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.
Be honest with you, NWO, men and women kind of both get raw deals on the kid front.
Below the (quite high) income level at which full-time childcare is feasible:
Women: “You can be a stay-at-home mom, or you can never have kids.”
Men: “You can support a stay-at-home mom, or you can never have kids.”
These both suck. But the only solutions are affordable childcare (which would probably require SOCIALISM!!!!) or more opportunities for women to get high-paying jobs so they can afford to offer men a chance to be stay-at-home dads.
And hey! If you think being a stay-at-home parent is all cotton candy and ponies, you should be all for increasing women’s wages and work opportunities. That’s how stay-at-home fathering becomes possible.
Where the eff do you *work*? o.o
@JohnnyBB
Can you show me actual numbers of women performing the majority of sweatshop labor? My guess is you’ll find roughly the same amount of women in poor countries doing sweatshop work as men. Just because the MSM only ever prints stories of women doing menial labor doesn’t mean the reverse isn’t also the case.
I feel like I’ve said my piece. All I can do is make other people angry now. I didn’t realize disagreeing with feminists was indicative of “backsliding” or “threatening to be a raging misogynist”… learn a new thing every day.
NWO: You’re Indiana Jones, right? Only possible explanation of the melodrama of your life.
What are these things that men mostly pay for? Do you think I get my groceries and apartment for free?
Poor little MRAL, can’t even get cookies for trolling slightly less than he used to.
“I understand certain feminist arguments.But when it comes to the wage gap, all I hear it self-righteousness,”
And data. And sociologic explanation. Well, that’s what I hear on this thread at least.
“we want more more more.”
Wanting more is necessary a bad thing? You’re against activism as a whole?
“They get everything I do and many of them get more.”
It’s not about you.
“I don’t want to hear about that.”
Then go away. Posting while bitter and/or angry is very obviously not good for you.
MRAL: Don’t be an ass. Please. Disagreeing with us isn’t what means you’re backsliding — ignoring anyone else’s experiences except your own is what’s backsliding. Getting pissed about the fact that women “have everything already, why do they want MORE” is threatening to turn back into a raging misogynist. Well actually, it’s more already starting back down that path.
Fine, if everyone thinks I’m trolling, I’ll bow out. But it feels like I can’t make a single peep out of the Manboobz consensus without someone or other shaking their head over me or accusing me of “backsliding” and “getting ragey”. I don’t think my position here is controversial. I have never been a fan of the wage gap argument.
Please MRAL, you always ‘say your piece’ and then act like a martyr when people call you on your bullshit.
Now that B_dons gone you manage to be the person whose head is stuck furthest up your own backside. Everything seems to be how you feel and how it relates to you, you, you.
Bitterness and anger, MRAL, that’s what we call backsliding.
NWO: any proof that feminists push men towards dangerous jobs, or try to minimize the safety on those jobs? (hint: it’s not feminists who say “doing a dangerous job makes you a real man”)
Molly: What are these jobs where men are always being killed? Unless it’s the millitary, they have shoddy work safety regulations.
No, we don’t. What we have are some pretty dangerous conditions.
Hey, NWO, dearie, I’ve seen women in dairies getting clubbed upside the head. I’ve seen women on film sets get their feet smashed. I’ve seen female soldiers who have scars you don’t want to imagine. I’ve seen mental healthcare workers with bitemark scars and blackened eyes, to go with fractured fingers and toes.
Women are in dangerous work too.
I’ve also been the low-wage partner. Stay at home (when I was doing nothing but missions for the National Guard. Home for six weeks, no pay, and then gone for two weeks, or two months. Net pay about 13,000 a year, housecleaning, dog-walking and cooking the rest of the time). My partner was covering the gaps.
And, when we broke up, she covered some of my ongoing bills until I could afford to pick them up; which is one of the reasons I still have the same phone number I did then.
I am still wondering why it is you’ve got more than one set of clothes… given the words of Jesus on the subject.
