It's one thing to be single and roaming the world carefree.
But my observation has been that most men who are married, especially if with children, have some innate desire to provide for the family and not being able to do so (due to unemployment, underemployment, etc.) causes them stress even if the wife is earning more than enough.
Those that don't seem to be an outlier. Is it biological? Is it social pressure? I don't know.
Similarly, if you know you could take someone in a fight, and they challenge you in public...its easier in that case to "take the high road" and walk away than it would be if you knew you would lose the fight, or you weren't confident you would win. The people in the latter case are much more likely to feel shame and/or resentment towards the aggressor later on.
I think with "power" like that its easier to make the best choice in many cases. It's a shame too...I know a few people that are miserable because they don't have a "real job", even though they don't really need one financially. That lack of power keeps them from being happy and choosing the lifestyle that would obviously be best otherwise.
I've long considered traditional gender roles of man works and provides income and woman raises kids and cooks to be unfair to both genders and a general issue that affects everyone, and not really a "feminist" issue as such (or rather, not exclusively feminist).
In my country there's been a lot of discussion that a lot of women are working part-time rather than full-time, with many claiming this is horrible and evidence of discrimination. Maybe that plays a part, but it seems to me the real question is "why aren't more men working part-time?" rather than "why aren't more women working full-time?"
And more general: up to a few decades ago it was entirely normal for a single earner to support an entire family and still have money for a yearly holiday. Now that's much harder financially, if not outright impossible. Something really profound changed in our economy with seemingly few people noticing or commenting on it.
Feminism also contains the culture that wants six year old boys to be held back, feel shame and suffer for the sins of their fathers.
Feminism also contains the idea that being a man is some kind of disease, something to be ashamed of.
If you ask a representative sample of men most will disagree strongly and loudly.
If however you ask feminists to distance themselves from the extremists you'll probably find a completely different answer.
I have no papers to show but I have been watching the debate from the sidelines:
Even something as simple as getting feminists to condemn "kill all men" is hard.
Your whole argument hinges on this word, you are not arguing in good faith, but rather, building a strawman. I'm not going to engage with this style. Thanks.
> I have no papers to show but I have been watching the debate from the sidelines:
First strawman is not the word here anyway. That would mean I misrepresent others to make it easier to knock down their arguments.
That said, I'm not a native speaker and it probably affects the quality of my arguments.
I'll try to rephrase it as a thought experiment:
If one ask
- a random sampling of men to distance themselves from a tweet that says women should be chained to the kitchen
- and a random sample of women to distance themselves from a #killallmen tweet
how do one think the results would be?
> I'm not going to engage with this style. Thanks.
Your choice, for the benefit of everyone else I answered.
But I think it is unfair to say I argue in bad faith.
My point is that among mainstream feminists it is more ok to write even gross hate speech against men (#killallmen) than it is to write even bad jokes about women (they should be chained to the kitchen) amongst not-feminists.
I'm not suggesting mainstream feminists conspire to actually kill all men.
All "isms" contain outliers, but it's a mistake to get too hung up them in almost all cases. One of the oldest tricks in the book for people trying to push back against idea is to identify these outliers and generate a narrative that this is what the idea is actually about - it's bad faith argument and shouldn't be engaged with.
Is that too a bad faith argument?
Which is I think what the sibling commentor was trying to say, no?
The bad faith argumentation doesn't come from the specifics of whatever group you are talking about, it comes from trying to represent a fringe view or characterization as definitive of the group, then attacking them all for it.
Take for example the current news about Canadian trucker convoy, there was some coverage of people in the convoy being pictured with swastika flags.
It's perfectly reasonable to say: "hey, what's up with the neonazi's ? Are you guys really ok with them being part of your protest?"
And it's perfectly reasonable to judge them on the response to that question. There are even nuanced answers that it's hard to judge.
However, it's a bad faith argument to jump from that to: "Canadian truckers are nazi's".
I said:
> There are examples of men who want women to be chained to the kitchen; we should consider the reasonable views though,
and
> Ignore the fringe elements
Emphasis added on the important parts. I was arguing there are always fringe elments, and to ignore those, not that the men who are shitheads are important to focus on. You're really twisting things around and I won't comment further on these bad-faith arguments, have a nice day.
From what I've read and people I've spoken to, quite a large number – though far from all – feminists seem to agree on that in broad lines, yet somehow the public discourse still remains fairly narrow IMHO. Personally, I blame the "MRA" people and their nonsense.
