fuzzy post-it

i’m shuffling this post around a bit because there’s an important bit at the bottom that’s needed for some interesting context

oratorasaurus:

You will notice that I have not even touched “social discrimination” such as a group of women, on a popular talk show, cheering and laughing about a woman who cut off and destroyed a man’s penis simply because he was divorcing her. Or gender stereotypes forcing men to work to their deaths, treating men as predators and pedophiles, that sort of thing.

That is because I recognize that though social discrimination is bad, ultimately you still have choice and agency. People can mock you for being a male who likes sewing, but ultimately you can still choose to do it or not. But that pales in comparison to actual oppression, where you genuinely have no choice about the matter.

Note the numerous examples of governmental and legal discrimination against men.

These are examples of real discrimination, where there is literally nothing you can do about it. Not “discrimination” where women do more housework.

Most of the discrimination against men described here government-enforced discrimination, which is involuntary, non-consensual, and inescapable.

For instance, if you are a male victim of domestic violence, you cannot simply choose to walk into a government funded men’s shelter - they don’t exist. You cannot choose to call the pro-male police who fairly punish female batterers; there is only one police, and they are likely to arrest you if you do make the call.

In contrast, a lot of discrimination that feminists discuss is what I call societal discrimination, which is voluntary, consensual, and less significant.

Feminists state, as evidence of discrimination, that women do more unpaid housework due to societal norms. Even if that is true, given that surveys are biased and do not include male work like car repair, exterior house repair, etc. that is not discrimination since women are choosing to do more housework. They are choosing to be involved with men who do less housework, and choosing to tolerate such a state. They make that choice freely, without coercion. That is why it is not discrimination.

i observe that it’s never considered here whether women can choose to find men who do more housework. there are a lot of men, but there are also a lot of police officers, so the same logic would surely seem to apply. why is it a woman’s choice whether she falls in love with a man who feels chores should be shared equally, but not a man’s choice whether he approaches a cop who takes domestic violence against men seriously?

anyway the important part here is: problems that arise from personal choice are considered irrelevant. got it? ok.

1. Women are treated better in all aspects of the legal system. For instance, women receive lighter sentences and a higher chance of acquittal, simply for being women.

we have tread this ground before; much of it can be chalked up to men committing worse crimes than women, and black men in particular being hit hard because the system is hecka racist

2. Men are significantly more likely to be the victims of violent crime (of which rape is included) than women.

this link is down so i have no idea what it says, alas

3. Despite domestic violence being equally committed by women, for the most part only male perpetrators are arrested:

this is just a bibliography of papers i cannot easily read, but the summary of this one near the top is fascinating:

(…the author reports that women are more likely than men to throw something at their partners, as well as slap, kick, bite, punch and hit with an object. Men were more likely than women to strangle, choke, or beat up their partners.)

i’d wondered about this, and it’s nice that you’ve provided a source suggesting it: violence from men is significantly more brutal than violence from women.

this is the same class of error you made with the prison claim: there is a significant difference in magnitude of incidents involving men versus women. women slap, men choke.

4. The feminist definition of domestic violence has skewed arrest and prosecution philosophies, resulting in having mostly male batterers criminally pursued, and female batterers left alone.

but if so many female batterers are slapping and throwing things… frankly, how many men would call the police over that? and how many women would call the police if their partners tried to choke them?

a cursory glance over the previous bibliography suggests that most of the data comes from surveys, which in turn could easily mean that many male victims of domestic violence simply don’t consider it worthy of police involvement

5. It is legal to circumcise male babies against their will. In some places, laws have been passed which forbid any attempts to make male circumcision illegal. Meanwhile, female circumcision is completely illegal, even though some types of female circumcision are equivalent in harm to male circumcision, and other types (a symbolic prick to draw blood) are non-harmful.

while routine infant circumcision is indeed total bs, you seem to have a severe misunderstanding of just what female circumcision is. it is the removal of the clit, equivalent to the removal of the entire male glans. they are absolutely not equivalent in harm; female circumcision can easily leave women unable to ever orgasm (exactly the intended effect), whereas many American men can tell you the same is not true for them.

