The last time we checked in on Justin, who blogs at The Truth Shall Set You Free, he was making some extremely creepy arguments about age of consent laws, which he feels are too harsh towards statutory rapists and not harsh enough on their victims. (Seriously.)
In his latest post, Justin recommends that readers check out a discussion on another website that he thinks his Men’s Rights buddies are handily winning. That in itself isn’t particularly notable. It’s the way he does it that caught my attention:
The comment section following the article is a laugh riot. If you like to watch intellectual child abuse, that is, as the men’s rights guys slap around the idiot feminists.
Yep, he’s comparing feminists to victims of child abuse, and Men’s Rightsers to the abusers. And declaring this “abuse” to be a regular “laugh riot.”
That’s a pretty, well, revealing way to put it, Justin. A bit more revealing than perhaps you meant it to be.
MRAs often resort to violent imagery when talking about debates they have with feminists, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen one compare his allies to child abusers, and mean that as e a compliment.
I don’t quite get the Computer Science = male, Women’s Studies = female thing, since the computer classes I’ve taken were split 50/50 on gender lines, and IIRC, my Women’s Studies class was about 1/3 male.
I majored in CS in a school of engineering, and most of my classes were mostly male. I was the only woman in my major in my graduating class (out of about 30). I have no idea what the gender balance in women’s studies was like at my school.
I don’t think this is biological or inevitable, though; I think it has more to do with the perception of CS being a guy thing. A few professors in the department have been working specifically to attract female students, and my understanding is that the enrollment in the major has increased in general, and the proportion of female students has also increased.
I will acknowledge that for a while, school-driven ADD overdiagnosis and putting healthy children on medication was a big problem and to some extent still is. Because boys are socialized to be more boisterous, aggressive and risk-taking than girls, it is not surprising that the overdiagnosis affects boys more than girls.
However, it isn’t feminism that’s to blame for this, but the fact — and this is another factor that explains why American secondary education is so terrible — that teachers and school administrators basically have no authority in the classroom. They have no authority to maintain discipline and no authority to penalize (in any significant way, I mean) students who are disruptive or refuse to do the academic work that’s assigned. In part, misogyny, not feminism, is to blame for teacher’s lack of authority; and in another part, our society’s consumerist approach to education, where parents feel that since they pay taxes on their homes, their progeny deserves diplomas and good grades. If a student misbehaves, or plagiarizes a paper, or fails a final exam, you can bet your ass the parents will make every effort to bully the school and the district into giving him a “second chance”. And a third chance, and a fourth, and a five-hundredth. If several children are disruptive or plagiarize or fail, it’s even worse, because now you’ll have a SWARM of angry parents upset over their Joshes’ and Megans’ abysmal grades and demanding the teacher’s head on a stick. Just about the only weapon that schools have against students who repeatedly flaunt the rules is to recommend a psychiatric evaluation and hopefully, dump the troublemakers in special ed. Some teachers, despite the frustrations of their job, hesitate to do this to kids they know are probably perfectly healthy, just really spoiled and inconsiderate. But there are many others, hardened and jaded, who think that if they can’t use the power of grades to get a troublemaker to knock it off, then the parents have only themselves to blame if their normal kid is put on Ritalin. This is an awful thing, to be sure, but if this is the only option that schools have, it is not surprising that so many of them take it. Repeatedly.
Humanities departments, including gender studies, are already running on barebone budgets. You can’t squeeze blood out of a stone.
It’s almost like universities are funneling all that money into engineering classes and short-term money-making research, and cutting fundamental research, because they’re tools of capitalist industry…
Um, yeah. That was me, but anyway, I looked at your link, and oh wow. I had no idea that the California Board of Corrections and California legislature was made up entirely of women.
“The policy could be extended to male inmates in the near future, administrators said Monday.” Apparently, the statute authorizing the early release program uses the phrase “primary caregiver” to describe who it affects. So yeah, primary caregivers of children who are in prison for certain non-violent, non-sexual offenses could be eligible for early release under supervision (parole officer, tracking device) because of California’s shitty economy.
Which is completely different that anything you said, but, hey, whatever, slaveman dude.
@Karalora: Yes, funny, isn’t it, how as little as ten years ago schools were perfectly suited to boys, who were expected to sit and learn Latin and algebra and history, and somehow managed because they didn’t have silly fluffy ladybrains?
