Ten years ago while teaching English at Emory University, I noticed a trend. Each year there seemed to be more and more girls on campus. Also, from the time I started teaching college in 1993 as a graduate student, I would hear gripes from male students about their high school teachers and college professors who made them read books by Amy Tan and listen to lectures on feminism, even in math.
As time passed, I also noticed a change in the demeanor of boys. Each year they seemed to become less confident. By 2013, my last year of teaching, many were walking in a stooped-over shuffle and ending statements with a question.
In 2008, in an article for the Weekly Standard, I looked into the decline of boys’ academic performance. Forced to read books about feminine topics and forced to learn under feminine pedagogy, they weren’t performing well academically. While slightly more men than women held bachelor’s degrees in 2005, women made up 57 percent of total fall enrollments and were much more likely to graduate. By 2014, 30.2 percent of women held bachelor’s degrees opposed to 29.9 percent of men. Among younger adults, aged 25 to 34, 37.5 percent of women hold bachelor’s degrees, but only 29.5 percent of men do.
Men in 2008 still held a slight advantage in earning doctorate degrees, but were projected to drop behind women by 2014. Today, women earn the majority of doctoral degrees and outnumber men in law school and medical school, as Tucker Carlson reports. He also reports that younger women now surpass men in rates of homeownership and wages. Men’s addiction and suicide rates are rising, while testosterone levels are plummeting.
From Bad to Worse to “Uncomfortable”
In the intervening 10 years, as things have gotten worse for boys and men, the rhetoric about “white male privilege” has become more strident. There are mandatory classes on diversity. Workshops on “toxic masculinity” tell men they aren’t OK. Men are even attacked forthe way they sit on a chair or a subway seat. Many teachers make it a policy to call on boys last in class and to give girls extra attention. On most campuses when it comes to charges of rape, there is a presumption of guilt. Fraternities have been banished on many campuses.
Here at Hamilton College, there has been a concerted outreach to create a more diverse student body. In my four years of living here I’ve noticed that more of the student body seems to be openly gay. All-gender bathrooms have been installed to make the rare transgender student in a campus with 1,850 students comfortable. The college puts out the welcome mat with an LGBTQ Resource Center, and a well-funded on-campus Days-Massolo Center dedicated to diversity.
Yet there is a place on campus called Little Pub, which happens to draw a mostly male clientele. This upsets student Julia Dupuis, who wrote an article in the student newspaper, The Spectator, titled, “PUB POWER must force campus to recognize privilege and broach uncomfortable conversations.”
When she learned that the establishment, with “majority white male patrons,” was known as a “man cave,” she translated it to “an underlying message: the Little Pub was not meant for me.”
She and a female friend did venture there once, but were apparently so traumatized by being the only females there that they left. “It is impossible to describe the discomfort, vulnerability, and isolation of being the only women in a male-dominated space,” Dupuis wrote.
Now she wants to force the perpetrators of her discomfort into an “uncomfortable conversation.”
She justifies her demands with material that could have come from a womyn’s study textbook: “For all of American history, white men have been both the dominant and default group. It has been mostly white men in charge and it has been the white male experience against which all others have been defined.” She recites clichés and statistics about women not being in leadership positions at work, the high visibility of sexual harassment and assault, which are “still happening at astounding rates.” She rattles off meaningless statistics about women being 19 percent of Congress and having only 33 percent of speaking roles in top-grossing films. She announces that the Little Pub movement is about “reclaiming” the “space.”
Feelings Rule
When I learned about this through a posting on Facebook, I commented that the student obviously had psychological problems. Why else would someone describe the experience as being so traumatic? Why would she feel “vulnerable”? She did not mention harassment or rudeness. There were no offensive images. Apparently, there were just a bunch of guys exercising their right to purchase food and drink, and eat it in an establishment open to all. Her fear must have arisen from something imagined.
This brought on a flurry of retorts—surprisingly by white males. I was lectured about listening to others’ feelings. One guy justified himself by claiming that he had been listening to the women in his life, who said they would feel uncomfortable in a room full of men, and thus implied that I should feel the same way. I accused them of imposing their views on me in a chauvinistic way. It was suggested that I just stop commenting.
If this is a case of imagined persecution or hypersensitivity, then Dupuis should learn how to handle it. Once she leaves the cocoon of her campus, she may very well have to deal with situations where she is in the minority. (As the parent of one of the white male students more gently commented.)
But I think it means more.
The administration caters to demands like hers from people like her (she is openly gay). Hers is an assertion of raw power. She objects not to illegal activity or even to any noted annoying behavior but to the presence of a certain group of people. Because she is uncomfortable, she wants to force others into having “uncomfortable conversations.” This group of people happens to be male and mostly white and so they are fair game.
Not Just a Tantrum—A Warning
Of course, Dupuis, and the professors who no doubt give her the ideas, know they cannot legally make an establishment deny service to a group based on their race and sex. But they can make them uncomfortable, or more accurately, more uncomfortable.
Many may dismiss Dupuis’s demand as a silly adolescent tantrum, but her tantrum is a way for administrators and faculty to fulfill their own radical agendas. Many of the noxious practices in the adult world began on college campuses. A 28-year-old friend told me that at meetings of the Democratic Party in his area the policy is to let everyone else speak before the white guys do. One of the biggest companies in the world, Google, has imbibed the policies of the campus as we saw in the example of James Damore, who was fired for criticizing their anti-male diversity policy.
