Peter Houlihan, with some “Rules for Rationality”, to help facilitate more civil discussions around gender issues
For some reason gender is a subject that divides groups of human beings like no other. It’s the one subject everyone has a stake in, there are no neutral parties or outsider’s points of view and we’re all blinded by our gender in some way.
For this reason I’d like to suggest a set of rules for talking about gender. They’re rules of thumb, rather than commandments written in stone, and I’ve been guilty of breaking almost all of them, but I think they’re good ones. I also think that they could lead to a less partisan debate on gender. They do make a few assumptions about your ideas however:
-Gender roles empower men and oppress women
-Gender roles empower women and oppress men
-Different forms of oppression aren’t measurable or comparable
-Gendered issues usually result in privileges and oppressions for both genders
-One gender’s rights can’t come at the expense of the other’s: If anyone loses a battle of the sexes, everyone does.
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If you disagree with any of the above, fair enough, but the rest of this probably won’t make a whole lot of sense. Well here goes, see you on the other side :)…
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Rule number one: Be sure to look both ways before you check someone’s privilege
Privilege can be very blinding, and people in a position of privilege often don’t notice it or forget to look past it. This does not mean that anyone who is privileged might not have a valid point. Its also important to remember that you are privileged. If you do think someone is missing the point or being blinded by their own station in life, make sure you point it out as gently and sensitively as you can. If at all possible include yourself in their position.
As first world citizens we have to remember that we aren’t subject to the same pressures as people living in Ethiopia
is much better than:
You’ve never been through what they have, how can you possibly know what you’re talking about?
Remember that its up to you to point out the flaws in their argument, not up to them to get with your program. Privilege checking should never be used to dismiss the arguments of an entire group of people, all points of view are valuable and generally come from somewhere.
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Rule number two: Avoid Generalizations
If your argument has begun to describe a broad group of people in general terms, you’ve gone over to the dark side. Men are not all assholes, Women are not all bitches. MRAs don’t all want to turn back the clock on gender and Feminists aren’t all out to get men. Which brings me to my next point:
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Rule number three: No Conspiracy Theories
I have this crazy idea: Most people want to be good people, only a tiny portion of human beings actually go out to try and do evil. Even the Khmer Rouge were trying to make the world a better place. They still ended up murdering alot of people along the way, but that wasn’t what drove them. If you’re describing a group of people or a person as part of a conspiracy out to put people down, or motivated by a desire to destroy the world, you’re probably way off. Give their motivations the benefit of the doubt, even if you think they’re doing damage. They’ve probably seen something you haven’t that’s convinced them to act this way. Be gentle and try to keep an open mind.
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Rule number four: Try To Be Balanced
If you’re pointing out an oppressive aspect of one gender role, try to point out a related privilege also bestowed on that gender, or a related oppression faced by the opposite gender. The same goes for discussing privilege. Nothing is more likely to polarise a debate by only painting one gender as uniquely oppressed or privileged, even if that’s not what you had in mind and isn’t actually what you believe.
Men are under a greater expectation to earn money than women, although, of course, this also translates as greater access to the workplace for empowered men.
Is much better than
Men have to earn all the money.
If your argument amounts to a gender filtered list of oppression then you’re ignoring half the problem, not to mention having lost half of your audience (and half the solution).
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Rule number five: Don’t Panic, Stay Calm, Be Polite
I’ve been particularly guilty of this one. Its so tempting to read a grossly offensive piece of writing and charge in with all guns blazing. If you find yourself calling names, insulting the offending writer, or making witty assumptions about their character or a group that they belong to then you’ve derailed your own argument. Select all, hit backspace, take a deep breath and start again.
If you’re writing to let off steam you’re quite possibly contributing to the problem, if you’re calmly pointing out flaws in their argument in a what you consider to be a fair and balanced matter, you might just be part of the solution.
