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.
MRAL: Sit down, breathe deeply, and think a moment.
First, what do you mean about the “myth”?
if you’re talking about the general media and general conversation between people, sure there will be ovesimplifications and errors made.
BUT if you’re talking about statistical studies (which do in fact compare men and women working in the same job), then it’s not a myth, and you’re starting to pull out an NWO: i.e. the miniscule amount of experience you have at shitty service jobs is not in fact reflective of overall trends, and as Cynickal said above, even there who goes into management, etc. is gendered.
There was a huge class action suit against Wal-mart about inequality of treatment based on gender–it shows how complicated this sort of thing is to prove (and even then the suit was thrown out on what I consider fucking flimsy rationales).
Here is a site with some actual, you know, statistics:
http://www.pay-equity.org/
You’re what, 20 years old? You have no experience in working at anything but shitty part-time service jobs (where, yes, I’m prepared to believe men and women, blacks and whites, are generally paid the same crap wage at the lowest levels), but do you think that really qualifies you to say ANYTHING more useful than the crap that often circulates in the media.
I’ve never worked a lifeguard job: would you believe anything I have to say about it?
Probably not, so why do you think you get to bloviate about crap you know nothing about and get considered to be anything but a troll AGAIN?
Shut up, read some stuff, consider that the issue is complicated, and that in fact it is not ALL ABOUT YOU.
@ Viscaria;
Yea, I’ve never had anyone tell me to my face that they were surprised because I’m so feminine but…. Hell, I bellydance. It was heavily implied.
There’s this weird notion that feminists can’t be pretty. I don’t know where it came from, but it needs to fuckin stop.
@ TheNatFantastic:
That comic is hilarious. Thank you for bringing it into my life.
Not even reading MRAL’s posts right now. Can’t stand to watch the backslide. Damn it, kid, you were doing so well! Why’d you have to let me down so bad?
As for the OP, this is what comes of devoting your life to tricking or coercing women into fucking you. It would be easy to – for example – put “No Feminists” on your dating site profile, and I assure you, you would get no feminists. You could even add a bit of bait for anti-feminist women: “No feminists, please, I’m looking for a lady”. They eat that shit up.
But no, as much as they don’t want to deal with any feminists, they also don’t want to do anything that pre-emptively limits the number of pussy dispensers they come in contact with.
@ Shora
No problem, she’s one of my favourites. Quite popular in the UK in (I think) the 80s? She had a couple of books of feminist/left political cartoons out. She still does them in a couple of papers. Well worth a Google image search 🙂
MRAL: There’s a big difference between studenty-type jobs and other jobs. I’m your age, and have worked crappy service/retail jobs, and I’m pretty certain I got paid no less than my male counterparts. Because in those kinds of jobs, everyone is paid minimum wage, and since minimum wage is not different for men or women (thank fuck), it’d be illegal to pay women any less than men in that case.
But minimum-wage jobs are not the only jobs out there. And as Shora says, even within jobs like that, women and men are often given different positions which starts them out on different levels of pay. Please don’t let your limited experience in student jobs convince you that there is no possible imbalance elsewhere. As ithiliana said, it makes you sound like NWO.
Leave a pair of gardening shears by the bed. -Pretend- to go to sleep, but watch what she does through slitted eyelids. Watch VERY CAREFULLY.
MRAL
Walmart would be a prime example. But besides that let me explain for a moment how real life works. You hang out with Bob the boss after work, you have drinks, play a couple of rounds, next thing you know your his bud and guess what? promotion.
My husband is dealing with a subset of his company where this has become rampant. It’s not a pretty situation The people who are actually doing the work, male and female have become marginalized from the cool kids. His is a small enough company where they can slash and burn.
I can’t afford that with mine being mostly non-profit in the last few years
@Shora
It becomes this trap where I want to get all defensive and say “there are lots of pretty feminists!” when really, it doesn’t matter. Whether one is conventionally attractive or not has no bearing on the worth of their ideas.
I side with Mral, you are correct when controlling for other factors others than gender the wage gap is reduce or even reversed. Differences between the pay of the sexes is purely down to the choices the sexes make. Saying there is sexism or discrimination because averagely women work less hours and take more time out of their career is foolish and removes the individual agency of women.
More stats from the wall street journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704415104576250672504707048.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
‘The unemployment rate is consistently higher among men than among women. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 9.3% of men over the age of 16 are currently out of work. The figure for women is 8.3%’
‘Men have been hit harder by this recession because they tend to work in fields like construction, manufacturing and trucking, which are disproportionately affected by bad economic conditions’ Men cluster in more heavy and dangerous work.
