Over on Reddit, DoktorTeufel has a problem: he likes the ladies, but he doesn’t like the feminists. Unfortunately, some ladies are also feminists! And therein lies the danger. Naturally, he turns to the fellas in the Men’s Rights subreddit for help.
I’m just going to come out and say it: I will never knowingly enter into a romantic relationship with a feminist. I do have some female relatives and acquaintances who are feminists … and it’s not like they all wear signs that proclaim I’M A FEMINIST. (Some do.)
Aside from obvious telltales (feminist bumper stickers, etc.) or outright asking them “Are you a feminist?”, what are some discreet ways to ferret out a woman’s views on gender activism without creating an awkward situation? Feminism is a minefield topic, and I certainly wouldn’t broach the subject directly with a woman I’ve just started dating.
Naturally, this being the Men’s Rights subreddit, he received much helpful advice. Celda broke it down for him:
You don’t really care whether she identifies as a feminist or not – you care what her views are.
For instance, does she feel women have the right to force men into parental obligations against their will?
Does she feel women are oppressed in Western society?
Does she think that women make less money than men for the same work?
If yes to these questions or similar, then you probably want to avoid her.
Exactly. Always avoid those with a basic grasp on reality. They’re the worst!
Naive1000 suggested looking for more subtle clues.
Ask their thoughts on “benevolent sexism” if they know what your talking about you likely have a feminist. Just to make sure go into male privilege, it’s the feminists’ most popular talking point. Let her talk about it then you can see what she’s really like. But, there are some women who call themselves feminists, but are really egalitarian: they just don’t know the term.
Memymineown also suggests a subtle approach, and holds out hope that some of the younger feminist girls can be won back to the path of righteousness:
Bring Men’s Rights issues into the conversation subtly. I was talking with my family about Justin Beiber and brought up the paternity charge and no rape charges filed against the woman.
That led into a discussion about how women aren’t punished for rape.
Just do things like that.
But you shouldn’t exclude all feminists. I would say that the vast majority are just girls(I do use that word on purpose) who have been lied to. Once you show them the real facts they will probably come around.
ThePigman, by contrast, urges DoktorTeufel to go for the jugular:
Why do you need to be discrete about it? Just ask her. If she is a member of the cult she will start screaming about the patriarchy, then her head will explode.
It’s true. Pretty much every conversation involving feminists quickly devolves into screaming about patriarchy. Heck, a feminist friend and I once screamed about patriarchy for five hours straight. We probably could have gone longer, but the manager at Applebee’s, evidently not a feminist, threw us out. Sometimes I start screaming about patriarchy when no one else is around, just to keep in practice.
Conversations with feminists pretty much all go like the conversation in the video below, only instead of a cat you need to picture a feminist, and instead of the word “no,” the word “patriarchy.” You can see how annoying that might get, and not just to Hitler.
Frankly, I’d say market price. If you’d have to hire a cook, a housekeeper, and a nanny to keep your home otherwise, then a stay-at-home mom is worth that much.
But at a minimum women shouldn’t be penalized for supporting their families. They shouldn’t be treated exactly like people who are just plain choosing to stay home and eat the proverbial bon-bons.
@Holly Pervocracy
What’s the price to cook, clean and childcare?
@Holly Pervocracy
Federal taxes don’t pay for roads
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rly?
Awesome.
Oh fuck no. Housework/sitting around the house exacerbates my depression, actually. My ideal job, as I’ve just realized today, actually, would be embalming the dead. And I’d much prefer sitting in a morgue pumping out a corpse’s blood supply than vacuuming the house.
NWO, yet again, you are an over-generalizing liar, and you’re still too dumb to use apostrophes. 🙂
NWO: The math isn’t simple. You can afford to have the job you do becase of those social welfare programs. Read Oliver Twist, if you want to see what a world without them actually looked like.
You won’t, but you should. Nothing, but nothing, will encourage an employer to pay more, save force. That force may be the state, it may be the workers united, it could (in theory) be a free market, where all the participants had knowledge of all that was going on.
But it takes force.