I kinda wanna get back to where the hell NWOslave is working. 40 feet up without a tether isn’t a normal working condition, is it?
Remember when he told us he twisted wire without gloves, which cut his hands, and then had to clean the wire with alcohol afterwards?
But will you be laughing “I showed them safety-regulators”?
Anyway, the “dangerous job” thing is moot because personally, I’d love your job. Danger and all. Sounds like you get to spend a lot of time working independently with your hands, don’t have to deal with the public, get to travel, get blocks of time off, and you get paid more than me.
Unfortunately, I’m a woman and might start popping out babies at any time so I’m much less likely to be hired for that job.
@NWO
Per: (Sweat Free) http://www.sweatfree.org/or_faqs
“Women: 85% of sweatshop workers are young women between the ages of 15-25.(3)” The link offers a citation to a pdf file.
I believe that figure might be specific to the garment industry. However, I posted a passage in another thread from the research of Lora Jo Foo published by the Ford Foundation that talks about the makeup of Silicon Valley’s manufacturing employees:
“Fabrication workers, who work in the ‘clean rooms’ and wear the white bubble suits, are primarily Filipina women, who, as a result of the US colonization of the Philippines, have the English language skills to program and operate the computerized machines that make microchips. By contrast, the semi-skilled and unskilled assembly line workers, those who solder wire and transistors onto circuit boards, are non-English speaking Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese women. Seventy percent of the approximately 50,000 to 70,000 assembly line workers are Asian and Latina women who do not get health benefits. In the subcontracting shops, the percentage is higher – 75% to 100% of the assembly labor force is Asian and Latina women.””
These are a few examples. But any study on the demographics of sweatshop labor will point out that women carry out the majority of the labor.
*still using his bare, cut-up hands?
MRAL: It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. It’s also they ways in which you respond to evidence.
The Foo research is available on google books in a book called “Asian American Women.”
Well, NWO, I want to say that in my anarchist thingy, the problem is that the definition between work and home has been unnaturally divided by state and corporate interests, and while there would probably still be wage labor, I think the “natural” way both men and women balance home and family is by making their homes the center of productive, creative, (and dull) work, and being able to support themselves, even if they WANT to go and work for others.
Especially from the industrial revolution on, productive family farms and businesses were destroyed, and both men and women who naturally lived their lives with work and their children were made into useful labor for the bosses. And so now, in the “real world” we all have to go out and work and make sacrifices, and you should be lucky to stay at home, cause home is shangri-la! But a man and a woman (or a woman and woman or a man and a man or whatever your family is – I’m as family centered as a good paleo-con, but with a broad definition of family) should by definition not have to leave the home in order to “support it.” If we have to scrape for wages to live, if ANY of us have to decide between work, home, and family, it may be “the real world” but it didn’t fucking grow there. It was done to us…
but first I have to hear from you that you actually admit I’m an anarchist. XD XD XD XD
MRAL: Maybe you should start to think about the way you say things. “all they want is more more more” IS getting ragey. You get angry quickly, you rile yourself up by imagining sneering women/women complaining and getting all self-righteous over NOTHING, NOTHING I SAY! HOW DARE THEY, MY LIFE IS SHIT TOOOOO. Do you honestly not see how that grates on people’s nerves?
All we have is anecdotes. The studies are incomplete and frankly, if you want to get right down to it, they side with me, not you guys. Controlling for variables, wage is similar across genders.
MRAL, do you think women get free sandwiches if they cry?
I was going to say that I personally have been unemployed and underemployed for nearly three years now, so obviously women have it worse, but NEW RULE! From now on Mr. Al is the biggest self-righteous victim. In fact, he’s not only the biggest self-righteous victim — he’s the only one. Happy now, Mr. Al?
MRAL, that’s you’re first comment here: “This BullShit, dishonest debating, as well as and the BullShit implications, really grate on my last nerve.” You’re first comment mentioned you are angry and emotional on this subject.
And your job is nothing more than an anecdote. Contrary to studies, which are by definition not anecdotes.