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Rule number six: Victimhood Isn’t A Medal
Discussing personal experience is important and the stories of our fallen brothers and sisters should be told and heard. But if your victimhood becomes a way to silence others or a mark of status in the hierarchy of the oppression Olympics, then you may have lost your way. Being a victim isn’t something to be proud of, surviving and rising above it is.
If your story raises important questions about a particular theory, tell it, but be as gentle and non judgemental as possible. This approach has completely changed my mind on a few topics, it can really work.
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Rule number seven: Don’t Play The Blame Game
If the most important issue an equality movement is assigning blame, then they’re not really interested in equal rights. I’ve seen this behaviour either side of the fence. Squabbling for greater recognition of oppression, privilege and guilt of one gender over the other suggests that the focus is less on achieving a balance and more on protecting the interests of one group over the other.
This partially falls under rules number three and four: gender isn’t a conspiracy which one group invented to keep the other down. We’re all oppressed and privileged by it, to greater and lesser degrees, and we all have a hand in perpetuating it. If we’re going to fight it, we need to do that together too.
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This is a working list, and wasn’t made in any particular order of importance, any corrections or additions are more than welcome.
I’m not a religious type, but I think a certain hippie who lived in Galilee hit the nail on the head 2000 years ago when he said “Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself.” If you disagree with me, imagine me as yourself working on different information. Then try to give me what you have.
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image by kheelcenter / flickr
Rule number two: Avoid Generalizations If your argument has begun to describe a broad group of people in general terms, you’ve gone over to the dark side. Men are not all assholes, Women are not all bitches. MRAs don’t all want to turn back the clock on gender and Feminists aren’t all out to get men. Which brings me to my next point: True true. One of my pet peeves when talking to folks in the gender discourse is when they make absolute declarations like that. For all the times I’ve heard, “Men as a class have power” (followed by… Read more »
Thanks Peter, for you piece. Like so many on GMP it really makes you think. But you know what Ladies and Gentlemen? After several years of observing the “wars” over the various issues in our society, I can come to only one inescapable conclusion. PEOPLE LOVE THE CONFLICT. Even more than they want a resolution to their issue. Now I’m not a shrink so I couldn’t begin to tell you why that is. As of 1 January 2012, I will be free to pursue solutions to those issues. Heaven help those who want to put their conflict in my way.
True, but I can’t help but feel that the best way to moderate their conflict is to reply with as much calm and balance as you can muster.
I’m by no means the best at this, but I try.
My son is 11 years old and in 6th grade….I had to explain to him about Title IX and the meaning of what constitutes sexual harassment and bullying….we went over what rights each student, male or female, has…and then we went over the detention point system and the grounds for suspension….and then I signed his notebook saying that we had gone over this…I love my son but I understand how hard it may be for him to truly assess what is fair and not fair in each situation….learning is an ongoing process…I love my husband, too, and I have had… Read more »
Getting past the victim-as-medal and “victim-as-morally-superior is going to be a biggy. Too much invested and it frequently works. WRT the conspiracy theory: You don’t need conspiracies if everybody thinks the same way. Dismissing as a “conspiracy theory” the assertion that feminism, or a good part of feminism does this or thinks that is handy, although bogus. But if feminism or a good part of it really does this, or thinks that, you don’t have much else to go on but to sneer, “conspiracy theory”. One of those items I shouldn’t have to say are transparent. Of course, one reason… Read more »
I’m not against people arguing that the mainstream of movement X tends to believe Y, they might be right. What bothers me more is the argument that movement X tends to promote Y because they want to oppress group Z and are evil. Humans don’t usually think like that, even white supremecists don’t usually think in terms of oppressing others (even though thats what they’re doing).
Its a subtle distinction, but its important if you genuinely want to explore their reasoning and motivation in order to find a solution.