The “uncomfortable conversations” are held in workplaces in the form of mandatory diversity training. At least one business establishment has tried to take it to customers, as happened when Starbucks employees were instructed to write messages on the coffee cups of patrons regarding their thoughts about race recently.
Today, there may be an “uncomfortable conversation” at the Little Pub on the campus of Hamilton College. Tomorrow it may be at your favorite sports bar.
It is the new Jim Crow; it is the exclusion of certain groups by determining to purposefully make them feel uncomfortable. It is intended to marginalize certain people and keep them out of school, the workplace, and now public places. It needs to be nipped in the bud.
Photo credit: Mark Peterson/Corbis via Getty Images
It’s about power. Destroy America, destroy the West by destroying “the patriarchy.” I’m sure destroying western values will go well for women, feminist or not.
When Shari’ah Law fills the void they’ve created, only then will they realize they f***ed up.
Many people believe this is actually what many of them actually yearn for, not consciously, but beneath the surface. Women are not happier with the world the left has made for them and many of them seem to actually year for a real “patriarchy” and a real patriarchy is what they will get…and good. As an aside, there is another giant Islamist rape ring that has been discovered in the U.K., another situation similar to the Rotherham scandal, where 1,400 English girls were raped by a Pakistani rape ring.
There’s absolutely NO sign that feminists will realize “they f***ed up” when Muslims and Shari’ah law take over. Listen to the feminists now, as they protest the treatment of women as chattel in Muslim countries … crickets.
The future of sex in America appears to be robots for men and Muslim owners for women. The current evidence suggests both sexes will be happy with the arrangement.
In shallah, or whatever. Who won’t join up with the guys who want to take charge?
Yes, it’s the ol’ chestnut for a NYT headline: “Western Civilization Destroyed; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.”
What world are articles like these written from? The large majority of our political and business leaders are men. Most of those are straight white men, and the overwhelming majority of all such leaders (of whatever race, sex, or sexual orientation) are openly Christian. I guess it’s helpful to some agenda to pretend that straight white Christian men are besieged in some manner, but it’s objectively not accurate and a few examples of dopey 19-year-olds or radical but powerless feminists don’t make it so.
It seems like you’re saying that because the past was one way, that the future will be the same. Isn’t the essence of the revolutionary creed of feminism that this should not be the case and that all feminists efforts are toward that end? The author cites evidence of the results of that effort and is pointing out adverse effects. Perhaps you don’t think these effects are adverse, but why should the people experiencing think they are not?
You’re at least partially correct – I’m sure that feminism is intended to allow women to participate in society equally to men.
And they do. The issue that Ms. Grabar raises is whether ‘women’s views’ should dominate the discussion and institutions. What started as a good idea and based upon the basic American notion of ‘fairness’ has morphed into misandrony and an attempt to circumscribe one person’s humanity — in this case human males — on the basis of another person’s (or group’s) pure subjectivity.
No one but a few crackpots thinks that women’s views should be dominant. People like Ms. Grabar make a living off inflating those crackpots into a threat to society. It’s perfectly fine to ridicule crazy viewpoints, but it’s not only ridiculous but pernicious to pretend that society is oppressing men.
Have you spent any time at the public school board meetings or any time on university campuses, read their student newspapers, read their brochures or class listings? Didn’t think so.
That was a quick conclusion you jumped to!
Right…what percentage of workplace deaths are men? What percentage of combat deaths? What percentage of alimony and child support are paid by men? How often are men awarded primary custody in a divorce? What percentage of the prison population is men? What percentage of college diplomas are awarded to men? What percentage of disposable income is spent by men? You can’t look at those statistics and honestly say that our society sees men as anything other than disposable.
Those careers are voluntarily chosen by men. Are you in favor of additional OSHA regulations to make those dangerous workplaces safer?
Regarding combat deaths, I’m assuming you’re in favor of allowing women to serve in combat?
I don’t know a lot about divorce laws, but my sense is that you probably have a point that women are favored, and I would agree that those laws should be equalized.
Are you saying that every one of the men working in those dirty/dangerous jobs specifically chose to go into those jobs rather than stem or finance? There is not one man who was kept out of another career by Title 9 or affirmative action? I notice that you didn’t address the over- incarceration of men. That possibly has a role in forcing men into those jobs.
Combat positions have been open to women for over 30 years, yet their combat deaths don’t even match their percentage of the military, much less that of the general population. Are you in favor of forcing women to forcing women to join ground combat units straight out of basic training like we currently do to men? Why is it that only men are forced to sign up for selective service when every military position is open to women now? True equality should mean that everyone is forced to serve during a national emergency.
These are complicated issues. As I noted in another comment above, I think that there’s actually something to the idea that biology and/or culture makes men more violent, which could be the reason for the “over-incarceration” of men. I don’t know what you’re suggesting – are there gangs of female criminals that you think are being ignored?
And are you seriously arguing that there are men who were denied an engineering degree and instead went into commercial fishing or coal mining?
Listen, I think that you’re getting caught up in silly arguments because you want to prove that I’m wrong about something. Take a step back – I’ve already agreed that you have a point about divorce laws, and in other comments I’ve made clear that a lot of what passes for “feminist” arguments are ridiculous. I’ll even go further and say that even some serious “feminist” arguments and actions are problematic, Title IX as it applies to sports being one of them. As I wrote in another comment, there are real issues to discuss, and real improvements in the way those issues are being addressed, but for some reason we can’t have a serious discussion because everyone is interested in portraying the “other side” in bad faith. In fact, that’s my problem with Ms. Grabar’s article.
