By David Futrelle
Men’s Rights activists like to pat themselves, and their fellow men, on the back for doing the hard work that keeps civilization going. It’s overwhelmingly men, they point out, who mine the coal, who cut down the trees, who build the houses, who put out these houses when they catch on fire, and who do any number of other Really Manly Man things that the world needs, or thinks it needs, done. (I’m pretty sure that we could do without the coal.)
Men’s jobs are essential, MRAs love to say, while women’s jobs are basically pointless make-work.
You might think that the coronavirus would crack a little hole in this crackpot theory. The people on the real front lines in fighting this deadly virus are healthcare workers — doctors, nurses, and others who are literally risking their lives to treat the exponentially increasing number of victims.
And healthcare workers, as anyone who ever visits a hospital surely notices almost at once, are overwhelmingly female. Indeed, nearly 80 percent of those in healthcare are women, and women make up more than 90 percent of nurses. And while the majority of doctors are men, that’s beginning to change: some 60 percent of doctors under the age of 35 in the US are women.
At this point in my life, for what it’s worth, virtually all the medical care I get comes from women. My primary care physician is a woman. My psychiatrist is a woman. My therapist is a woman. The nurses that check my vitals and draw my blood are almost always women. When I had to go to the emergency room several months back everyone who treated me was a woman.
MRAs would rather celebrate garbagemen than acknowledge that women are out there doing literally lifesaving work. Indeed, a recent post in the Men’s Rights subreddit focuses on a viral tweet by a garbageman who’s proud of the essential work he’s doing in this crisis (as he should be; he is indeed doing vital work that benefits us all, though maybe he shouldn’t be so noisy with the cans).
The trouble is that the OP uses the garbageman’s tweet as some sort of “proof” that “[m]en keep society running, especially in times of crisis.” And most of the discussion involves a lot of jokes about the reluctance of women to enter this particular profession — which is roughly 99% male — without acknowledging that women have been systematically discriminated against in this and in pretty much all of the predominantly male professions that MRAs like to celebrate.
Here are the top comments in this scintillating conversation.
![RT-AC66U 37 points 23 hours ago
Where are the garbage women?
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[–]conneramitch 26 points 22 hours ago
Theyre almost non existant
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[–]unknownuseridboi 39 points 21 hours ago
Oh no, not inequality in the garbage sector too!
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[–]ArrestedDevelopments 6 points 13 hours ago
STEM-G?
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[–]Tmomp 12 points 13 hours ago
Women working as garbage collectors?
Hahahaha, that's a good one.](https://i1.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2020-03-18_20-58-04.png?fit=600%2C741)
Another fellow had these thoughts about garbage collection and teaching.
Perhaps a teacher could have taught him that “shown” is the proper word here, not “show.”
There are some commenters, thankfully, who point out that women, too, contribute to the world in many ways. There’s even a mention of nurses. So not all MRAs are quite so hermetically sealed off from reality as out OP here. But it’s unfortunate that so many of them are.
I wonder how many of the commenters in this Men’s Rights subreddit thread work as garbagemen, or lumberjacks, or firefighters or indeed at anything that might require them to stand up from time to time. They can’t be doing much in the way of heroic work if they have so much time to peruse the Men’s Rights subreddit. Unless maybe they’re firemen, who do indeed have a lot of down time. But somehow I’m thinking not, because we’d never hear the end of their bragging if they were. Like most MRAs, they’re happy to claim personal credit for anything heroic done by any man in history, while taking blame for nothing. They are the very definition of non-essential.
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Holy shit these people are delusional. And — maybe I’m just more tuned in to the political climate today then I was a few years ago — but they also strike me as horribly behind the times. Not just in a “misogyny is so archaic” way, but in a “we’re living in a time of mass economic despair that has led to the rise of both fascism and leftist coalition-building, and you can only conceive of class in terms of career differences between men and women” way.
Of course garbage collectors and every member of the working class keep society running and largely get treated like shit in return. But the only way one could come to the conclusion that working men rather than working people make up this class is if they cherry pick the male-dominated service jobs and ignore all the others. If they really wanna force a conversation of gender disparity in career though, I guess I can talk about how Wall Street, Congress and every Corporate board — all dominated by disproportionately powerful men — are literally destroying the fucking world for regular people.
@Anonymous
Of course, given the relatively rare chance, women with power are equally as bad. It baffles me every day not only how corrupt and evil the Democrat party is, but also how incompetent. Trump is literally gonna run to the left of Biden and the Dems and the American electorate is gonna believe him.
