If you flip the genders and sex organs around in it, it reads suspiciously like Freudian theories / analyses of women.
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Men rights and issues
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If you flip the genders and sex organs around in it, it reads suspiciously like Freudian theories / analyses of women.
Yes, but that's racism - a completely different issue.
Black men are also more likely to get stopped and searched by police. Even 28x more, which is insane. For women, I would assume it's the opposite.
It's all created by societal expectations and stereotypes. Blacks are considered lazy and stupid, hence the lower hiring. Likewise women are stereotyped as caregivers and not expected to work outside of the home (or if they do only in a job that's basically housework outside of the home, hence the elementary teaching positions. Well, that plus the whole Dude with Kids = Pedo thing). No matter how wrong we know it is intellectually, some people outright ignore that, and more than a few that aren't actively thinking about it let it influence them subconsciously.
My main issue with people who regularly stump for feminism or "manism" or whatever special interest they are picketing on that day. Is that, there's a aura of disingenuous rhetoric that goes along with it. "Well, we are feminists, so we by proxy support gender equality" or even the most hideous type of evasion "we support equality for everybody", which is empirically not true, in fact it's a logical contradiction on principle and on the vocabulary. I have no problems with people who boldly state "I am woman, therefor I am lobbying for women's rights", because at least you always know where they stand. I do take issue with the premise put forth that it by proxy supports equality or balance as a whole. Because in reality, you cannot add a weight to counteract a victim position without it having some negative or systemic effect elsewhere, you just can't do it. And that's fine if women reserve certain allotments based on biology or socioeconomic standing, just don't expect those we are affected, even if it's just perception, to like it and not be upset.
So it's obvious that feminism doesn't serve both the interests of men AND women, and sure as hell not "equality for everyone", the theories themselves and the steps historically taken disprove this. In fact, both interests are often at odds with one another. That's not to say it's been negative for the rights of women, quite the opposite. But it certainly isn't doing anything for myself or any men I know. I don't subscribe to women's rights because of "feminism" of any of their accomplishments, I believe in women's rights because I believe in virtue and ethics and fairness, and I was raised by women and love my wife and maybe someday daughter/s. I believe how we interact, how we are raised and how we accept ethical principle shapes far more reason and fairness than any special interest ever has or could. That's not to say these groups have no purpose, but I think we need to put our nose to grindstone and work in our personal lives to change perceptions, starting with how we raise our kids, not preaching or sending money or voting. But that's just me, for whatever it's worth.
And really, we support equality for everyone? No feminist or manist platform has ever said we want to help the mentally or physically handicapped find equal pay, equal opportunity, equal status of dignity and respect within society. I never hear about the Right to Die movement and how every just human being should respect anothers' right to decide if their quality of life is worth continuing, especially the terminally ill, quite the contrary. I never hear much about almost any other equal rights and equal respect issues we face, who are far more worse off than women as social classes. This isn't aimed at anybody in particular, and no disrespect meant, but I just get a bit flushed when I hear "equal or balanced rights for everyone, or even genders". It's clear what "feminism" (aka female interest) is, as a platform and who it panders to, and I tend to agree a great deal with many issues, but it is what it is.
Sorry if unreadable, a bit tired at the moment.
So it's obvious that feminism doesn't serve both the interests of men AND women, and sure as hell not "equality for everyone", the theories themselves and the steps historically taken disprove this. In fact, both interests are often at odds with one another. That's not to say it's been negative for the rights of women, quite the opposite. But it certainly isn't doing anything for myself or any men I know. I don't subscribe to women's rights because of "feminism" of any of their accomplishments, I believe in women's rights because I believe in virtue and ethics and fairness, and I was raised by women and love my wife and maybe someday daughter/s. I believe how we interact, how we are raised and how we accept ethical principle shapes far more reason and fairness than any special interest ever has or could. That's not to say these groups have no purpose, but I think we need to put our nose to grindstone and work in our personal lives to change perceptions, starting with how we raise our kids, not preaching or sending money or voting. But that's just me, for whatever it's worth.
And really, we support equality for everyone? No feminist or manist platform has ever said we want to help the mentally or physically handicapped find equal pay, equal opportunity, equal status of dignity and respect within society. I never hear about the Right to Die movement and how every just human being should respect anothers' right to decide if their quality of life is worth continuing, especially the terminally ill, quite the contrary. I never hear much about almost any other equal rights and equal respect issues we face, who are far more worse off than women as social classes. This isn't aimed at anybody in particular, and no disrespect meant, but I just get a bit flushed when I hear "equal or balanced rights for everyone, or even genders". It's clear what "feminism" (aka female interest) is, as a platform and who it panders to, and I tend to agree a great deal with many issues, but it is what it is.
Sorry if unreadable, a bit tired at the moment.
kame-sennin
Member
As a male feminist, I think this is nonsense. When a society creates a system of oppression for one group and corresponding privilege for another, the only way to fight for equality is to fight for the rights of the oppressed. As a man, in order to live in a society where women are treated equally, I have to acknowledge that I in some ways benefit from unearned privilege which comes at the expense of women. Fighting for 'my rights' is nothing more than a sad attempt to further the imbalance that already exists. This is why there is no moral counterpoint to the black power movement. Blacks sought empowerment as a correction to the heinous imbalance of power present in society (then and now). I see very little difference between the MRM and white power groups. Arguing for the empowerment of the privileged can only exacerbate inequality.
However, if those who benefit from unearned privilege make good faith attempts to deal with systems of oppression, they will reap the benefits of living in an equal society. Patriarchy is a system designed to oppress women, but in order to do so it constrains both men and women to gender roles that can inadvertently hurt men. For example, the issues MRM has with divorce, adoption, child custody, and paternity leave, all result from the sexist construct of women being the sole child care provider within the home. Dismantling the patriarchy in no way conflicts with the goal of creating a more equal society.
T
Transhuman
Unconfirmed Member
I hate general statements like this. Opposing inequalities that affect men doesn't mean you think men are better than women, or that men are hard done by in every aspect of life.
His Brain, Her Brain - 2005 Scientific American article on the research done up to that point. This is very powerful evidence that gender exists from day 1 of birth and is not merely a creation of society. Please read. Very interesting stuff!
magazine-style PDF http://www.bio.uci.edu/public/press/2005/hisherbrain.pdf
magazine-style PDF http://www.bio.uci.edu/public/press/2005/hisherbrain.pdf
I don't think that there needs to be 100% agreement among every member who identifies themselves as a holding some political or ideological stance for someone to be able to comment on what is generally true. I am not familiar with every facet of feminism, and I'm sure there are branches that are different than what I support. But as far as the big name, mainstream feminist blogs go and the feminist writers I have read, I think the presentation I am giving is a reasonably representative one. There might be that one (or two or twenty or a hundred) feminist(s) who want more than simple equality; I would still say that feminism is about gender equality because that is true in my experience with feminism.
And the fact that there might be issues in which it is difficult to find balance does not mean that balance is not the goal.
I think you took the inch I was giving and tried to turn it into more here. I still believe that in our particular patriarchal society, gender issues are caused by that patriarchal system. I was only conceding that in these (hypothetical?) matriarchal societies we would almost certainly see problems that necessarily could not be blamed on patriarchy.
As regards patriarchy having nothing to do with it: No, I was saying that I did not know. I can imagine an argument for it being related to patriarchy, but it feels sort of half-formed and I don't want to speak completely out of turn.