Finally, regarding the military, I honestly don’t have an opinion one way or the other, and I’ll leave it to the military except to say that I’m fine with qualified women serving in any position for which they’re qualified, if that’s what the military decides is the right answer.
“Are there gangs of female criminals you think are being ignored?” Nice straw man… it is a well documented fact that men receive far heavier penalties for the same crime.
“Are you seriously arguing that there are men who were denied an engineering degree and went into fishing or coal mining?” No, I am aurguing that there are men who were denied a chance to attempt the degree based on their gender. Do you deny that?
As for the military… you seem pretty ignorant. We have a thing called “civilian control” and the military does what it is told. When the Marine Corps conducts a 2 year study on women in combat and are then told by the President and Secretary of the Navy that the results of the study don’t matter, you can’t really pretend that it is the military making the decisions.
Your Schtick seems to be that of a big brained centrist. Yet when Ms Grabar points out the craziness of one side, you immediately attack her. It’s pretty obvious which side you are fighting for.
I don’t think of myself as a centrist at all. I’m liberal/left-ish, and proud to be “fighting” for that side. I’m just able to recognize BS when I see it, and if you want to label that an “attack” that’s fine with me.
And if you think that anyone in America is “denied a chance to attempt” any particular degree based on gender, you’re very deluded. Maybe a particular person didn’t get into a particular school because of affirmative action, but that in no way denies that person a chance to get the degree of his choice at some other school.
“I’m just able to recognize BS when I see it.” And if you call out my side’s BS I’ll attack you.
By your logic, it would be ok to deny People of Color access to any Ivy League school because they could get the same education at a community college. It seems you are fine with discrimination, just as long as it is done against people you don’t like. Glad to see that you have finally got in touch with your inner Bull Connor.
I wonder if you even see how you’ve moved the goalposts. The article makes it seem that men are oppressed in our society. I think that’s BS and I said so. You claimed that men held more dangerous jobs. I said that was voluntary, and you argued that Title IX drove them into those dangerous jobs by denying them other career opportunities. I pointed out that wasn’t true at all because non-selection at one college doesn’t stop anyone from pursuing a degree elsewhere.
Instead of admitting that you’re just wrong, now you claim that I’m “fine with discrimination,” and you compare me with Bull Connor. This thread is about whether men are oppressed in America, as the article argues. I’m not sure that there’s even such a thing as colleges denying admission to males because of affirmative action, so I don’t know why you’re bringing it up.
In any event, I don’t think that you’re engaging in good faith if that’s how you’re going to roll.
Not moving any goal posts. Just exposing your bigotry. You admit that Title IX, affirmative action policies and other forms of discrimination exclude males from institutions that they otherwise qualify for. But you are totally OK with that form of discrimination because hey, they can just go somewhere else. If it was any other group that this was happening to, you would be setting yourself on fire in the White lawn over the injustice. Since it is a group you don’t like though, you just wave your hand and say, Meh, let them eat cake.
I’ve pointed out the disparity in workplace deaths, prison sentences, combat deaths, divorce outcomes and college gradustion rates to make my case. You have no way to counter those facts, so you just blather something about personal choices and accuse me of aurguing in bad faith.
Maybe it’s not bad faith, but just now you accused me of being okay with colleges excluding males because of their sex (I never said that, and in fact expressly said that I’m not aware of affirmative action programs based on sex that cause men to be rejected from colleges) and of “not liking” a group (men, I guess you mean?) even though I’m a man and have 3 sons.
Regarding your list of issues facing men, I’ve already addressed them and even agreed with you to some degree, but the fact is that those issues are much more complex than an argument that they are somehow evidence of societal oppression of males.
I’ll let anyone reading this judge if your insults and generalizations are in good faith or not.
Are you on Jezebel telling them that the “Pay Gap” is a complex issue? I doubt it, because that is your side. You have no answer or aurgument to anything I have pointed out except to say “it’s complex.” As for Totle IX and Affirmative action do you deny that they are a form of institutional discrimination? If you call yourself a leftist then you are the one who supports these programs and everything that implies. It is as simple as that.
You can doubt whatever you want, but I’ve already spent too much time on this very thread saying that there are too many kooky arguments made by feminists.
Right, you say it on this thread, but not to their faces. Wonder why that is?
Congratulations. The goalposts have been placed where I can’t win. I could tell you that I have similar disagreements in liberal threads, but the truth is that those instances are much more rare than my disagreements with conservatives, and that’s because I find conservatives to be a much bigger threat to the country.
And of course you wouldn’t believe anything I said anyway – you’ve already distorted my comments in this thread.
But none of that has anything to do with what was the original dispute, which you conveniently have fled from.
“But none of that has anything to do with what was the original disput, which you conveniently have fled from.” I do love your projection.
I ask why if males are so powerful and run society, why do they suffer so much death and legalized discrimination. You can’t answer, so you wave it away with “it’s complicated.” Please explain it to me. I’m all ears.
Explaining it is not something that I can do because I’m not an expert, and even if I were a blog comment wouldn’t be the place to try.
But I can point out that your argument requires you to explain either (a) why the stuff you rely on (men doing dangerous jobs, being imprisoned more than women, and dying in combat more than women) were occurring long before the feminist movement, or (b) deny those facts.
