 1965, men have tripled their weekly domestic contributions. These are all positive numbers, despite both just being a start, but I fear cover stories such as this one will lead to a relaxation about the perception of gender imbalance.
So while we may have made a great deal of progress in those departments and many others, it doesn’t change the fact that women still face a massive amount of discrimination. Despite the recent and very public war on women in America, gender discrimination has been moving deeper and deeper underground, no longer as publicly visible as it was in the past. However, the intensity of that discrimination has not changed at all, it’s just become covert rather than overt.
We may look at the people near us as validation and proof that women no longer face any burdens beyond the big issues, but that’s all circumstantial. A man can point to his wife or sister and note that she is a company executive as proof that women face no glass ceiling in the corporate world. He can point to the fact that at work, he reports to a woman, or in his particular position, there happens to be a female colleague who is paid more than him. And some men will say, “Well my wife (or girlfriend) tells me what to do, she controls everything.”
As if that anecdote, if actually true, speaks to the fact that gender discrimination doesn’t really exist.
Finally, and this is the biggest way in which men misjudge gender imbalance: we look at the issue of gender discrimination in terms of governmental change as a justification for pushing women’s issues into the fog. We can point to many laws that balance the gender scales: from equal pay laws to pregnancy discrimination laws. Over the past 30 years, a great deal of progress has indeed been made in the US and other countries. Besides the obvious, these laws are only useful when discrimination is reported and the laws are enforced.
We can’t legislate to protect a woman against many of the nearly invisible issues they face today and have no means of reporting.
We can’t make a law to protect women against horrible emotional abuse, we can’t make a law that requires parents to instill their daughters with a health body image, we can’t force a legislature to pass a law that demands husbands to support their wives during menopause.
While it’s important to look at the gender imbalance issue through these lenses, the most important and most often forgotten way is to see this issue through empathy. Empathy is about understanding, about being aware, about making attempts to feel what another person feels.
Men can selectively use the statistics, the laws, and stories around us to explain away the gender imbalance and deny the subtlety of sexism as a serious issue. But when we work to understand, to empathize, to learn what women face, to ask them how it feels to be a woman…we will soon learn the secret world in which they live in.
It’s not that men are less empathetic than women. It’s just that we are conditioned not to feel comfortable showing empathy. Being empathetic, taking the energy to emerge from our perfectly comfortable reality is an exercise in exhaustion. Obviously heeding the plight of women requires effort and expending of energy. Perhaps it’s just too much work for us.
Our looking at gender issues through governmental, statistical, or anecdotal lenses is just about logistics. So often discrimination, of any form, does not get borne through these means. Rather it’s about what is felt by the individual being discriminated against. And often with gender discrimination, women simply don’t share their feelings of frustration because their claims have been dismissed, “You’re just overreacting. You’re paranoid.”
One shouldn’t equate the empathy I speak of as related to pity or feeling sorry for women. Men aren’t here to save women from themselves, empathy is something that women practice with men everyday…all I’m saying is, it’s time for men to work to provide the same kind of empathy to women that they provide to us.
The question is, do we, as men, have to care about women enough to notice what they are facing, or do we first have to notice what they are dealing with in order to care about their burdens?
It’s hard to say which scenario comes first.
I am reminded of a seminal moment that sparked my own awareness of gender imbalances. I was 21 and out with two women friends at an electronics store. As I explored the DVD section, they were seeking to have their questions answered by a male salesperson. After two minutes, they found me and explained their frustration and demanded to leave.
When I asked my friends why they were frustrated, both of them explained that the salesman (this was a store that didn’t pay commissions to salespeople) was unhelpful, giving only short and clipped responses to their questions.
My friend Mychelle told me, “It’s a woman thing.”
I remarked that I was confused by what she meant.
“He doesn’t want to deal with two women, he hates women.”
To prove their point, they asked me to go up to the man and ask him the same questions they asked him. I did exactly as they suggested and found the man to be helpful and knowledgeable. He could have, seemingly, spent all day with me.
After that moment, I have been witness to many other similar subtle moments of discrimination, only because I was looking at the issue of discrimination through a new lens.
In the case of the salesman, he didn’t say to my friends “I don’t want to help you because you’re women.”
He just detached himself, he filtered their normal and pertinent questions through his conditioning and arrived at a point where he saw them as inconvenient, annoying women who knew nothing. But to him, I was a guy who wanted to learn more and make an informed decision.
These were moments that didn’t hit me over the head like rape or domestic violence, but they were the discriminatory equivalent of a paper cut: annoying, painful, and persistent.
Our underlying fear and hatred of female equality lives, so often, in private. This space of privacy is largely occupied by women and the only way we are going to solve this problem is if we crack the door open and attempt to join them.
So in my case, through the help of my friends, I noticed, and began to care much more deeply. But then again, I cared enough about my two friends and for women in general, to not tell them that they are overreacting. I cared enough to explore their circumstance with them.
As much as some people want to portray the fight for gender equity/feminism as a niche issue, it’s not. Women and gender inequality refer to a reality in which half the world’s population faces a tremendous burden put upon them at birth.
And for those men who doubt the realities for women that I write about, I guess the question is, do you not believe your mother, your girlfriend, your sister, your wife, your women friends? If not, then you’ve got bigger problems.
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And for those men who doubt the realities for women that I write about, I guess the question is, do you not believe your mother, your girlfriend, your sister, your wife, your women friends?
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I see one central problem as connected with the men who are fundamentally good, but who pretend as if there is no major gender imbalance. These men, like my friend, when asked if women deserve equality, resoundingly respond “yes.” But when they are put in a position to support the women in their lives or when they are put in a place where they can directly react to discrimination, they lack any sort of action or assertion, or worst yet, they only offer dismissal.
These men may see this dismissal as a matter of opinion–almost as if a political issue is being discussed. But in reality, in that moment, they are committing wholesale dismissal of these women. They are failing to show empathy for the unique experience of all women and for the women in their lives, in particular. They are deciding what is valid based on the lens that feels most comfortable to them: one of male comfort and privilege.