For instance: If you assume that the Nazis did what they did because they were psychologically warped and fundamentally evil then the solution is to turn Germany into a psychiatric hospital. Whereas if you assume that they became paranoid and messianic because of the poverty and opression then the solution is to help them rebuild, while still facilitating the recovery of their victims and keeping a close eye on them. The former assumtion was made following world war I and directly cause the conditions that made possible the rise to power of the nazis. The latter approach resulted in the… Read more »
This site is so elitist. Too many tenets to watch out for and follow. I think there is a prerequisite to comment on this site, Honors B.A. , or preferably a Masters Degree…English Literature is especially appreciated. An appreciation for rape jokes is a bonus. I’ve been on GMP in the last several months, reading and posting…and all I can conclude today with certainty is that this site isn’t geared to mainstream men or women. I had an inkling of this before, but this article takes the cake. This site attracts people in certain income brackets and people with highly… Read more »
Taylor, you might want to read my two articles I contributed to this site.
They’re called “Bullied By Girls And Women: One Man’s Account” and “My Guilt”.
I’m no Ivy League graduate nor occupy a position in the upper echalons. I’m just like you in some ways.
That’s why I think you’ll find my articles valuable. They speak to the people who are in your position.
Do come back and give them a read.
That’s a problem with a lot more than gender issues. Class representation is a huge issue on any sort of discussion. Being on-line doesn’t help either. It’s hardly just this site. In fact I bet it’s just the sort of problem Tom and Lisa would want to solve….. but how?
It absolutely is a problem we actively want to solve. There’s a few things we’re doing — one is truly reaching out to as diverse a pool of contributors as possible — we’ve published stories from men in prison, chronically unemployed, homeless, students — whoever has a story to tell. Related to that — we help those people get their story told in the best way — whatever help they need with editing, spelling, clarity, grammar — we work with them. And we give them out network of other writers to help guide, promote, acknowledge their work. We want whatever… Read more »
That is so cool!
Er, are they (we)? If it helps I don’t hold a degree in anything, I’m on the dole and certainly don’t have any more access to legislators, media moguls or highbrow academics than any other citizen. Not only do I not have a good career, what little one I had was wiped out by the recession and my hearing loss. If anything I’d say the site is anti-elitist, I’ve seen all kinds of voices here, from hard-core feminists to die-hard traditionalists and everything in between, aswell as side to side. That said, I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy my article, I… Read more »
Also: In case you got that impression, this isn’t an official GMP moderation policy. Its just my own two cents about balanced argument. 🙂
Rule number six: Victimhood Isn’t A Medal Another vantage point: Victims often seek the chance to give testimony—telling the tales of the abuse(s) of power that they experienced—asking the group, (readers in this instance), to bear witness to their experiences. It is a sacred job to bear witness to another’s victimhood as it provides social meaning to the larger group while providing personal meaning for the victim. If that is denied them, their traumas can remain on rinse-and-repeat mode, continually trying to be heard. Shaming victims for needing to be heard is another violence done to them. Instead of refusing… Read more »
Personally, I don’t call my victimhood a medal. There’s nothing rewarding at all for dealing with any associations that are triggered due to my past traumas. There’s a life for me outside what I do. Besides, I’m a survivor. Not a victim anymore. I reached that decision last year at the age of thirty-three. My basic goal is to get society to realize that men like me exist. We should be talked to, people should do more studies on us, produce articles. Uncover what is hidden. Not dismiss us. Luckily, this place is one venue of many whom have welcome… Read more »
Hear hear. I was actually a bit reluctant to include that one, but I couldn’t think of any better way to phrase it and I do think its a big problem within debate. The stories of victimhood need to be listened to in order to solve the problem, but attributing them a monopoly on the truth (as sometimes happens) is problematic. A classic example would be how everyone stood by while Israel created whole new generations of victims, a complacency partially motivated by the fact that they were a nation of victims themselves. Certainly theres no shame in victimhood whatsoever… Read more »
The difficulty victims have is that they are frequently in a double bind; and I will use Israel as the example: If Israel had allowed the surrounding Arab nations to overrun them a few days after statehood, the world would have asked “Why didn’t they stand up for themselves?” Yet, if they do stand up for themselves, they may be too vigilant (hyper-vigilance is a frequent result of unprocessed trauma) and create another group of victims. Our sly admiration for victors is much more compelling than our contempt for any person or group that is victimized more than once,… Read more »
True, but theres a difference between standing up for yourself and becoming the bully. That said I’m fortunate to live in a country whose neighbours have no interest in inavading (again).