The fact that those facts existed long before the feminist movement basically proves feminist claims about oppression to be a fraud. What kind of evil patriarchy is it that allows women a say in the political system through the vote, but exempts them from defending that system with their life like it requires of men? I am of course referring to the women of the 40s, 50s and 60s who were able to vote, but not forced into the meatgrinders of WW2, Korea and Vietnam to defend that vote like the men were. What kind of evil patriarchy allowed women to spend 70% of disposable income for the last 100 years, but exempted them from the requirement to work for that income? If women were so oppressed, why weren’t they being used as beasts of burden while the men sat around (the Africa or India or the M.E model)) instead of the men being forced into the coal mines while the women stayed home? My answer is that they weren’t oppressed, they were and are privileged.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t demand that women fill 50% of the CEO and other leadership positions while exempting them from the dirty and dangerous work at the bottom. You also can’t claim that women are just as capable as men at filling combat roles and then turn around and say that they are special and fragil and need to be treated with chivalry. You either need to accept equality or reject it.
You continue to respond to arguments that I haven’t made. Where did I demand that women fill 50% of the CEO and other leadership positions, or that they be exempt from dirty or dangerous work? I didn’t even say that they are just as capable as men at combat roles – in fact, I think that it’s perfectly obvious that, on average, men are better for combat.
Right. You are a leftist, yet you disagree with ever position on feminism that the left has taken for the last 60 years. When you are challenged to explain or defend your own side, it too complicated for you, or it is just the one sliver of the left’s doctrine that you suddenly find a slight personal disagreement with. You not only don’t weed out the craziness on your own side, you get offended when anyone on the right points it out. Your shtick is pretty obvious.
Well, this isn’t productive.
Nope. One of these days you actually need to make an argument. Until then….
“I’ll let anyone reading this judge if your insults and generalizations are in good faith or not.”
Hilarious.
‘Diversity’ requirements often result in qualified applicants to do not fit a rather constrained notion of ‘diversity’ do, in fact, result in unqualified applicants receiving positions that they otherwise would not. Since these ‘diversity’ requirements are almost always specifically designed to enhance enrollment of non-‘white’, non-heterosexuals and non-males, the result is the active exclusion of whites, heterosexuals and males (but, also, perversely, ‘over-represented persons of Asian descent).
The evidence suggests that this approach is working in the number of whites (and persons of Asian descent) who are (a) not being admitted and (b) not graduating. At the very least there is a correlation between ‘diversity’ requirements (at the front-end and throughout the education experience) and the statistics on admission and graduation.
As any statistician will tell you, a strong, widespread and enduring correlation tends towards an interpretation of the probability of causation.
I don’t know what to tell you other than to repeat that “diversity” requirements affect a very small portion of selective colleges. Literally no one is being denied the opportunity to a college education, even if they are denied admission to a particular school. And, as I keep trying to point out, is “affirmative action” for females even a thing at colleges? If so, I’m not aware of it, so I don’t know why we’re talking about racial affirmative action in the comment section of an article that seeks to create a sense of outrage that men are being oppressed in our society.
Because men are being adversely affected, resulting in lower admissions and lower graduation rates than women than before the ‘diversity’ regime was fully realized.
How? What’s the cause-and-effect?
The emphasis on ‘diversity’ within educational institutions education, as you previously freely admitted does not include males. ‘Diversity’ is not ‘inclusive’ of males but, rather, actively and openly exclusive of males and it is having various adverse effects on male achievement. ‘Diversity’ is the cause, exclusion of males is the effect.
If you do not believe there is ‘affirmative action’ for females, why is there such and emphasis on getting women into STEM programs? Bear in mind that at any given time, there are almost always more applicants than available positions within universities, so any mechanism that affects access is going to keep some applicants who do not fit the desired profile from gaining access.
If the effect on admission and graduation affected only women — however, ‘small’ — I wonder if you would be quite so phlegmatic.
As for your comment about males being ‘denied’ educational ‘opportunity’ versus being denied admission to a particular college, that is a somewhat specious distinction.
Consider the hypothetical case where all of the best schools took almost exclusively females and males were almost entirely relegated to lower-tier schools.
Based upon your comments, my supposition is that outcome would be acceptable. However, if the situation were opposite, you would reasonably conclude that there was some kind of sexual apartheid going on with regard to education.
This is no doubt an extreme hypothetical example, but I think it illuminates the notion that, from your perspective, it is acceptable to be prejudiced against males and to relegate them to an inferior status with fewer life options simply because they are male.
When the same criteria are not used to judge all applicants, the result is ‘affirmative action’ in some form or another which is the same thing as prejudicial discrimination.
But more is at issue than outcomes. The outcomes reflect inputs: A society and culture where being a human male is devalued and, worse yet, it is deemed desirable to do so. If the target of such denigration were just about any other kind of human being, my suspicion is that you would think there was a problem.
You say that the author ‘seeks to create a sense of outrage’ but isn’t that exactly what the female student, Julia Dupuis, was doing? But, more importantly, the ‘outrage’ — or at the very least serious concern — already exists. Ms. Grabar is not ‘creating’ the problem, but giving it greater form and detail.
it don’t seem like your aware of a lot things !
your not a man you’re either a tranny or the biggest cuck in the world
no what you really are is a cunt hat wearing communist pig ,trying to sway peoples opinion,but you don’t seem to be having much success here !