But things won’t be too comfortable for long, because as long as we leave half our population behind, things will continue to become more and more uncomfortable for all of us. We don’t need to do anything but turn on the TV to notice that over the past two months, Rome is burning, and that the position many men hold on gender equality is receding, rather than advancing.
So, until the day comes when things change on the gender equality front, it’s our responsibility, as men and human beings to care, and to care enough to ask. And wait and learn from the answer. And god forbid, try to understand what it’s like for the women we claim to love.
And that, my friend, is not an overreaction.
It’s just the right thing to do.
About Yashar Ali
Two comments:
The empathy thing has to go both ways. Some women, including feminists, don’t seem, SEEM, to have n much empathy for men.
Second, gender equity is one thing, but too many of its advocates want to load it down with partisan political baggage that is just not going to appeal to everyone. I’m all in favor of individual equality, but I refuse to drink the quasi-Marxian statist Kool-aid which is too often attached to gender equality.
By being involved in the Men’s Right’s movement, I am in no way in favor of discrimination that goes against women.
When a Feminist speaks, I listen. I converse. I like those conversations, but on the condition that she listens to me as well, takes MY arguments into consideration. shows some understanding as to how I came to that conclusion, even if she disagrees. There is too many types of Feminists to zone them all out. But from what I’ve seen, people are far more likely to disregard and laugh at the voice of men’s issues, while a feminist can likely get a few minutes on TED for that title alone.
That wasn’t supposed to go there. Oh well.
And I have to agree that the problem with many feminists is that they are making the political aspect of it priority. They are doing the very thing that men are said to be doing “looking at gender issues through governmental, statistical, or anecdotal lenses”
I don’t think much will change until feminists decide to make a social movement and not a political one. because it’s not about the statistics, its about treatment. respect for another can’t be shown in a chart.
when we speak about gender equality using statistic, no empathy can fit in that conversation because it is an intellectual one. we can talk numbers. we can show the things that have gotten better and worse to argue our points. because we have numbers to back us up.
Talking about the treatment, the experiences of women, not the statistics of them is a conversation more open to empathy.
So let me get this straight. Women being 57% of college graduates is “a start”? This is, quite frankly, a total mess of a piece. You talk about numerous issues as women’s issues when they are actually human issues. You know what I hate? People who insist — like yourself — that women’s issues are the only issues that matter. That issues that face both men and women are actually women’s issues because who cares about the men. I would rather be a woman in America today than a man. I derive no benefit from being a man. I don’t pretend that there is no gender imbalance. The gender imbalance is in favor of women. I also find it incredibly entertaining that you say up front to ignore statistics and then talk about the importance of statistics you want to highlight and to ignore anecdotes. So we get to write off the fact that women are more employed than men, make more of the financial decisions than men, earn more college degrees than men, earn more advanced degrees than men, and many other statistics that point to women doing quite well, but we must look at the statistics where they aren’t doing as well. It makes no sense.
Male privilege does not exist. There is no such thing, not here in America. The half of the population we are leaving behind is the men. Or will you insist that men earning far fewer degrees, making less money, and doing much more poorly is really not a big deal and not at all representative of men being left behind.
You dismiss the truth in favor of supporting your warped and ideological worldview. I don’t buy it and the rest of the country is increasingly not buying it.
Okay to be fair I don’t think he is trying to say that women’s issues are the ones that matter.
Male privilege does not exist.
I have to disagree with that but let me be clear. There certain measuments in which some men, most men, and (rarely) all men do have an advantage over women. However what I don’t agree with is this extremely one sided concept in which male privilege is everywhere around us like the Force but female privilege is myth.
Well said. There are issues where men are privileged and issues where women are privileged (men are more likely to have their professional competency assumed instead of doubted, women get more social and emotional support, men are not judged on their looks, women are not judged on their financial success, etc).
But I can’t be the only one who is increasingly annoyed by the fact that womens issues always seem to come to “Men do awful things (Men Objectify Women! They Rape Them With Their Minds! Men Dismiss Womens Issues!) for awful reasons (Men Are Pathetic Little Boys! Men Fear Rejection and Intimacy! Considering Womens Issues Is Too “Dificult” For Men! They’re Stupid And Lazy and Evil!).
Perhaps that’s why so many men shut off when people bring up womens issues.
Male privileges exist. Male privilege does not.
Every demographic has it’s privileges, and some are even more expansive that others. But to pretend that, in this society, being male is the end-all, be-all (as opposed to, say, having 20 million in the bank) is just absurd. The wealthy – and even then, only those who move in certain circles – have privilege. Everyone else just has privileges.
“There certain measuments in which some men, most men, and (rarely) all men do have an advantage over women”
Like what?
You ma’am are extremely rude. Besides the fact that you have a very twisted sense of equality and unity as a human being, you also seem stubbornly affixed that your view is the only right view and that someone speaking against your view is automatically wrong. And might I add that you stated that men make less money, and yet its been proven (however unfair) that men still make more money then women for the same job in America? You have a complete disregard for actual statistics, and I would sincerely like to know how you intend to prove with numbers how men are being “left behind” or “doing much more poorly” then women. Women’s rights is about proving that women can be JUST AS good at working,earning, and living in this world then men can, not trying to prove that women are better. That mindset is what caused there to be a problem in the first place, and people like you are what is keeping it here.
” and yet its been proven (however unfair) that men still make more money then women for the same job in America?”
So, where is this “proof.” I’ve heard the claim for years but haven’t been presented with any “proof.”
Almost 80% of managers are women. Thus, if this widespread discrimination is occurring, women are the ones who are perpetrating it. What is your explanation for this?
“Almost 80% of managers are women.”
Sorry, I make a lot of typos working from my iPhone. That should have been:
Almost 80% of HR managers are women. Women are a majority of managers in general but not 80% of them.
yea but you kinda dismissed your own point there having to change manager to HR manager because if you were to keep manager it would have been less than 50% woman and totally screwed yourself.