A lot of this is cash-generating bullshit from Sax and Gurian, who go around getting paid consultant fees to push their gender-fetishism on schools. And gosh, what a coincidence that they are able to shift the debate from the problem of black and Hispanic boys (who are really the ones getting the short end of the stick) to be about “boys” as a group, so that we needn’t have any uncomfortable discussions about race and class. Whitewashing is always a growth industry.
NWO, the 70s called and want their “New Math” complaints back.
Those are the statistics that the MRM really embraces, too. Any area where there’s a legitimate issue for minority men, the MRM swoops down and appropriates it — while at the same time changing the focus from “What can we do to improve this situation for at-risk populations?” to “What about teh (white, middle-class, straight) menz?”
Just more misandry from the men’s rights movement, really. If they actually cared about men, you’d see specific responses to actual problems, not made-up problems that conflate the harms that specific underserved populations face with those faced by your average, well-fed suburban male.
@Amused
Personally, I think the whole ‘overdiagnosis of ADD’ panic is overstated, sometimes to the point of discouraging parents with children who really do have issues from seeking help. Sure, I don’t think people who don’t need the medication should be on it, as that would just be a waste of money and resources, but I’d rather it be overdiagnosed than underdiagnosed.
It’s not curious, and I already explained why. The department is enormous, has dozens of programs that are spread across six schools. If I have a thousand dollars each month and need to trim my expenses, I’m going to make cuts on whatever costs me the most money each month. Don’t pretend that Women’s Studies has a larger operating budget, it only makes you look like a fool. You make cuts in the departments that get the most money, unless you’re the football team. Now THAT’S a department that is “hands off” exempt, but I’m guessing I won’t see any of you whiny liars complaining about that. And don’t tell me that football makes money for the school, because they don’t. They’re operating with a budget deficit, too:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2010-01-13-ncaa-athletics-subsidies_N.htm
And seriously, it took me seconds to find other schools that have had to make huge cuts because of reduced state funding. Like Minnesota State, who also cut computer science….in addition to nursing, journalism, social studies, geography and an art program. So again, where is the gender warfare in this? NWO, you and your Speahead buddies are full of shit on this.
This issue is a symptom of our refusal to properly fund education in this country.
this cannot possibly have anything to do with the fact that men are less likely to do things like…read directions, use safety equipment, fail to require use of safety equipment…and plenty of other risky behaviors that men do that women do not.
Nah, it has to be because of feminism!
Slavey:
It … kinda is. Do men have anything beyond rights to life, liberty property, and the vote? (Hint: yes.)
Amused:
If boys are told by their parents — or even just by society — “sitting quietly with a book is for girls, and you don’t want to be a girl,” and their teachers tell them “sit quietly and read a book,” that’s a mixed message. But it’s also something feminism is working against.
And it’s certainly a far cry from institutionalized bias against boys, or against male behavior.
Amnesia:
I’m not as convinced as I gather you are of the harmlessness of giving Ritalin et al. to kids who don’t need them (or who do need them, for that matter, but there I’m satisfied if the benefit outweighs the harm (as measured by scientific people, so I don’t mean the harm of turning their auras blue)).
Amnesia: Re. overdiagnosis or underdiagnosis: it’s really a matter of philosophy. I think when it comes to “gray” cases, it’s best to err on the side of caution — not slapping diagnoses on people, children especially, and not putting them on medication “just in case”. Psychotropic medications have very serious long-term side effects, while a diagnosis of a mental or neurological disorder may psychologically impede a student’s progress and even encourage bad behavior. I have to say, I am troubled by this phenomenon in our culture where the line between a personality (however dark, restless, etc.) on the one hand and an actual mental illness is getting increasingly blurry. I am troubled by the growing tendency of our society to pathologize ideas or behavior that make us uncomfortable, allowing us to dismiss the troublemakers as not being in their right mind and at the same time, giving them free reign because hey, they aren’t in their right mind, they can’t control themselves. I think this skates dangerously close to using medicine as a tool to enforce cultural and social conformity, and in a generation or two, that may have very grave political consequences as well. This is why schools’ reliance on flimsy diagnoses and medication in lieu of discipline is so disturbing.