Also well said about victims, moral high ground and projected shame. I think it should be possible to listen to the stories of victims before giving them an equal place in the debate, rather than silencing them or enthroning them.
Sensible approaches Peter. I do take some objection to your mention of generalizations. Although it is tricky to maneuver, I don’t see how topics can be discussed without making some generalizations. The “all women are bitches” is a terrible generalization and should be avoided. That women bear the brunt of the cosmetic advertising industry is not a bad generalization, for instance. A generalization is an average and averages exist. What usually causes ill will is not the generalization, but the root cause assigned to the making of the generalization: women use cosmetics to manipulate men, men don’t share emotions because… Read more »
LOL, yeah. I often get criticised for saying feminism is a hate movement. People tell me, oh well you can’t generalise like that because not all feminists are the same. But usually I am replying to someone who just said feminism is an equality movement. How come nobody ever tells them off and says, oh well you can’t say feminism is for equality because feminists are not all the same.
I’m not sure you can say there is *a* feminist movement. There is feminism, which is a general recognition that there is an imbalance in society based on gender, but feminists are all over the map on what the imbalance is and what the solutions ought to be. I’d suggest there are are a number of feminist movements, based on those differing perceptions, and you are likely to find as much bitter factional strife among feminists as you find between feminists and their opponents.
See, I greatly agree with you DMc. There are these “waves” of feminism and much of the arguing is vicious. I for one could easily be accused of being a “fun feminist” by folks like Twisty Faster or Robert Jensen because of my positions on sexuality. I don’t engage in the fights because I don’t see it as useful and I’m not invested in the academy. My most accurate description of myself would be that I’m a lefty liberal pro lgbtq pro sex pro women and men getting along tear down corporate influence, slow foods, destroy the class wars, arty… Read more »
“I think I’ve been accused of being a feminist right here on this site over the last few days! Accused! And I don’t have an issue with being a feminist because for me, as I was raised it meant something different than perhaps what’s in the media today.” I’m a little bemused by it all, but that comes from perspective. I’m a ’60s leftover, and I remember when the debates were just starting, and people like Kate Millett and Shulamith Firestone were writing the manifestos that came to define the movement. I see a lot of people today who don’t… Read more »
“The underlying question is “Has *society* changed for the better?” in the intervening decades? In various respects, I think it has. But broad social change *cannot* happen quickly, and if you don’t take a long view about your goals, you’ll just get frustrated.” Exactly. I always have felt that you need activists and rabble rousers just as you need peace makers and diplomats. Broad social change that happens too quickly does cause insecurity and instability on a systemic, but also individual, level. And our system in America at least is so big! It’s more than just small tribes certainly, and… Read more »
Thanks again. Berne had a pop-psych bestseller in the 70’s called “Games People Play”. He followed that with “What Do You Say After You’ve Said Hello?” and “Beyond Games and Scripts”. *Many* pieces fell into place when I read Berne. Do try to find copies of the books and read them if you get a chance. In terms of the Position mentioned above, Berne evolved an elegant therapeutic technique to uncover it. He would tell a patient “Pretend your life is a fairy tale. Which fairy tale is it, and what character are you?” It’s a question I’d like to… Read more »
That’s a great question. Would be wonderful to use that in an improv class as well in terms of building characters and examining narrative. My masters focused on systems theory, family of origin, diversity and conflict resolution. We spent a lot of time on Rogers helping skills and how people learn. I feel there are is a great application to conflict resolution and mediation here. From the Wiki on Carl Rogers, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Rogers ” “A person cannot teach another person directly; a person can only facilitate another’s learning” (Rogers, 1951). This is a result of his personality theory, which states that… Read more »
Oh did you see my reply to you on the decrease in violence on the NISVS thead? https://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/new-cdc-study-on-sexual-assault/ I’ll copy and paste it here: ————————————– Julie, while violence may be part of human nature, it’s not the only part, and violence has been on the decrease across more or less all recorded history. Now if that statement sounds strange to you or false, it might be in part because of the success of making violence unacceptable also tends to highlight it more when it does happen. Seriously if you want to feel upset about a problem facing the world, I’d… Read more »
Yeah, I will tend to agree with you here (SHOCKING! ;)) We just hear about things more due to ye olde internet. I’m all for less violence.