Statistics can be so malleable
Wrong.
Women are the vast majority of HR managers, meaning they control who gets hired, fired, promoted, and what people get paid.
“In the majority of U.S. metro areas, single women with no children in their 20s outearned their male peers, according to Time’s story. In Dallas, for example, a 20-something woman makes $1.18 to a man’s $1.
The Time story follows on a run of coverage looking at the rise of women in the workplace. Earlier this year, BusinessWeek ran a cover story about the increase in stay-at-home fathers. Reporter Carol Hymowitz pointed out that some 23 percent of wives now out-earn their husbands. “Women 30 and under make more money, on average, than their male counterparts in all but three of the largest cities in the U.S.,” she writes.
In a widely read piece in The Atlantic last year, entitled “The End of Men,” Hanna Rosin also noted that women now comprise a majority of the workforce and more than half of all managers”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/21/income-gap-women-make-more-men_n_1368328.html
I got to Ma’am and stopped reading.
Dude’s name is Collin…
This is probably the most articulate reply to this “thinkpiece” and could/should be placed as a counterbalance. Another “hear hear” kudos comment to you Collin.
This article is a plea to pathos. “And for those men who doubt the realities for women that I write about, I guess the question is, do you not believe your mother, your girlfriend, your sister, your wife, your women friends?” Really? This is what gets blocked quoted? Everyone has a completely different lived life that it’s ridiculous for Ali to presume such a weak plea will actually succeed. My women friends feel things are balanced in THEIR favor and will go out of their way to make things more balanced – in post-secondary settings, social settings, and work settings.
Seeking empathy is condescending and an issue onto itself. Placing your “self” in another person’s shoes is terribly narcissistic – it presumes that at a particular snapshot of time, you know exactly what a person has lived and will live in the future based on your own experiences (which is a subtle way to put your “self” on a pedestal. Yep, a subtle way to express “power over” makes for equality and balance.
Im in agreement here with you. If we are all going to get along then everyone has to show some empathy for other groups of people.
“empathy is something that women practice with men everyday…all I’m saying is, it’s time for men to
work to provide the same kind of empathy to women that they provide to us.”
I think the problem is many people don’t think he’s saying that.
Good point John. I wouldn’t blame anyone for seeing this part and take as him saying that women are already showing men empathy and men need to start showing some as well.
It’s plainly clear that a lot of have not get been getting this empathy that women are apparently sharing everyday.
And that might be a problem. Telling people that they are being shown empathy when their experiences say otherwise while calling for them to show some is unbalanced.
This piece is yet more evidence that feminism is a zero-sum movement.
I apologize in advance for the length of this comment, but it needs to be said.
Conspiracy theories are usually found to contain several common elements, all of which can be found here in Mr. Ali’s work. These elements include:
A framework that is based on unfalsifiable claims. (“You can’t prove that aliens don’t exist, so they must exist!”)
The dismissal or denial of all evidence to the contrary. ( “Of course the government investigation didn’t find evidence, it is ALSO part of the cover-up!”)
Unfounded assumptions. (“Electromagnetic fields prove the existence of ghosts!”)
The application of different standards to the available evidence. (“My study doesn’t need to be independently verified, but their study does!”)
By combining these elements, those given over to conspiracism can make seemingly plausible arguments in favor of almost any theory. However, close examination demonstrates that each element is really just a logical fallacy (as an example, if a claim is unfalsifiable, then an absence of evidence for the claim must be conflated with evidence of the claim, this is fallacious).
Obviously, arguments that take this form are extremely problematic. Yet we can see this exact form in Mr. Ali’s writings.
Mr. Ali begins with an unfalsifiable claim relating to the prevalence of discrimination against women. Quoting from Mr. Ali:
“[G]ender discrimination has been moving deeper and deeper underground, no longer as publicly visible as it was in the past. However, the intensity of that discrimination has not changed at all, it’s just become covert rather than overt.”
This argues that if we cannot see gender discrimination, then this is just evidence that the discrimination has become covert. In other words, there is no way to disprove the existence of discrimination, because if we cannot find any, that just means that it is “secret.” This is an unfalsifiable claim.
(Note: this does not mean there is no discrimination against women; obviously there is still quite a bit of observable discrimination.)
Next we see Mr. Ali dismiss evidence that might run afoul of his theory. Again, quoting from Mr. Ali:
“As if that anecdote, if actually true, speaks to the fact that gender discrimination doesn’t really exist.”
Here we see Mr. Ali suggest that anyone with contrary experience is possibly disingenuous. This is a classic form of dismissal, and should not be confused with legitimate rebuttal. Also, notice that Mr. Ali rejects an anecdote as sufficient evidence. This will be important in a moment.
Mr. Ali further rejects statistical evidence when he states:
“Men can selectively use the statistics, the laws, and stories around us to explain away the gender imbalance and deny the subtlety of sexism as a serious issue.”
Here we again see the suggestion that his opponents are disingenuous: if they provide statistics, then the statistics must be selective. Again, this is a dismissal, not a rebuttal.
We then move on to an unfounded assumption. Quoting from Mr. Ali:
“[I]t’s time for men to work to provide the same kind of empathy to women that they provide to us”
There is no evidence given as to the quality or the quantity of empathy that women are currently providing to men; nor is there any evidence given as to the quality or the quantity of empathy than men are currently giving to women. Instead we are left with an unsupported (and thus unfounded) assumption about the nature of men, women, and their respective empathetic exchanges, writ large.
(Note: I agree with Danny’s comment above, that it is important that people be empathetic with each other. The point here is the it is problematic to assume that the human race can be easily divided into a gender binary which is characterized by a empathy deficit)
Finally, we look for differing standards applied to the evidence. Mr. Ali tells an anecdote about a salesman in an electronics store, opening with:
“I am reminded of a seminal moment that sparked my own awareness of gender imbalances.”
