So over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the top post at the moment (with more than 370 net upvotes) is a link to this image:
If I might hazard a guess: that’s because IT HAS YOU NUMBSKULLS.
Sigh. Let’s look at a little chart showing the striking decline in the incidence of rape we’ve seen in the last 30 years.
This is based on data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Some have criticized the survey’s methodology and say that it undercounts the incidence of rape, but even if that is true, the trend is clear: Rape has declined significantly over the past three decades, and I think it’s fairly obvious that increased awareness and understanding of rape, largely the result of feminist anti-rape campaigns, has contributed significantly to this decline.
Naturally, those who tried to point this out in r/mensrights found themselves downvoted.
I got the version of the iVag without the swirling blue thing in the corner, it sucks!
Well, it’s kind of sensible as an antidote to the common wisdom that if you just follow your dreams you’ll get a job doing something you love and that everyone who has a regular 9-to-5 has sold out. But the counterargument shouldn’t be that giving up on your dreams guarantees you money and stability because nothing guarantees you money and stability!
(Caveat: Didn’t read the article.)
Hi all, I wasn’t meaning the Cracked article to be a deep and accurate source of advice – my intro to the link was about people giving excuses. As in, people who could improve their lives relatively easily. I didn’t see it as relevant in situations where there is an actual reason as to why there is an issue (e.g. mental health) or the job market in a certain skill area has plummeted (e.g. COBOL programmers). On the dream jobs point, I read it as a kick to the butt of people who, for example, would like a job playing World of Warcraft all day, or would like to exercise unicorns, or something equally as unlikely.
I view excuses as completely different to reasons. For example, showing up to work late because one’s bus was cancelled without warning is a *reason* for getting to work late. Showing up to work late because of a hangover and waiting for painkillers to kick in, and telling the boss that the reason one was late is that one is “sick” (or that the bus was cancelled and it wasn’t), is an *excuse* – it’s avoiding taking adult responsibility, and it can be associated with problematic behaviour that won’t be corrected by the person concerned.
So I read the article from the perspective of excuse == I don’t want to act like an adult.
Just to add one point here, my life has not exactly been a bed of roses. As one example, in one job a male manager got rid of one of the female staff and then started in on me. He kept having performance meetings with me at short notice, and it got hard for me to get a union delegate with 5 minutes notice (or less) for these meetings (his behaviour was noticeably more conciliatory and professional when I had union support present). All staff had to attend one of two 2-day sessions on dealing with difficult people (ha!) and because I was so busy at work, I went to the second session. I was told I had to correct some work I had done immediately, so I got 4 hours sleep between the two days as I had to go into work extremely early to complete it – and then the report was sat on for a couple of weeks. By this time, I was on sleeping pills (benzos) every work night, and on antidepressants (note: I had been suicidal in the past, so not a good mental state for me at all). I got another job while medicated up to the eyeballs, and I could hand in my notice. I couldn’t quit work as I lived alone, with a student loan and mortgage to pay off.
I took the guy to employment mediation, having engaged a lawyer while I still worked in the job. He lied through his teeth at mediation, and I had the female lawyer for the organisation accuse me of not acting like her friend because I was suing the organisation. (I was always pleasant to her, but we weren’t even acquaintances.) All this, after my ex-manager had accused me of being unable to maintain interpersonal relationships. /facepalm.
Now, I’m not saying that everyone should stick in a bloody untenable situation because fuck that shit. But “not dream job” is not automatically the same as employment situation nightmare.
The thing that irks me about the whole “follow your dreams” vs “soul destroying 9 to 5” is that it assumes 1) no 9 t 5 could ever be the job of somebody’s dreams; and 2) that everyone’s dreams (assuming everyone has these dreams!) are ones that relate to paid work, or work of any sort. Hello, some of us have never had Big Ideas about a Career or whatever. Some of us couldn’t actually give a stuff because it’s irrelevant to our inner lives. For that matter, the idea of turning things I do for pleasure (art, writing) into stuff I do for money – into chores I’m obligated to do for other people – is a huge turn-off. Done it once or twice and hated it.
I’ve got most of what I want in my current job. The work is generally not demanding and isn’t the sort I worry about out of hours; I’m not dealing with customers all the time; I like the people I work with and it’s a quiet environment (apart from the boss’s explosive sneezes). The only downers are that it’s not well paid, being part time, and it’s insecure because it’s retail and our general manager, son of the owners, is a moron with neither people skills nor any grasp of marketing and supply.
I don’t think there’s a job on this earth that has anything to do with my dreams, with what I want most of all. I’ve got all that to look forward to, and the “you sold out” dipwads, who apparently think everyone has the desire or resources to run around doing entrepreneurial stuff or starving in a garret or whatever, can go jump. How do they think their lifestyles are going to be maintained without all the people doing those oh-so-despised ordinary jobs?
I heard a very funny interview with Philip Glass a few months ago in which his cheerful response to an accusation that he’d “sold out” was that he’d been trying to sell out from the very start of his career, but for well over a decade no-one was buying.
He was well into his forties before he could earn a viable living from music – and before that he’d done a whole series of day jobs, of which the most telling anecdote is that of the art critic Robert Hughes being appalled to find that his dishwasher was being installed by a Proper Artist and insisting that he stop there and then. But that says more about Hughes’ pie-in-the-sky attitude than it does about Glass – someone had to install his dishwasher, and composers have to eat too.