That’s fair. I wouldn’t argue that groups of people aren’t oppressed and privileged in general ways (if they weren’t, what the hell is the point in this site?). What I was trying to criticise was more what some feminists term “homogenisation” through which all members of a group are assigned the same traits. @Byron: Good point. I think its roughly correct to describe feminism as an equality movement on the basis that that is the aim of most of their (our?) philosophy, even if some of the more extreme members end up promoting hate. I’d except the outer fringe from… Read more »
Right and if I was in a debate with you I would come back with a bunch of evidence as to how popular the SCUM manifesto remains today, how Solanas was defended by the feminist establishment at the time, and so on to establish that her stuff is not fringe but mainstream.
Some do, some don’t. Ever read The Spearhead? Its not exactly a bastion of reason and fairness, but I’d like to think that masculists and MRAs shouldn’t be defined by it.
With questions like that its a little difficult, if not impossible, to quantify to what degree Solonas’ ideas are accepted by and represent feminists as a group. Even if you surveyed the issue, how on earth would you obtain a “representative sample” of feminists? 😉 I go by the fact that the majority of feminist works, that I’ve read anyway, don’t seem to be that batshit crazy.
While you apply it specifically to gender discussions, your suggestions have *much* broader applications. I really wish many of the folks currently passionately debating US politics and the economy would read them and ry to follow them.
I’ve tried to point out to folks elsewhere that there *is* no “Us” and “Them” – there is only Us. We all live on this planet together. If you cast things as Us vs Them, you are part of the problem, and *cannot* propose meaningful solutions.
I’ve debated various different topics and with very few exceptions feminism is by far the worse. The exceptions are Palestine / Israel and US Imperialism (and specifically blaming US troops for their part in it). In all three cases you have a small group of people who sense that their position is under moral attack, that the tides are turning somehow, that they are the bad guys, or that many people are coming to see them as the bad guys suddenly. That’s the optimum position for triggering tribalist self-defence mechanisms. Politics, Abortion etc…. they all look like a picnic compared… Read more »
Honest question here DavidByron, how can we tell the difference (any of us, I mean) between fighting for real things and fighting for existential issues. I’m asking honestly and without snark, and I’d appreciate your thoughts on that. Because I think that sometimes both fights happen in the same thread, and how do we address one and then the other.
Er, what’s a “real thing”? The existential issues will be just as real to folks involved as any other, and I’m not certain it’s *possible* to separate the two.
Good point. I’ll try to clarify. I mean fighting for a concrete fact/issue. Access to childcare let’s say. vs fighting over “women are marginalized because we have to have kids and work and I know my position is right out of feeling.” Maybe that’s closer to what I mean. Access to childcare might have nothing at all to do with feminist discourse and issues. It might purely be a corporate $ issue, or an issue of different models of management, or it might be a complex tangle of all of those things. To approach it only from a feminist perspective… Read more »
I just made more coffee. 🙂 But I thought that’s what you meant. My point was that *both* were real, informed each other, and could arise from each other. Problems in getting access to child care can lead to generalizations that it’s fundamentally an issue of gender imbalance. Generalizations of gender imbalance can lead to access to child care being seen as a particular example of the general problem. It’s not always possible to separate them out. And the fact that the issues exist in and may stem from other contexts is another part of the problem. I see that… Read more »
Point well taken. Here’s to coffee 🙂
Meh. They always have money for a war. Use that money.