So we see that when an anecdote can be used to “spark awareness of gender imbalances” then it is acceptable to Mr. Ali.
Yet above, we saw him reject, without merit, any anecdote that could be characterized as to “spark awareness of gender equality,” because it would be “only” an anecdote and we would assuming it is “actually true.”
And there we see that there is one standard for anecdotes that support Mr. Ali’s position, but a different standard for those that reject his position.
At the end of the day, Mr. Ali’s theory of gender relations should be viewed with extreme skepticism because it is built on a series of logical fallacies, of the same sort used to justify most conspiracy theories.
This is harsh, I will not deny that. But I believe in thinking critically. When we stop thinking critically, we all lose.
Wow, top notch. Excellent analysis.
Well done, good sir. This is far better than I was able to say both in technical respects and in levelheadedness.
Wax-off. You also see this in propaganda. Ordinarily, I’d only expect to see these fallacies of logic on Fox News. It’s clear that Mr. Ali has a lot of passion, but he should seriously consider learning more about logical reasoning and deduction.
I have witnessed several instances where girls get unfair advantage using their so-called erotic capital in everyday situations. Most of the times the gender inequality favors women and these ladies are never going to empathize with poor men. So no use empathizing with them.
I’ve seen men discriminate against women and women discriminate against men. When society deems discrimination acceptable in any form, it will lose out on numerous opportunities. Tearing down someone on the basis on gender, sexuality, age, religion or ethnicity lessens choice and hinders the ability to pursue greatness. But most of all, it just shows ignorance.
well said
I have seen proponents of feminism who flat out state that feminism = equality also seem to have a mantra that when discussing advocating on behalf of men, those men on are on their own.
In other words feminists who claim feminism = equality have the mantra: “women’s issues are everybody’s issues, but men’s issues certainly aren’t MY issues”.
Considering that men have a 4fold increase or more on homelessness, victims of crime, incarceration, suicide and parental access to children, I think it is time that we start shouting from the top of our lungs that we expect women to start advocating for men.
I hope it works (gets you laid that is).
And, to continue with the misandry, we have here the “Men Only Do Things To Get Laid” trope.
Pieces like this read very dated. The cartoonish scene where the loving wife tries to talk feminism to her doltish husband, only to get waived away with a gesture of the hand, and that his own pain from dismissal is not personal and still much smaller than the cartoon scene.
It’s like watching reruns of the original Star Trek, where the ship’s bridge consoles start smoking and sparking..you’d think they’d put circuit breakers on a Star Ship!
Good point, and thank you for the Star Trek reference.
Who said men ONLY do things to get laid. Men however do SOME things to get laid.
Meant as a reply to Drew.
Let us ask,”Do Men empathise with men?” The answer is No. Men do not empathise for male victims of domestic violence and male victims of suicides. Men presume that men who get beaten by wives are wimps. Men and society trivialize deaths of men. Men are also emotionally suppressed since the age of 7. Now, only stupid idiots will blame men from not understanding women’s emotions and not empathising for women.Three to four times more men compared to women die in accidents, murders and suicides. Does men really care about that? If not, then they will not give a damn about women as well. Male feminists are just 16th Century chivalrous males. Last year, I decided I will never protect or rescue a child or woman, because they are my patriarchal duties rooted in taking risks or using violence.
So you wouldn’t save a boy child being physically or sexually abused by his mother?
Yashar,
I’m sorry, but you’re advocating some outrageous and hypocritical ideas friend.
First, you’re confusing gender equality with women’s lib as though the two are interchangeable ideas. Advancing the interest of women and ignoring the status of men may liberate women but will not solve gender inequality, in fact it may further erode the situation. If you want to advance the interest of women, more power to you, you’re pushing on an open door. But don’t suggest that the fundamental problem of gender equality is how much support women do or do not receive.
Second, its unbelievably arrogant (sorry) to suggest that your experience as a privileged and comfortable man is the experience of all men while at the same time lecturing men about their ignorance of womens’ experience. If you’ve become deft at empathizing with the experience of women, you might try empathizing with the experience of men not of your socioeconomic status. Rather than deflect evidence of misandry as problems of race and homophobia as you hinted earlier, do stop and consider the gender dimension of those forces. Being a black man or gay man is a fundamentally different experience from being a black women or lesbian. The stereotype that bigots use to persecute these groups and promote their hate is inextricably and intentionally gendered. Men are the objects on which we paint hero, villain, monster….ect and they use it to affect. The gendered distribution of the prison population can speak for itself.
Third, to dismiss the perception of others as erroneous extrapolation of anecdote born of their personal experience and then attempt to shore up your position with your own personal anecdote of your two friends recounted experience at a electronics store is well…just beyond words.
Lastly, your casual citation of the imbalance in educational attainment favoring women in a list of other statistics as “all positive numbers” is deeply troubling. Its a vivid illustration of how very narrow and gynocentric a perspective you have adopted on gender equality and are advocating to the detriment of us all.
It sounds like your heart is in the right place, but your mind is yet to expand to a more complete picture.
Demanding men show empathy to a group that often doesn’t show much empathy towards them isn’t going to work. More and more men are finding out how society can be sexist towards them and how they too suffer inequality (awareness of male rape victims and female perperation for one), how we men are asked to show empathy and care for women and their issues when those of us who ask for the same can often be met with “whatabouthemenz” insults, “men have all the power”, and other highly dismissive statements. Would you feel helpful to someone who doesn’t also try help you?
Imagine being a male victim of abuse wishing so much that society would give a fuck about your suffering, then to be asked to speak out against the abuse of WOMEN AND CHILDREN (no, not men as well, just women n children). How would you feel? Would you feel helpful or bitter n hurt? Feel abandoned, like you don’t matter and men don’t matter in regards to various issues. Imagine people sitting by as you got beaten up badly in a fight, then those same people come to ask you for help in protecting them against violence?