I agree with you that there comes a point at which schools discourage parents from seeking help for children who need it. Districts have a countervailing pressure to save money, and comprehensive special education programs, complete with purpose-trained teachers and one-on-one therapies, can get very expensive. But when it comes to trying to dump problematic students in a babysitter-type class and put them on meds that the parents’ insurance will usually pay for, schools did a lot of that in the 1990’s, and to some extent, still do so today.
And, I do think that overdiagnosis, in general, is a big problem when it occurs. First, it dilutes the definition of the particular disorder to the point where it’s meaningless (this is what happened with Munchhausen Syndrome By Proxy in the 1990’s). Second, if the diagnostic criteria are diluted to the point where virtually anyone will fit the bill, the diagnosis can be used punitively and strategically (again, this happened with MSBP, when the diagnosis was used to bully and punish mothers who had the temerity to advocate for their children). Third, there are some systemic consequences that are truly tragic. I know from my own practice, for example, that women are far more likely than men to be misdiagnosed and to die from an undetected somatic illness (as among people who actually seek help) — because where a woman comes to her doctor with diffuse, non-specific symptoms and a confusing presentation, there is an almost reflexive tendency to diagnose her with a mere case of nerves, pass her off to a shrink and deem the case closed; whereas a man’s case with the exact same presentation will be thoroughly investigated, almost Dr. House-style, before anyone will throw the c-word out there.
In general, colleges are less likely to cut CS than most other departments, because CS departments produce alumni with money.
Out in the real world, public schools across the country are cutting art and music programs, which I imagine NWO would see as “feminine” subjects. I’ve never seen anyone claim that this is part of an anti-girl conspiracy. Because a) it’s not a conspiracy, it’s a desperate effort to survive on woefully inadequate education budgets, and b) not having these programs hurts everyone, boys and girls alike.
If he ever does post from her city, you might want to warn her.
Racial Disparity in School Suspensions
Among the students attending one of the 9,220 middle schools in the study sample, 28 percent of black boys and 18 percent of black girls, compared with 10 percent of white boys and 4 percent of white girls, were suspended in 2006, the study found.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/education/14suspend.html
I think this assertion is a bit of an unfair stereotype, but I do agree with you that feminism has nothing to do with this stat. This country is going through a major attack on the working class (I live in Wisconsin and have a front row seat). We have representatives in more than one state actually calling for a relaxation of child labor laws! What we SHOULD be agitating for is better working conditions and stricter regulation of companies who abuse their workers (like the food and agricultural industries, who exploit undocumented workers because they know these workers have no legal recourse). But no, MRA morons want to pin this on their pathetic “battle of the sexes” fantasy.
I think the disproportionate amount of men in dangerous jobs/ representations in work-based fatalities is another area where I’ve seen MRAs shoot themselves in the foot, thus proving once again that actually they don’t want to help men at all.
I don’t know what the situation is in the US, but here in the UK we have a pretty heavy emphasis on Health and Safety legislation. It now encompasses everything – including yer average office environment- but a lot of it was originally brought in specifically to help make those dangerous workplaces safer and bring down the amount of injuries and fatalities.
Guess who I’ve heard moaning the loudest about how H&S legislation ‘feminizes’ the workplace? Well, right-wingers are pretty prone to it, but I’ve seen more than a couple of MRAs put forward the same complaints now.
Honestly, anyone would think they weren’t interested in tackling fatalities in the workplace for men at all, because God forbid they have one less thing to whine/ bash women about!
You know that the wage gap could have an effect or two on educational attainment levels. Men without high school diplomas do not make less money on average than women with them. This is true of every degree level, a woman has to have a Ph.D. to have an expected average income as high as that of a man with a bachelors. The wage gap creates a built in incentive system for women to obtain more education to try and have similar levels of wages.
@Karalora
“The thing about primary schools favoring girls over boys confuses me. The usual “evidence” for this proposition is that nearly all elementary schoolteachers are women and the teaching methods require students to sit still and pay attention, which boys (but not girls) are supposedly biologically unable to do.”
If forty years ago boys scored much higher and girls scored marginally higher what’s changed? The methodology and grading system. Reading and math are both taught differently in style and substance. Behavior and homework now counts as a large portion of your overall grade. Say you have a boy who is an absolute genius at biology yet daydreams in class and rarely does his homework. He’ll barely pass even if he aces every test. Achievement means nothing, only conformity and good behavior count.