I don’t consider access to child care even a feminist issue. There should be free child care. Regulated, local, trustworthy, well paid. However a better solution would be to allow people to have more balanced lives so they can chose to stay with their own kids more, which people want to do….. and that feeds back to my “argument” …..
Told you I was a lefty 🙂
On this topic? Your response? You’ll get very little argument for me. I like your solution. And yeah, they do always have money enough for wars…..
(omg DB and I are agreeing. What’s going on?)
Even on a purely economic front, I suspect that government funded childcare would work out as cost positive. Its more effieicent for 1 person to look after 20 kids and 19 parents go to work than 20 parents look after 20 kids and none of them go to work.
That assumes they have jobs to go to of course.
That’s tough for me to answer because none of it is existential for me. I don’t have a personal vested interest in any of this. I’m not a feminist and I am not MRA. I’ve never been “hurt by a woman” as so many ask me. For that matter I have no connection to Palestine either….. My own view is that it’s OK to be biased because human beings brains work best that way. You know if I am presenting an argument I try to make it decent but the truth is I am bound to do a poor job… Read more »
“I’m far far left pro-equality anti-feminist”
Welcome to the club! It’s not easy to find feminist-challenging guys who aren’t right-wing reactionaries as well… just as for awhile it was hard to find left-leaning atheists who weren’t also uncritical accepters of radical feminism.
I tend to pick my debates, and stay out of a lot of them, because life is too short. Part of the problem is that I tend to see the issues in a different framework than those I talk to. Palestine and Israel is an example. It gets cast as Jew vs Muslim, but I think that’s mistaken, and the underlying problems are differences in European and Arab culture, and conflicts arising from the differences. The cultural differences all express themselves on an unconscious, reflex level, which makes resolving them particularly intractable. Another issue in debates like this is who… Read more »
Can I just say this is probably my favorite comment ever on this site? Thank you so much for posting it. I’m going to copy and keep it. “Our principal goal is to defend it.” Man, that’s so spot on. And it happens in nearly every debate, every argument. To accept new information and to change position based on that is so often seen as “losing.” “Part of what I’ve sometimes attempted to do in debates is determine precisely where people are coming from. My interest is in underlying motivations. “No, I understand *what* you believe. You’ve made that quite… Read more »
Thank you. You can see evidence of Positions all over. One example is the tedious folks you’ve probably met who say “You can’t trust *anybody*! They’re all a bunch of dirty so-and-sos who will screw you if they get a chance!” Such folks tend to set themselves up to *be* screwed on an unconscious level, because what they want to do is *not* avoid getting screwed. What they *really* want is to be able to say “You see? I was *right!* They *are* all a bunch of dirty so-and-sos who will screw you if they get a chance!” They want… Read more »
That level of cognitive dissonance is emotionally painful and yeah change can’t be forced, can it. It only creates a cycle of resistance. That’s what I’m seeing in comments all over these days, NO! I’M RIGHT! SHUT UP! Instead of, what do you mean? How did you come to feel this way and so forth. Which is not to say I don’t find myself in those same resistant places. I do. But I’m hopeful that I’ll grow more and more willing, able, etc to be nuanced, “adult” and open. Thanks so much for your posts and comments. It’s lovely to… Read more »
I see the same things, and find myself in those positions as well. One thing that is an advantage for me is that I don’t have a lot of emotional capital invested in particular points of view. I know how *I* think things work, but it’s generally not a matter of gut level belief, and my ox isn’t gored by disagreement. Another thing I’ve tried to train myself to do over the years is notice when my response is anger, and step back and say “Why is that? What is making me respond that way?” Another bit from Berne that… Read more »
Psychiatry is bunk.
