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.
Whoa, NWO told us a thing he likes, and it’s remarkably normal and human: playing with small children and making them laugh. (Hopefully the small children are wearing burqas at the time, though, because the implications are slightly scary otherwise.)
That said, NWO, it’s patently silly to compare “playing with happy laughing children” to “shit job” and conclude that obviously staying home is better, in precisely the same way that it would be ridiculous to compare “cleaning stinky, runny fecal matter off a screaming toddler who’s trying to bite you” to “dream job” and concluding that working is obviously better. Almost everyone likes the fun bits of both parenting and work, and no one likes the unpleasant bits – and very few jobs and absolutely no kids are totally free of unpleasant bits.
Thanks Wetherby!
@hellkell
76% of teachers are women, 76% of women are not teachers. I said show me a career that has a higher percentage of women. Can you do that?
NWOslave can’t grasp the difference between “home daycare owner” and “stay at home mom”. XD
MRAL: It is wrong for male surgeons starting out to make less than female surgeons starting out as well. But women getting paid less than men when it comes to starting salaries is prevalent. Men getting paid less than women is not.
Also, I have no reason to doubt the research methods as reported in the article. I am not sure Time magazine has an agenda.
Here are starting salaries in the chemical field. They have a graphic by gender. http://cen.acs.org/articles/89/i11/Starting-Salaries.html
@@Ullere
Also there’s the fact that women are less likely to build up the minimum contributions for pensions because of taking a career break.
While this is true it is due to women taken larger career breaks. However to counter this in the UK women now need to contribute less than men in order to be eligible for their full state pension. Private pensions are a different matter, the state cannot force private companies to treat women better than men.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-1645738/Womens-state-pension-victory-QA.html
‘To get the full state pension, women have to have 39 years of contributions – 44 for men – but millions failed to build up their payments sufficiently because of time off work. People in such situations are able to ‘buy back’ payments but only up to a maximum of six years.’
If discussion of custody makes you uncomfortable then I will leave it alone, however assuming that most decisions are made privately does not scream of discrimination. If adult women and men are choosing privately for the women to get custody then that is their choice, the relative benefits and costs (more time with the children vs higher chance of poverty) is not discriminatory. Both men and women can be single parents and both face the same higher chance of poverty as a result. Men making up a smaller part of lone parents doesn’t mean the higher chance of poverty is discrimination against women, as with pensioners.
@lj4
Starting salary is again not ideal to look at unless you control for all other factors except gender. Even a same position can pay less relevant to experience, qualifications and a better interviewing/negotiating technique. There were some articles written a couple of years ago about men getting higher pay rises due to more agressive negotiation, this too is not discrimination.
@Molly Ren
Is there a difference between “home daycare owner” and “stay at home mom” in the world of feminism?
————–
@Polliwog
” Almost everyone likes the fun bits of both parenting and work, and no one likes the unpleasant bits – and very few jobs and absolutely no kids are totally free of unpleasant bits.”
Yet you emphasize the unpleasant bits while minimizing the fun bits. Why would anyone do that?
In my experience, the main causes of wage gap denialism (besides pure misogyny, which is what I figure accounts for the same people denying the wage gap who also deny rape and domestic abuse are problems) are:
1. “I have a crappy job, and I’m a man.” Which I sympathize with, because I know what it’s like to have a crappy job, and you sure as hell don’t feel privileged. But you still have better odds of getting out of that crappy job than a woman does, even if those odds don’t feel real likely to you personally.
2. “My female coworkers get paid the same as me!” Three answers to this:
A. Are you sure? Most workplaces strongly discourage people sharing their pay rates. You’d be shocked how much discrepancy there can be between two people doing the same job.
B. The company accountant won’t have “male rate” and “female rate” on the books, no. But they may have “supervisor rate” and “subordinate rate,” where supervisors were chosen for their chumminess with the male boss (who became boss back when there was more overt discrimination against women in management). They may have “perfect attendance bonus,” which women with kids are never going to get. They may have “negotiated pay raise,” which women aren’t as able to negotiate with the male boss. There’s a lot of ways this sneaks in.
