It’s Question Time again. I’ve been reading through Susan Faludi’s Backlash and her more recent book on men, Stiffed, as well as some of the discussion surrounding Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men and Kay Hymowitz’ Manning Up. Faludi, writing in 1991, obviously saw the 80s as a time of antifeminist backlash.
My question is how you would characterize the years since she wrote her book. A continuation of that backlash? A time of feminist resurgence, from the Riot Grrls up to Rosin’s predicted End of Men? A mixed period of progress and regression?
I’m wondering both what your general assessment of the situation is, and also what specific evidence you have — either hard data or personal experience — that underlies your overall view. This could be anything from data on employment segregation or the prevalence of rape to your sense of how media representations of women and men have or haven’t changed, or even how people you know have changed the ways they talk about gender. What do you think are the significant data points to look at?
The question isn’t just what has changed for women but what has changed for men as well — with my underlying question being: what if anything in the real world has changed that might be making the angry men we talk about here so angry? I think we can agree that most of their own explanations are bullshit, but could there be a grain of truth to any of them? Or something that they don’t see that’s far more compelling?
In the interest of spurring discussion and providing some data to work with, here are a bunch of articles responding to (or at least vaguely related to the issues raised in) Rosin’s End of Men, including a link to her original Atlantic article. In addition, here are some posts by sociologist Philip Cohen challenging many of Rosin’s claims, as well as more general posts of his on gender inequality. (Feel free to completely ignore any or all of these; I just found them useful resources.)
Hahaha!
Yeah, Cassandra, calmly pointing out how you fail. Is a “ragespit”! /sarcasm
lol!
Also on the pseudo-intellectual red flag list, people who use the words:
spout
spew
spit
hurl
throw
bludgeon
vomit (and ridiculously “vomitus”)
as synonyms for “said”
double pseudo points if coupled with:
spleen
bile
XD
Jeez, Joe’s not just scared of big words, but of small ones, too!
When I go to the dentist they ask me to spit in a little sink that sits off to the side of the chair. OMG, dental assistants are so pretentious!
This guy’s too boring, let’s not feed him attention. He’s not even saying anything anymore. Let’s talk about the blobfish instead. I may have been too quick to say it doesn’t look weird underwater, as that’s the only video I can find of a blobfish underwater. They are rarely seen, as they’re a combination of two things: endangered and deep sea.
I still think the blobfish is cute, it’s just weird looking. If it’s a deep sea fish that makes sense, since weird-looking seems to be the norm beyond a certain depth.
Joe must have read one of those style manuals where they tell you that the only speech tag allowed EVER is “said”.
Pity that’s the only thing he seems to have taken away from it.
Uncle Joe: “And I’m not “part of a movement” by the way.”
No… not a card carrying member. More a fellow traveller. You say what they say. Project their inevitable vicory and hate their enemies.
But you “don’t belong”.
Poor Joe, He suffers so
Also more appealing than Joe.
@Argenti – Well, feminists demand that any man bringing up issues re. men’s suffering first renounce anything any MRA said anywhere, evAR.
Joe. You slap-happy idiot.
I’m well aware of all the “safe-work environment” training that the US army has put in to cater for women recruits, to try and appease the feminist lobby.
How much time have you spent in the US Army? I’ll bet it’s not even six months. So how the fuck do you know what it’s like?
Oh right, the MRM has told you. And you believe them.
Women make up 0 percent of comabt troops. They make up about 3 percent of the total fatalities. They make up abot 10 percent of the US Army.
One of your dudes (Micael Coren, a clueless, dickless, worthless, fuck) went off about how a woman was forced (by volunteering) to suffer in the wilds of Afghanistan (with the Canadian Army). It was exactly the same argument you are all upset about being made by the Victorians.
Michael Coren ain’t a liberal. He thinks women ought to be at home, cooking, cleaning, or waiting to be told to put out.
Kind of like you.
Recalling Fibinachi’s quest for Julie: It was arduous. It requires one walk, knowingly, into the Slough of Despond, and traverse it, with nothing but one’s sense of self for armor.
It only works if one has something I have never seen a troll to possess; which is why I think they never interact. Trust. One must trust that if one falter, someone will be there there to raise you up again; and set your face into the wind, and your feet to the path.
Look at Joe, he can’t imagine telling anyone anything personal (so is the boat a lie?), because he thinks it will be weaponised. We, we share our fears, our sorrows, our joys and our pleasures.
Moreover, what lifts us up, and makes it possible to face the vomitous pussbuckets emptied in our midst, we share our hope.
Thanks so much for the nightmares I’ll be having about this.
http://www.empowernetwork.com/vonshouse/files/2012/07/Fining-Nemo-Angler-Fish.jpg
@Joe:
… So what?