I think that this is generally a problem when privileged groups are confronted by their counterparts demanding equality. You see it when straight people who are against equal rights for gay people, such as same-sex marriage, make complaints about "special rights" for gay people. You see it when white people in the United States, and I am sure elsewhere as well, have been enticed to vote against their class interests in a way that still gives them relative advantage over black people. What you're talking about is simply another manifestation of this phenomena. It's unfortunate, but it does not mean that the dominant class is actually right in their pathos.
As I said to Simplet, when I describe what feminism is, I mean my experience with it. It is reasonably broad, but it is not all-encompassing. There might be those radical feminists out there. I don't know them, and they aren't relevant to what I think feminism is.
To be honest, I don't really know much about the arguments for or against quotas. My kneejerk reaction to quotas is negative, but I wouldn't want to say no without learning more.
"Yay"
I don't know that it is. If we are talking about you, for instance, you might not identify as a male feminist, but if you hold positions that are consistent with feminism, support feminism, and understand the need for its existence, what reason is there for me to not consider you feminist?
Way to not read my post. I never said that any issue that mostly affects men isn't a men's issue. Please read it again and then respond to what I actually said.
Not all men are priviledged, just a small fraction of them. Many men are disadvantaged. It's easier for men to make a career? I assume it's great for some who have the chance or really want to make it. For the rest of us who don't care about careers but a balanced of work and free time it isn't a priviledge at all.
I don't see why is it a problem to fight for equality from both sides, which means fight for right of men and women.
way more
Member
Those men that care more about free time can get more of it by having a better job and making more money than the women who are paid less and are passed over for promotions.
And your understanding of "privileged" is wrong. This is like when someone uses the example "the average american eats 3 bananas a week." Some kid will always raise his hand and say "but I don't eat bananas." This is a widespread social phenomenon, it's not something you can just say "but this one time . . ." and expect that to change.
Neither can I.
I've always been somewhat mystified by the aggressive opposition this discussion generates here on GAF. Any thread or post that hints at it is immediately met with anything but kindness. The first page of this thread even was on a bad course before the mod stepped in.
They can't because it's much harder for men to get part-time jobs in my country. Patriarchy can be really bad for progressive men.
Yeah, it's not a priviledge, it's actually a burden. Young men who don't care for careers aren't accepted, because it isn't the norm. That's why men have a tough time when they want to do a "female" job like a kindergarten teacher.
kame-sennin
Member
I didn't make a generalization. I said that the men's rights movement very specifically is a reactionary movement on the part of the privileged to undo the small gains made by the oppressed. Such reactionary movements are common whenever out groups make progress in society.
No it doesn't, which is why I never made such a claim. In fact, my post specifically outlined the ways in which the patriarchy negatively impacts men. As a feminist, I would like to see those things changed.
That's not what privilege means. Also, you can experience privilege in one dimension (e.g. being male) while being underprivileged in another (e.g. being black).
Comparing men's right movements to white power movements is utterly dishonest and to suggest that men's rights movements are trying to hold back women or roll back women's rights is also dishonest.
How does issues like marriage/divorce law reform, holding women equally accountable for domestic violence, and other such issues stifle the progress of females or equate in any ways to what racists are doing? How does any of that demonstrate hatred of women?
How does issues like marriage/divorce law reform, holding women equally accountable for domestic violence, and other such issues stifle the progress of females or equate in any ways to what racists are doing? How does any of that demonstrate hatred of women?
Ha that's pretty interesting. So initially you didn't see what this problem had to do with patriarchy and feminism at all, but now that I tell you that this is a gender issue in our society you automatically assume it has something to do with patriarchy, you're just not quite sure how yet?
Well there is a fundamental difference between the rights you are talking about and the rights I'm talking about. If a law gives gay people the right to marry, it didn't take the right to marry away from everyone else. If a law states that a man has to pay child support for twenty years if through whatever circumstances his having sex with a woman produces a baby and she decides to keep it, this law has a very real, very concrete influence on this man's life, and what he has the right to do.
You might say that such a law is good, and in most circumstances a child support law for example is a very good thing, but you have to aknowledge this very basic distinction between the feminist fight and the gay fight for example. It's just disingenious to brush it away.
If being a male was such a privilege, feminists would want to assume the WHOLE package of what being a male entails for women, including the ability to be drafted and sent to the front lines of wars, lifetime alimony, paternity fraud (having your mate cheat and yet you still are forced to pay child support for a kid that isn't yours), being held equally accountable for violence (little is said when women slap men, throw drinks on them and other such actions), having custody of the children automatically rewarded to the opposite gender except in rare circumstances, etc.
way more
Member
I think the women who join the armed services would be proud to be allowed to fight on the front lines and be drafted. I think the women who sign pre-nups would prefer a automatic split in income/visitation rights. I think women would like to be able to have physical dominance over men if it meant they were accountable just the same, etc.
The men's rights movements actively advocate against domestic abuse shelters, advocate against money for domestic abuse victims, and advocate for requiring abortions to have the consent of the father. They regularly argue against ever voting to convict when serving on a jury for a rape charge, even if the accused is unquestionably guilty. They argue that half of all rape allegations are false in a deliberate attempt to raise suspicion about claims of rapes despite the fact that false rape allegations are no more common than for any other crime. On their forums and websites it is trivially easy to find deeply misogynistic articles. A Voice For Men, the website which lopaz has linked to on multiple occasions, maintains a website called Register-Her, a website for disgruntled men to register women who supposedly have made false sexual assault allegations - or other "crimes against masculinity."
The men's rights movements can be found arguing against nearly every gain women have made from feminism over the last fifty years entirely on the basis of sexist stereotypes.
The issues do not. It is in the presentation of the issues and the sexism and misogyny displayed by their advocates that we see hatred towards women.
If you say there is inequity in marriage / divorce law
(I don't know that there is; I think the inequity is a byproduct of inequity caused by other factors and men are not being legally discriminated until we get to family law, but I digress),
It is not the issues that are problematic when it comes to MRAs, it is the things they say.
I can understand someone who does not follow the MRA movement hearing some of these issues and, having heard about inequities relating to these issues in the past, believe that MRA is an innocent movement which simply is a counterpoint to some of feminism's excesses and draws attention to the ways in which men are not being well-served by feminism. I can understand it because I used to think this way, because I took a charitable interpretation of what I thought men's rights advocacy might mean. It was not until I started actually reading what they were actually saying and arguing that I saw how deeply disturbed the movement is (not my introduction, but is a good introduction; Manboobz is good for daily-ish dose of MRAs being MRAs).
I am engaging you honestly, without engaging in needless misrepresentations of your positions. I don't appreciate your unwillingness to do me the same courtesy. This is the third time now where you have claimed that I have said something I did not say. I did not say that I didn't see what this problem had to do with patriarchy or feminism at all. I said I did not know what the connection was; I did not know how these issues might be connected. I knew it was a gendered problem long before I knew who you were, so you may stop taking credit where none is due. When I said that, you misinterpreted my profession of ignorance (as to why men face this problem), as an admission that patriarchy did not have anything to do with it. When I corrected you and said it was only an admission of ignorance and that while I could imagine an argument for patriarchy being related to it, I was not comfortable speaking about it, you then claimed that I automatically assumed that it was related to patriarchy as a result of your "educating" me.
At every step in this conversation, you have misrepresented what I have said. At this point, I'm just going to drop this argument because I'm not interested in correcting you at every step.