And tbh the democratic party hasn’t really been reduced to anything, they’ve always been like this. Despite mounting ineffectual lip service against the socially bigoted aspects of his presidency, Pelosi and Schumer haven’t lifted a finger to stop the actual policies of the administration, because economically they have the exact same interests. There’s a reason why Pelosi has posed a bigger threat to actually her genuinely progressive colleagues like Ocasio-Cortez and Omar than she has to Trump. She was never on our side.
Based on the history of other professions when women started becoming the majority of workers, I wonder what the tipping point will when doctors start becoming underpaid and underappreciated in the US.
***
A WARNING FROM A CANADIAN…
Speaking of doctors and pay, a even if you all get M4A and it’s not scuttled by the Supreme Court, don’t forget that conservatives still exist and Republicans will still get into power. The pandemic hit us here in Alberta just as our conservative government was coming up with a budget that has massive cuts to healthcare, and those cuts included doctor billing (that affects not just their pay, but their staff and office costs too).
Because of the pandemic, the government stepped back on the pay cut but they have rammed the rest of the budget through. As long as there’s a public health option, conservatives will do their damnedest to kill it. If it’s popular, and it always is, they will starve it then insist it’s broken and “throwing money at it” won’t fix it.
What Republicans are already trying to do with Medicare and Social Security? They will do that with M4F, and they’re not going to want to give it decades to become popular enough that they have to do this long term killing.
@Tabby Lavalamp
Yeah, sadly conservatives have to break everything. My hope is that in the future the Republican Party will become obsolete, as not many young people support it and so it will either have to change or go extinct in order to maintain relevance.
Everyone doing important work during Corona has my admiration. This goes for the many, many Men and the small handful of women alike.
May their ideas and influence go extinct.
About 25 years ago, I worked as a secretary for the USPS (United States Postal Service). I wasn’t a postal worker, tho; I was a low-paid temp/contract employee. My job was one of numerous office positions the USPS filled with contractors, and/or temps. Guess what? I never saw a man in any of these positions. They were all clerical, and low paid.
I was out sick for an entire week once, with a flu & sinus infection. When I came back, my desk looked like it had been hit by a hurricane, there was so much work piled up on it. To add insult to injury, because I was a temp, I got no sick pay.
Bona fide postal paper pushers, almost all male, took time off, and their desks weren’t engulfed while they were out.
Now, I realize there was much more going on here than simple sexism. I do think it’s important to note, however, all of the low paid, clerical workers, contractors/temps, were women.
I can tell you that ShawshankRetention is quite wrong and that closing the schools isn’t as simple as just announcing it on the TV news. Remote learning is being put in place. Now we have to hope that it will be effective. Remote learning is a very different experience from having a teacher right there and engaging in group/hands-on projects.
We also have to hope that the kids actually do the work instead of slacking off, that parents ensure that their children do the work. Students with engaged parents who have the time will do well. Students with neglectful parents or parents who have to be away working all the time will fall behind.
Right now in the district I work for, lots of planning and work is being put in making sure that low-income kids can still eat. Also, childcare is being provided free of charge for medical personnel and first responders.
As for me, I am fortunately on a paid ‘quarantine’, since I’m primary caregiver for a partially paralyzed stroke patient who’s prone to pneumonia. Which is fine because I’m a custodian and there’s barely anything to clean at this point.
Oh, and about garbage collectors…I’m related, by marriage, to a New York City garbageman. He works in the city, but lives in Pennsylvania. He commutes God knows how far to work, nearly every day. He could afford to live closer to NYC, but his Union salary goes so much farther out in the boonies. He’s got a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom split level house.
Like someone mentioned in the above comments, he’s not physically running behind a truck, picking up heavy garbage bins.
I don’t begrudge him his salary. I don’t deny his work is important, and necessary. All I’m trying to say is, I believe being a cashier in a supermarket is mentally more demanding. It may even be physically more demanding.
@LindsayIrene
Another difficulty relates to low-income students who don’t have internet access at home. Much of remote learning is now through video conferencing or other online classroom programs, which students without internet at home can’t use. And libraries are closed, so many of these students cannot use the programs at all. I worry about students in those situations.
@CenterFold
For a minute I thought you actually were going to say something intelligent.
…Then you said this. Not sure how there are a “small handful” of women when as stated above women make up the majority of nurses and other healthcare workers, which are highly important right now.
Funny how cleaning staff aren’t brought up…
A lot of the women in my family work as cleaners. And most of them have mostly female coworkers. My nan was head of housekeeping at our local hospital, even, until she retired recently.
