Love this topic, but geeze there's a lot there. This should be interesting, because I regard myself as representing a certain type of onlooker: I try to be rational and logical, but I do not try to be educated. Purely for reasons of time. Just like so many things, I simply do not have time to become fluent in the names of feminists or MRA participants, in the history, or the legalities. I have to make do with the underinformed conclusions I can draw during my family/work-filled life. Even reading this thread is something I had to plan into my week. All too often people are pleaded with to 'read about it and educate yourself'. It's not going to happen. If I take the time to educate myself, I'm depriving that same time to my wife and daughter. And I think that applies to a great mass of people. How do you engage people like me? As an aside, this isn't strawman-ing what's been said by anyone here, it's an independent observation I've made prior to reading any of this.
I seem to recall glossing over this issue somewhat in the 14-page monster I posted above, but you're completely correct. It takes LOADS of time to learn and understand this stuff. Those who are trying to promote social change should not act as though it's super simple stuff that everybody ought to know already. No. It's confusing, and it's contrary to what we've learned all of our lives. (Cuz, ya know, we wouldn't need social CHANGE otherwise, right?) Unfortunately, people who promote social change rarely seem to be great communicators. And then there's the tumblr effect, where people spend all their time learning the arcane laws of the social justice movement just so they can treat people who don't follow those laws like garbage, and feel self righteous about it.
We must be more tolerant of ignorance. We could probably use a little more tolerance of intolerance even. And if we actually want to convince people that we know what we're talking about, then we must do more than tolerate. We must engage, and we must do it without anger, condescension, or assumed authority.
All that being said, it's also true that no one is obligated to be a teacher. If two people are having a conversation about feminist theory and some third party interjects to make the kind of banal objection someone who knows nothing about feminist theory tends to make, then the conversation's original two participants are well within their rights to be annoyed. "Read about it and educate yourself" is a fairly polite and tolerant response in that situation. Just because a conversation is happening in public does not mean anyone is invited to join. It's the same reason I don't involve myself in any of the pokemon threads that happen here.
And that doubles as something of a disclaimer for the opinion I'm about to express: Shouldn't men make better leaders? This is a difficult thing for me, because my logic is contradicting my social desire to regard the genders as equal. So, if anyone wants to disagree with me, that would actually be super useful. The reasons are evolutionary. Men are predisposed to be physically more able. We also seem to enjoy watching violence more than women. Fearless and 300 are two of my favourite movies, dumb as they are. My wife thinks they're boring because they're 'just full of fighting'. These psychological and physical traits, from an evolutionary point of view, would suggest that men are built to do the fighting/hunting whatever. Which gives us the advantage in claiming leadership. Men became in charge (the oppressors) for a reason. Nature isn't fair. None of that by itself makes men better leaders - everything so far is explanatory, rather than providing justification. But following on, wouldn't evolution select for better leadership in men? Especially considering the vast majority of human history occurred before the agricultural revolution when evolution still held sway. Futhermore, both men and women seem predisposed to see men as leaders ahead of women. Which, even if a man and a women are equally able, if the population more effectively follows the man, that must also be considered.
So, as I said earlier, it's really just not a good idea for anyone to try and use evolution to explain the way humans are unless they really, really, really, really know what they're talking about. You seemed to accept that, so I figure this point is mostly addressed. Because, for real, human evolution is the most god damned complicated shit ever oh my fucking god. Although, one of the points you brought up here is something I know a tiny bit about.
Bear in mind that I'm not double checking or posting my sources on this. I'm trying not to get carried away. If you're really curious I can try to find some verification for this later. But, anyway, here's my understanding:
Men and women probably had a much more equitable relationship prior to the agricultural revolution. We are biologically different, and in the harsh realities of an untamed world, those differences were more prominent. Yes, men probably did most of the hunting, women probably handled more gathering and tended to tasks closer to camp. But men and women would both have had a voice in decisionmaking. There are low contact / uncontacted tribes which support this idea.
Agriculture may actually have been the thing that really began the subjugation of women. After all, what's the biggest change to human society during the agricultural revolution? We stopped moving. We became stationary, tied to the land. Which meant we started viewing the land as property, and we started viewing that property as quintessential to our lives. And once we had property that was THAT important, we started to worry about who got to own it after we were dead. Which meant we started caring who our children were.