I hope this goes slightly better:
Religious conservatives have long argued that allowing gay people to marry and having the state recognize their marriages impedes about their rights to religious freedom by forcing them into positions where they have to legally recognize the relationships of gay people, or by forcing them into positions where they cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. The privileged always find a way to twist facts to portray a situation as if they are losing something as opposed to gaining.
I am sorry if that came across as overly aggressive. I realize that sometimes saying the same things I said as a poster might come across differently when I am a moderator. I was being a bit short-tempered because I am tired and it is just something of a pet peeve for me in these conversations.
HoodWinked
Gold Member
rescinded
I realize that there seems a huge difference between the men rights movement in the US and in other countries (like Switzerland). While the movement still doesn't get as much support as feminism, at least the institutionalization has already begun in Zurich.
I mean, I'm not part of the movement, but I don't see why I shouldn't support the progressive wing of this movement who fights for parental leave for men and against mandatory military service of men.
Is the MRM leaning to the GOP or to Tea Party? I dunno, someone should explain the situation in the US.
I mean, I'm not part of the movement, but I don't see why I shouldn't support the progressive wing of this movement who fights for parental leave for men and against mandatory military service of men.
Is the MRM leaning to the GOP or to Tea Party? I dunno, someone should explain the situation in the US.
"The no true scotsman fallacy is a way of reinterpreting evidence in order to prevent the refutation of ones position. Proposed counter-examples to a theory are dismissed as irrelevant solely because they are counter-examples, but purportedly because they are not what the theory is about.
The No True Scotsman fallacy involves discounting evidence that would refute a proposition, concluding that it hasnt been falsified when in fact it has.
If Angus, a Glaswegian, who puts sugar on his porridge, is proposed as a counter-example to the claim No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge, the No true Scotsman fallacy would run as follows:
(1) Angus puts sugar on his porridge.
(2) No (true) Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.
Therefore:
(3) Angus is not a (true) Scotsman.
Therefore:
(4) Angus is not a counter-example to the claim that no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.
This fallacy is a form of circular argument, with an existing belief being assumed to be true in order to dismiss any apparent counter-examples to it. The existing belief thus becomes unfalsifiable."
So, what I'm asking is whether the statement:
"When I do see someone concerned about these issues and addressing them in a thoughtful and well-informed way, that person is almost always a male feminist"
Is coming from people identifying as "male feminists", or from the "male feminist" tag being applied retroactively.
To put it in the terms of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy:
"Only male feminists write insightful things addressing these problems":
(1). Rob doesn't identify as a "male feminist"
(2). Writes insightful thing addressing this problem
Therefore:
(3). Rob is a male feminist.
Therefore:
(4). Rob is not a counter example to the claim "Only male feminists write insightful things addressing these problems."
LumpOfCole
Member
This is why I hate attaching my views to any sort of larger movement - the movement itself is either hijacked by a significant percentage of the radicals in a movement, or there is a false perception of what a majority of the movement stands for. In either instance, it would make my own individual views come across as a 'cover-up' or somewhat inconsequential. I would say I'm for equality among genders more-so than being apart of "the mens rights movements."
So, my own views per each individual point:
Advocation against domestic abuse shelters: Absolutely not. My beef with domestic abuse shelters is that many won't let in abused men who are violently abused and choose not to fight back - either because of fear of social and legal repercussions or because it is socially ingrained in that male to never strike a female for any reason whatsoever, even if violently attacked. In short, I want the role of domestic abuse shelters to be expanded to abused men. Here is a firsthand account of how this injustice has affected at least one person in a traumatizing way.
Advocation against money for domestic abuse victims: This varies on a case-by-case basis, but any individual violently striking or holding lifestyle hostage to emotionally suffocate another individual deserves monetary compensation through the legal system. I wish I could give a broad stroke answer of what I believe would be fair for this point, but it's really case-by-case.
Advocation for requiring abortions to have the consent of the father: I should preface this point by saying that my views on abortion sit right on that line that piss off many Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers alike. I'm atheist and my moral code here doesn't apply to any belief of deities or souls or heaven or anything like that. I draw the line of human life beginning when a developing brain independently begins its own electrical impulses, and this happens about six weeks into the pregnancy. All this means is that I think abortion is morally wrong after the six week mark, and perfectly alright before that mark. That all being said, while I believe the father should be consulted about the abortion, the father shouldn't have the ability force the woman to continue with carrying and delivering a baby if she desires otherwise. TL;DR: Abortions shouldn't ever be forced to have consent of the father (though the father should at least be legally notified of the procedure afterward to ensure he at least had knowledge of the pregnancy).
Arguing against ever voting to convict when serving on a jury for a rape charge: This is another point where it must be case-by-case, but I can tell you that false rape accusations scare the shit out of males in general because they are very real (example here). Before someone is prosecuted for any crime, there must be significant evidence that that crime occurred. If the legal system is sending innocents to jail because of weighted emotional appeal, then there needs to be a correction in the system to work to prevent false accusations of rape and any other allegation that convicts without suitable evidence.
Arguing that half of all rape allegations are false in a deliberate attempt to raise suspicion about claims of rapes despite the fact that false rape allegations are no more common than for any other crime: This is a point of contention that is misrepresented by extremists of both sides, and has effectively muddied the argument. There is a well-sourced study to suggest that there is no actual evidence in claiming that the figure of false rape accusations (2%) is in line with all other false crime accusations. On the other side of that coin, suggesting that false rape accusations comprise 40%+ of rape accusations is also significantly overstated. You can click here to see MRM's 40%+ figure used without proper context - it's shit like that that makes me not want to be associated with any movements while still believing in gender equality and men's rights. Law enforcement agencies (at least American ones) don't properly or adequately separate false rape allegations from rape charges that are dropped for other reasons. This muddies the statistics for both extremes of the issue.
On MRM forums and websites it being trivially easy to find deeply misogynistic articles: Yes - wearing the label of a movement also means sharing the identity of the more extreme and more shitty parts of said movement. It's why I don't want to say I'm one of the MRM supporters despite having very passionate views about certain men's rights and current injustices. There are feminist forums and sites that show pretty misandry as well, and it's just another reason that one should form his or her own individual thoughts about the issues facing gender inequality and social stigmas instead of lumping in with organized movements which always seem to have significant chips on their shoulders.
ElectricBlue187
Member
That's a shame, still doesn't invalidate what she said in some of the videos before.
This is pretty sad though:
I also liked some of her videos and felt they were insightful especially concerning men's reproductive rights but I think overall her having these kind of views says more about her than the feminists she rails against. Its a shame.
I actually have read that before, back in 2005. I remember the article.
And I think you're not really understanding the argument I've been making. Massive (millions plus worth of data) studies have been performed comparing the cognitive differences between men and women on math and verbal skills. They are nonexistent, except in the case of the genius end of mathematical ability where men are overrepresented. Studies have shown that men are just as capable as women are of the sort of emotional intuitiveness that women are stereotypically said to have when they are placed in situations, such as work, where they need to be.
Studies which show minor differences in how long babies of different genders look at faces, which objects they look at, and so forth are not relevant to a discussion about whether biological differences are determinative in adult men in women. They only speak to possible baseline differences and don't counter the notion of plasticity and that men and women have essentially the same potential when it comes to these issues because of that plasticity, regardless of what minor differences might exist in the baseline.