Women live, on average, how many years longer? And that with the deaths from childbirth.
Some people just don’t do honesty.
I think the facts suggest that, in fact, women’s views are considered acceptable and valorized, while men’s views are not. It is very difficult to find a major cultural or business institution that thinks ‘diversity’ includes males (or persons of primarily European descent or heterosexuals).
The notions of ADD (an ‘illness’ that appears to affect males primarily), ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘rape culture’ are now commonplace. If this complainant’s ‘concerns’ were mere crackpottery, the authorities would not take it seriously and the complainant’s ‘fellow travellers’ would be actively interceding, but they’re not. This is the method by which extremism becomes normalized.
Historically, the difference between crackpottery, vanguard and a new order is often just a matter of time…and allowing crackpots to go unchallenged.
Come on – the reason that “diversity” doesn’t generally include straight white males is because that’s who has dominated society for millenia. The whole point of ideas like “diversity” is to open-up society to people other than straight white men. If you want to focus narrowly on an argument that “diversity” should include everyone, including straight white men, I’ll agree but I’ll also say that you’re being too narrow in your focus by ignoring the historical and cultural context in which this sort of thing is being debated.
I’m no doctor so I’m not going to comment on diagnoses of ADD. Regarding both toxic masculinity and rape culture, there’s a lot of stupid things that are said, which is unfortunate because the truth is that (in my uninformed opinion) there seems to be something to the idea that either biology (testosterone) or culture has resulted in men engaging in violent behavior more than women. I don’t know why it’s impossible to have a serious discussion over that fact, which really seems obvious to me, without some people on one side claiming that every sexual interaction is akin to rape and some people on the other side insisting that those crazy claims are all there is to the issue being debated. For whatever reason, however, that real discussion appears to be beyond our reach.
The historical and cultural context have changed but the rhetoric and laws have not. ‘Diversity’ was never about diversity, but, on the surface at least, an alteration of social and political authority and public perception of women and race by way of law. Only totalitarians think that such an approach can change human nature but it can change power relations. And that has been achieved…and then some. The evidence provided by the author lends credence to this claim.
Men do not engage in more violent behavior than women. All serious studies that have attempted an honest assessment of male/female ‘violent behavior’ have reached the same conclusion.
The simple facts are that (a) women’s violence deemed more socially acceptable (‘cat fight’ not ‘assault’), most especially when the targets are male, and, consequently, remains under-reported and under-punished and (b) woman’s physical capabilities when it comes to physical violence are less than their violent male counterparts and their behavior is less socially acceptable as a consequence.
To have a serious discussion about male oppression, the discussion would not turn immediately to a discussion of male violence as if that were the only characteristic about males that matter.
Do you really think that men don’t engage in more violent behavior than women? How do you explain that criminal gangs have historically been and remain male-dominated?
Focussing on a single group of high-violence males reframes the issue in a way advantageous to your contention that males are, in general, more violent that females. However, high violence males are more violent than the majority of males.
As I said before, serious studies — ones that calibrate for the diversity of violence — have found that females engage in more violent acts than males. Also (a) female violence against males is significantly under-reported (thus crime statistics alone do not properly represent the extent of female violence) and (b) that crime statistics support the contention that for identical acts of violence, women receive lighter sentences.
Just a peek under the covers of the ‘men are more violent than woman’ myth: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/women-are-more-violent-says-study-622388.html
Thanks for the link. I’m confused by the article. At different points it says that men made up 40% of the victims, and that women were 50% of the aggressors, and also that women were more likely than men to commit violence. I could argue that it focuses on a small subset of violence (within domestic relationships), and concedes that the injuries inflicted by men are more serious than those inflicted by women, but I’m no expert and I don’t want to get into a dispute about whether men or women are more violent. However, I will say that my limited understanding of all of history, including wars, violent crimes, etc., make it appear obvious to me that men are more prone to the type of violence that gets you incarcerated. That’s not to say that it’s true just because it looks obvious to me, but it would take a lot to make me change my mind from where I am now.
With the exception of the Amazons and the modern military, war was the province of men. But that just means that men are deemed less valuable than women and are willing to put themselves in harm’s way for their ‘tribe’.
I think you should ask yourself if it was any other group that was ‘prone’ to actions that result in ‘incarceration’ would you more prone to sympathy than indictment?
Well, the fact that men went to war could mean a lot of things and, like most of these issues, it’s complicated.
But let me turn around your question – when you look at the incarceration rate for Blacks, or their relatively low economic standing, are you more inclined to look for societal reasons on which to place the blame?
I feel like you are now dialoguing in bad faith. You are the one that brought up war as an example of male proclivity of violence, not me. Now you’re saying that the issue is ‘complicated’. But if it is ‘complicated’ why did you use it an example to support your general statement that men are more violent?
It is part of the totalitarian narrative that links incarceration to economic status, because it justifies totalitarian measure to ‘correct’ society.
Once a variety of factors — including economic status — are accounted for, Black Americans still commit more crimes than their non-Black counterparts. People who think about these matters have different explanations why this might be so. But cross cultural studies of minority populations and criminal indictment and conviction indicate that simply being a minority increases the chances of criminal behavior. This is the case with the French speaking minority in Canada, who, by American standards are considered ‘white’.
Black crime is largely committed against Black victims. Encouraging the non-conviction and incarceration of Black criminals does much more to make Black people unsafe and Black-on-Black crime is much more prevalent than any abuse of police authority (and harder to manage).
