The inhabitants of Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit seem to have developed a sudden crush on the authoritarian Chinese government. Why? Well, it seems that the lovable tyrants have decided to crack down on evil golddigger bitches. According to an article in The Telegraph, linked to in the subreddit,
In a bid to temper the rising expectations of Chinese women, China’s Supreme Court has now ruled that from now on, the person who buys the family home, or the parents who advance them the money, will get to keep it after divorce.
“Hopefully this will help educate younger people, especially younger women, to be more independent, and to think of marriage in the right way rather than worshipping money so much,” said Hu Jiachu, a lawyer in Hunan province.
The ruling should also help relieve some of the burden on young Chinese men, many of whom fret about the difficulty of buying even a small apartment.
Never mind that the lopsided demographics in China today — where young men greatly outnumber young women, making it harder for young men to find wives — are not the result of excess feminism, but the result of a toxic mixture of cultural misogyny and the authoritarian regime’s “one child” program. As William Saletan explains the logic in Slate:
Girls are culturally and economically devalued; the government uses powerful financial levers to prevent you from having another child; therefore, to make sure you can have a boy, you abort the girl you’re carrying.
The result? 16 million “missing girls” in China. Ironically, the skewed ratio of men to women gives young women considerable leverage in chosing whom to marry – and that’s what the Men’s Rightser’s seem to see as the real injustice here.
As Evil Pundit wrote, evidently speaking for many (given the numerous upvotes he got):
Wow. I’ve always disliked the authoritarian Chinese government, but for once, it’s done something good.
I may need to reconsider my attitude.
IncrediblyFatMan added:
China wants to become the next superpower and world leader. They aren’t going to do it by allowing the kinds of social decay that rot away at the competing nations.
Revorob joked:
If they brought that in over here, most women in Australia would be living on the street.
“Or,” Fondueguy quipped in response, “they could learn to work.”
At the moment, all the comments in the thread praising the Chinese government for this move (and there are many more) have net upvotes; the only comment in the negative? One suggesting that the Telegraph isn’t exactly a reliable source.
Speaking of which, here’s a more balanced look at the issue on China.org.cn that examines some of the consequences of the new ruling for Chinese women.
Let’s look at some of those. According to one Beijing lawyer quoted in the piece:
“[H]ousewives, especially those in the rural areas who have no job and are responsible for taking care of their families, will be affected most by this new change,” she said. “If their husbands want a divorce, they are likely to be kicked out of the house with nothing.”
Luo Huilan, a professor of women’s studies at China Women’s University in Beijing, agreed.
In rural areas, she said, men have the final say in family matters. All essential family assets, such as home, car and bank deposits, are registered in the men’s names, and women fill the roles of only wife, mother and farmworker.
“Their labor, though substantial, hardly gets recognition. Without a good education, they have to rely heavily on their husbands,” Luo said. “In case of divorce, a woman is driven out of her husband’s life, home and family, and finds herself an alien even in her parents’ home. No wonder the new interpretation of the Marriage Law has aroused concern among women.”
And no wonder it’s drawn cheers on the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Magpie, “it’s all about Brandon” is the main theme of Brandon’s posts. It doesn’t matter if you or I are forced to bear 18 children against our will so long as he doesn’t have to spend one precious penny if he doesn’t want to. Priorities!
@Sharculese
“color me shocked that abortion is on the list of things owlslave faultily assumes hes an expert on”
The result of a succesful abortion is the death of a seperate individual. Even I can’t get that one wrong.
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@KathleenB
“You can Fuck. Right. Off. You do not know what I feel or what I want. You think you do, but you’re an asshole who doesn’t know shit. Quit assuming anything about anyone here but yourself, please.”
I’ll quit assuming anything about anyone here when you quit assuming a seperate individual prefers death over life.
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@PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth
“Now those women can just not have sex. They can just go home to their husbands and boyfriends and say “nope, no sex.” What would you do if your girlfriend said that? And what would you expect a woman with an abusive boyfriend/husband to do?”
Awww, poor little communist. Unless she gets abortions and the pill and all kindsa other stuff borne of taxing the population to mass poverty she’ll deny sex. You can deny sex reguardless of the so called freebies, cause you got agency. Women done broke the bank!
Brandon and his ‘privileges’ of marriage and kids – yet he strangely never comes up with the option of Brandon staying home and raising the kids.
Well let me see, raising a baby to 18-$$226,920 in 2010 dollars.
Cost of birth control pills for 18 years: $24,192.
You do the math munchkin.
The Draco.
The Men in Black.
@everyone: Oh this is hysterical. I love how everything I say gets twisted to mean what ever it is you want it to think.
My point was that I can not force any woman to have a kid. Men and women can have sex as much as they want pretty much consequence free…until a pregnancy happens.
When this happens, women (rightfully so since it is their body) get to make all the decisions regarding that potential child. If a man feels that he is not ready to be a father…well tough shit…she is having the baby and the father is paying child support for 18 years.