No, I mean I know what the fallacy is; I just didn't see the connection. I think I see the problem, though.
I did not make the claim in (4) that "only male feminists write insightful things addressing these problems." I said that this is "almost always" the case, and I was careful to note that this was only in my experience. I was not intending to make a claim about things beyond my ken. While I have never seen an MRA say anything insightful about gender issues, though I wouldn't deny that it is possible, however unlikely it might be, and I have on occasion seem someone vaguely hostile to feminism still say things that are insightful.
You were asking me about a hypothetical man who "understands the need for" and "supports" feminism. I consider that person a feminist. I don't consider someone a feminist simply because they happen to say something insightful about gender relations; I simply find that it is usually true that when I see a man addressing issues men face in a thoughtful and informed manner, that man usually A) self-identifies as feminist, B) barring that, is sympathetic to feminist ideas to the extent that I would feel comfortable labeling them in that manner.
The point of my original comment was not so much meant to be a claim that male feminists have a monopoly on insightful comments - though the vast majority of times I have seen it happen, it has come from them - but more the implicit part that on the flip side I almost never seen MRAs saying anything of worth.
So, no, I don't think that your second example is an accurate representation of my views.
I can appreciate the hesitation because of the second thing; as a feminist I confront this quite often. But I think that in the case of men's rights advocacy, it is not a false impression. It is quite honestly difficult to find someone who self-identifies as a men's rights advocate who does not advocate views - or link to articles - that are at the very least based in mild sexism. You mentioned that it is also possible to find misandrist articles on feminist blogs. Perhaps. But I can name somewhere around half a dozen to a dozen mainstream MRA blogs and communities which are filled with sexism and misogyny from top to bottom. Meanwhile, if I told you to go to, say, Shakesville or Pandagon or Feministe or Feministing, you would be hard pressed to find something that is misandrist. It paints a false equivalency when you say that feminist blogs do it, too; they don't do it nearly as often and when it does happen it tends to happen on the margins.
In relation to the issues of domestic abuse and custody, you might want to read this for what the MRAs are not telling you.
If anything the legal system is severely weighted in the favor of rapists by making it exceedingly unlikely for a case to even make it to trial. It is unfortunate and wrong when it happens, but it isn't evidence of some sort of systemic bias that makes it more likely.
You linked to the the website of the National Coalition for Men. They were responsible for sponsoring the House GOP's watered down version of the violence against women act, and were part of a coalition which sent a letter saying among other things:
There is no denying the very real problem of violence against women and children. However, the programs promoted in VAWA are harmful for families. VAWA often encourages the demise of the family as a means to eliminate violence.
Emphasis mine. That sentence is a polite expression of the belief thats widespread in MRA circles and the Christian right that domestic violence is primarily the victims fault, usually for being insufficiently subservient to her husband or partner. The theory is that the solution for domestic violence is to encourage victims to stay with their abusers and just work harder on the marriage, usually by trying to be even more placating. I mean, this sentence is offensive on its facethey take it as a given that theres something wrong with helping women get out of abusive relationshipsbut if you understand the ideology behind it, it gets uglier.
In other words, I do not believe that the NCFM is a trustworthy source for information like this. The data does vary somewhat, but the FBI reports a rate of 8% for "unfounded" (and not necessarily "false") rape reports; a quarter of those being false reports sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I know that in at least one city (Portland), the police give a false reporting rate of 1.6%. There is a range of "reasonable" ranges for false reporting rates (somewhere around 1.5 - 4%, I'd say), but you're again painting a false equivalency when you argue that both sides are equally guilty of misrepresentations and do so by linking to a group like NCFM.
LumpOfCole
Member
I linked to a paper hosted on the National Coalition for Men because it was the first place where I could find a direct hotlink of the PDF version of the paper in Google.
I won't argue for, against, or about National Coalition for Men because I've never been to any URL of theirs except for the paper I linked (from a Google Search). I do apologize for making the paper seem to have no merit by lazily presenting a link hosted on a polarizing organization's site, however.
The same paper can also be read in its entirely from educational institutions or research paper search engines which have nothing to do with the National Coalition for Men:
http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2216&context=llr
https://litigation-essentials.lexis...cid=3B15&key=581cfc7b983076e75eaab3b962c8444e
http://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/lla33§ion=33
I won't argue for, against, or about National Coalition for Men because I've never been to any URL of theirs except for the paper I linked (from a Google Search). I do apologize for making the paper seem to have no merit by lazily presenting a link hosted on a polarizing organization's site, however.
The same paper can also be read in its entirely from educational institutions or research paper search engines which have nothing to do with the National Coalition for Men:
http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2216&context=llr
https://litigation-essentials.lexis...cid=3B15&key=581cfc7b983076e75eaab3b962c8444e
http://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/lla33§ion=33
Cool, just checking. I have a friend who, like myself, is pretty big on general civil rights supporter and does some writing about various subjects. However, he very much does not identify himself as a feminist.
kame-sennin
Member
RADAR’s rhetoric may seem overblown, but lately the group and its many partners have been racking up very real accomplishments. In 2008, the organization claimed to have blocked passage of four federal domestic-violence bills, among them an expansion of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to international scope and a grant to support lawyers in pro bono domestic-violence work.
...Groups like RADAR fall under the broader umbrella of the men’s rights movement, a loose coalition of anti-feminist groups. These men’s rights activists, or MRAs, have long been written off by domestic-violence advocates as a bombastic and fringe group of angry white men, and for good reason. Bernard Chapin, a popular men’s rights blogger, told me over e-mail that he will refer to me as “Feminist E,” since he never uses real names for feminists, who are wicked and who men “must verbally oppose … until our flesh oxidizes into dust.” In the United Kingdom, a father’s rights group scaled Buckingham Palace in superhero costumes. In Australia, they wore paramilitary uniforms and demonstrated outside the houses of female divorcees.
This is what a hate group looks like.
kame-sennin
Member
FAQ: What is male privilege?
Before discussing “male privilege” it is first important to define what privilege means in an anti-oppression setting. Privilege, at its core, is the advantages that people benefit from based solely on their social status. It is a status that is conferred by society to certain groups, not seized by individuals, which is why it can be difficult sometimes to see one’s own privilege.
In a nutshell:
Since social status is conferred in many different ways — everything from race to geography to class — all people are both privileged and non-privileged in certain aspects of their life. Furthermore, since dynamics of social status are highly dependent on situation, a person can benefit from privilege in one situation while not benefiting from it in another. It is also possible to have a situation in which a person simultaneously is the beneficiary of privilege while also being the recipient of discrimination in an area which they do not benefit from privilege.
Male privilege is a set of privileges that are given to men as a class due to their institutional power in relation to women as a class. While every man experiences privilege differently due to his own individual position in the social hierarchy, every man, by virtue of being read as male by society, benefits from male privilege.
When first dealing with the concept it might be easier to approach it from a systematic, rather than personal, approach. Consider what Lucy says here:
In this case the inequality is perceived, in part, because taking one’s husband’s name is considered “normal” for a woman, whereas choosing to keep one’s own name deviates from that. Popular culture often labels this behavior as “emasculating” to a man, but never bothers to question how a woman might feel being asked to give up something that has been part of her since her birth. This is an example of a culture of male privilege — where a man’s position and feelings are placed above that of the woman’s in a way that is seen as normal, natural, and traditional.