Women’s rights gets the “yeah yeah blah blah whatever” treatment? Wanna take a guess at how many women’s rights advocates I’ve seen ask for help yet treat mens rights and inequality issues for men AS A JOKE? What message does that send to men?
“If we look only at statistics, there is lots of evidence that things are better for women (and lots of evidence that we’re still in the gutter), especially since the women’s movement of the 1960’s and 70’s. For example, the numbers show that in the United States, more women attend college than men. To be exact: 57 percent of women vs. 43 percent of men.”
There is an obvious problem staring you in the face here, does anyone give a shit about that 43%? A number which has dropped and is most likely still dropping? Things get better for women, but at the same time there are quite a few things getting WORSE for men. I hope you realize this.
“One shouldn’t equate the empathy I speak of as related to pity or feeling sorry for women. Men aren’t here to save women from themselves, empathy is something that women practice with men everyday…all I’m saying is, it’s time for men to work to provide the same kind of empathy to women that they provide to us.”
Which women? The women who love n care for us, or the women who belittle us, make fun of our problems, the women who don’t care at all that violence kills 4x more men or the rest of the issues men face far more often. Oppression olympics? Well I talk about that one stat there not to say men get it worse, but to say men have significant and extremely damaging issues that need to be addressed, issues that DESERVE full awareness n support. And who are you to say that men aren’t already providing the same level of empathy that women give us? Generalizing in such a negative way just adds to the damaging view of men not caring about women when obviously that isn’t true. Be careful with how you word things, or you will push people, especially men who are fed up with the negative mass generalizations that insult them.
Empathy is a 2 way street. For those who feel they aren’t shown much empathy, ENSURE THAT YOU ARE SHOWING IT or try your best to do so. I use to show very little empathy, but how could I expect it in return if I didn’t at first give it? Even if the other doesn’t show you much, show them empathy and hopefully they will start to show it to you and others. I am no expert at empathy but I try my best, that’s all we can do really.
Women’s issues bother me, men’s issues bother me, but both sides need to help each other to get anything done. This hyperfocus on women’s issues alone won’t do much to better the world if the men are still suffering in silence, understand that and I think empathy will naturally grow in all of us.
@Archy: “This hyperfocus on women’s issues alone”
Spot on: “Hyperfocus” is the word, Archy.
And on the GMP I would expect a more balanced attitude – at least.
“it’s time for men to work to provide the same kind of empathy to women that they provide to us.” Interesting. If I applied the same kind of empathy towards women as Sharon Osborne and her cohorts did towards men, I dare say I’d be called a monster…
When women start addressing some of the ways this system disadvantages men, I’ll start caring more about women’s rights. But right now, people have spent decades working on women’s issues, and women won’t even give up ladies’ night at the local bar.
If they want to take, they have to give a little. This constant demand that we deal with ALL women’s issues before we even touch on men’s issues comes off as a bit self-dealing and self-serving.
This seems another article from the series “It’s all about the women”.
It reminds me of the Hugo Schwytzer attitude (let’s call it “Women first and foremost”).
Being it on the GMP site, makes it somehow peculiar.
I didn’t see much equality in the article. No balance. Skewed, rather.
And, maybe, that’s why someone answers “Yeah, Yeah. Blah, Blah. Whatever.”. 8)
LOL at all the angry men commenting here. Just further proof that you don’t want to hear this message about gender equality.
Have a great weekend everyone.
-radical Feminist
I understand that the modern feminist movement is built on a foundation made of sand, but you are not entitled to your own facts. You don’t get to say “THOSE FACTS DON’T COUNT!” while you jam your fingers in your ears. Here are some facts.
Fact 1: Women are massively outpacing men in earning college diplomas
Fact 2: Women under the age of 30 make more money than men for equal work
Fact 3: Women are earning more advanced degrees than men
Fact 4: Women are afforded many special opportunities from women-only scholarships to preference for government contracts.
If we’re really talking about gender equality, we should be talking about these things. The fact that men are 14 points behind women in terms of college enrollment is a national disaster. I am 100% against the crusade against contraception and abortion access and the like, but they are issues that are of almost no importance when you compare them to things like educational underachievement, occupational underachievement, and many other issues that men face. Whether or not you get free birth control shouldn’t even be brought up as an issue when we’re talking about a 14 point college gender gap.
Your anti-male bias is showing.
“The fact that men are 14 points behind women in terms of college enrollment is a national disaster.” Agreed. That is about all I can take seriously in what you wrote.
“Whether or not you get free birth control shouldn’t even be brought up as an issue when we’re talking about a 14 point college gender gap.”
I’m not asking for “free birth control.” That’s not what the Sandra Fluke escapade is about. Its about access. It’s about allowing women to make their own reproductive health decisions. Not handouts.
So easy to dismiss people who disagree with you when you mis-characterise their position. Does the phrase “straw man argument” mean anything to you.
Good day, sir.
I like your argument and side with you on some of it, but do you really agree with this article as per or do you just disagree with some of the comments and can’t be bothered to actually discuss the article?
“can’t be bothered to actually discuss the article?”
I didn’t realize I needed to deconstruct the whole article if I wanted to make a comment.
It sounds like you maybe sorta kinda give a sh*t where I’m coming from, so I’ll tell you:
The author nailed my experience as a woman, attempting to dialogue with men about issues that don’t directly affect them. I “liked” it, in that Facebook kind of way. I agreed with it.
I disagreed with many if not most of the comments under the story. I believe those comments beautifully illustrate the author’s point about the difficulties men and women have in communicating about these issues.
One thing I’m not going to do is get into a dirty word war with the people who disagree with me. It’s not worth the anger, frustration, or time wasted. For example, the chap who responded to my comment was entirely dismissive of the struggles women continue to face, stating that our challenges “are issues that are of almost no importance when you compare them to things like educational underachievement, occupational underachievement, and many other issues.” It’s not a zero sum game. We can have struggles, you can have struggles, neither cancels out the other.
