Femenists want to make masculinity a hate crime.

[Lincoln]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Actually, the real problem with NOW is it is a bourgeois organization that is more conserned with abortion rights and getting women elected and breaking the glass ceiling than addressing the issues many women deal with day to day: such as child care, health care, work related issues, etc.

At least now we see the root of your objection, i.e., they are not communist enough.

[GePap]

On the issue of men and womne not going for the same things:
do I have polls and surveys? No, becuase as i said, doing them would be politically sensitive. But I do think there are different aims, likes and dislikes for men and women, which is why i think simply saying that until representation in all things is equal to demographic reality we have no equality is silly.

I think this site is a wonderfull example of the difference between what men and women like. This site does nothing to bar women, game manufacturers don't discourage female buyers, stores do not discourage female buyers from strategy games, and I asume most arents don't. Yet this site is vastly more male than female (since womne are as likely to be online as men, that can;t be the issue either). I mst assume then that the vast difference in the sex ratio in this site is based on the fact that womne are a)either less likely than men to care to play strategy games or b) if they are as likely, less likely to care to post in sites like this, or civfanatics. That to me points to a difference in male and female preferences.

[Az]

Everyone.... Chill...

women have achieved equality in all government institutions. Women are still not the bussiness leaders, or presidents. But... The deal here is not "Women" being promoted as a group. This is just Buck Birdseed bull**** . Treating women and men, as groups is counterproductive. What we must do is remove sexism from the interpersonal ( not only romantic!) relations, not from some global scheme of things. Women and men should be treated equally from birth. Then and only then equality will be achieved. IMHO, the current stand of things is that those who control government and bussiness are for the large part, men. And those who control relationships, esp. in romantic ones, are usually women. This is beginning to change, but the process is too slow.

[Az]

GePap: I see that, too, but girls and boys are raised differently.

[St Leo]

Uh, a lot of those "men groups" are basically hate groups.

On the other hand, I am a feminist and am naturally biased against the male chauvinazis.

This site does nothing to bar women

Indeed? Have you looked at the OT lately?

game manufacturers don't discourage female buyers

Have you opened a game magazine lately?

[Japher]

Azazel...Amen.

What we must do is remove sexism from the interpersonal ( not only romantic!) relations, not from some global scheme of things. Women and men should be treated equally from birth. Then and only then equality will be achieved.

The same with minorities too!

[Lincoln]

Exactly GePap.

[Lincoln]

Sorry for the equlity thing but my boys are not going to wear dresses and the girls get a doll not a toy truck.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Lincoln
Sorry for the equlity thing but my boys are not going to wear dresses and the girls get a doll not a toy truck.

I'll be happy if you also give Lego to all.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Azazel
GePap: I see that, too, but girls and boys are raised differently.

I don;t think it is just gender roles. I think wone and men interact with the wrld differently. Lets look at all this "amn from mars, womne form Venus" stuff, or when we have that "speak womanese" thread: the fact is that women and men act differently, see things differently, and the difference is too great in some respects to be accounted by just "gender training". For example, what type of gender training keeps women away from strategy games? If a strict mother saw her girl playing civ, would she complain about the game itself (if not the fact she was playing?). In college I met a lot of women who had been raised knowing they could do whatever they wanted to do, and they did, and what they wanted to do was not the same as what men wanted to do. These women knew they could chose, and they did not chose what men chose all the time; I see that as some evidence towards my belief, the fact that men and womne have different preferences (along a line or preferences, of course). If anything, to expect women to chose like men (seeing equality as when eeryone acts like men...) is absurd.

[GePap]

Originally posted by St Leo


I'll be happy if you also give Lego to all.

LEGO! LEGO! LEGO! LEGO!

[/shortthreadjack]

[Sava]

Feminism, as a whole, is about equality, not divisiveness. There are extremists in all walks of life. It would be a mistake to base a stereotype on a few dumbass extremists. Having said that, I don't like hate-crime legislation. If someone attacks and assaults another person, they should get the same punishment regardless of whether they hate their color, race, gender; or whether or not the person gave them the finger. A crime is a crime, the motive of hate is irrelevant.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Do any of you remember blackice? He was the main Canuck here who had men's rights as his big issues. Now Imran is certainly right that women have yet to be able to breach the highest levels of government, but blackice did have certain areas of concern where perhaps the pendulum swung the other way. They are if I recall:

1) The family court/divorce court system is unfair to men. Men have the odds stacked against them here and most times the woman will end up with the children and get a disproportinate amount of the property

Incorrect. It's been a couple of years since I've seen the studies, but as of the mid to late 90's, in over 75% of divorce cases involving children, the non-custodial man's standard of living rose after the divorce, while the woman's standard of living declined.

Property transfers aren't indicative, because most often, the property (real estate or cars) is encumbered by loans, and the encumbrance transfers with the property.

General standards for child support are pretty poor - California, which is one of the better states (i.e. more child support to the custodial parent), as of 2000 had a standard child support amount of $380.00 per kid per month, modified by means testing. If the man had a monthly income of $5,000.00, and the woman $0, then child support was $380.00 (tied to the AFDC max benefit). If the woman had an income, or if the man's income was less, then the total amount of child support went down. I know of cases where court award child support was in the $150.00 per month range, when the woman still had a much lesser income than the man.