And that money you think would be better spent by the people than the state… ha!
You fly to work. The gov’t sees to it (using those taxes you despise) that the planes are safe, the pilots qualified, the flyways clear, the runways maintained.
You ride on roads, in cars, and with traffic lights, that wouldn’t function without those taxes. You are bitching about how much your life sucks on an internet created by tax dollars; and kept free (insomuch as it is) by gov’t regulation.
Your milk is unadulterated, your flour pure, and the meat not rotten… because of regulations those taxes pay for.
There aren’t bread riots because of the (inadequate) social safety net.
When you retire you will have medical care, and a stipend, because of those taxes.
You get far more value for your taxes than you can imagine. You would be far more miserable without them.
But you want to end it, so the bosses who aren’t paying you enough now, can keep a few more pennies. You would, in the theory you can do better, starve in your elder years (and consign everyone else to the same; even if you were so smart as to beat the odds as a small-time speculator).
That is how you like to like the boots that kick you; because you pretend that tax money just disappears, that it pays no salaries, buys no goods, provides no services.
NWO: A man and a woman working for 5 years would each have an extra 50K plus $4,800.00 they didn’t pay into the childcare program. That’s $109,600.00 verses the 20K. Net loss of $89,600.00 in five years.
And if she got pregnant and had to quit her job…. Net loss of 40K, in one year. Even if she only took 6 mos off, and then went back to work… 20K up in smoke.
Childcare, to pay for, costs more than 80 dollars a week, so that’s a net loss in your system. Even using your numbers anyone who has kids comes out behind.
So, all things considered, do those who don’t have kids, because the extra costs occasioned by the lack of social safety net (the crime [Faginy will come back into fashion] the lack of skilled workers for lack of education, etc.) will outweigh the costs of your,”ebil soshalizt taxesess”.
I did a (minuscule) amount of research.
Maids/nannies seem to earn about minimum wage. I think they’re sorely undervalued for the work they usually put into it.
NWO, you really think all our tax monies go to social services? Really? How do you think we paid for two wars, magic? And if you think corporations in this country pay anywhere near what the should you are delusional.
And for the last time: MATERNITY LEAVE IS USUALLY ONLY THREE MONTHS, YOU BRAYING JACKASS. ANYTHING LONGER GETS INTO FMLA OR LONG-TERM DISABILITY. READ A FUCKING BOOK. MAYBE EVEN YOUR EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK.
That’s right. They don’t have to work. It’s nothing but a hobby to them. A fun thing to do.
Okay, so you’ve correctly figured out that some people enjoy their jobs. Many of those people I listed also have children, and yet continue working at their jobs despite having the financial resources to quit their jobs and spend all day every day with their kids. See if you can figure out why they don’t do that!
(Hint: the right answer is not “everybody prefers staying home with their kids to having a job outside the home.” Because that makes no sense.)
And again, what should happen when a non-rich woman gets pregnant?
@Pecunium
That’s what they said about social security.
I’ve read that if you broke down all the jobs stay-at-home moms do (cleaning, childcare, cooking, chauffering, laundry, etc) it would run you about 100K a year.
BEAT HER IN THE STREET.
@hellkell
Perhaps you don’t know how the government works. The Federal govenment borrows money at interest to finance what it wants. That debt is passed off to you, The Federal governments only source of income is your labor.
NWO, is abortion OK in your scenario? You don’t seem to have any answers about what should be done with kids, wanted or not.
If you say everyone wants kids, I will explode.
NWO: Federal taxes don’t pay for roads.
Oh yes they do. They pay for the Interstate Highway System. Trivia question, why is the drinking age the same from one end of the country to the other?
Because in 1982 Ronald Reagan made federal highway funds contingent on states raising the drinking age. If a state allowed anyone younger than 21 to drink… that state had to pay for the maintenance of the Interstate Highways inside it’s borders out of state taxes, not federal funding.
But thank you for playing dearie, here’s a lovely parting gift for you.
Citation needed on that borrowing money for roads, buttmunch.
