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Comment by ugh | Hacker News Reader

I’m honestly curious, what are your reasons for writing this comment? It seems off-topic.

When a child who has all the toys is told they have to share, some children will throw a hissy fit. This is an apt metaphore for a "men's rights" movement which rares it's head when people talking about giving women as much power as men.

Men are as likely to be raped, but their (prison) rapes are considered funny in our society, whereas female rapes are considered a grave crime. Men are generally considered more disposable in dangerous situations ("let the women and children go"). Stereotypes and gender roles regarding men are much more rigid, and challenging them has much less cultural buy-in than challenging gender roles with women. Men are much more likely to be assaulted. I told my very feminist sister a story about a guy who punched the guy his girlfriend was cheating on him with. At first she misheard me and thought he punched the girl, which was considered horrible. When I clarified that it was the guy, she immediately made a comment that it was less serious. She has internalized the sexism that it's much less serious to assault a male.

I could go on and on, but you're so brainwashed by the feminist agenda that you have internalized it and don't even see the blatant sexism in our society. It's so ironic that so many feminists/liberals are so guilty of what they accuse others of - being unaware of their own prejudices.

The primary people fighting prison rape is feminists (and both prison rape and rape of drunk girls are treated as jokes in our culture). The primary people fighting stereotypes and gender roles, supporting stay-at-home fathers, supporting the importance of gender-flexibility for men, are feminists. The primary people fighting men's violence directed at each other are feminists. Feminists fought the draft and continue to protest wars around the world.

Your examples are feminist. You are a feminist, whether you choose to use the label or not. The only question is whether you realize this is a loose-loose situation and support other feminists as well as those focusing on your issues.

I agree with everything you said but the liberals part... I think we should be careful to assume that all liberals are feminists. This can turn off the liberals that have noticed the misandry in feminism and are trying to learn more.

Yes you're right. These are all terrible things. It's terrible that rape of men is used as jokes, or even by police as threat to encourage people to confess.

There are a lot of strict gender roles for men, men are laughed at if they want to wear a dress, but a woman can wear a trousers without any problem. Being the receptive sexual partner is viewed as OK for women, but shameful or wrong for men. It's not fair and it's not right.

There are a lot of issues at play. There are a lot of things wrong with gender, and there's people who've been fighting for gender equality for a long time. We're all on the same side here.

Men are as likely to be raped, but their (prison) rapes are considered funny in our society, whereas female rapes are considered a grave crime. Men are generally considered more disposable in dangerous situations ("let the women and children go"). Stereotypes and gender roles regarding men are much more rigid, and challenging them has much less cultural buy-in than challenging gender roles with women. Men are much more likely to be assaulted. I told my very feminist sister a story about a guy who punched another guy that his girlfriend was cheating on him with. At first she misheard me and thought he punched the girl, which was considered horrible. When I clarified that it was the guy he hit, she immediately made a comment that indicating that it was less serious. She has internalized the sexism that it's much less serious to assault a male.

I could go on and on, but you're so brainwashed by a movement that has overall very good intentions (empower women in a society that disempowers them) that you have internalized it and don't even see the blatant sexism on the other side of the coin. Even this piece contains so many generalizations about men, geeks, tech workplaces that are blatantly unfair.

It's so ironic that so many feminists/liberals are so guilty of what they accuse others of - being unaware of their own prejudices.

What's your source for the first claim? I've never heard it before - Wikipedia cites[0] a 2006 investigation that found 2,205 allegations, 262 of which were substantiated. The FBI collected[1] 92,455 allegations of forcible rape - i.e. excluding other kinds of rape - in the same year - even if just 1% of those were proved, that's still nearly an order of magnitude disparity.

(Please don't take my comment as dismissing your other points - sexism hurts men and women. I'm just curious about that specific claim.)

  [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_rape_in_the_United_States
  [1] http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/offenses/violent_crime/forcible_rape.html

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