This allows women far more options and “exit strategies” when it comes to sex. Men have condoms and vasectomies…that is pretty much it. Women have female condoms, birth control, abortion and adoption. Even if a woman get’s pregnant she still has options…a man does not. Not only do women have tools they can use to prevent pregnancies…they can also choose not to be a mother after being impregnated. Men do not have that option.
I am not saying women shouldn’t have those options, but everyone here seems to want to deny the reproductive freedoms and choices women have over men. I am not expecting it to change…but you won’t even acknowledge those benefits.
Feminists here will rail against all the benefits men have over women…but god forbid women have any benefits over men. Big bad men control everything and women are just the pawns of the world…BULLSHIT!
I guess it is because you see the world as women and can’t possibly see how things could possibly affect men. If you have been a woman since you were born (no trans) then you just can’t even see what struggles and demands are placed on men…because you haven’t lived as one.
@NWO: Ya…with the decline of marriage and the higher levels of absentee fathers, women are relying more and more on Big Government. The family is starting to look like mother, child and government check.
yeah, even assuming theres any truth to your dataless model of the state of the nation, theres nothing else that could explain a recent rise in reliance of government assistance. no world changing economic events that fucked pretty much everyone over. because poor people are evil.
remember kids, its never necessary to come up with a sophisticated or even coherent argument when you can use wishful thinking to impute sinister motives to poor people. you too can be a self-sufficient libertarian super genius.
@Sharculese: And you criticize me for being incoherent? Wow…just wow.
sorry brandon, were still in the ‘bold new ways to call you clueless and selfish’ portion of the agenda
well move on to the ‘i know you are but what am i’ section later, on triple-crypto-hyper-manboobz, where that would actually be a clever comeback
I’m pretty sure Sharculese is (quite coherently) pointing out that there are many more people relying on government assistance currently because of the downturn in the economy which has rendered many people in need of assistance. Sarcasm, please look into it.
Ya, and what does poor people have to do with women having more options in reproductive rights or that “the family” has substituted fathers for government.
At no point did I mention anything about poor people. So nice derail there Sharculese.
rush limbaugh took a look at that ‘mother, child, check’ line and he was like ‘no, even i think that sounds dumb’
@amandajane- pretty much that
Brandon, you quite clearly stated that men cannot force women to bear children.
We showed you how you were wrong both with statements of facts and evidence to support those facts.
You, true to form, ignored what we said and now are claiming we twisted your words. All while showing zero evidence for anything you claimed.
Now this is just getting sad.
wait you that preachy snipe had some point other than poor-shaming… that… is actually even lamer
@Elizabeth: You didn’t even answer my question. You made up your own question and answered that.
I asked, if a man could force you to have a child against your will. Someone countered with some government legislation about anti-abortion laws which was outside the scope of my question. I then brought up the idea of adoption. Someone gave some retarded “body agency” answer (which wasn’t even the question). I didn’t ask about your body agency. I asked for one example in which a man could say “I am forcing you to have that child even if you don’t want to”
The point is…no scenario actually exists. A man has no authority to tell you to to have or not have a child. Sure he can give his opinion, but you are under no requirements to follow it.
@Sharculese: Ya now I am poor shaming. Honestly, do you need help? How can you even REMOTELY get poor shaming out of what I said.
Apparently saying “I never mentioned poor people” somehow equals “POOR SHAMER” in your twisted mind.
good point. why oh why would someone ever conflate some hackneyed college-republicanesqe bleating about government assistance with poor-shaming. it would take a super-genius to see how those things are related.
This is humiliatingly stupid, even by your standards, Brandon. Do you have any shame whatsoever? No?
These statistics are compiled within single occupations. They are done with regards to specialization, where possible. Even when you control for these factors, men make more. Shit, it repeated the most blatantly false and stupid assertion of MRAs; that dangerous work is high-paying work. This is untrue. Dangerous work is low status work with two or perhaps 3 exceptions. Dangerous work is the province of the blue collar. The poor control almost no wealth in the USA; if we wanted to actually talk about why men, as a gender, without regard to profession, make more money in the US, you’re actually angling for the wealthy, who make most of the USA’s income. That business insider is repeating stupidities your movement parrots but doesn’t understand doesn’t surprise me; it doesn’t make it the important part of income gaps.
But the wage gap IS THE SMALLEST OF THE FOUR GAPS THAT AFFLICT WOMEN ECONOMICALLY. It is the sexiest, and the easiest to understand, but it is by no means the most important; the most important two gaps are easily the hiring and promotion gaps. Men are far more likely to *Be* hired in all but the most amazingly feminine-stereotyped jobs. In *EVERY* position, even the stereotypically feminine ones, women are less likely to be promoted.
Here’s how you link to actual-fucking-studies, not Business Insider’s bullshit.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Journal-Managerial-Issues/193141029.html || Hiring Gap
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2007/07/art3full.pdf || Wage Gap
http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/socprob49&div=21&id=&page= || Promotion Gap
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3096961 || Promotion Gap, but a little old.