Before you think $380.00 isn't that bad - it's all inclusive. There's no ups because you need a larger apartment to have a kid, or you have to pay daycare after school, etc. If the ex-husband doesn't have dependent health benefits at work, he doesn't have to provide those by private insurance. So that $380.00 contributes to housing, and has to cover day care, food, clothes, runny noses, school stuff, and what not. And $380.00 is generally the high end.

It's also very easy for the non-custodial male to simply move out of state, and ditch child support that way. Enforcement is still pretty sporadic.

Having known several couples who are/were divorced, there are a hell of a lot more divorced dads driving newer cars and cruising for girlfriends, spending more money on themselves, while whining about how the ***** took them for the house and the minivan, than the reverse.

2) Men are too easily made the victim of false criminal complaints such as sexual harrasment, spousal abuse, and rape. While no doubt serous problems when they do happen, women have been able to use false allegations of these at men who they want to get at, and too often false complaints of these things are believed.

Correct, but that is also an inherent difficulty with those crimes, in that they can be hard to prove. Nobody claims consent as a defense to armed robbery. It is also conversely easier for men who perpetrate these crimes to get away with them.

3) Spousal abuse from the female partner directed against the male partner is ignored and trivialized by society. Many times the victim in this case cannot gain police intervention to help him. Furthermore, if a man's partner becomes violent against him, he is impeded from defending himself physically because then he will likely be facing spousal abuse charges where the femal partner will not.

It depends on the state, but again, that's a factor of state laws and enforcement mentality. In the late 90's, before I met LTEC!, I had a problem with an ex-g/f who came over to my place (and turned out to be drunk, but not visibly so at first). I subsequently ended up calling the cops after she started breaking stuff, wouldn't leave, and ripped a couple of phones out of the wall. She tried to do the assault victim routine, since she had some bruising on her hands and wrists. All the cop did was take me aside, and say "look, this is what she's claiming and she's got bruises blah blah blah, what happened?" I told the cop to take a swing at me in slow motion, and I'd demonstrate - and I showed how I'd used open hand deflections and restraining holds. End of problem - the cop could see immediately that I was acting with minimum force, and that every mark she had could be shown to be something she got as a direct result of trying to swing at me, or trying to force her way out of a restraining hold.

Now if I'd broken her nose and knocked a dozen teeth out, and she had a separated shoulder and torn elbow ligaments (which would have been closer to the results if a guy had pulled that **** on me) yeah, there'd be a problem.

4. The educational system is biased against male students. It teaches more to girl's learning styles, and treats boys harshly for well, being boys. As a result, female performence in academia has far exceeded male performance.

Bull****. If boys act up and are ****ups in class, they'll get the results they deserve. If anything, the disruptive *******s are coddled on the "boys will be boys" cop out.

If you want to teach them in accord with "boy's learning styles" you ship their sorry asses off to a school where you get this from someone like me:

"From now on ladies, you will speak only when spoken to, unless you ask and are given permission to speak, you will answer only what you are asked, you will do what you are told when you are told to do it, the first word out of your mouth will be "Sir" and the last word out of your mouth will be "Sir" and if you **** up in the slightest detail, your sorry asses will be mine for life. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME LADIES?"

Sir, yes sir.

I CAN'T HEAR YOU, MAGGOTS

School is a place to learn, not to yuck it up in the guise of "boys will be boys" The reason my daughter excels in school (and is doing way better than I ever gave a **** about doing when I was her age) is that she works her ass off, on her own initiative, and she places that as a top priority. She outperforms the boys in her school because she is (a) smarter than most or all, and (b) works harder than any of them.

5. The movement known as political correctness has gone out of hand, limiting what men can do and say. An example of this would be a man who was forced to remove a picture of his wife in a swimsuit on his desk because it offended female colleauges. Men who violate this risk reprimand, sensitivity training, or even sexual harrasment charges.

PC is ridiculous, but for every ridiculous example of overzealotry regarding harassment, you can still find plenty of example where the good ol' boys get away with pretty much anything. In any case, where overzealotry is a problem, it's not women or feminism that's the problem, it's clueless HR departments and gutless corporate lawyers, overreacting (usually due to the company's past misdeeds) to prove a point. Harassment and discrimination cases are tough to prove in court, let alone get awards on, and they're usually only litigable cases when there's either a blatant issue, or a company has a history of allowing lots of low-grade chicken****.

6. Cultural concerns, probably not as important as the others. While we have seen a dramatic increase in the rights of women, responsibilites have not kept up with them. Men are still expected to pick up the check on dates, hold the door open, give up their seats for women, take care of physical labor for females, etc. So while many of the restrictions on female actions that accompanied the Victorian Era view of women have gone away, the responsibilites of men towards women have not.

These are not responsibilities in the slightest. They're stuff guys do voluntarily out of either a hope to get laid, or a Pavlov's dog reflex to do (some of) the same things by reflex even when they don't hope to get laid. Some of us down home types even help out people just to be nice. If I see some scrawny wimpy looking guy struggling to carry something, I'll likely help him out (if it isn't way out of my way), just because it's the neighborly, civil sort of thing to do. Gender has nothing to do with it. It's like people who help push someone's stalled car.

[Jon Miller]

I agree largely with Monkspider

Jon Miller

[Az]

For example, what type of gender training keeps women away from strategy games? If a strict mother saw her girl playing civ, would she complain about the game itself (if not the fact she was playing?)

Girls, generally have an easier time socializing, due to both natural differences, and social constructs, so they're less likely to choose civilization as their favourite recreational activity. Also, girls, due to a social construct, deal less in computers.