C. How many female coworkers do you have? If the answer is “less than 50%,” then even if they’re making great money, men are still benefiting more from your workplace.
3. “Women choose lower-paying jobs.” Complete bullshit based on the observation that more women have lower-paying jobs.
4. “Women choose lower-paying jobs because they’re easier.” Spoken like someone who never thought about how many traditionally female jobs have “human poop being flung at you” as an occupational hazard. Healthcare and childcare are extremely physically demanding, and much more emotionally demanding than a lot of physically-dangerous male jobs.
5. “Women get paid less because they stay home with the kids.” Two answers:
A. Even women who don’t have kids, or don’t stay home with them, get penalized based on the fear that they might someday.
B. Women stay home with kids because they want to have kids and that’s the only way they can. Many more men than women currently have the life option “have kids, but don’t miss any work because of them.”
—
Did I cover everything? I can add more.
Yet you emphasize the unpleasant bits while minimizing the fun bits. Why would anyone do that?
Where did I do that?
Work is (with rare exceptions) hard. Parenting is also hard. Work, if you enjoy it, is rewarding. Parenting, if you enjoy it, is also rewarding. Where have I said otherwise?
@Pecunium WSJ has less of a vested interest than say Feminists. The statistics in the artcle are from an external study performed by a peer reviewed university study, I cannot find it but please try to look it out yourself before you question its validity.
‘Primus: Seriously. I have yet to see you admit to the possibility of personal error/misinterpretation of the facts?’
I am fallable, I have been turned around on a couple of things in the past.
‘Tertius: The use of ad hominem (saying that hellkell, et alia, aren’t possessed of facts, or argument, nor even actual opinions, but merely engaging in echo chamber responses because “some feminist has been challenged), is doing you no good turn.’
I call em like I seem them, when Hellkell said that zie has heard me and MRAL’s position before I too have heard the vast echo chamber of feminists crying out about a non existant wage gap. When Hellkell saw fit to say me and mral are wanking over the wage gap it hardly presents us as having facts, argument, or even actual opinions.
I’m sorry that you also have covered this before, but until the lies about the wage gap stop i can hardly be expected to stop. The wage gap was mentioned in david’s article and I was not the one to raise it on this thread, that I hold the same opinion and mrm sub paragraph etc matters not.
NWO, being a mother is not a career choice.
Career choices pay. (And no, “your husband will buy you things, if he feels like it,” is not pay, and the average child support payment is way below even McDonald’s wages.)
Being a mother can be a life choice, or it can be something you get stuck with, but “I’m going to have a kid” is in no way a comparable choice to “I’m going to apply for a job at a business” or “I’m going to enroll in vocational school.”
Yea, we’re not talking about you. We’re talking about trends.
Individual experience is of COURSE going to deviate from general trends sometimes. This is due to people being individuals with individual experiences, and the work of more factors that the one being examined (intersectionality is the nature of the beast).
Until you learn to have conversations like this without looking at every paragraph as if it is meant to describe every detail of your life, people here are going to be impatient with you because you are missing the point.
Holly was not talking about stay at home mothers. She was talking about women who run a daycare business in their homes. The difference is that there are a) more small children running about and b) some or all of them are not yours.
This is like the difference between being a pet owner and running a kennel, NWO, come on.
‘Also, I have no reason to doubt the research methods as reported in the article. I am not sure Time magazine has an agenda. ‘
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Time also covered the wage gap myth.
Shit, NWO, you’re even wrong about the percentage of stay at home moms:
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb11-ff07.html
Scroll down, I’ll wait.
@lj4adotcomdan
” MRAL: It is wrong for male surgeons starting out to make less than female surgeons starting out as well. But women getting paid less than men when it comes to starting salaries is prevalent. Men getting paid less than women is not.”
Do you have emperical data to back this up? Actual numbers of every profession and trade? Words from an article mean very little.
Here is a totally genderless situation and you get to hire the person and their payscale.
Person “A” Havard medical graduate; top 10%; willing to work any shift or hours.