The notion that incarceration of Black criminals is a ‘social problem’ when used to limit the application of the law is, itself, somewhat racist as the result is that Black communities would become more vulnerable to criminal activity, not ‘white’ communities.
My view is that forced desegregation did not work. Attempting to do so created the narrative that ‘white people’ were entirely responsible for the condition of Black people. While many Black people recognize that this is not the case, the narrative created an entire industry whose sole existence depends on perpetuating this narrative for its own enrichment.
In the post-Reconstruction era, the era of Jim Crow, there were, so far as I can determine, two important views of the relationship between the ‘white’ majority and the Black minority.
The view of W. E. B. Dubois was that ‘Black folks’ needed to assert themselves and make demands on ‘white people’. Dubois’ view was that Black ‘uplift’ could be achieved through ‘consciousness-raising’ of ‘Black folks’.
The view of Booker T. Washington was that Black people needed to develop the skills and culture to make themselves indispensable to ‘white people’ and that this would change how ‘white people’ understood ‘the negro’. Washington’s view was that Black ‘uplift’ should be achieved by enhancing the intrinsic economic value of Black people.
In general, activism on behalf of Black people — whether by government or non-governmental bodies — has followed the view of Dubois and have been an almost total failure when it comes to eliminating some of the disparities between the US Black minority and the ‘white’ majority. The perverse result is an overarching narrative in which all problems in the Black community are because of ‘white oppression’. I believe that Dubois was, in theory, trying to empower Black people. Unfortunately, the application of this theory has been disempowering far more than empowering.
Even if the attitudes and actions of ‘white people’ are part of the problem, that last 40 years of applying Dubois’ approach have not achieved the expected result. Worse yet, when a Black person tries to pursue ‘bourgeois values’ of industry, pride in ownership, thrift and self-reliance, they are sometimes chastised by other Black people for ‘acting white’ and even ostracized.
Washington’s path of encouraging Black people to become economically indispensable to everyone in the US was ‘the road not taken’ but, on reflection, was the better road. My view is that now is the time to get on that road.
Unemployment and underemployment by any American citizen is a drag on the US economy and we all need to make (and accept) efforts to achieve genuinely full employment in a growing economy where every citizen is gainfully employed and/or an employer.
It has been my experience that, in general, people take pride in what they have earned and rarely appreciate what they have been given. In the first case, we feel our own agency — which grows our sense of self-worth — and in the second we do not.
I used that example because I think it’s a good example. I still think that it’s a good example, but it occurred to me that it might be complicated because, from a biological perspective, men are more expendable than women. I’m not an expert on any of this, but I still think that it’s perfectly obvious that men are, on average and historically, more violent than women.
What appears ‘perfectly obvious’ is sometimes not the case. I feel that I have forwarded evidence and argument to suggest that ‘men are more violent than women’ does not — despite it’s declarative nature — reflect reality.
I know. I read it and gave you my thoughts. I think that we’re going to have to disagree, but I’m still not sure why it matters in a discussion about whether our feminist society oppresses men, which I think is a crock.
The reason the notion is not a ‘crock’ is right there in the word ‘feminism’: the prioritization of the female over the male. Just as ‘patriarchy’ is a negative word that exclusively refers to males.
Based on our discussion, I would say that you ‘think’ things that you are unable to defend in a rational manner. For very many of your claims, I have suggested either (a) an alternative explanation that suggest your claims are controversial or (b) provided evidence that contradicted your claim.
It’s clear that I cannot change your mind, just as I am sure has become clear that you cannot change mine. I appreciate your willingness to engage in a courteous manner and wish you the best of luck.
do your sons a favor and drink bleach !
I have no idea of whether you are purposely obtuse, a troll or just someone who has no knowledge at all of what modern campus culture is like and how those ideas spread to the general culture and the workplace. The “crackpots” in large part run the modern campus, they actively shut down all opposing viewpoints through bullying, intimidation and of course in many cases physical violence. The inmates are running the asylum and those who do not agree with the consensus narrative are ostracized or prevented from expressing their opinion.
The former philosophy professor Christina Hoff Sommers has been shouted down and physically been prevented from speaking a number of times on campuses. The young fascists of so-called “Anti-fa” have set fires and assaulted those who want to exercise their First Amendment rights across the country, requiring hundreds of police to quell their disturbances. At many campuses “Free Speech” is regulated – regulated in the United States with its 1st Amendment – with speakers only allowed to speak freely at small sites at specific times.
The least free places in the United States is the university or college campus and surveys show that a significant percentage of modern students believe that violence is acceptable to silence those whose speech makes others feel “uncomfortable.”
“Troll” is actually a good description of most of the speakers that you mention in this and your other comments. They are invited on campus not to have a real discussion, but rather to provoke exactly the sort of reaction that, unfortunately, easily-roused activists give them. That then produces the result desired by the people who invite those trolls to campus and the trolls themselves – they get more “evidence” that they are victims of oppressive “cultural Marxism,” whatever that means.
I have several close relatives who are attending or have recently graduated from East-coast colleges. Like I wrote earlier, my oldest son attends a college that is so liberal that it’s almost a caricature. He’s pretty liberal himself, but he finds that he’s to the right of many of his classmates.
At worst, this stuff is an annoyance. It’s silly, or disingenuous, to pretend that it’s anything more than that.
You are surely wrong.