‘Women cluster in more insulated occupations, such as teaching, health care and service industries. ‘ Women cluster is less dangerous work.
‘Yet if you can accept that the job choices of men and women lead to different unemployment rates, then you shouldn’t be surprised by other differences—like differences in average pay. ‘
‘Thus the mantra that women make only 77% of what men earn for equal work. But even a cursory review of the data proves this assumption false’
‘hile feminists suggest that women are coerced into lower-paying job sectors, most women know that something else is often at work. Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility’
‘Recent studies have shown that the wage gap shrinks—or even reverses—when relevant factors are taken into account and comparisons are made between men and women in similar circumstances. In a 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30, the research firm Reach Advisors found that women earned an average of 8% more than their male counterparts. Given that women are outpacing men in educational attainment, and that our economy is increasingly geared toward knowledge-based jobs, it makes sense that women’s earnings are going up compared to men’s.’
So when you control for other factors such as age and hours worked women earn 8% more than men between the ages of 22 and 30, then more women start falling out of their careers due to child birth and other factors. Mral is right, looking at the average picture is a poor way to interpret the data.
As I’ve said, I agree that there are social and cultural pressures that are sexist and that . But that’s not the same as saying that the nefarious employers are handing women and men different wages, hour by hour, in some sinister plot.
You don’t HAVE to have a baby. If women take maternity leave, I’m sorry, they will be paid less as a result… because they are, you know, not working. Now, I’m willing to entirely accept the idea that women are pressured into this, and that sucks and it’s an issue that should be addressed… but it’s a different issue than this Dark Plot some feminists like to talk about. I read Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism and didn’t find it too objectionable, but the line “are you angry you’ll get paid less than guys for the same job” (paraphrased) really pissed me off. Are you kidding? Gross oversimplification, and more importantly, she’s talking to fucking 15-25 year olds in that book. They’re working the same shitty jobs as I am for the same shitty wages. The only difference is now they get to feel all self-righteous about it.
v I’m sorry, they will be paid less as a result… because they are, you know, not working.
Right. Because looking after a baby is a piece of cake. And society doesn’t need to replace people who die, so there’s no value in it anyway.
So what do you propose? The state pay mothers and fathers for… taking care of their babies? There’s no surprise.
Good number of my friends from about 20-22 have graduated from their respective programs and are working as electricians, engineers, graphic designers. Those who never went on to post-secondary have received or been passed over for raises or promotions in their fields. I’m still in school, but work office jobs every summer, for which pay is much more variable than it would be for a retail service position.
The troll/non troll ratio in this thread is unappealing.
Dude… no one here is saying that. o.o
This whole “the wage gap isn’t real!” is also particularily hilarious in that my mom was actually involved in a lawsuit against a company that was paying her less than the guy she was training. Just because it happens less now doesn’t mean it never happens!
I see Ullere and MRAL have banded together to wank about the wage gap.
Why don’t you two take it elsewhere? We’ve heard this shit before, call it deja doodoo if you like.
Who broke the board?
I see Hellkell and the other echo back up singles have joined together to wank over the wage gap myth.
Why don’t you occassionally consider the possibility that you are wrong, that the various studies, economics and people who are smarter and better informed and have no vested interest are right? There is no wage gap when controlling for other factors, the average wage gap exists because of choices people make. Women between the ages of 22-30 earn 8% more than men, female Ceo’s earn substantially more than male ceo’s. There is no wage gap.
echo back up singers.
Look, you’ve heard it before because it’s very transparent, and often utilized for dishonest debating. I don’t want to hear about how much better I have it at 8 bucks an hour, 25-30 hours a week, plus school. I’m sick of it. It makes me upset.
Wow, even the non-comment stuff is all italicized. Plus, on my phone, the gravitar of whoever last commented shows up to the right of the post title. Man boobz dislikes what we have to say and is protesting!
@Ullere
I don’t know how it works in America, but are the 8.3% and 9.3% unemployment rates based on ‘people of working age who have no job at all’ (because I don’t know how you’d get the data for that) or ‘people of working age who are claiming unemployment benefits’?
The second way is how the figures for unemployment are reached in the UK and they don’t account for people who aren’t in work but also aren’t claiming unemployment benefit (i.e. housewife – on no benefits, or carer for a family member – on different benefits), where obviously due to social pressures this is usually (but by no means exclusively) women.