Truth be told, when I read tweet-like comments that aren’t anchored on the article, I figure poster with O.D.D. and move on. Now that I know that isn’t the case, I pull the ol’ turn judgement into curiousity and wonder which comments you’ve disagreed with and which you didn’t.
Personally, I think the author had interesting points to make but the writing of this article sucks (thus he failed) and the problem with that is it can be used to entrenched positions by either side. Terribly written thought-pieces are terrible regardless of topic (and personally, I cringe whenever someone attempts to play the authority / expert on a subject card and then completely mess it up).
I absolutely LOVE how you sum up “It’s not a zero sum game. We can have struggles, you can have struggles, neither cancels out the other” and I personally think that’s the best possible start up point for most discussions on these types of subjects. To minimize any lived lives is ridiculous and to create some sort of homogenize experience with struggles is dumbfounding. Perhaps I’m being individualistic, but I can’t even begin to imagine to say “I know what men go thru because this is my experience as a man” even if the man in question sits next to me in class. The word “you” you used reflects that perfectly.
That being said, this article still sucks.
Thanks, Steph. I don’t agree with you that the article sucks, but I appreciate the thoughtful response to my remarks.
So, basically you’re just here to troll, then?
From what I can gather, yes.
Sandra Fluke had access to birth control (which I support wholeheartedly). She just didnt get it from who she wanted, when she wanted it, paid for by who she wanted it paid for.
Newsflash: insurance is tied to employment in America. Vote single payer, or deal with.
This brings up another relevant issue. Why should insurance cover many free services for women but it explicitly does not cover free services for men. Feminists fought VERY hard against the ACA covering healthcare services for men and they made sure that those things were not included. Why the gendered difference? There was a great article about that subject here a few months back actually.
Are article comments really the best place for an argument about other stuff? Maybe you should invite ppl to a chatroom discussion?
Can I just say that affordable birth control for women is pretty much free birth control for men? Because it is. A man having sex with a woman on birth control is benefitting from it. Okay? Dang!
No, it isn’t. First, you assume every man has sex with women. Second, you assume that if a woman is on the pill then the guy magically doesn’t need to wear a condom and this is not the case quite often.
She said borth control, not protection from STDs. A man benefits from a woman’s use of birth control in that it decreases the chances of said woman having a baby and said man contributing financially to this baby.
“Can I just say that affordable birth control for women is pretty much free birth control for men? Because it is. A man having sex with a woman on birth control is benefitting from it.”
THIS SO MUCH!!! I have no idea why so many men fail to see this. I’ve always been a bit annoyed, even resentful, that my partners would get free rides (pun intended) while I was the one who had to not only pay for birth control, but go through the troubles of seeing a doctor, going to the pharmacy, remembering to take it, etc. The men just got to benefit. On top of that, it’s the women who suffer the physical side effects, which can range from annoying to causing serious health problems (nausea, weight gain, blood clot risks, excessive cramping, pms, and bleeding with the iud, gall bladder/liver problems, loss of sex drive, mood swings, etc). I never understood why so many men can’t grasp that accessible and affordable birth control for women is just as beneficial to them. Sex takes two people.
We MAY benefit from it, but even still many women want their man to use condoms as well and I doubt the women are paying for them. In Australia at least I believe BC is on medicare and PBS so the meds are cheaper. There are far more options for women as well, if they get pregnant they can get an abortion whereas men are up shits creek without a paddle so I’m sure some will feel she has more responsibility since she has more options.
Is anyone going to address his point about male issues? Universal male issues, not just some men who benefit from birth control their partners take (Useless for homosexual couples).
Here we are: http://goodmenproject.com/politics-2/men-to-feds-are-we-in-this-together-or-not/
Well, tell me what gender equality issues you want to talk about. Ones that are based on facts and statistics. It isn’t just about access because these women DO have access, and like I said, I am 100% in support of women on having full access to contraception, to legal and safe abortions, and to screenings for cancers. I am in 100% agreement on these issues.
As for mischaracterizing your position, you didn’t take a position aside from “LOL these angry men not recognizing women are disadvantaged.” That isn’t exactly an argument.
“It isn’t just about access because these women DO have access”
So you get to make unfounded claims, but you want to call ME out for doing that very thing? No, they don’t have access. If you’re a women in law school at Georgetown, using the student insurance, you don’t have access to oral contraceptive. Period. Don’t tell me that the women should just look elsewhere for another health insurance plan – you know full well how expensive it is for a person to insure him or herself in this country. Law students don’t have that kind of money, nor does much of the middle class. Don’t tell me she can use another kind of birth control like condoms or spermicide. Women use oral contraceptive for more than simply preventing fertilization. I’ve been taking it since I was 13 to stabilize my menstrual cycle and clear up my acne. My mom has used it all of her life because it helps her with the pain of endometriosis (sp?). There are PLENTY of others who do the same. Bottom line: it’s not up to you, an educational institution, an employer, or anyone else if a woman takes the pill.
I really, really can’t tell you how badly I do not want to get in a flame war with a self-righteous Libertarian right now. I’d pretty much rather shoot myself in the head.
“If you’re a women in law school at Georgetown, using the student insurance, you don’t have access to oral contraceptive. Period.”
Sure they do. They can use their parents’ insurance, as many students do, pay for it themselves at Planned Parenthood ($20-$30 a month), or pay full price, which isn’t expensive for someone who can afford the ~ $60,000 a year in tuition and dorm costs to attend Georgetown Law.
And, really, what percentage of the 160 million females in the US attend Georgetown Law School?
You answered for me, Thanks Eric!
“They can use their parents’ insurance”
Hmm. That wasn’t an option for me when I was in school. I don’t have a relationship with my parents and even if I had, that’s not a guarantee that they could have afforded to help me with my medical expenses (or been willing to).