Most feminists are first and foremost leftists and leftists are never in favor of anyone participating equally with them. They are implicitly and explicitly authoritarian, with the most radical of them totalitarians.
If you do any reading at all, you will find that not all “feminism” is the same. Even the most cursory reading will reveal that many of the feminists of the 1960s were ‘equity” or “equality” feminists. That is a far cry from modern feminism on college campuses, many of whom are misandrists. This battle between those who wanted to be treated fairly, to have equal opportunity and those who want to punish boys and men and who come up with such nonsense as “toxic masculinity” has been going on for decades now. Where have you been?
Who Stole Feminism? (1995) Christina Hoff Sommers:
https://www.amazon.com/Who-Stole-Feminism-Women-Betrayed/dp/0684801566/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521129083&sr=8-1&keywords=who+stole+feminism
Camille Paglia: Blocking Campus Speech Is Anti-Democracy and Anti-Feminist
http://time.com/4707294/camille-paglia-women-arent-free-until-speech-is/
Modern Feminism Needs to Stop Blaming Men:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-26-2017-1.4084904/modern-feminism-needs-to-stop-blaming-men-says-camille-paglia-1.4084915
Feminism and the Modern Campus, Post-Modernism, Camille Paglia, Dr. Jordan Peterson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-hIVnmUdXM
No, that’s not the intention. Equality, whatever that means, is not the intention. Never has been.
Pretty sure you didn’t read this article. Stupid bitch.
Yes, that is because men and women are fundamentally different, because women and me are attracted to different things, meaning fewer women are willing to make the sacrifices and the compromises to rise to the top in a number of demanding fields. However, with fewer women having children and thus fewer trying to blend family life with a career, those numbers are changing.
So, yes for the time being, men outnumber women in a number of positions and fields, but the whole push in universities is to change that, to attack men and build up women, rather than to create as level playing field. The professor cites the fact that the number of men in college and university are dropping rapidly as they are attacked for being male.
Imagine being told from childhood that everything that is typically male – rough play, the type of razzing boys typically give each other, highly competitive sports – is considered “toxic” and that simply socializing with othter men is attacked as being exclusionary, while working with other women in countless women’s organizations, formed to push women ahead is of course a positive thing.
Just imagine the outcry that there would be if someone introduced the concept of “toxic femininity,” to attack the very essence of what makes a woman a woman? That of course will never happen because masculine men are attracted to rather than repelled by feminine women. Instead what we have is a reign of misandry, where toxic, “third wave” feminists make war on men and masculinity in order to remake society.
I’m no expert, but my sense is that your first paragraph is probably correct.
Your second and third paragraphs are completely divorced from the reality that I see. I have three teen boys, the oldest of which goes to a very liberal college. He’s told me about some dumb things that have been said or written by other students, but neither he nor my other boys feel in any way “attacked” by society. All 3 of my boys have wrestled, and none has been told that they were bad for expressing their “toxic” masculinity.
In fact, the only place I see these “attacks” on men are when conservative blogs or media publicize the statements of various marginal crackpots in an attempt to inflame people to think that white males are under siege.
This is simply nonsense. The term “toxic masculinity” is in use in college classes and courses across the United States. In fact, the school shootings are being laid at the feet of “toxic masculinity”.
Salon:
Toxic masculinity is killing men: The roots of male trauma
The three most destructive words a father or mother can tell their young son? “Be a man”
Men Are Responsible for Mass Shootings
How toxic masculinity is killing us.
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a18207600/mass-shootings-male-entitlement-toxic-masculinity/
Toxic Masculinity and Murder
Can we talk about men?
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/06/toxic-masculinity-and-mass-murder/486983/
Men Aren’t Monstrous, but Masculinity Can Be
http://www.slate.com/blogs/better_life_lab/2017/11/29/men_aren_t_monsters_the_problem_is_toxic_masculinity.html
There are hundreds of essays like this. Once these buzz words and definitions take hold on the campuses, which are the incubators, they spread to the culture at large. That is the way this works. The radicals on the campuses graduate and while many of them become professional activists, many others are hired in corporate American where they bring their attitudes and ideas with them.
I am glad your sons have not had to experience this, but as someone who visits a lot of campuses, these ideas are not the figment of some conservative’s imagination. There are whole sites devoted to these things on campus. I would suggest spending a few evenings on the Heterodox Academy web site and see what is really going on in the colleges and universities today.
Or, better yet, spend a month at a place like Evergreen College, where a left wing professor who refused to exit the campus on a day when whites were to be banished was run out of the school, unable to return because the campus police could not keep him safe – not from criminals – but from students, who were patrolling the campus with baseball bats in order to suppress non-existent “Nazis” and “Fascists.”
https://heterodoxacademy.org/
Free Speech on Campus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIDJHbngfM8
The Left is Eating Itself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9osjKN5VWfM
Free Speech Battle at Laurier University:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpFUvfAvKs4&t=737s
Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers, the War on Boys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPgoyK_5KV0
Dr. Helen Smith, Men on Strike:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpFN5KT8pzw
You’re entitled to your opinion. Mine is that the issue is overblown in an attempt to gin-up a culture war. As I said in another comment, it’s perfectly fine to ridicule or condemn people who act like idiots (as seems true in many of the instances that you mention), but it’s not only false but pernicious to pretend that it’s a real issue in America.
Women who do not provide financially for their children are lauded as
heroic “single mothers” and given all sorts of government benefits.