Going back to Lucy’s article, this is what she said in the paragraph directly preceding the one quoted above:
Most people do not think twice about a woman who shares the same name as her husband; they simply assume that the shared name is his family name. This is an illustration about how male privilege operates in stealth. When a wife does not share the same name as the husband, however, it often leads to confusion and even anger — as Lucy’s example illustrated. This is because the male-oriented option (wife taking husband’s name) is seen as default, and the neutral option (both parties keeping their original names) is a deviation from that norm and therefore comes across as privileging the woman because it doesn’t privilege the man.
In a nutshell:
Privilege is: About how society accommodates you. It’s about advantages you have that you think are normal. It’s about you being normal, and others being the deviation from normal. It’s about fate dealing from the bottom of the deck on your behalf.
[Betty, A primer on privilege.]Since social status is conferred in many different ways — everything from race to geography to class — all people are both privileged and non-privileged in certain aspects of their life. Furthermore, since dynamics of social status are highly dependent on situation, a person can benefit from privilege in one situation while not benefiting from it in another. It is also possible to have a situation in which a person simultaneously is the beneficiary of privilege while also being the recipient of discrimination in an area which they do not benefit from privilege.
Male privilege is a set of privileges that are given to men as a class due to their institutional power in relation to women as a class. While every man experiences privilege differently due to his own individual position in the social hierarchy, every man, by virtue of being read as male by society, benefits from male privilege.
When first dealing with the concept it might be easier to approach it from a systematic, rather than personal, approach. Consider what Lucy says here:
[T]rue gender equality is actually perceived as inequality. A group that is made up of 50% women is perceived as being mostly women. A situation that is perfectly equal between men and women is perceived as being biased in favor of women.
And if you don’t believe me, you’ve never been a married woman who kept her family name. I have had students hold that up as proof of my “sexism.” My own brother told me that he could never marry a woman who kept her name because “everyone would know who ruled that relationship.” Perfect equality – my husband keeps his name and I keep mine – is held as a statement of superiority on my part.
[Lucy, When Worlds Collide: Fandom and Male Privilege.]
And if you don’t believe me, you’ve never been a married woman who kept her family name. I have had students hold that up as proof of my “sexism.” My own brother told me that he could never marry a woman who kept her name because “everyone would know who ruled that relationship.” Perfect equality – my husband keeps his name and I keep mine – is held as a statement of superiority on my part.
[Lucy, When Worlds Collide: Fandom and Male Privilege.]
In this case the inequality is perceived, in part, because taking one’s husband’s name is considered “normal” for a woman, whereas choosing to keep one’s own name deviates from that. Popular culture often labels this behavior as “emasculating” to a man, but never bothers to question how a woman might feel being asked to give up something that has been part of her since her birth. This is an example of a culture of male privilege — where a man’s position and feelings are placed above that of the woman’s in a way that is seen as normal, natural, and traditional.
Going back to Lucy’s article, this is what she said in the paragraph directly preceding the one quoted above:
Male privilege may be more obvious in other cultures, but in so-called Western culture it’s still ubiquitous. In fact, it’s so ubiquitous that it’s invisible. It is so pervasive as to be normalized, and so normalized as to be visible only in its absence. The vast, vast, vast majority of institutions, spaces, and subcultures privilege male interests, but because male is the default in this culture, such interests are very often considered ungendered. As a result, we only really notice when something privileges female interests.
[Lucy, When Worlds Collide: Fandom and Male Privilege.]
[Lucy, When Worlds Collide: Fandom and Male Privilege.]
Most people do not think twice about a woman who shares the same name as her husband; they simply assume that the shared name is his family name. This is an illustration about how male privilege operates in stealth. When a wife does not share the same name as the husband, however, it often leads to confusion and even anger — as Lucy’s example illustrated. This is because the male-oriented option (wife taking husband’s name) is seen as default, and the neutral option (both parties keeping their original names) is a deviation from that norm and therefore comes across as privileging the woman because it doesn’t privilege the man.
I think that their implied support for the article (by independently hosting it) should at least cause your eyebrows to raise a bit.
And I think that the paper has no merit quite on its own given the way it misrepresents the feminist position as "Women don't lie about rape" (which implies a 0% false reporting rate, even if he acknowledges this is based on the 2% figure). This is a misinterpretation of the feminist position because it fails to give proper context on the opposing misogynistic meme propagated by men's rights advocates, which is "Women lie about rape." Men's rights advocates seek to particularly sully the testimony of rape victims and imply that women are less honest and less trustworthy than men when it comes to cases of rape. It places the burden of demonstrating that the rape took place on the shoulders of the woman, when it is not her responsibility to demonstrate. The goal is to besmirch victim testimony in cases of rape, not to raise awareness about an actual issue that needs addressing.
He also gives inaccurate statistics. He claims that "whether by trial or pleabargaining, roughly half of accused rapists are convicted." This is nonsense. RAINN says that there is about a 40% chance of an accusation, about a 50% chance of an arrest, an 80% chance of prosecution, and a 58% chance of a conviction. There is a 69% chance that the convict will serve time in the event of a conviction. This works out to a 23.57% chance of a conviction, and a 16.26% chance of jail time.
And he also takes as reliable on its face data such as the Kanin study which purported to find a 41% false reporting rate in one police department's records. The study is asinine:
Critics of Dr. Kanin's report include Dr. David Lisak, an associate professor of psychology and director of the Men's Sexual Trauma Research Project at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He states, "Kanin’s 1994 article on false allegations is a provocative opinion piece, but it is not a scientific study of the issue of false reporting of rape. It certainly should never be used to assert a scientific foundation for the frequency of false allegations."[10] According to Lisak, Kanin's study lacked any kind of systematic methodology and did not independently define a false report, instead recording as false any report which the police department classified as false. The department classified reports as false which the complainant later said were false, but Lisak points out that Kanin's study did not scrutinize the police's processes or employ independent checkers to protect results from bias.[11] Kanin, Lisak writes, took his data from a police department whose investigation procedures are condemned by the U.S. Justice Department and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. These procedures include the almost universal[10] threat, in this department, of polygraph testing of complainants, which is viewed as a tactic of intimidation that leads victims to avoid the justice process[11] and which, Lisak says, is "based on the misperception that a significant percentage of sexual assault reports are false."[10] The police department's "biases...were then echoed in Kanin’s unchallenged reporting of their findings."[10]
Bruce Gross writes in the Forensic Examiner that Kanin's study is an example of the limitations of existing studies on false rape accusations. "Small sample sizes and non-representative samples preclude generalizability."[4] Philip N.S. Rumney questions the reliability of Kanin's study stating that it "must be approached with caution". He argues that the study's most significant problem is Kanin's assumption "that police officers abided by departmental policy in only labeling as false those cases where the complainant admitted to fabrication. He does not consider that actual police practice, as other studies have shown, might have departed from guidelines."
Bruce Gross writes in the Forensic Examiner that Kanin's study is an example of the limitations of existing studies on false rape accusations. "Small sample sizes and non-representative samples preclude generalizability."[4] Philip N.S. Rumney questions the reliability of Kanin's study stating that it "must be approached with caution". He argues that the study's most significant problem is Kanin's assumption "that police officers abided by departmental policy in only labeling as false those cases where the complainant admitted to fabrication. He does not consider that actual police practice, as other studies have shown, might have departed from guidelines."