“pay for it themselves at Planned Parenthood ($20-$30 a month)”
Oh, that’s funny. Have you heard about the GOP’s nationwide efforts to de-fund PP or any other provider that happens to be associated with (not performing, “associated with) abortion? Have you heard that my Governor Rick “Adios Mofo” Perry stripped Texas’ Women’s Health Program of funding, intentionally? That overnight hundreds of low income women were stripped of the access that they had to reproductive care? Perhaps you should read the news more often.
“or pay full price, which isn’t expensive for someone who can afford the ~ $60,000 a year in tuition and dorm costs to attend Georgetown Law.”
Bullshit. It is VERY expensive to purchase oral contraception without a prescription drug benefit. Try it. You’ll see. It’s not a monthly cost that the average student can afford. Upwards of $100 a month.
Another newsflash: not everyone attending a private law school has money to throw around. Some are there on scholarships, some on grants. I can hear you right now saying “well she should go to law school somewhere else then!” Um, she has the right to attend whatever law school she wants to. She’s attending Georgetown because it’s one of the nations’ best law schools. She got in, she enrolled, that was her decision to make and not yours. In these days where lawyers are graduating and then taking jobs as paralegals because they can’t find any work, you’re a fool if you don’t accept at the best school that you got into. But that is another topic for another time.
and the straw man arguments continue….
You clearly don’t know what a straw man argument is if you’re calling what Eric is saying a straw man argument.
I have to pay more than $100/mo for NECESSARY healthcare things for me. Not something that is NOT necessary like birth control. Do I get a break on that? No, I do not. Sometimes there are things in life we have to pay for. I’m not saying our insurance system is good — it is awful — and I fully support a single payer system, but you really don’t have a leg to stand on with any of your arguments. Most of them aren’t even relevant to the discussion. You said these women do not have access to birth control. They DO. Do they want to pay the price is the question. Do I want to pay the $85 an appointment for physical therapy for my arm? No, I don’t. Do I? Yes. Sorry but you get no sympathy from me complaining about things that aren’t free and having to make choices when it comes to money.
“Not something that is NOT necessary like birth control”
Yeah, it’s necessary. Not getting impregnated is pretty GD necessary. I feel like I am arguing with cave men. You call yourself a progressive (laughable) and then you say something like that.
“you really don’t have a leg to stand on with any of your arguments. Most of them aren’t even relevant to the discussion. ” Take a look in the mirror, amigo.
Look, this has been sooooo much fun but I have better things to do with my Friday evening than continue to argue with a rock. Peace out.
Hormonal birth control is not a medical necessity for 99% of women. There are many ways that you can avoid getting pregnant that don’t involve ME paying for your birth control. Condoms. Female condoms. Abstinence. PAYING FOR YOUR OWN BIRTH CONTROL. You cannot seriously consider avoiding pregnancy a medical necessity. Your mind cannot be that warped.
Hahaha I consider avoiding pregnancy a medical necessity. A life necessity, an economic necessity and a mental health (I had severe PPD with both kids and it usually only gets worse with subsequent children) necessity. Many women want to assiduously avoid pregnancy for a host of reasons, and yes one of those reasons can be medical given the strain and stress on the body.
Of course, I also think that men should have a birth control pill and it should be all part of health services provided along with condoms, tubals and vasectomies. I had the chance to ask a married friend about her husband’s vasectomy recently. Did he have to have you sign off on a form, I asked (cause I keep hearing how this is a requirement). Nope. He went in, made the appointment, had the procedure. No one required her to do anything to give him permission. I just found that interesting.
Nicole and Collin,
I’d like to remind both of you that while GMP welcomes and encourages open discussion from wide array of viewpoints, GMP does not tolerate personal attacks. A lot of the language I’m seeing in this back and forth is becoming quite personal and insulting to one another. Further comments which have personal insults in them will be trashed.
How about going to one of the other 200 accredited law schools, many of which are less costly than the 60K per year they charge at Georgetown.
If this is a critical issue, that’s precisely what a person would do. Unless they want a platform from which to grandstand and pretend that every woman alive is on Geiegetown’s insurance do she can claim that there’s a war on women.
Nah, nobody would do that!
Don’t have sex if you can’t afford it? Same kind of logic that is applied to men….equality …gotta love it
Well, whoever can afford the $60,000 tuition can clearly afford the $20-30 at Planned Parenthood, which still exists, and still sells BC pills at low rates.
Yeah, there are 200 law schools in the US, quite a few with better reputations than Georgetown. Nobody is forced to attend the one that doesn’t pay for their BC pills.
Eric,
Every time a woman has her birth control make available at a reduced cost, a man benefits. Lesbians don’t need birth control. So please. Enough.
Lesbians don’t need birth control.
From what I understand birth control (pills at least) can serve other uses than prevention of pregnancy so that may not be entirely true.
Mark,
All drug plans have covered BC pills for 40 years, with the singular exception of Catholic Church plans.
Thus, if that’s important to you (to state the obvious) choose one of the tens of thousands of other plans that do.
Please, enough of the absurdity over an issue that doesn’t have to affect anyone.
I’m not a libertarian, thank you very much. I’m actually about as progressive as they come. I simply do not think that women should be afforded massive special privileges simply because they were born women. I am truly a man who believes in equality. Not equal outcomes but equal opportunity, equal access, and equal treatment under the law. When it comes to the laws and genders, the women win on almost every issue. I’m trying to think of a single issue where women do not have grossly outsized benefits, and I can think of nothing.
Excuse me, grades? How do women have an advantage there exactly?
You can pay lip service to equality all you want, but you, my friend, are not progressive. Not in the least. “When it comes to the laws and genders, the women win on almost every issue.” …. Do you think life is some kind of tug of war battle between men and women? I want to assure you, it will not make you any less of a man and it will not impede your success if you *accept* the fact that the cards have been stacked against women’s rights until very recently (and there is still much institutionalized sexism to undo). If you can’t agree with me on that one very basic tenet, we are wasting our time with this discussion.