Housing, food, medical care ect.
If a man does not provide for
his child, and the woman does not wish to be with him, he is a “deadbeat
dad”. He will be coerced into financially providing for the MOTHER or
sent to prison. UNLESS she wants to be with him in which case he can
also live on the government teat.
In regards to “sexual assault” if she is drunk, it might be rape, depending on her levels of remorse. His level of drunkenness never implies that she raped him.
Nipped in the bud? This is the exact same strategy used by the radical anti-smoking SJW types a decade and two ago. Ostracism, “de-normalization” campaigns, shaming. This is American Puritanism expressing itself through the filter of cultural Marxism and imperial decline. This is a country that once banned alcohol.
Puritanism? No, this tactic is described in Plato’s 5th Republic, the ancestor of Marxism. It is how you force the populace to accept what would otherwise be considered absurd and unacceptable, such as, women wrestling naked in the gymnasium with men.
As feminism has blossomed into open misandry so the movement has defecated on everything men built that they did not and could never hope to.
Feminism started with, continued with, and will end with open misandry.
The only difference is the extent now makes it undeniable.
Pretty sure you didn’t read this article. Stupid bitch.
Someone sounds butthurt.
Having actually lived in a matriarchal society for 20 months I can assure you it is not something which makes women happy. The ‘men’ were virtually unrecognizable as men; they were beaten down in the same manner that slaves are beaten down. Where was this? The Republic of South Vietnam. It suffered the fate of every matriarchal society in history, it was conquered by an outside power. Why? Because there is something in women that wants to be conquered.
Here is the crux of the problem: men in general don’t care who is in charge, women on the other hand want to be in charge. The problem in that is this: that means most women are “wantabes” in the same sad sense that I would be a “wantabe” professional football player at age 70.
Before anyone accuses me of misogyny I would like to point out that my sister is much more accomplished than I am – but she got there the right way; by building herself up rather than by tearing the men around her down. Because it is much easier to tear men down than it is for most women to build themselves up – Matriarchal societies wind up at a generally lower level of function than patriarchal societies. The women, on average, aren’t much better functioning than they are in patriarchal societies, and the men are much, much worse.
If you want to build an egalitarian society where anyone can succeed – you can’t get there by tearing down either sex.
There is a sate in the United States that is run as a matriarchy. It is Hawaii. I retired from the Marines and chose this place as the place to remain for the rest of my life, and I can tell you that I have never seen a more pathetic group of males in my life. They are afraid of women and the consequences of going out for a beer or going golfing without permission. They are pathetic.
The real irony is that those same women who browbeat their males, simply love a man who has a forceful personality. Not physically forceful, but a man with the courage of his convictions.
Maybe its karma for the you know written history……
Where is Andrew Dice Clay when we need him?
Soon, the only contact males will have with females will be on a rental basis.
No, sex robots will preempt that. But not to worry: Our feminists will eagerly become wives for REAL men — Muslims who will keep them in their place as so many of them desire.
You cannot make this s..t up. You just can’t.
If I had kids today, I would encourage them not to go to a university. The environment is just toxic and the lunatics are literally running the asylum.
Strong men create good times; good times create weak men (now); weak men create bad times – society has never cared what SJWs think in the past because it never relied on them for shit. Oh, and I’ll take crap from traumatized lesbian feminists when they’re the ones putting their bodies in the firing line for their country. There’s still selective service in the US; let’s be progressive and make sure the dykes get the chance to go in first.
america is over even with trump in office the damage is done if you’re a able body white male learn the russian language join the russian army they want white males and you can gain citizenship, i don’t see anything worth fighting for here ,
This is not just happening in colleges, it begins in elementary school where there are accepted practices of more free aggressive treatment toward male students by parents, teachers, peers others. This continues on through middle and high school. I am afraid the much protection and support we as girls, later women receive are not only helping us to begin out achieving our male peers in large numbers in the information age, our freedoms of expression which have always been very free to our protected status, is now being multiplied over and over by many more women rising to more successful positions over our male peers. There is now even much more accepted feelings of superiority broadcasted in very subtle and in some cases very open ways by female – teachers, professors, managers, and from many office employees in government, private, and public areas. I feel this now growing feeling of Female superiority has now become institutionally accepted to the point where the words, tones, inflections of many girls and women have become much too commonly attached to some subtle abuse, ridicule, or patronization.
There are many wonderful boys and men who are trying so hard to be as good and as kind to us as possible. We cannot allow our over protected freedoms of expression; false feelings of superiority; and ignorant hate toward all boys and men because of judgments against the very few men who have hurt all of us both men and women. I fear as a group our over protection (given us by many boys and men through the years) is allowing many very ignorant girls and women to attack our very protectors. I fear our group attacks upon boys and men along with our more advanced academics due much more support, while our male peers are being driven from the classroom from an early age due to much more aggressive treatment and less support are not only slowly depriving boys and men of self-worth, but are also, slowly accumulating real, stored emotional harm in the minds of many “good boys and men” today. I fear unless we begin providing (using much more insight) the same kind, caring, verbal interaction, and support from parents, teachers, peers, others through adulthood, just as we receive, will begin to create a very vicious haves and have nots by gender along with much more hate by gender. I fear in that gender war, we as good, caring women will be seen with much more suspicion and even more anger and hate, due to the accumulated actions of those other girls and women who are now, so freely using our freedoms of expression to hurt boys and men with impunity.