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.
katz: and some skills are limited in odd ways. I am a good interrogator. I am good interrogation instructor.
It’s a pretty limited market. If I’m not willing/able to work for the Army/CIA/a subsection of teh FBI, I can’t do that job. It’s not the same as police interrogation. Yes, I could do that, but I don’t want to (because the scope, and tendency, for abuse in police work is so high. If you know this is the perp, you want to arrest them, which means one stretches all sorts of things).
So, as soon as left the Army… my skillset became much less useful. If I could manage to establish the credentials I could set up shop as an expert witness in cases where police impropriety was alleged, but that’s a bit soul destroying.
So, through no fault of mine, I found a thing I was good at, and a place to do it, and then it went away.
RE: Pecunium, Argenti, and the other folks discussing the screwed up article
Oh man, I’ve spent YEARS trying to undo the “you are what you do” conditioning. People really don’t seem to realize how fucked up you can get on that shit. I actually chose insanity over unemployment, because losing my mind was less terrifying than losing my purpose.
I still feel really conflicted about applying for disability (I’ve got an appointment with a headshrinker for it next week), because of this reason, that and the bollocks idea that if you can do ANYTHING, you’re obviously not disabled.
A friend of mine offered a dream job to me a week or two ago. Full-time technical artist, forty hours a week, health benefits and triple the money I’ve ever made in my life. I wanted it so badly, but once I did the risk benefit analysis, I realized I’d end up in a mental ward. SO FRUSTRATING.
Also, OMG Pecunium, I listened to a variety of that song that I could make out the lyrics on, and when it got to galloping bollockitis I laughed so hard I cried and my roommate demanded an explanation. Thank you, THANK YOU for that song, I so badly needed it.
An interesting pair of independent studies has an amazing (and pretty convincing) thesis as to why crime rose so much in the 60-80s, and then started to decline.
Leaded gasoline, America’s Criminal Element One of the more convincing aspects is the localisation; they were able to chart the (offset) decline in crime rates to the banning of tetra-ethyl leaded gasolines. It’s also a trend that follows international bans.
Interestingly now that the US has banned leaded gas, the urban/exurban/rural crime rates are much closer to each other; save in areas with a large latent amount lead in the soil.
And if doing blockquotes right is a skillset to be judged … oh dear.
Skillset doesn’t really make that much better. I mean, babies don’t have barely any skills, aside of eating and pooping, but try and tell a parent their baby is useless or unloveable!
And like Pecunium said, some skills are narrow. I mean, I can do a good educational mental health comic, but that skill has been far less lucrative than my ability to, say, do laundry. (Worked doing that for a while.)
LBT, that must be really frustrating, especially since you are really talented. But you as people, your health and happiness and well-being, is way more important than you as a creator of awesome stuff.
Yes to the narrow skills, too. They can reflect work situations like Pecunium and LBT described, or simply passing interests. For that matter, the whole disability thing comes in, too: you may lose skills through simply not being able to do whatever it is. I daresay the writer would deny it, but the whole thing seems to end in a notion that if you can’t do something valued by whatever sector of society, you have no worth and maybe no right to exist. Which doesn’t seem too much of an exaggeration of the position of the more rabid right-wing politicians.
Yeah. The “you are what you do” gets compounded with multi baggage. In conventional thought, I’m not supposed to exist. I’m not a person; I’m a maladaptive coping mechanism operating under the delusion of self-awareness. It’s only recently I’m developing the idea that I might have innate worth as much as any singlet, and it’s slow going.
I think Wong’s position would be that you have intrinsic worth, but no social value; and therefore anything you get is charity.
What’s funny is that his argument, as katz says, falls down as soon as it’s tested. He’s making a big deal about how women won’t be interested in dudes without good career prospects (which is loaded language. I was a machinist, not; I am sure, what he’d see as a “career track”, not least because machining (as opposed to CNC programming, or CAD/CAM work) tops out between 25-40 bucks an hour, in a pretty competitive market).
Also, the example he gives… bullshit. I’ve been first on the scene to a number of accidents. Yes, I have some pretty solid First Aid training, but when it was just boy scouts, and personal interest, no one blinked at my taking charge. In a panic situation those who assume an air of authority are allowed to exercise it.
@CassandraSays
I want your vision….
I’m -5.75 and -6.25 in the right eye….
I’m 22 I’m to young for this….