And asking what a persons’ motivations are is (by definition) an ad hominem approach which I tend to interpret as an insult — because that’s what ad hominem is usually used for. So I think you’d have to be very careful to not come across as insulting someone.
My motivations are irrelevant (and in any case how would I know what they are?)
Sometimes they’re relevant, and sometimes ad hominems are worth exploring. For instance: Religious right organisation is funding a study attempting to isolate the “gay gene” has different connotations and trustworthyness from a university biology dept. doing the same thing.
Peter I would add one caveat to your interesting and well thought out advice. When another person takes the time to source and comment on other sources, It’s a matter of courtesy to accept good faith and even check the sources as well. Simply dismissing the information provided and ignoring matters in the hope they will go away, is not part of healthy communication. Attacking the person and not the reported information means you loose any credibility and dishonor the other person. If you believe your mind is made up and you know the facts, you can’t be part of… Read more »
Well said, I agree.
Peter I have been doing some further thinking ! It’s great to have rules like wheels on a car – as they do tend to keep motion forward in the general direction. But, just like a car you also need breaks. I was inspired by Godwin’s Law to consider how discussion round gender can become heated and the vehicle needs to be slowed down, So: “As an on-line discussion concerning gender grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving MRA or Feminism, with that comparison being negative and dismissive, approaches 1.” It has been inspired by the conduct I have… Read more »
Lex canis-biblioris?
Not sure about the original Greek, but Latin may be an option!
“The “Quiescite Et Audi” Law”? P^)
Thanks for posting this Peter. Sounds sensible for everyone. I have no exceptions or warnings or digs to slip in because what you wrote stands on its own.
Thanks 🙂
@Peter & Lori..
Thank you. This is with out a doubt the best site on the internet for discussions on gender.
I beg to differ Gendererratic is.
Hi Peter, I’m also from Dublin BTW. I greatly appreciate your publishing those ideas for debate. I would encourage feminists to take heed (but I don’t believe that they can change because their ideology is a polmic) and people on the men’s movement side to be vigilant about falling into the trap of forming a feminist shaped counterargument, that only leads to another polemic, shaped argument. I think that ultimately feminist dominance has to be reduced to a marginal position, as its center is extreme, and the more rational centrist positions in the gender debate need to become the dominant… Read more »
Hopefully, personally I’d like to see the feminist and masculist movements meet in the middle. I think we’d get alot more done.
As would I Peter, thank you for writing this very pragmatic and peace focused article. I’ve noticed in my time on line that anger and hate are easier (and more “fun”) emotions than compassion and patience. I have a theory (unproved of course) that emotions like anger cause a very pleasurable cascade of neurotransmitters (not unlike lust and it’s subsequent chemicals of adrenaline, norepinephrine and dopamine) and emotions like compassion cause cascades of calming chemicals (like endorphins). Compassion is subtle, anger is powerful. I think though, if we really want this middle ground it’s important to learn to kick the… Read more »
Well said.
Well.
Been talking to feminists for over twenty years.
“Nice” doesn’t work.
It’s a war. The best you can hope for — and you won’t get it very often at all — is the respect of your opponent. Actually, I’ve almost never found it. Counted on the fingers of one hand.
But, you know, good luck with all that.
Yeah, its a bit idealistic, but I’m sure they’d say the same about us.
Maybe it would be better to start with some lowered goal like, “no eye gouging”?
One serious thing I would like to get from a feminist opponent would be, “recognise that I have a right to have a different opinion from you”.
DavidByron. You’ve got it. Of course you have a right to a different opinion than I do. As do I in the reverse. I’ve never said otherwise. I’m also not a fan of eye gouging. Messes up the manicure 😉
You don’t have to use your fingers. Use the broach like Oedipus did.
Then the broach would be all gunky! It might tarnish! And someone would be blind. I’ll have none of that. Just good old fashioned conversation.