I guess its not as butch and manly as driving a big garbage lorry around but its still really important. And really overlooked, even though its such an important job, especially in a hospital.
Its definitely more hardcore than rubbish collecting though. I’m sure rubbish men don’t have to clean blood off the walls. But don’t tell the fragile men that.
@CenterFold
You need to talk to people more. Particularly people outside the circles you frequent.
CentreFold is a really lackluster troll. Come on, a lot of us are stuck at home. Be more entertaining! Dance, troll, dance!
“A small handful of women”
I need to know how to detach myself from reality this hard. Seems like it would be a useful coping skill right about now.
Signed,
A “small handful of women” working in the grocery supply chain
@Naglfar
No, see, it’s just that nurses aren’t doing important work during a pandemic (unless if they’re men, I suppose?), that’s why you need to capitalise the word “men” but not “women”. Who need healthcare workers in a pandemic? Just make sure the coal gets mined!
@CenterMold
I’m assuming you won’t respond to any of us this time either, so you could at least have been entertaining on your one go. It’s just basic decency, you know. Or I guess you don’t?
My employer shut down most operations on Monday. The majority-female cleaning crew and the almost entirely female accounting department are still working. But it can’t be important work, or men would be doing it, right?
@Masse_mysteria
If we get lucky maybe he’ll think of something amusing to say. He sometimes responds, after all. But I’m not holding my breath.
the law of nitpicking: you are never more likely to make a spelling mistake than when correcting someone else’s spelling. hence mr. futrelle’s slight slip above.
When I was visiting my parents, I saw garbage trucks that used the arms to pick up the bins, dump them, and then put them back. My parents had previously complained that even though they put their bins where they were told, they always wound up in the middle of the driveway.
It’s because the garbage truck never actually stopped. It just slowly cruised along, presumably so it could finish the entirety of the route on time.
Where I live, houses are MUCH closer together. The width of my parents driveway is almost the entire width of the house lots. (The are narrow, but long.) So, even though all of our bins have the little hook to let them be grabbed by the garbage collectors, it requires a couple of people to go and get the bins, bring them to the truck, hook them onto the thing that lifts them up, take them off, and bring them back.
I’m also thinking of the overnight shelf stocking crew I was a part of, many years ago. It was if not mostly women, at least an even split. So there’s another underpaid essential service that we’re seeing!
Oh, right, CenterFold. You’re really boring, you know that? And also a coward, to just drop a comment here, and run. /shrug Hope it makes you happy, I guess?
@Big Titty Demon
That’s an absurd proposal, for the opposite reason. Means-testing is poison for social programs, and there is absolutely no valid argument in its favour. They ought to just be sending put money full stop. A bunch of rich assholes will get a few grand they’ll never notice, and a bunch of people in need will get help.
@Dalilama
This was my point with my Bernie comment*. It is his exact argument for free education for all and medicare for all. I could not agree with you more.
But the idea of suggesting that one can ever get money back from rich people once it’s gone out is still ludicrous.
*While not originally a Bernie supporter (Warren all the way), I must now hope in the face of equally widening odds that he becomes the nominee over Biden.
@Dalillama:
Wholeheartedly agreed. Just give it to everyone (and health care, etc.) and let the claw-back from the richer people take the form of their being in a higher tax bracket.
Of course, universal programs being politically much harder to kill is precisely why they get such vehement opposition from conservatives …
This is the Republican plan:
And yeah, it’ll do means-testing:
In fact:
So in reality
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/19/trump-coronavirus-economic-plan-stimulus/
This bullshit isn’t “outflanking the Democratic leadership” from the left or any other direction, it’s the rethugs pulling yet another con job and hoping nobody notices.
@CenterFold
So you’re a complicated person. Not just a monster, but also a person who can appreciate others, especially Men and a tiny number of women.
As always with manospherians, definitions are left out of your message. What do you mean by important? Who do you define as Men? (I know who women are: they’re everyday people.)
Yes, they rant about “male disposability” and to prove their thesis they do nothing that the world can’t do better without. They are male disposability in action, in very much the same way that Republicans in the USA insist that government in the USA is incompetent and corrupt in order to elected so that they can legislate on issues they don’t know about, engage in corruption, and appoint other incompetent, corrupt people to lead the executive departments of government.
A bit off-topic, but the EEOC link reminded me of a Chicago story involving an employment agency that used “code” words to differentiate Black and Hispanic workers. Also reminds me that we need Unions, but the way they treated Women in the 70’s/80’s was really awful.
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