You won’t, but you should. Nothing, but nothing, will encourage an employer to pay more, save force. That force may be the state, it may be the workers united, it could (in theory) be a free market, where all the participants had knowledge of all that was going on.
…
While I am very seriously happy to leave you unmolested to drive NWO to seizure, why should a free market require perfect knowledge? Not in a “let’s debate this” sense, since I’m not trying to win you over or express my disagreement but because I really wanna understand your take?
If it’s not a short answer, just ignore.
NWO – I don’t precisely agree with pecunium, but he is speaking the language of rational humans, whereas you are speaking the language of AREAPAIOJ ANMKLERRARAAAARGHYRARG FREE MARKET! OR SOMETHING! WELFARE BAD ARGLEDYFARGLE.
So he may not be exactly “right” but… Yeah, when talking to you, he wins. You’re not even wrong.
NWO, darling (do you still have three coats by the way? Not down to at least two yet?): What’s the price to cook, clean and childcare?
Market price. Nanny, about 400 a week, living out. Living in is about 300.
Cook… going rate for a private cook is about 150 a night, plus materials. Cleaning… daily maid, again, about 400 a week.
So, just clean cook and childcare, the working parent is getting about 250 dollars a day worth of stuff, at the going rate.
Call it 1,700 a month. Which is all of 21,000 a year.
And the problem with social security is that there’s not enough funding for it.
With no social security, no Medicare, and no pensions, old people don’t just magically get rich because they’re free of government regulation. They in fact get very very very poor.
The only question I have left about you is if you want all the non-rich people (including yourself…) to starve, or if you’re actually that deep in denial about what happens when you take away all safety nets while changing nothing else about society.
@hellkell
Yes I’ve heard that stat as well. Taking away childcare it is something along the lines of 60K a year. I’ve never topped that mark out in the paying world. It’s nice to know I make 60K in my home.
I’m not really sure if any but the most affluent man would be able to pay a woman 60 to 100K a year for services rendered.
I mean if I have to pay her 100K a year if we had a child and I only make 50K a year. I’m already in the hole 50K which excludes expenses to just live.
Even without children she’d cost me 60K a year. I can’t see myself ever being able to afford a woman.
@Holly Pervocracy
In adjusted dollars for inflation, since I’ve already worked 30 years. I would have around an extra 350K with all those taxes back.
Lets see. Barely enough to sustain myself on social security, or an extra 5 or 600K by the time I retire. Well that’s a toughie! I’ll take the 600K. I’m just silly that way.
Do you think housekeepers and chefs should work for free if they get room and board?
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I’m so confused, NWO. Do you think women should be stay-at-home moms for free, or do you think it’s inexcusable mooching for women to be stay-at-home moms at all?
Dammit, be one kind of ridiculous at a time.
. It’s nice to know I make 60K in my home.
…
You should have more value than that in your home, you idiot. Not the physical structure, but in your bargaining power. And you don’t get that by happily slaving away for the payers, and blaming your fellows.
You make about as much sense to me drunk as sober, btw. *hic*
zhinxy: While I am very seriously happy to leave you unmolested to drive NWO to seizure, why should a free market require perfect knowledge? Not in a “let’s debate this” sense, since I’m not trying to win you over or express my disagreement but because I really wanna understand your take?
Because if I, as a party to a transaction, can conceal things, I have advantage; what Adam Smith would have called, “a thumb on the scale”.
Take wages… if I, as an employer, go to the other businessmen in my line of work and collude with them to depress wages, the worker has no way to deal with it.
If I know that the train will be delayed (perhaps because I have paid the railroad to do so), I can make it so the farmer can’t get his goods to market in time to make the best price, and take advantage of him.
A free market requires openness. Will I have that perfect knowledge? No. But it’s possible to have enough. Getting enough, imo, requires a gov’t to be present to establish the requisite, “force”. I don’t think we have enough of it (and Obama’s use of recess appointment earlier this week pleased me greatly), but I don’t see a way to enforce the needed level of transparency without gov’t.
Seriously, NWO. Stop trying to math. It’s not working.