So it could be the case that although there are fewer women claiming unemployment benefit, there are also fewer women in the workforce.
Also, I think it is usually more helpful to provide a breakdown of who is living under the ‘poverty line’ (66% of average income in the UK), rather than who is on what benefit, as they do vary widely (and certainly in the UK people are moved to different ‘classes’ of benefit to suit the current government’s agenda – i.e. Labour may put people on benefits relating to disability to artificially reduce the number of people claiming unemployment benefit in order to claim they have cut unemployment or the Tories will move people off disability benefits in order to justify cutting benefits because the people on them are ‘scroungers’ who are ‘fit for work’).
Not now, of course, now I only have about 20 hours a week, with no school. It’s a lot of fun.
@lj4adotcomdan
First off, the study you gave is words on a paper and gives no empirical data. No number, no proof of any kind. It doesn’t even claim to have any data other than words.
The article states “What is surprising is that even when we account for specialty and hours and other factors, we see this growing unexplained gap in starting salary. The same gap exists for women in primary care as it does in specialty fields.”
The article doesn’t state various factors such as colleges graduated from for starting wage. Person “A” graduates from Havard at the top of the class, Person “B” graduates from no-name school at the bottom of the class. Who get the higher starting wage?
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And also “Researchers theorized that women are choosing quality-of-life benefits like flexible schedules and not being on call during certain hours, rather than higher pay, when negotiating starting salary.”
That “is” the reason for the gap. The discrepancy in pay is due to personal choices. If person “A” is willing to work on call and all hours, while person “B” isn’t, person “A” will get $8.50 more per hour. So even if person “A” and person “B” work the same hours on a particular week person “A” will get paid more due to person “A” will to work deadman shift as opposed to dayshift. Right off the bat, most companies pay 10% more for working deadman shift.
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The article also states “women were still making less than their male counterparts in every field except general surgery, in which women earned an average of $11,000 more per year than men.”
Why is this not a problem? When women make more is it due to hard work, sacrifice and perserverance? When men make more is it due to sexism?
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@Shora
“Women are still pressured by society to sacrifice their careers for their children or risk being labeled “bad mothers.” Women are often forced to choose between a high-paying career and a family while men are not, so yea, that’s where the wage gap starts.”
Homelife>>>>Work, by about a million to one. Homelife is rewarding and work sucks. Kids rock, they are fun as hell, they do stupid shit that makes you laugh your ass off. Are you telling me you can possibly compare holding a child, looking at the love in their eyes, laughing and playing with them as a punishment compared to a shit job?
No women quit “high paying” jobs unless they are married to a “high paid” husband or have enough wealth where it doesn’t matter. A woman making a 100K a year does not quit her job if her husband makes 20K a year. That never happens. Ever. A high paid woman is never forced to quit a job to live in poverty with a low paid man. Never.
—————
Work is something you “have” to do in order to survive. Homelife is the rewarding part of life. In the world of “real” people if someone won a million dollars they would enjoy their homelife to the fullest. They might work as a hobby, but they wouldn’t “have” to. The most asinine part of feminism is portraying homelife as a punishment when it is the only rewarding part of life.
The shitty part of life for most of us is “having” to work. The rewading part of life is being home. It might be work in a sense of duties and chores that need to be done, but the rewards are infinite. The only “reward” of outside work for most of us is simple suvival. Living the “good life” is being at home.
Oh, snap, you told me.
Only you didn’t. Yes, the WSJ has no bias whatsoever. Uh-huh. And just how many female CEOs are there? Not enough to matter overall.
Can it, Ullere, you’re dull and pointless.
If women can earn the same as men (sometimes) just by making a sacrifice that men don’t have to make–that’s not fair.
It’s also something that often gets hung over our heads even when we’re not planning to have kids–if you’re a woman between 25 and 35 or so (and especially if the interviewer knows you’re married) interviewers tend to be skittish about “she could maternity out of here at any time!” whether it’s true or not. They aren’t allowed to ask directly “so, gonna be baking any buns in the ol’ oven?” but they are allowed to say things like “we expect our employees to make our projects their first priority, AHEM.”
It’s not that you can’t get hired, but your odds of getting hired in a really intense situation–like a small startup where everyone’s working extra hours–are a lot lower. Even if you have no intention of actually getting pregnant! Likewise, women with kids are under suspicion of being about to run home every time the kid’s sick, whether they are or not.
“Women can get paid like men so long as they live like men” not only isn’t good enough, it isn’t even true.