He has a habit of misrepresenting statistics, dismissing out of hand (and without ever actually demonstrating that their are inaccurate) statistics about false reporting rates which are lower than his figure of 25% and implying that those who disagree are being duped by feminists, and accepting uncritically exorbitantly high figures based on specious studies that only get any play in MRA circles in order to propagate their myth of victimization, and then using those exaggerated figures as his basis for moving forward.
And he also sets up a ridiculous standard for what constitutes rape, such as:
In the stronger version, any act of intercourse that occurs in the
absence of an express oral consent is rape.91 Most within the LDF do
not seriously dispute that currently a large portion of women fail to
meet this proposed standard of behavior; and they probably even
agree that it would be unjust currently to imprison the male sexual
partners. [...]
More commonly within LDF there are calls for public policy
implementation of the weaker version: that “no means no,” i.e., that
once the woman has rhetorically expressed nonconsent, sexual intercourse
is rape. This is a seemingly reasonable notion, but in a society
in which numerous women say “no” when they mean “yes,”93 it
suffers from the same practical defect as the stronger version. [...]
absence of an express oral consent is rape.91 Most within the LDF do
not seriously dispute that currently a large portion of women fail to
meet this proposed standard of behavior; and they probably even
agree that it would be unjust currently to imprison the male sexual
partners. [...]
More commonly within LDF there are calls for public policy
implementation of the weaker version: that “no means no,” i.e., that
once the woman has rhetorically expressed nonconsent, sexual intercourse
is rape. This is a seemingly reasonable notion, but in a society
in which numerous women say “no” when they mean “yes,”93 it
suffers from the same practical defect as the stronger version. [...]
In other words, we cannot use a standard of express oral consent because that means that sex because of nonverbal consent would be rape. This is nonsensical; a woman who consented nonverbally would not then file a false rape report. We cannot use "no means no", because sometimes it means yes. This is classic rape apologetics and plays on the myth that women often say no when they really mean yes.
He also engages in a bit of ugly commentary in the footnotes:
95. Under the legal dominance feminist rubric, in addition to the general
categories of men with whom women cannot help but be raped automatically
whenever they have sex (for example, their ministers, doctors, therapists,
teachers, employers, etc.), some tenured law faculty have gone so far as to argue
that rape prosecutions should lie against married men regardless of
whether the wife “consented to the sexual contact with positive words or positive
conduct” so long as the husband had ever previously physically assaulted
his wife. Balos & Fellows, supra note 91, at 609.
categories of men with whom women cannot help but be raped automatically
whenever they have sex (for example, their ministers, doctors, therapists,
teachers, employers, etc.), some tenured law faculty have gone so far as to argue
that rape prosecutions should lie against married men regardless of
whether the wife “consented to the sexual contact with positive words or positive
conduct” so long as the husband had ever previously physically assaulted
his wife. Balos & Fellows, supra note 91, at 609.
I hope you can see why one should take into account whether a husband had previously physically assaulted his wife in determining whether or not her consent was genuine, but Edward Greeer does not see the problem.
He also fails to see the problems with consent when intoxicated, which shouldn't surprise us as we have already seen his failure to see the problems with consenting when the person you are consenting with has beaten you in the past.
The nicest thing I could say for this paper is that he is right that the 2% figure is unsupported in the sources he uses (though he jumps from unsupported to false without actually demonstrating it), but he goes right off into the rape apologist woods.
Another good example of this comes from The Gendered Society:
Simple enumeration of equality may not be the answer. One teacher told journalist Peggy Orenstein that after learning that teachers paid more attention to boys than girls, she explained to the class henceforth she was going to call on both sexes exactly equally, and to make sure she did, she would hold the attendance roster in her hand. What happened next surprised her. "After two days the boys blew up" she told Orenstein. "They started complaining and saying that I was calling on the girls more than them. I showed them that it wasn't true and they had to back down. I kept on doing it, but for the boys, equality was hard to get used to; they perceived it as a big loss."
(Of course, equality is virtually always seen as a loss by the privileged group. If a teacher gives exactly equal time to heterosexuality and to homosexuality, to people of color as to white people, to women and to men, he or she is invariably going to be criticized as being biased in favor of hte minority group. When one is used to being the center of attention all the time, being out of the limelight for a moment or even an hour can feel like complete rejection.)
(Of course, equality is virtually always seen as a loss by the privileged group. If a teacher gives exactly equal time to heterosexuality and to homosexuality, to people of color as to white people, to women and to men, he or she is invariably going to be criticized as being biased in favor of hte minority group. When one is used to being the center of attention all the time, being out of the limelight for a moment or even an hour can feel like complete rejection.)
This is a comment I've never quite understood. The American Justice System is (in theory) all about "Innocent until proven guilty." The burden of proof is supposed to always rest on the state/accuser why is, and why should, this crime be any different?
The responsibility to demonstrate guilt beyond a reasonable doubt rests with the prosecution, not with the victim. The victim's responsibility, insofar as they can be said to have one, is reporting the crime and, if necessary, testifying at trial. The standard those people want to erect is that even before the case goes to trial, the victim must demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that she was in fact raped, and they endorse victim hostile measures in order to do this, such as requiring polygraphs and threatening jail time if they fail it. Victim hostile practices like this or hostile questioning of victims creates false positives when it comes to false rape reports as victims recant out of fear of jail time or the police and has a silencing effect on real rape claims. It erects a further barrier to victims in cases of rape.
The main reason feminists push back hard on this notion that there is a high rate of false rape reports is because that misperception is what causes police departments to take on practices like this, which in turn artificially inflate the number of "false" rape reports and appear to justify the practice, while at the same time making it less likely that victims will report and less likely that they will be believed.
Police should treat people coming forward to report a rape the same as they would someone coming forward to report any other crime, and not give people claiming rape extra special scrutiny or hostility that they would not give a complainant about another crime.
cutmeamango
Banned
I won't pretend to know how it works out in the US, but I remember not much time ago the discussion about rape laws here in Brazil (and domestic violence to an extent) on how victims did not want to subject themselves to rape kit/tests and physical assessment (corpus delicti) at reporting the crime, which would lead to prosecutions that would heavily rely on accounts only.
Okay, I can see what you're saying here and
Can agree with this statement completely.
I will admit, up front, that I am occasionally wary of that 2% figure as I come from a community with a long and storied history of false allegations, especially false rape allegations, getting people hunted down and/or (usually and) killed. Not saying that happens nearly as often now (the false rape allegations at least. The general false allegations are still pretty common), but it's something I've been brought up to be wary of (my mom did not allow me to bring my female white friends over to my house when she wasn't there, or permit me to go over to theirs period in high school, save for the girl I'd practically grown up with because our mothers were best friends).
You may remember the article, but you missed the point entirely: it's not that one sex is smarter or has more potential (e.g. "men make better engineers"), but that the male brain just plain works very differently from the female brain. In the multiple researchers and scientific groups cited in the article, their body of work repeatedly found that men and women solved the same problems and processed the same information in completely different ways, even if they reached the same conclusion. Even something as simple as navigating city streets was accomplished differently in males and females.
Widespread structural brain differences in male and female brains are present from birth, corresponding strongly with differences in brain function which are also present from birth. Again, no one is arguing about cognitive ability/potential, but rather the very real likelihood that a particular class/teaching setup for a boy may be subpar or detrimental to how he naturally learns best. The evidence is very strong that your argument, "it's because of patriarchy," is either wrong, doesn't apply in many cases, or only a fraction of the entire picture.
