>Hello, Men’s Rights Redditors!

>Due to the rhetoric of left wingers — especially Democrats in the U.S. Senate prior to the 2010 general election — any invocation of the term "extremist" is usually just a euphemism for a strong difference of opinion.Although I'll throw out an example of extremism. Haven't you asserted that the pay gap is due to massive conspiracy by misogynistic employers who pay men higher wages merely because those employers hate women? To me that's an awfully kooky argument to make (and coincidentally, I disagree with it because of its kookiness). Hence, I contend that your position is extreme (that is, in the sense of its kooky and conspiratorial world view).By the way, David, aren't those Senate Dems your philosophical buddies?

>I am a left-wing Democrat. Just for the record. I vote Democratic in every race in every election, I volunteer and organize exclusively for Democratic candidates, and anyone to my left is in danger of falling into the void. Just felt the need to represent on behalf of the leftwing Dems out there. As for this:"Haven't you asserted that the pay gap is due to massive conspiracy by misogynistic employers who pay men higher wages merely because those employers hate women?"That would, indeed, be a kooky thing to say. So kooky that I have never, ever (literally NEVER) heard anyone say it. Surely you have some sort of link you could post to this amazing argument?

>You have "Warren Farrell" on your enemies list. His compassion towards members of both sexes is on par with that of the Dalai Lama, and anyone who labels either man an "enemy" is pretty extreme.You claim right here that a man sending a message to a woman on a dating site criticizing her feminism equates to him wanting to fuck her. That's a bit extremist – for her being female and his being male, you assume he is a cretinous sex-starved slob whose overt disgust is some elaborate ruse to get some manhater into the sack. It's curious how someone's political views turn a message implying zero sexual arousal into some lecherous creep's pipe dream. Then again, I don't make an effort to force biology and sociology to conform to my half-baked theories.You think that because a disempowered male assigned the label "loser" by society is actually suffering from excessive male power – and that disempowered men bitter from witnessing female privilege need to be mocked. Of course, I'm not sure how many women there are who are labeled "unfuckable" who remain chronically single only to be mocked for some delusional inadequacy on their part.And…You have become fixated on female victims of violence while only glossing over the overwhelming (3:1 ratio if I recall) majority of male homicide victims and moderate majority of male victims of violent crime in western society – they're an afterthought. All this despite claiming you have a semblance of interest in men's issues.You attempted to censor your discussion with Paul Elam because of the… title he chose to host it. Yes, the title is what caused you to want to blow the whole conversation off the internet. Censorship is a typical tactic of extremists, from Boston to Baghdad.Seems a bit extreme – and stupid. Maybe that's just me, though.

>Haven't you asserted that the pay gap is due to massive conspiracy by misogynistic employers who pay men higher wages merely because those employers hate women?Uh, no, I have not. It's a complicated issue. You can read what I did actually say here:http://manboobz.blogspot.com/2010/11/further-reading-gender-pay-gap.htmlYes, I do think that centuries of cultural/legal/social barriers directed towards women are a large part of what led to the massive differences in salaries and opportunties we used to see, and that the legacy of these things, as well as continuing sexist attitudes towards women, contributes to the differences that remain. When I say "sexist attitudes," I don't mean that a bunch of raging misogynists sit down together and plot how to screw women over, though there certainly are some raging misogynists out there (hence this blog). But sexism can also consist of things like the assumptions (held by men and women alike) that women should be the ones to give up their careers to take care of the kids, etc etc. Patriarchy is a complicated historical phenomenon, and as Jadehawk notes, it's a bit silly to caricature it as a conspiracy of misogynists. Also, John, I thought you were in favor of patriarchy. Wouldn't that, by your logic above, make you kooky and conspiratorial?

>there's fucktons of studies on this, like the one with identical CV's send out with male and female names, where the male names got more interview calls.Who's statistically more likely to launch a frivolous class-action lawsuit against the company after arriving late, leaving early, and spending all day complaining about how she can't get ahead because of some conspiracy?You feminists have dug your own graves there.Additionally, men take less sick days and are less likely to take time off for having children. One way to solve this would be for men to get the same paternity time and job protection women do, but you feminists are content to just moan about some conspiracy against women because you couldn't care less about men.

>and here comes IR, confirming what I just said.

>IR, you kind of make my case for me, dude. Warren Farrell is like the Dalai Lama!? And I'm not exactly how I "censored" Paul Elam by bowing out of a "debate" with him part way through after he 1) tried to change the rules of the debate to his benefit, 2) threatened to censor a commenter who agreed with me,and 3) basically told me to "shove it." (It was AFTER all this he decided to change the headline and introduce the portions of the debate I had already written by calling me a "fucking moron" and encouraging other MRA to repost my writings without my permission.) You can read all about it here:http://manboobz.blogspot.com/2010/10/paul-elams-hypocrisy-and-douchebaggery.htmlAnd here: http://manboobz.blogspot.com/2010/10/paul-elams-continuing-childish-and.htmlOther than that, the only specific thing you've got is … that I assumed someone sending someone else a message on a DATING SITE possibly wanted to DATE (and maybe have sex with) that other person. You are aware that this is what DATING SITES are for, right? For, you know, helping people find other people to DATE.

>My belief is that the pay gap is a reflection of female privilege, rather than female disadvantages. Employers pay extra for continuous and relevant experience that was gained on the job. Since too few employed women are willing to empower their cohabiting male partners with a choice to (A) be supported by the woman full time, (B) be supported by the woman part time, (C) be supported by the woman temporarily until he achieves an educational goal, or (D) be employed full time with options A through C as a backup — since too few employed women offer these options to their partners, those men only have the option to work full time. Options equal power, and in this sense women have more. The fact that women placed a higher value on utilizing male-provided options like A, B, C or D above means that those options were more valuable to them than the money that they otherwise would have earned had they remained in a continuous full-time job as a wage slave. For men, the only perk in being a wage slave is a few percentage points of higher pay compared to those women who are privileged with other options besides wage slavery.The pay gap reflects female privilege, despite the conspiratorial feminist myth that men who foster female privilege are somehow oppressing women. But then, feminists do have a knack for obscuring the privileges of women and turning them around to look like burdens. It's a sneaky rhetorical tactic that has enjoyed wild success on the unsuspecting public, but it doesn't work on me.As far as my views on patriarchy, I don't embrace feminist definitions of that word; it would take a wider discussion before you understood how I define patriarchy. Give me an entire post, David, and we can thrash it out. But I won't bury that discussion in the comments of one of your many feminist posts.

>" the patriarchy is not a conspiracy, it's a systematic cultural bias. but twisting the concept enough to make it look "kooky" makes it so much easier to dismiss, huh? " Proof please

>Wait what? That phrase is mocking a certain conversation-derailing tactic, not the very idea of caring about men. Geez get a grip.

>Paternal too. Oops!

>"Wait what? That phrase is mocking a certain conversation-derailing tactic, not the very idea of caring about men. Geez get a grip." Can you prove this? If you can't, what does this tell?