I’m 39! Considering that my mother was in glasses as thick as milk bottles in primary school I really got lucky.
Hey, glasses-wearing folk! Dumbass question. My vision is giving me a little trouble, and the hubby is nagging me to get it checked. Do I go to a PCP for that, or is it straight to an eye doctor, and if so, what’s the difference between an optometrist and an opthamalogist?
Yeah, keeper of random facts is kind of useless, though keeper of random fish facts has half a pseudo-use (now if only there was a local fish store that wasn’t a goddamned chain *sigh* )
LBT, a regular physician might be able to tell you you need glasses, but not write a prescription for you. Optometrists can prescribe and fit you with lenses. Opthamalogists usually specialize in diseases or surgery of the eye.
I am not an optometrist, but I play one on t.v.
LBT – an optometrist is the person you go to for eye tests for getting a glasses/contact lenses script, and to get the glasses made up. An opthamologist doesn’t do that, they deal with stuff like glaucoma, cataracts and so on. I see both, ’cause I have, quote, pre glaucoma optical hypertension, unquote. Which might as well be glaucoma since it’s treated exactly the same way!
Un-fun fact: Ray Charles’s blindness was caused by undiagnosed glaucoma in his teens. It’s a sneaky rotten condition and has no symptoms, so if anyone reading this hasn’t already, do get it checked out (mine was found by an optometrist doing the basic test years ago). The treatment is straightforward – just eye drops in whatever combination – or laser treatment if you need the eye pressures reduced quickly. I had that done a decade ago, it’s a simple procedure.
Ninja’d!
You go straight to the Optometrist. It’s a very specialised field of study,and your PCP doesn’t have the skill, nor the equipment.
I’ve been lucky, in that my vision stabilised at, more or less, -6.25/1.0S:-6.75/1.25D at about 21-22. It’s orbited those numbers ever since. I see my new optometrist at the end of the month.
Okay, I’ll check with my insurance to investigate it and hit the optometrist then. I don’t think anything’s MAJORLY wrong, but hubby’s caught me squinting too many times, and I’m having trouble reading print at a distance lately.
Cassandra: I actually only wear my glasses at home. The sensation of my vision changing at the periphery when I look past the bit the glasses cover while walking around bugs the crap out of me, so I always wear contacts.
That’s why I have large frames. Contacts are nice, but I can’t peer over them to get instant magnification (which matters when I am sharpenig things). They also don’t provide any protection when I am crafting, etc.
@The Kittehs’ Unpaid Help
It is indeed pitiful that someone would be so depraved and lonely as to seek out vicarious experiences of sex with a silicone toy and pornography… as opposed to much more healthy means of coping like, say, fantasizing about being in a relationship with Louis XIII.
Mens Rights Activists (not all of them of course but it seems to be a pretty common theme!) … “If I don’t like your data then there must be something wrong with it, I will refute it with logic because I am a genius and my logic outweighs facts even though I have no evidence of my own”
Those mra’s are a class act. I was raped when I was 20 and it still haunts me to this day. I am still angry-it made me psychotic and I am on several meds to help me live a normal life. The three assholes (one raped me) were convicted. one of them had murdered someone. He didn’t use a condom. Thank god I didn’t get pregnant or catch an std. They had guns. I’m lucky they let me live. I went straight to the police and hospital when it happened. I know sooo many women and girls who have been raped and molested…(and men too!) It’s incredible. How would a mra like to be penetrated against his will?! Clearly they have no compassion for rape victims and women in general. Their “movement” is a joke. It’s all built on hatred towards women.
ProfessorJimboSpice — First, when did sex become a “means of coping”? Second, do try to figure out the difference between sex and a relationship. Clearly this is quite difficult for some people *cough* MRAs *cough* but it’s simple really: sex = sexytimes / genitals; relationship = whole person, usually but not always including genitals.
Fleshlight on its own = sex toy
Fleshlight + app = disembodied body parts, meant to be arousing
Louis XIII = complex person
Fleshlight + fantasies = enjoy that
Louis XIII = enjoy that
Fleshlight + app = objectifying your partners is kind of gross
Amanda — I’m so very sorry that happened to you.
Professor Jimbo Spice: fuck off.
I hit 30 and my vision started declining. My dad teased me and said “wait till you’re 40, you’ll be in bifocals like the rest of us.” Well… ten years later I’m now wearing no-line bifocals that took me the better part of a year to get used to.