Please kindly let me know where such sort of feminism is happening - I would like to move there.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feminism
Feminism is the belief that women are deserving of equal consideration in all things.
Women, regardless of their own earnings, do not want men that are unemployed, lowly employed, "in between jobs". You will be completely ignored. It's a crude reality, but a reality nevertheless. Men are selected by utility.
Read the article again. It seems there's whole armies of men with time on their hands. Unemployed, unable to get a partner. A great supply of male homemakers one would think.
But no. Nobody wants them. A male without utility is cast aside like trash.
Likewise, women do not really want the feminine or sensitive men that they claim to want. They may want it after first securing a man with good looks and good earnings, after which said man may at times express his emotions. But don't overdo it, obviously.
This feminist idea to destroy male gender roles directly contradicts what women actually do. For as long as feminists do not marry economically disadvantaged men and financially take care of them, none of this will change, and it's all just a bunch of hypocrisy.
> women do not really want the feminine or sensitive men that they claim to want.
You are wrong. Yes, as a partner you're supposed to have drive and groom yourself properly - this is true for everyone. After those basic life requirements, what is important is that you are capable of having a mature relationship with someone else. Part of that is knowing that you should express yourself and how to do it in such a way that it isn't a fight every time.
But if you don't believe me, do go ahead and create a fake dating profile. One in which you show economic fragility (which is the point of the OP article) yet that you're very much in touch with your feelings.
Enjoy the crickets. Nobody wants you.
Hence my point: be attractive, economically successful and only then might you also express some feelings. The thing you're missing here is "economically successful". You describe it as a basic life requirement but I made my remark in context of the article, which describes millions of men for which this is out of reach, even if they try. So the "mature relationship" doesn't apply as they won't be in any due to their economic status.
And as this lack of economic success leads to a lack of romantic success, they sink into a depression, start drinking, and then kill themselves. None of which apparently is worrying, instead the worrying part is saying that women select for economic success, as this sounds shallow, bitter or even offensive.
It's not offensive, it makes total sense from both a biological and cultural perspective.
People have become experts in dodging and bending realities they dislike. When it rains outside they deny it, change the subject, or even redefine the meaning of the word rain.
But to me it still just rains. I'm a man and I know what is expected of me: utility. I have to deliver it and there's no safety net. Failing is not an option. It doesn't matter how I feel about it as it doesn't matter how I feel about the rain. Rain doesn't care, and the world doesn't care about men.
You lived on your farm or in your village. Both parents did work on the farm as needed. Dad was never far from home and did take the older kids to the fields.
Until my children grew up and I rejoined the workforce. That has been a struggle.
I'm curious - are there any human cultures where the woman was the traditionally (as in, not a recent modern phenomenon) the breadwinner and the men stayed at home? I know there are cultures that were matriarchal in leadership, and that there are animal species (i.e. lions) where the female does the hunting. But were there any true "Amazon" cultures in the past?
However women would take babies with them while doing things like picking nuts and berries.
Another thing is that it's awkard for breast-feeding women to be away from their babies for long times, and formula comes with its own set of problems.
True. But it is a short period.
Or adjust your lifestyle to not need to earn so much.
If you really want to stay home, there's probably a way to make it work.
It’s also a sign that the gender income gap decreased, because it’s worth both people’s time to work. It’s not worth womens’ time to work either when the family is poor (because they can’t earn much and might as well do home/childcare labor) or rich (because the amount one partner can add with a job effectively doesn't matter).
This means the easiest way to get back to a one-income family is to lower womens’ wages again, so you probably shouldn’t wish for it.
"This means the easiest way to get back to a one-income family is to lower womens’ wages again, so you probably shouldn’t wish for it."
There's no connection to this and the rest of your post. It also assumes that families don't need two incomes to stay out of poverty or off of assistance.
The easiest ways according to your post is to make a family poor or rich.
Probably depends on the neighborhood - there's claims in this thread that single motherhood is up, but those can't both be true. (I don't have any evidence to add here.)
> The easiest ways according to your post is to make a family poor or rich.
Yes, but making someone poor's a lot easier. Murphy's law, y'know.
They can. I think you're missing one of my key parts - without assistance. It's highly likely single mothers are getting child support. It's possible they are getting assistance too.
Just look at the stats on how much people have saved in emergency funds and for retirement. That should show you the dire need for two incomes.