A disease of the brain may not even be quite the same in men and women, as found below. A drug, made to treat the "same" condition, may not have the same effects between men and women. Why? Because their brains don't work the same in many ways!
Asking for proof a crime has been committed is promoting rape culture. Someone's freedom isn't worth someone else's discomfort.
No, I understood. And I am aware of differences in the way male and female brains respond to drugs which effect the brain, or how males or females might require different sex-specific therapies and how this might matter in those fields, though in your previous post, you focused almost exclusively on infancy and not on adulthood.
But those things do not matter to a discussion of what men and women are good at, as you admit, so I still do not see how you think they support your argument. There is a difference in male and female approaches to language, emotion, and navigation. Let's suppose that this difference is entire attributable to in-born differences and not at all effected by rewiring and the brain's plasticity: What does it matter? What does it matter that there are these minor differences when as even you admit, they reach the same conclusion? If a man's brain lights up one way and a woman's brain lights up another way, what does it matter - outside of its importance if there is a brain injury - when they both are capable of coming to the same conclusion? What does it matter if a brain structure is generally larger in men than in women if we don't detect anything consequential as a result of that?
I know the reason you have been pushing this is because you want to convince us that there are physiological differences involving male and female brains which are immutable and present from birth, and these differences are important in early education because you say that male and female brains develop at different rates, and therefore we should teach boys and girls differently at a young age. But there are several things you have not yet demonstrated to my satisfaction. You have not demonstrated to me that there is a single way in which boys and girls "naturally" learn better. You simply assert that there is, making the leap from "Male and female babies look at faces for differing lengths" to "Male and female children are so fundamentally different that there is a male way of learning and a female way of learning." You also are not giving evidence for the actual arguments that proponents of the notion that boys' are ill-served in early education make. For instance, the arguments I am familiar with include boys' inability to sit still for long hours, boys' having delayed fine motor control as compared to girls, and boys having issues with things relating to reading and writing generally. The idea goes that because of early failures in these areas, boys soon begin viewing school in a negative way and these attitudes never go away.
But you are not demonstrating, say, that boys' inability to sit still is a fundamental part of their being male, and not because from infancy the differences in how male and female babies and children are treated requires more self-control from girls. It is just as likely that what is occurring is that these are skills that girls have more practice with and so come easily to them. For many boys, they are forced to sit still and pay attention for the first time in their lives in school, and so they only appear to develop this ability later. I think that the differences between boys and girls in early literacy is also completely overblown. Studies have been done of gender differences in early literacy; in kindergarten girls scored higher than boys in four measures, though the differences were small; first graders assessed on three measures found no significant differences between boys and girls; and oral reading fluency had no differences until fourth grade, in which there was a statistically significant female advantage, which was gone by fifth grade.
There might be an argument for fine motor control, though I somehow doubt that the differences as such between boys and girls are all that significant compared to the range of abilities in fine motor control.
You really aren't demonstrating what you think you are. You're merely post dumping studies which talk about differences in the brain, some of which are at least attributable in part to differences in socialization and brain rewiring and some of which frankly don't matter to the original discussion.
I can see it before the edit. I prefer the edited post.
I initially only posted the parts about infants because I got tired of pasting and fixing the odd formatting of the PDF text.
You keep saying the differences are minor and downplaying the findings, when the neuroscientists involved deeply in these studies are saying the exact opposite. I guess this is so against what feminism, gender studies, and "patriarchy" have taught you, that you casually dismiss all these findings as next-to-insignificant despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
^I never said this. You did. You're the one with the narrow-minded view that only one is important and the other not so. I believe both are equally important. Separated twin studies have shown for a *fact* that hard-wired differences exist from birth, completely apart from any environmental effect or nurturing their adopted families offer: introversion/extroversion, types of hobbies, line of work preferences, general personality, alcoholism, other addict behaviors, etc.
They're not minor. No one really thinks it's minor but you and skeptics not in the field. You still miss the gist of the article. The path taken is as important as the result; it's the fact that a male and female may use completely different methods of getting to the solution of a word problem, reading through a story, or comprehending a film or image.
I never made this odd assumption -- you did. I said that in school system reforms of the last few decades, boys have adapted poorly compared to girls, who are also not excelling but generally faring better. Everyone is doing worse in comparison to schools that let children spend time outdoors and study their surroundings, engage in healthy competition, and participate in lively classroom activities. This fake argument that boys need to be allowed to run wild in the classroom is a gross oversimplification and a diversion from what's actually being said.
Furthermore, the research may go much deeper and the implications much greater, if scientists were not impeded by politically correct groups like the ones you believe in so much. See below. If you believe so blindly that nurture >>> nature, and not nature = nurture, then I think we're done.
Sex on the Brain
Are boys’ brains different from girls’ brains? Scientists debate the question.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health...ychology_.html
1. Ideology. All the panelists recognized that sex-difference research could be abused to justify sexism. But Larry Cahill, a behavioral neurobiologist at the University of California-Irvine, raised the opposite concern: His colleagues are so afraid of being called “neurosexists” that they’ve refused to study or acknowledge differences. This anxiety about lending credence to sexism was manifest on the panel, as three of the presenters repeatedly emphasized similarities and downplayed differences. Afterward, they were challenged by two female scientists in the audience who called the aversion to studying innate differences anti-scientific and an impediment to understanding mental illness in women. The exchange, in which one panelist repeatedly portrayed sex-difference research as a waste of time, confirmed the problem: Fear of sexism has produced a bias against conceding sex differences, which gets in the way of frank discussion and investigation.
You keep saying the differences are minor and downplaying the findings, when the neuroscientists involved deeply in these studies are saying the exact opposite. I guess this is so against what feminism, gender studies, and "patriarchy" have taught you, that you casually dismiss all these findings as next-to-insignificant despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
^I never said this. You did. You're the one with the narrow-minded view that only one is important and the other not so. I believe both are equally important. Separated twin studies have shown for a *fact* that hard-wired differences exist from birth, completely apart from any environmental effect or nurturing their adopted families offer: introversion/extroversion, types of hobbies, line of work preferences, general personality, alcoholism, other addict behaviors, etc.
They're not minor. No one really thinks it's minor but you and skeptics not in the field. You still miss the gist of the article. The path taken is as important as the result; it's the fact that a male and female may use completely different methods of getting to the solution of a word problem, reading through a story, or comprehending a film or image.
I never made this odd assumption -- you did. I said that in school system reforms of the last few decades, boys have adapted poorly compared to girls, who are also not excelling but generally faring better. Everyone is doing worse in comparison to schools that let children spend time outdoors and study their surroundings, engage in healthy competition, and participate in lively classroom activities. This fake argument that boys need to be allowed to run wild in the classroom is a gross oversimplification and a diversion from what's actually being said.
Furthermore, the research may go much deeper and the implications much greater, if scientists were not impeded by politically correct groups like the ones you believe in so much. See below. If you believe so blindly that nurture >>> nature, and not nature = nurture, then I think we're done.
