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.)
Joey, did you or did you not admit that your only approach to dealing with men’s problems is whatever you yourself do or do not do? Hypocrite.
It wasn’t trying to prove a point. It was me saying you are whiny. XD
😀
When Joey starts saying LOL! you can kind of rest on your laurels, Fade. It’s classic misdirection.
Did Joe seriously just say that you can’t hand wave away math? Because damnit Joe, you have a whole fucking list of shit you need to go back to and answer then, I have done/presented so much math that you’re just ignored flat out.
And fuck! You know TERFs hate trans* men too? And ignore non-binaries? *cough* just like you did *cough* — playing into the patriarchy, gender is innate and biological, trans* men are just trying to gain access to male privilege, etc etc.
Do fuck off.
sweet.
What are anti-discrimination laws? What are concerns about community relations? What are concerns about customer relations?
He’s talking about male suicide rates, because we didn’t appease him enough last week.
And he can kindly fuck off.
Also, Joey, if you’re calling me a liar either provide examples or STFU, toots.
Seconding this.
In other news, at no time in history did any business refuse to serve black people, Jews, or any other demographic, because turning down good money would be against the whole purpose of having a business.
Argenti, I’m glad you do the math — not for Joey — because I appreciate it.
The way he’s framing the issue that some radfems have with people who’re trans is a great illustration of why Joe’s arguments fall apart the moment you look at them. He insists on oversimplifying everything and ignoring any information that doesn’t fit into the simplified model, and then goes “LOL, watch me gloat” when anyone attempt to add the discarded information back into the conversation.
I’m not sure why David hasn’t banned him yet.
cloudiah — oh don’t worry, I’ll never stop with the math, I think in numbers 😉
(Like, I learned matrix math and went “I know there had to be a way to do this without those pesky plus and minus signs and all those redundant variables and equal signs!”)
Everyone, who do you think is more disingenuous: TS or Joe?
I’m honestly having a tough time deciding!
I think they have a lot in common and should be friends.
I’ve fortunately never seen TS, so I can’t vote. I do know that Joe is really disingenuous* though
*channeling Joe: PSEUDO BINGO AAAAAHH LOL@
Since TS has a blog I also think that Joe should go spend his time there instead of here. They can be angry and yell about feminists together, and the overall tone of the conversation here will immediately improve.
That’s a wonderful idea.
Then again, thinking about some of the worst anti-feminist assholes being best friends does make me feel a bit queasy.
Eh, it’s not like their attitude towards feminists in particular or women in general can get much worse as a result of contact with each other. Basically, though, I just find Joe abrasively unpleasant and would like him gone from this space. Don’t much care how that happens, “gone” is the operative word.
True. There’s pretty much a 0% chance of me ever going back to TS’ hellhole of a blog, anyway.
Goddamn, is he ever boring.
Good plan. It’s not like I want to stop people from saying awful things and/or displaying personalities more abrasive than the average scouring pad – freedom of expression and all – I’d just rather not have to deal with it on a blog where I come because there are people who I enjoy talking to.
Some of our trolls are fun to play with. This one is not, he just reminds me of the family acquaintance from my childhood who’s mainly memorable for the fact that he bullied all of his kids and beat the crap out of the only son.
Not only does the first joke not understand feminism, he seems never to have heard of nepotism.
Surely to FSM he couldn’t have missed every single film, TV series _and_ book reference to people awarding jobs, and raises, to incompetent sons, cousins, in-laws over the heads of other qualified, experienced, long-term employees. Could he?
Feminist media propaganda!!!
And with that, I’m going to bed. Goodnight y’all, except Joe, he can continue fucking off.