Person “B” Community college grad; top 40%; dayshift only, no weekends, willing to work no more than 40 hours a week.
NWO, why do you care so much about numbers when you don’t know what they mean? It’s kind of funny, you swanning about telling people to back their shit up. Coming from you, it’s too much.
Huh. I didn’t know community colleges were awarding medical degrees. Learn something new every day.
Oh shit you guys, there’s numbers so it’s empirical. Never mind that it’s complete apples and oranges and I have no idea what kind of job I would be considering these two candidates for.
But NWO, why do you think someone with limited education is only willing to work weekdays? Rarely is it because they’re a special princess. Usually it’s because they have kids at home and the dad is either absent or has a higher-paying job, so they have to be home when school is out.
@Holly Pervocracy
“Career choices pay. (And no, “your husband will buy you things, if he feels like it,” is not pay, and the average child support payment is way below even McDonald’s wages.)”
By default you have just said husbands hoarde the money made, they care nothing about their wives and children, and the only thing they care about is having a live in maid who they’ll treat like shit.
Is this the exception or the rule?
@ David Futrelle
David, I’ve been visiting your blog on and off for the last six months or so. I’ve asked you a couple of questions before so you may remember me. I’m one of those “misogynists”, apparently: a self identified MGHOW. Let us be clear, I’m far from a fan of your writing, but, believe it or not, I believe that I am a somewhat open-minded person. I’m fairly new to the issues concerning men’s rights and as such have been seeking out material which would confirm or disprove my views about these issues, and so you might understand my confusion. I have probably read close to fifty of your blog posts and the recurring theme that I see is that you find some objectionable article, or far more frequently, blog post from a man or MRA or MGHOW, something that you deem as “misogynistic” and annotate such with some snarky comments of your own. Fine, I have no problem with this or your mission to “mock misogyny”. It is what it is.
However, there must surely be more to the MRM than this “misogyny”, right? These people can’t be driven purely by hate or fear, right? In the glossary section of your website you state that “Those who oppose the MRM are generally not against men’s rights per se; they are opposed to those who’ve turned those two words into a synonym for some pretty backwards notions.”
I’m assuming from this statement that you, personally, oppose the MRM but aren’t against men’s rights (per se)? In which case I’d like to ask you, personally, if I may, a couple of questions, which I often find in the forefront of my mind when I read through your blog.
1) What would you say, David, are the most serious injustices or problems that men and boys are faced with in western society today? And I’m asking about those which are either specifically affecting men and/or boys (not women and/or girls) or those which effect men and/or boys disproportionably to women and/or girls. The more you can think of the better.
2) Do you believe that it is important to have a men’s rights movement?
I hope that you will look upon my request favourably. Thank you for your time in this matter.
@ Manboobz patrons
If any of you would like to answer the questions that I put to David then you are most welcome and I’d really appreciate your thoughts. However, I’d like to get my “flounce” out of the way now by stating that, much to your disappointment I’m sure, I won’t be responding to any of your replies. This might sound somewhat rude of me, but I have promised myself not to get involved in any more drawn out discussions here on this blog. And so I’ll leave with a somewhat late, but most genuine, Happy New Year to you all!
Ullere, I don’t know what this article is worth, but anyway it does not agree with you:
@Holly Pervocracy
It was stated on the job application. I’ve applied for jobs before. The questions asked;
Are you willing to travel?
Are you willing to do shift work?
Are you willing to work overtime?
There’s loads more but you get the point.
You never did answer what number of women choose any field over being a stay at home mother.
I don’t think all (or most) husbands are uncaring misers, it’s just that a wife has no recourse if they turn out to be. (Well, she can leave. And get $300 a month. Wheeeee.) A husband may be perfectly trustworthy and generous, but “I trust that I’ll get what I need” is still a very different thing economically from “I make $800 a week and it’s mine to spend as I choose.”
Yeah, NWO, when did community colleges start handing out medical degrees? Seriously, I want to try whatever drugs you’re on for a day, just to see how it feels to be SO DAMN IGNORANT.
No, you read in to her comment. Projection, it’s not just for theaters anymore.