See, in pre-agricultural tribes, what we think of as a family unit probably didn't exist. Again, based on evidence from hunter gatherer tribes that have survived to the modern day, it's likely that the adults all had sex with one another, and the kids were viewed as children of their mother, and the responsibility of everyone in the tribe. Which isn't to say that men and women didn't pair off into couples, but if you want your man to go out and get some really nice meat, motivating him with promises of fucking the hottie in the hut next door are sure to get him going. Furthermore, there's evidence that a lot of folks assumed that children could be the result of more than one man. So if a woman wanted a baby, she'd fuck the strongest guy to make her baby strong, the smartest guy to make her baby smart, the richest guy to make her baby fortunate, etc. etc. etc.
BUT, that shit doesn't fly if you want to make sure that your land gets passed on to someone who is undoubtedly YOUR child. Ergo, a man started caring a whole lot about making sure his lady didn't fuck anybody else ever. Because if she only fucked him, then any children she had must be his.
Control over sex was the biggest bargaining chip that women had in primitive cultures. So when it was taken from them, the equity between the genders broke down.
But again, this is all very poorly understood, and it is further filtered through my own ignorance.
I feel a vague embarrassment about expressing this sort of opinion. And I think that's a big problem in society. I'm expressing it here because I'm very happy for people to change it, and because the internet provides a safer environment for this sort of thing. But I would never utter any of this at a dinner table. And opinions that are bottled often become radicalised, which explains a lot of the anger I've seen in MRA.
I've put a fair amount of study into this issue, and I come down firmly on the feminist side of things. But emotionally, I have the ability to access that angry 15 year old hidden deep inside my brain who thinks the MRAs are making a lot of sense. I have a certain empathy for them. If nothing else, I think they are mostly pretty sincere in their attempt to be rational. They just don't question their assumptions deeply enough.
And most people aren't very good at conversing on touchy subjects.
But even if everything I've said so far is true (which I'm suspicious of, to be honest) it still gets more misty. There is also obviously an element of social indoctrination that is difficult to separate from biological forces. Also, when any group of people (in this case it's men) end up in charge, things get better for the leaders and generally worse for those without a voice. And our progress as a species is largely a matter of defying our natures. I, as an illustration, am a vegetarian. This is against nature, I am biologically an omnivore, but I choose to override nature because I believe my morality to be philosophically superior to my 'nature'. Similarly with gender - if men really are better leaders, it still isn't fair, and therefore should be overridden. But when a country faces some immediate crisis, people will often vote for the more masculine candidate who is seen as more powerful and better able to deal with the crisis. And as there is always an immediate crisis, well that makes things strategically very difficult for the feminist movement.
I've found that socialization as a source of gender disparity usually makes a lot more sense to me than biology.
But yeah, we are biologically animals, but all of human history is an attempt to overcome that limitation. I mean, fuck, just look at science as a philosophy. The scientific method, most people would agree, is the best way for us to explore and understand our universe. But our brains just aren't wired to think that way. That's why it took the vast majority of human history before we figured out the scientific method. It's why we have to spend a huge chunk of our lives learning to use the scientific method, and it's why huge swaths of our population still end up ignoring or outright rejecting the scientific method as a set of guiding principals. We struggle to rise above our nature, it's an important part of being human. "It is the natural state of things" is a bullshit argument, no matter what you're talking about.
@LinkSkywalker , I'd be very interested to hear your views on marriage. I don't see that it enforces gender discrimination. Maybe it did once, but nowadays I think it does the reverse.
Marriage and relationships are kind of a whole other issue for me. In this thread, we're talking about how two halves of the population treat one another, and live together in a single society. Marriage and relationships are about two individuals. So my thoughts about it follow a completely different structure. It's not about what I want for the world, it's about what I want for myself. And I'm not looking to convince anyone else that my views are 'correct.'
Briefly, I'll say that it bugs me the way we bundle agreements together, and assume that anyone who agrees to one thing must also agree to two dozen other things or they're "doing it wrong." I love my girlfriend very deeply. I love supporting her, I love that I can rely on her, I love living with her, I love spending time with her and I love having sex with her. NONE of that means that I would be upset if she had sex with other people. Her body is her body. I hate sleeping in the same bed as her. We have separate beds, and often don't even sleep in the same room. And while the two of us haven't ruled out marriage or children, neither of those things is necessarily part of our future.