A) The glass ceiling is not simply about CEOs, the lack of female CEOs is just a symptom. It is a general problem of women being unable to advance up the job ladder.
B) The glass ceiling itself is not even the problem per se, it too is a symptom of how society treats women, which affects all socio-economic areas.
Why aren’t more women in a position to become CEOs? Why does the wage gap exist? These are questions that highlight the greater problem that feminists are fighting against.
(note to all, I’m perfectly willing to be corrected on any of this…)
My mind just went back to time at home (and Home) and it struck me: there’s just one letter’s difference between “Joe” and “joy”, but can anyone imagine the former feeling, let alone giving someone else, the latter?
Ah, but you see, Joy is a woman’s name, whereas Joe is a man’s name. The misandry goes so deep that it even infects our way of naming children!
Cassandra – yikes!
Memo to self: never watch Finding Nemo.
That shot reminds me of how scared Mum was of the witch in Snow White. Disney and huge bug eyes, oy!
True, true! I iz such a misandrist that I associate a girly girl name with an emotion about a man!
… hang on …
How about the tripod fish? Another deep sea fish. It gets its name from these three protrusions from its underbelly. This allows it to just sit on the ground. It eats by sitting on the ground while facing against the current with its mouth open so that small sea creatures will just fall into its mouth.
…It’s still less lazy than Joe’s repeated arguments.
It has to make the effort of sitting up on that tripod, so it’s definitely less lazy than Joe, who just seems to be on a feedback loop.
Say, he’s not a sort of MRA spambot, is he?
OK. I’ve fucking had it! I’m a bit testy right now – all will become clear shortly.
Joe and all his fuckheaded feminists-are-just-women-who-hate-men mates can just fuck right off. I’ve been a feminist for over 40 years AND I’ve been deliriously happily married to a very nice man for 35 years – we have 2 adult children and, surprising though it may seem to these lackwits who’ve apparently never met a real person let alone a real feminist in a really equal relationship, we’re eagerly looking forward to grandchildren.
As it happens, my husband has not been here with me for the last 3 months. He’ll be coming home, to stay forever, next weekend. Why did he go away they ask. Well it wasn’t because he finally saw the light and abandoned a man-hating partner.
The only reason he’s coming back is that he’s alive. Why is he alive? Because when he lay dying at my feet I didn’t hesitate. I dialled triple zero – and I did CPR for 10 fucking minutes until a 3 ambulance, 8 person resuscitation team arrived. And then we did the whole fucking desperate routine – a week in a coma in ICU, month in hospital including a bout of pneumonia as well as minor surgery to implant a defibrillator, further weeks in rehab routine. (Rehab necessary because, unsurprisingly, none of the succession of me, resuscitation team, ER team could avoid him suffering a bit of brain damage from lack of oxygen.)
I’m generally coping pretty well as the months have gone by. But ….
How, fucking. dare. they.
Feminists love our partners as deeply and passionately as anyone, everyone else might. When the chips are down, we will literally drag them back from death’s door if it’s at all within our power to do so. I did it. Others have done it. Others will do it if a similar thing happens to them. I’m not a one of a kind, super-special, discountable, dismissable version of not-really-a feminist.
I’m just like all the others who love their partners – not in spite of the fact that they’re a man, but _because_ they’re a man worth loving.
Life for these miserable, woman-hating fucks would be a lot better and brighter if they could become remotely as worthy of love and commitment, passion and patience as all the wonderful men happily living with their feminist women.
Until then, they can fuck right off.
mildlymagnificent, if you want them, ALL THE HUGS!
And all the cheers for that post.
And for you, and MrMagnificent.
I give y’all the rattail fish and a round of applause for mildlymagnificent (both for saving her husband and the “fuck off” comment in general)
Oh and anglerfish are the ultimate misandrists, the females take on multiple males which they absorb into their bodies turning the males into nothing more than sperm factories, to the point they use her stomach for nutrients. Just in case you didn’t have a big enough case of the creeps.
More hugs from me!
The thing is, I think what’s behind a lot of the anger from MRAs is that they know that when they get into a situation where for other men a loved one might step in to help, there will be nobody there to save them. Certainly not a woman, because they will by then have driven off every woman who ever cared about them. I guess it’s easier to rationalize that as meaning that something is wrong with women than to look inside and try to figure out why other men have women in their lives who love them but most MRAs don’t.
mildlymagnificent: I’m glad Mr. MM is on the mend and coming home. Right on to the rest of what you said.
The MRAs always like to say we’ll die alone with our cats, but they’ll just die alone.