Sex on the Brain
Are boys’ brains different from girls’ brains? Scientists debate the question.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health...ychology_.html
1. Ideology. All the panelists recognized that sex-difference research could be abused to justify sexism. But Larry Cahill, a behavioral neurobiologist at the University of California-Irvine, raised the opposite concern: His colleagues are so afraid of being called “neurosexists” that they’ve refused to study or acknowledge differences. This anxiety about lending credence to sexism was manifest on the panel, as three of the presenters repeatedly emphasized similarities and downplayed differences. Afterward, they were challenged by two female scientists in the audience who called the aversion to studying innate differences anti-scientific and an impediment to understanding mental illness in women. The exchange, in which one panelist repeatedly portrayed sex-difference research as a waste of time, confirmed the problem: Fear of sexism has produced a bias against conceding sex differences, which gets in the way of frank discussion and investigation.
Don't tell me "You did." I am not saying those things and have never implied those things. You on the other hand, whenever anyone has even brought up the possibility that environment and culture make a difference have been pushing back with a hardline argument that it is biology, linking repeatedly to studies purporting to prove inherent biological differences. If you had room for culture and environment in your paradigm, you weren't displaying it and it was hardly unfair for me to think so. The second statement - that there is a male and female way of learning - seems to be an accurate summation of your position that the male child in particular has a way of learning that he "naturally learns best" in. I made the presumption, perhaps in error, that you also felt that girls have a way that they naturally learn best. If this is not the case, you need to clarify.
But don't just dismiss me with "You did." I didn't.
And here's the problem I have. I can accept that there are some biological differences between males and females, and some of these differences involve our brains. I can accept that males and females might use different structures for some tasks or typically use different sides of their brains. I can accept that if you watch the brain in a scan while men and women are doing a mental task, completely different areas might light up. I don't dispute those things.
I see how they matter for developing medication that affects the brain, for symptoms of stroke or brain injury, or so forth. What I dispute is that those things matter specifically in the context of education. You mentioned reading, for instance. It is perhaps true that men and women use different parts of their brains when reading. This does not mean that they read in different ways. Reading is a complex recursive thinking process. Any good reader, regardless of gender, must be able to connect background connect background knowledge to what they are reading, ask questions about the text while reading it, draw logical inferences which are supported by what they are reading, maintain awareness of their comprehension, use mental strategies for finding understanding when their comprehension wavers (whether because of a dearth of background knowledge, not recognizing a character, not knowing a word, or whatever), determining what is important, and be able to synthesize information from different sources.
Do males and females perhaps use different parts of their brains for performing these tasks? It wouldn't surprise me. You still haven't explained to me how this matters.
On several occasions (including my previous post), I stated support for both nurture and nature in determining who we are and always have on a number of issues besides gender (e.g. introversion is determined at birth, but there's ultimately flexibility in how a particular individual turns out). I put more emphasis on the "nature" argument because it needs more attention - nurture is already more widely taught to us in society as important while the former is regarded as borderline insignificant. This belief is based on political correctness, a desire to believe one is fully in control of self, and old information that doesn't take into account any of the advances of the last 10-20 years in the study of the brain and neurology.
I can't word it as finely or detailed as scientists or psychologists, but I'll try to answer why it matters. The different areas lighting up corresponds to information being absorbed and comprehended in different ways, which has strong implications to how receptive one gender or the other may be to a particular teaching curriculum.
In early childhood, the historically recent development of classes focused heavily on reading and writing have led to boys to lapse behind and struggle due to the areas of the brain being less developed -- a 5-year old shows development of a 3-year old girl in areas of the brain involving reading and writing and the in-classroom results bear this out. The observed result has sometimes led to repeat instances of negative reinforcement: school is too hard, I'm always being punished, the teacher thinks I'm stupid, my parents are mad at me, they put me in the dumb group, I hate being here, etc.
In other cases, boys aren't engaged, literally -- the parts of boys' brains that are larger and more receptive to visuals and motion aren't being engaged when listening to a droning lecture or reading a wall of text. Hence, a boy isn't consciously and intentionally zoning out schoolwork because society taught him that's what boys do (although I'm sure such cases do exist). A naturally higher level of testosterone and pent-up energy also doesn't always transfer well to a classroom that demands a high level of sitting and passive listening; it becomes unbearable to be comply.
I do believe any inherent gender bias/difference can be overcome, but it requires a good education to do so. I also believe there are exceptions.
Below is a non-scientific article from a teacher who reluctantly changed his way of thinking because the research played out in his own classroom
http://www.eduguide.org/library/viewarticle/33
Another general article:
http://www.schoolfamily.com/school-family-articles/article/10800-boys-and-girls-learn-differently
Semi-related: the study and causes of transsexualism support gender not being a social construct, despite the well-intentioned efforts of gender studies to claim otherwise (hypermasculinity or macho behavior being an exception). Read the first response at the link below (I know, Yahoo Answers, yuck... but it's really good). The research in this field alone destroys the logic of "X: A Fabulous Child's Story." Humans are not born blank slates that, through idealistic thinking, can act and behave identically if we get rid of "gender stereotypes."
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120101192217AAVwUs7
I can't word it as finely or detailed as scientists or psychologists, but I'll try to answer why it matters. The different areas lighting up corresponds to information being absorbed and comprehended in different ways, which has strong implications to how receptive one gender or the other may be to a particular teaching curriculum.
In early childhood, the historically recent development of classes focused heavily on reading and writing have led to boys to lapse behind and struggle due to the areas of the brain being less developed -- a 5-year old shows development of a 3-year old girl in areas of the brain involving reading and writing and the in-classroom results bear this out. The observed result has sometimes led to repeat instances of negative reinforcement: school is too hard, I'm always being punished, the teacher thinks I'm stupid, my parents are mad at me, they put me in the dumb group, I hate being here, etc.
In other cases, boys aren't engaged, literally -- the parts of boys' brains that are larger and more receptive to visuals and motion aren't being engaged when listening to a droning lecture or reading a wall of text. Hence, a boy isn't consciously and intentionally zoning out schoolwork because society taught him that's what boys do (although I'm sure such cases do exist). A naturally higher level of testosterone and pent-up energy also doesn't always transfer well to a classroom that demands a high level of sitting and passive listening; it becomes unbearable to be comply.
I do believe any inherent gender bias/difference can be overcome, but it requires a good education to do so. I also believe there are exceptions.
Below is a non-scientific article from a teacher who reluctantly changed his way of thinking because the research played out in his own classroom
http://www.eduguide.org/library/viewarticle/33
Another general article:
http://www.schoolfamily.com/school-family-articles/article/10800-boys-and-girls-learn-differently
Semi-related: the study and causes of transsexualism support gender not being a social construct, despite the well-intentioned efforts of gender studies to claim otherwise (hypermasculinity or macho behavior being an exception). Read the first response at the link below (I know, Yahoo Answers, yuck... but it's really good). The research in this field alone destroys the logic of "X: A Fabulous Child's Story." Humans are not born blank slates that, through idealistic thinking, can act and behave identically if we get rid of "gender stereotypes."
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120101192217AAVwUs7
SquiddyCracker
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Shit new page, I'm outta here
That comic is genius still.
I'm not sure that your premise is necessarily true. Even within the vague motivation of 'achieving equality', there are many different details that might play into what steps you think should be taken to get there. They range from practical considerations (will a given policy achieve its aims?), to differences in values (what's the "time value of equality"?). Though, I suppose perhaps you could consider these as 'motivation [for rejecting feminism] outside of a desire for equality' if you interpreted the question a little differently.
I think I see where you're coming from now. I had thought that you were making a serious and unfounded insinuation (and I still think it still looks rather like that when taken on its own). But, given your explanation now, I get what you were trying to say, and I apologise for treating you so harshly
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