6. Men comprise 95% of workplace deaths.

7. Men commit suicide at over triple the rate that women do.

8. The vast majority of prisoners are men.

ah, and here’s why i put the concluding bit first.

are men not choosing to take far more dangerous jobs? they could be nurses and secretaries.

are men not choosing to take their own lives?

are men not choosing to commit more crimes, and ones that are more severe to boot?

it is not at all clear to me how these three things are the result of active government discrimination, which is how you yourself are defining oppression

moreover: what do you suggest be done about these? there’s no clear instigator to go after, yet you seem content merely to parade them around as evidence of your oppression

9. Men are doing worse in all aspects of the educational system, from kindergarten to university.

this is now a domain park

10. Men who are falsely accused of rape can have their names published and their lives ruined even if they are not convicted or charged - their accuser is protected and is likely to face no punishment, or a light one.

what you say has nothing to do with the linked story; this is a tale of men falsely accused of rape successfully suing those who falsely prosecuted them under bad faith. at worst this is classic corruption in the justice system, and at best it’s a success story where the justice system is correcting itself.

11. Reproductive rights. Men have none. Simply read this story.

12. Parental rights. Men have virtually none. See below.

the law is probably suboptimal here, yes

but this is really a hypothetical tale about what one person could to do another when they trust each other with their lives. you could just as easily weave a tale about a man who lies to his long-time girlfriend about having had a vasectomy and bails as soon as she’s pregnant. or, worse, lies about not having something like HIV.

the irony is that these laws almost certainly exist because the government has long considered it critically important to preserve something that looks roughly like the nuclear family (and as part of that, treats the mother like she can’t take care of herself)

13. The majority of homeless are men.

again, how is the government discriminating here? is it giving free houses to homeless women only?

also, careful phrasing here. the majority of people are women, too, but when you’re only dividing everyone into two groups that doesn’t mean anything. we have seen before that just under 60% of homeless are men, which is imbalanced but not outlandishly so.

14. Despite men’s need being arguably greater than women, government spending to help women is 10 to 100 times greater than that to help men. That figure is unrelated to medical spending.

15. In 2009/2010 it was $1,516,460 toward men and $57,562,373 toward women. In 2010/2011 it was $3,740,800 toward men and $48,331,443 toward women. In 2008/2009 the province dedicated $561,360 toward men’s resources and $98,983,236 toward women’s resources. (figures are for British Columbia, Canada, but representative of Western society).

(“unrelated to medical spending”, but the very first link here says it was for ovarian cancer. many of these are about housing for the homeless, yes.)

looking at the source website, though, it seems the vast majority of housing initiatives are for people of either gender. there are millions and millions of dollars here spent on facilities available to both men and women, and you are severely skewing the ratio by counting only those available to either men or women.

16. Female-owned businesses get free government money for literally no reason other than being a woman (i.e. all other factors are equal, same size of business, same income, etc. etc. but the owner’s gender is different = money or no money.

yes, it’s a common practice to give money to groups who are underrepresented. the majority (!) of business owners are already men.

17. On some airlines, men were banned from sitting next to kids on airplanes, simply because they were men. Why? Because men are pedophiles, obviously. This ban remains on some airlines, such as Air New Zealand.

shouldn’t you be applauding this story? a man successfully sued the airline over this—meaning the government supported gender equality. if Air New Zealand is still doing this, link a story that says that, not one that says your problem has already been solved three years ago.

18. Under a recent federal directive, men are convicted of rape in university campuses if the investigating board finds that the chances they committed the rape are at 50.00001% or greater.

i admit i don’t understand exactly how DoE “directives” work, but this all hinges on interpreting sexual assault as sex discrimination (?!) which sounds completely bogus from the start

19. The DOE policy in practice: Caleb Warner was accused of rape and expelled from the University of North Dakota, then his accuser was charged with filing a false report. He remains expelled as of June 2011.

he was unexpelled in october 2011

20. Selective service. Enough said.

agreed, but this argument would have more teeth if the draft had ever actually been used.

note that women have been excluded from the draft because they have historically been barred from fighting on the front lines. (which kind of sounds like discrimination against women, actually.) this is no longer the case as of last January, so perhaps the draft will change as well shortly.