That’s a great story, Wetherby! And yes, I can just imagine Robert Pretentious Tosser Hughes having that attitude. I wonder how he expected Glass to do all that trivial stuff like eat or pay the rent if he wasn’t allowed to do *gasp* menial not-artist work and he wasn’t making enough from his music to live on?
@Kiwi Girl
I get where you are coming from. I think it makes the most sense as something written back when our employment rate was lower. But, then, I’m a big believer in excuses as social niceties that often hide things that are legit, but people are unwilling to say. So, I’m probably reading it very differently than your excuse = nonadult.
(I rarely reveal my bipolar disorder to anyone because I’ve experienced really bad reactions and have no desire to repeat that, so I definitely use common excuses to hide my uncommon reasons for everything from not having something done exactly on time to not being up to going out. I know I’m not alone in having secret bad shit and thus cut excuses quite a bit of slack – or at least try to. Even having both a mental health and physical health problem doesn’t mean I haven’t internalized a hell of a lot of “normal” cultural assumptions. Training myself out of being upset at people for taking the elevator up a floor when they look fine took me an embarrassingly long time after I’d had to start taking the elevator all the time while looking fine.)
I would like to point out that technically all violence crime is on the decline. So if anyone says that any violent crime is getting worse, feel free to tell them that they’re full of crap.
Also, regarding the cracked article. I love John Cheese’s columns, but personally I prefer David Wong’s take on the subject: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/
It’s hard to find anything that I disagree with in Wong’s articles.
I should be clearer: it was written now, but would be less objectionable as something written when our employment rate was lower. Or at least if it acknowledged that LOTS of people can’t find work.
I’ve heard some pretty funny stories about the jobs that some very famous people had before they finally made it in their chosen field. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, everyone starts out that way unless they have rich and indulgent parents. In fact, realizing what some of those people had to go through to get where they are, and how hard they still have to work now, gave me a much more realistic idea about the whole artist thing than the one that society generally holds.
There’s nothing romantic about starving for your art. It sucks, most people give up at that point because it’s too hard, and giving up is a perfectly reasonable choice.
I have to agree. I remember a Chris Rock bit where he talked about working at Red Lobster and they mad him work in the back, washing dishes, because he was too ugly to be a waiter.
Some Gal – I’m getting confused (1am here) – do you mean “when our UNemployment rate was lower”?
Yes. I do. There’s another typo I missed. Sorry all.
And I don’t think that having a lower unemployment rate would make what was in the article 100% okay, just more understandable as a thing to think.
Ugh, those types of articles.
(TW: suicidal thoughts, general negativity)
Am I the only one who reads them, thinks “oh god this is me”, then “I’m a stupid, useless, worthless person and I keep making excuses for stuff instead of doing them, I should kill myself because I’ll never amount to anything because I’m a worthless lump of shit?”
… Yes, I do have plans to go back into therapy.
I only really go on Cracked for the articles about Japanese toilet ghosts or animals being elected officials et cetera, because anything else is just upsetting.
I’m one of those people, only I usually feel motivated after reading them. It sucks that they have the opposite effect for you though.
It really, really irks me when people compare slutty dress with flashing expensive items, because these are completely disanalogous.
Suppose you’re a robber and you want to rob someone rich (since they have more stuff and money than poor people). Now, most people aren’t rich. So if you spot someone who flashes a Rolex and a top notch brand new phone you might target this person specifically.
Now, suppose you’re a rapist and want to stick your dick into a woman’s vagina. Now, the vast majority of women have vaginas. So if you spot a woman, regardless of how she dresses, you can be pretty certain that she has a vagina and target her.
The idea that it might be prudent not to flash your Rolex about comes from the rather plausible idea that robbers prefer to rob rich people who carry valuable stuff. But the idea that it might be prudent not to flash your legs comes from the far less plausible idea that rapists do what they do because they’re unable to control themselves when they see a pair of bare legs, but might be able to keep it in their pants if said legs are covered.
@Atomic Grizzly
I am very good at making myself feel bad. It probably doesn’t have that effect on the vast majority of readers.
@Creative Writing Student
I get that feeling a lot. I’m sorry.
I find Cracked is rarely goes an entire article without saying something they shouldn’t. The slurs against women in particular seem to pop up at the oddest times.
That should be Cracked is normally decent, but rarely goes an entire article.
I don’t want to be too hard on Cracked because I enjoy it a lot, but it is a problematic thing I like.
I did like their article about the fake geek girl myth, but yeah, your average Cracked article has random problematic elements out of nowhere.
The Cracked articles I like best, now that I think of it, generally don’t deal with people at all. Things like “Most Horrifying Insects” or “Pictures You Won’t Believe Aren’t Photoshopped” tend to have less of the problematic aspects.
True. Those are great bathroom readers if you have a smartphone.
Dvärghundspossen: Yep. There’s another problem too, which is that it conflates wealth with beauty by analogy. I.e. the beautiful woman in attractive clothing is the equivalent of a rich man with bulging pockets and expensive accessories.
Since most rapes are opportunistic crimes by acquaintances, and not even burqas protect women from rape, it’s misleading, unhelpful, and used to shift blame onto the victims.
@leftwingfox
I think that you saying this is the first time I put that together. Thanks. There are so many ways that metaphor is fucked up, it is hard to come up with all of them.