There’s more. There’s always more.
That doesn’t generally work, stupid. And more to the point, it shouldn’t be necessary. You *KNOW* This. I don’t want women to be 70% of upper management. I want them to actually have a fair shot in general, and for businesses to stop with the fucking gender bullshit. It mostly affects women, but what few biases stop men shouldn’t be there either.
That’s not promotion bias, you stupid tit. That’s part of the wage gap. You fucking asshats in the MRA movement need to get your stories straight. Is that wages, or promotion or what? Oh wait, how stupid of me, it’s another dodge, avoiding the fact that women aren’t *PERMITTED* to negotiate well, because if we do that makes us a frigid bitch. Women being judged worse than men for identical behavior is fairly well known and documented. That you’re behind the times, at best, or more likely dishonest.
Women have a small bias in their favor in some industries; emphasis on small. The actual hiring bias isn’t very large, unlike the hiring bias *Against* women in male dominated (And especially STEM) industries, though the social backlash is reasonably close to women in STEM industries.
You said exactly that earlier. And what you’re really saying here is you want GRATITUDE for being a fucking human being. No, no, you don’t get that. That you expect a cookie means you don’t deserve one. And by the way, since you think activism isn’t sufficient for women to count as fighting the draft, where’s your fucking feminist blog?
Oh wait, you’re spreading contra-reality bullshit that specifically disadvantages women, so I don’t care.
Go fuck off to an MRtarian site. You’re a rankly dishonest piece of slime. Slime should stay with itself.
So it’s ok to force women into slavery for nine months to a fetus, but making a man support the baby once it’s viable is a bridge too far.
Got it. Nothing unbalanced in Brandon’s world.
Entitled much?
Brandon Besides women being more promiscuous and tend to have sex far more frequently then in the past, what has feminism done to help men?
Are you married?
Are you living with someone, and having sex?
Is society looking down on her, and you?
If you were married, could you get a divorce?
If you got that divorce would you be paying alimony?
Does your girlfriend have credit?
Is she living on her own?
If you spend the night will she be evicted?
Does she have a job?
Is that job possessed of decent pay?
If she gets married will she get fired?
Got kids?
If not, why not?
Those are all things which you’ve made a big stink about being central to your life, all of which are the fruits of feminism
I think, Brandon, perhaps we have different definitions of what ‘having a child’ and forcing a woman to have a child means. I think ‘having a child’ refers to being pregnant and giving birth to it. There are ways that men can force women to stay pregnant and have a child, ways that men can rape women, that are facilitated by insitutional biases against women – courts which rarely believe rape complainants, the defunding of planned parenthood and easy access to contraception which then means that abusive or controlling men, or men who really want to have a baby, have a MUCH easier time controlling women’s reproduction.
You brought up adoption as an alternative to ‘having a child’, saying that this meant that our arguments about abortion and birth control being hard to access were moot. I was saying that this completely ignores the whole ‘bodily agency’ thing that you argued women should have – and that it implies that pregnancy and giving birth are no big deal. That’s bullshit.
Also, your argument that women have more reproductive choices than men and that this is a benefit we should own, ignores the fact that women also have more reproductive responsibilites. These ‘beneficial/extra’ rights that women have, are a product of women having bodily autonomy – which is about men and women having equal control over their bodies. Equality is not about sameness. Unless men have to bear and give birth to a kid, no, men shouldn’t have exactly the same reproductive rights as women. If they did have ‘equal’ decision-making in whether or not to have a kid, that would involve denying women’s bodily autonomy.
NWO: Just as soon as you get to bear a kid for nine months, push it out of some orifice, and raise it for 18 years – without complaining or asking for child support – and put it through school, come back to me.
Or, better yet, put your pro-life money where your mouth is. Until you can prove to have adopted an unwanted child, raised it from birth – again with no help form anyone but yourself – and put it through college, I am going to assume you are talking out of your ass. you want to be pro-life, start walking the walk.
Not twisted, taken to it’s logical and historical conclusion.
You’re not some great thinker. You haven’t said anything that hasn’t already been proposed.
All the words you stroke out have been already said and enforced at sometime in the past AND IT SUCKED just as much then as it does today.
brandon why do get to twist your single factoid about a decline in marriage rates or whatever it was into an argument for anything you damn well please, and assign motives to people you dont know and never will know, but the second anyone makes any reasonable extrapolations from your words, you flip out about how were being unfair.
on top of everything else, how are we supposed to come to any other conclusion than ‘with brandon, everything begins and ends with brandon’? and why should we care about someone whose universe ends and the borders of his own psyche?
@Rutee: I am getting tired of this. We aren’t even really debating anything. We are just bitching about each others sources. The point being is statistics can be easily manipulated to “say” whatever peoples biases are.
So, neither one of us is going to accept each others sources, so debating this is asinine.