As a personal matter, I'm big on symbols. Symbols matter to me. So stuff like the father giving away the bride, the bride's dress indicating her virginity or lack thereof, these things bother me a lot. And as an antitheist, all the religious fluff on top of the ceremony also bothers me. Once you strip away everything about weddings and marriages that bothers me, you're left with a handful of legal and personal agreements which most people wouldn't recognize as "marriage."
I'd be happy to talk about that more, as I find the subject fascinating. (Brief, for me, is 3 paragraphs apparently). A conversation about the symbols in a marriage ceremony is actually part of what set me on my path to majoring in philosophy. But this thread really isn't the place.
And, as you mentioned it, here's the figures from UK government: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-…tner-abuse.html
The NHS (UK) summarises as "1 in 4 women" and "1 in 6 men" (http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/abuse…lence-help.aspx). Don't ask me about America. I read that as being more men than people might think, but still more women. I lived under an abusive relationship for a while, and I'll admit it's skewed my perceptions. I'm working to bring them back.
That's a tough battle. When you've personally been a victim, it's easy to feel like tragedies similar to your own are of paramount importance. Particularly when society does its best to downplay and erase your pain. Mad respect for the effort.
For this reason the one-way-violence thing is a very sore subject for me. And it's enforced in a lot of media. If anyone's had the misfortune of watching 'made of honor' , you'll know what I mean. But it's in a lot of movies. Even apparently forward films like Frozen. Anne decks the backstabbing Hanz. Yay, he deserved it! Probably did. How many movies end with a woman being decked?
Gender representation in media is...well, it's a bummer. On the one hand, something Zak Smith said once resonated with me. I'm sure I'll butcher it when I'm trying to paraphrase, but it was something to the effect of "It confuses me when people are upset by the failings of mass produced entertainment. It's like they don't realize it's all capitalist-motivated garbage in the first place." But at the same time, our mass produced entertainment is our culture. So it does matter.
My ladyfriend and I always get excited when we see a woman who is an equal participant in violence in film or television. The worst thing ever is a female character who kicks the ass of every man in the room, and effortlessly dodges every punch thrown at her until she's attacked by another woman. Because only women can defeat women. Bleugh.
As for the split between theory and practice, it depends on how courageous and selfless you're prepared to be. The only way to make something acceptable is to normalise it. The more people defend themselves regardless of the risks, the less likely the next set of people is to be treated with the same disdain. Martyring yourself is easier said than done, of course. But the principle is true.
Yeah, basically. Although personally I've made it to 28 years old without ever being in a situation where violence was necessary. I've had certain benefits to be sure, and I've been lucky on top of those. But I'm confident in saying that most violence can be avoided, and probably should be.
There is often a claim that feminism has gone too far and that things are going in reverse. I generally disagree with that, but there is an exception I'd like to raise - sexuality. It does seem that sexual promiscuity is what defines a "Womaniser" or a "Liberated woman", depending on your gender. Feminists seem to disagree about whether promiscuity is something that liberates women or something that is forced upon them by a leering male audience. But there seems to be more agreement about promiscuity being a bad thing in men.
People disagree about sex a lot. For a hundred million different reasons.
I haven't noticed that feminists are consistently anti-male-promiscuity. That has not been my experience. If it is true, then it is of course bad and wrong.
A final observation, about people's fucked up gauge, how a room with equally mixed men and women will be seen as having more women. I think it's more complicated than simple social indoctrination. Music production 101 theorises that high-pitched sounds gain the attention and grate on the ears more than low-pitched sounds, which often go unnoticed as they subliminally affect your feelings. This would not only explain the fucked-up gauge thing, but a lot of male leadership tendencies. As a case in point, Margaret Thatcher took vocal lessons. The coach taught her that when she wants to speak over other people, she should lower her pitch rather than raise it. Her political success was pretty instantaneous after that. Unfortunate, really, because I hate Thatcherism.
Well yeah, Thatcher was an asshole. =P
I'd be interested to know how the researchers involved would respond to that claim. However, I seem to recall that the experiment was also conducted with silent groups. Like "Here's 30 people, a mix of men and women, quick: are they equal, or is there more of one than the other?"
Though I don't have a source on that handy, so whoOooOoOOooOOooO knoOOoOOOOOoOOOOOOoooooows?