Grades… grades… what? I’m talking about laws, not getting grades in school.
I am absolutely progressive. I support everything that true progressives support. Feminists have made life a tug of war between men and women. Absolutely. They have pushed far past wanting equality to wanting supremacy. What happened in the distant past has absolutely no bearing on current reality. Because your ancestors in the 1600s couldn’t vote and were treated like property doesn’t change the FACT that you live longer, will earn more money, are more likely to have a college degree, are less likely to be homeless, are less likely to suffer an injury in the workplace, etc, etc, etc.
I agree with you that women have a long history of being oppressed, but I don’t agree that you should be getting special treatment for something that never happened to you. I also do not think that I should be penalized for the benefits of the men hundreds of years ago. I never got to enjoy the patriarchal society you feminists rail against.
Let’s get back to the article. His thesis was stated “So, until the day comes when things change on the gender equality front, it’s our responsibility, as men and human beings to care, and to care enough to ask. And wait and learn from the answer. And god forbid, try to understand what it’s like for the women we claim to love.”
What was wrong with what he said?
Thesis is good – the rest of it is terrible. Interesting ideas but the execution was sorely lacking.
Had he stopped at his thesis, I’d have thought “heck yeah, I agree! Lead the way!” but then he had to make a whole bunch of terrible logic gaffs so it kept sliding from that enthusiastic position to a “uhhm, okay” and further to a “huhhhhh” to simply a cocked eyebrow and a crossing of the arms by the last argument.
Personally, I don’t care what position someone takes as long as it holds up as credible. In fact, the more unlike it is from my own the better since it might help me consider other points of view. However, once people lose their ethos or try to employ pathos to sway me, I sort of take a step back and ask “why?”
That being said, good luck with the flames. It seems like the villagers are readying their pitchforks.
Here they come…
I think I’ve said what I needed to say here. You can only talk to someone who wants to listen, and these angry men are not interested in listening.
You haven’t made a single factual statement. You’ve just ranted. You disregard all facts and statistics, make stuff up, and generally pretend that you know what you’re talking about when you don’t.
Your use of angry men is actually quite condescending…Is it ok if I call you an angry woman who is unwilling to hear these men out on gender equality issues? Are you sure you are listening to them?
What is this national generalization week? Did I miss the memo? LOL
Nicole,
As a woman(?) you don’t find Ali’s tone about the experience and behavior of women just a little condescending? I mean he’s clearly trying to piss of men, and he’s succeeded, but I would think that most women would find plenty in Ali’s essay to take umbrage with. It’s a tired trope, but Ali is essentially offering himself up as a white knight to a group of people who, as he positions it, are both unable to defend themselves and incapable of transgression.
He is essentially extending the virgin/whore dichotomy, except in Ali’s world all women are flowering virgins and all men, dastardly villains. Are you really okay with that?
You must have missed the part where she said radical feminist. Reality for radical feminists matches the reality reflected in the article, whatever they want it to be and whatever is convenient at the time to advance their political agenda.
I believe in dialogue, but don’t believe in wasting time discussing serious issues with closed minded people. She just wants to derail the discussion and probably feels that this is a safe male space where men can discuss things important to them (ie something she makes her mission in life to destroy).
Pay her no mind. She wouldn’t have the capacity to pay you back.
Due to your response i see further proof that you don’t want to hear our message about gender equality.
I just think the article cam from a limited view, not fully encompassing the entirety of the core problem people have.
Oh, the irony of this comment. Tell me, what emotion do you thing you’re displaying in this comment? Brevity? Tell me, how do feminists tend to respond when people hand-wave all of their concerns away, and then respond with ‘oh, you’re just bitter’? How, exactly, do you expect to reach gender equality by sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming ‘I don’t care what you have to say!’?
What is it with some of you that strips all the self-awareness and empathy away, and leaves nothing but an oblivious hostility to everyone but those who already agree 100% with what you have to say?
I don’t really blame people for having hostility toward the other gender – a society with extremely troubled gender dynamics will instill that in people, because you can’t be raised in a society without internalizing its values. However, those who claim the mantle of equality must make at least some attempt to listen to others, to take their views into account and – even if they don’t agree with those views – accept that they are honestly held, and not the result of emotional imbalances.
Or, to put it in terms a feminist can understand, you’re gas-lighting.
Sorry “Soullite,” but I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.
lololol indeed john, indeed
Sure you don’t.
So, anger is proof that people “don’t want to listen”? That’s not my experience.
I see people get angry when discussing contentious issues with some frequency, but that usually doesn’t mean they aren’t listening. Rather, it usually means that the issue being discussed is one that affects them deeply, and that I can gain perspective by listening to what they have to say.
I know that I would have missed out on a great number of learning opportunities if I simply dismissed everyone that seemed to be emotionally involved in a contentious issue.
As a humanist I think it’s most important that we realize all people have problems and start moving to address all of them as soon as possible. Making any one group’s problems more important than another only creates animosity. An open dialogue needs to be created where people don’t sit on certain sides of the fence as to who has it worse. Doing the latter is what is dividing us. Until we stand together looking at ALL problems, we will always stand apart with our own agendas.
THANK YOU! Couldn’t agree more!
I read GMP to see the other side of the argument for women’s rights. I’m glad to see that this article was torn apart. It makes the assumption that if men just put themselves in women’s shoes all our problems would be solved. I like the argument being made that women need to have the same empathy for men and I completely agree. It’s ridiculous that we as women would assume we deserve empathy, but offer none for men. Thank you to the people in the comments who have defended the injustice done to men. The arguments feminists make (even being a feminist myself) can seem like beating a dead horse. People in general seem to ignore that feminism can create an imbalance, that we need to see both sides. No ones plight should be ignored. I’m glad to see that some men here can acknowledge their advantage. I hope more feminists can acknowledge their advantages. I sincerely give thanks to the men on GMP for opening my mind to new ideas and changing the way I think about and treat men.
Thank-you for this comment, I agree.