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@Amused
“I will acknowledge that for a while, school-driven ADD overdiagnosis and putting healthy children on medication was a big problem and to some extent still is. Because boys are socialized to be more boisterous, aggressive and risk-taking than girls, it is not surprising that the overdiagnosis affects boys more than girls.”
Funny how something like over 90% of children diagnosed with ADD are boys. Children, particularly boys being bundles of energy, how strange! Nice try with the socialized boisterous, aggressive and risk-taking nonsense. Don’t you really mean naturally outgoing, independent and risk taking? Why does your indoctrination compel you to call a natural strength boys/men possess an unwanted socialized failing?
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@PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth
” this cannot possibly have anything to do with the fact that men are less likely to do things like…read directions, use safety equipment, fail to require use of safety equipment…and plenty of other risky behaviors that men do that women do not.”
The misandry just abounds from top to bottom in this place. More than likely men actually wrote those directions, invented the safety equipment and the usage of said equipment. That being said, 90% of “safety regulations” are total bullshit that serve no purpose but create an industry and regulations that drive up the cost of everything. Such as always wearing a safety harness in a scissor lift. Your lanyard is 8 feet with another 6 feet of expandable ribbon which hooks to the back of your harness, (about 5 foot off the ground), giving a total of 19 feet before you’re stopped from hitting the ground. Yet you have to wear one at all times. If I’m fifteen feet in the air and fall I will be flat on my back, kinda like a bugs bunny cartoon where the parachute opens after daffy duck hits the ground.
These types of regulations are endless and pointless and costly. The safety industry has become a monster that serves no purpose but to drive the cost of everything up. There are cages, light curtains, kill switches of every kind, and none of it matters. People get hurt do to unforseen, unpreventable accidents, or because they acually want to get hurt and collect benefits. And those people that want to get hurt, will find a way. Something like 600 people die every year in this country from tripping and falling on flat level ground, shall we ban walking? The safety industry, for the most part, is a money making scam that makes us all poorer.
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@shaenon
“Out in the real world, public schools across the country are cutting art and music programs, which I imagine NWO would see as “feminine” subjects.”
Art and music should be mandatory, ban social studies, political science, gender studies, womens studies. The indoctrination courses.
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@mythago
“And gosh, what a coincidence that they are able to shift the debate from the problem of black and Hispanic boys (who are really the ones getting the short end of the stick) to be about “boys” as a group, so that we needn’t have any uncomfortable discussions about race and class.”
And white boys as well get the short end of the stick. Just because you’re a racist doesn’t mean the rest of us are. I count the suffering of all boys reguardless of race. How about you? Not so much.
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@darksidecat
“You know that the wage gap could have an effect or two on educational attainment levels.”
Ahh the mythical wage gap again. What is the “official” feminist number this year? I believe it’s 76 cents on a dollar. Any company could instantly increase it’s profits by 24%, a hefty sum indeed. All they’d have to do is hire women only, Big Daddy would have an orgasm. So why doesn’t any company do just that? Oh yea, it’s a myth.
Every single time I think NWO could not possibly exceed previously measured depths of stupidity, he manages to find a crevasse. A regular fuckwit spelunker, he is.
I’d second this if I didn’t know they’d return him a day later with a strongly-worded letter of complaint. It’s so much work to soothe a dissatisfied customer.
Agreed, Kristin. Besides, what have the Roma people ever done to us?
Quick reality check: 11% of boys and 5.5% of girls in the U.S. are diagnosed with ADHD. So boys are twice as likely to be diagnosed as girls, but they’re not anywhere close to 90% of diagnoses. Of course, anyone who’s studied the Book of Learnin’ is familiar with this statistical rule:
There are only three percentages in statistics: 0%, 99%, and 100%. In statistical analysis, all numbers should be rounded to one of these three. COROLLARY: If people notice this and start suggesting that you’re just making your statistics up, it is mathematically acceptable to add some other really high numbers at random.
This is where teaching New Math gets you.
Oh, and the stats I quoted above apparently refer to the percentage of children identified as having the symptoms of ADHD. A little under half of those have been formally diagnosed with ADHD, and a still smaller number have been medicated or otherwise treated for it.