The weaker sex | Hacker News Reader

The weaker sex

economist.com

20 pointsprostoalex27 comments

I'm glad this article mentions male suicide. Rates are higher for men and this isn't completely explained by the fact that men tend to use more lethal methods.

The article mentions that men with poor education in rich nations are particularly struggling. This is supported by a bit of data we have: builders are becoming an industry with a higher than average risk of suicide. Other professions tend to have access to means and methods, or detailed knowledge, neither of which applies to builders.

I'm aware of two great campaigns that tackle male suicide.

One is Australian: soften the fck up (they don't censor the word on their website): http://softenthefckup.com.au/

Campaign Against Living Miserably: https://www.thecalmzone.net/

I am always interested in hearing about other campaigns from anywhere.

I don't understand why there is such a disdain for blue collar jobs. Isn't it honest living? The good are tangible and benefits the society.

Boys in the developed world are 50% more likely to flunk basic maths, reading and science entirely.

Then why is the media crying out that STEM fields are dominated by men and more women should be encouraged?

The problem in the US is that they cry that manufacturing jobs are going away. Why don't they attract some? Manufacturing complements with engineering. They develop society. The only reason that education and healthcare where supposedly most of the women are present as per the article is still present in the US is because it has not been outsourced. It has nothing to do with high skills.

I recently read "Working in the Shadows: A year of doing the work (most) Americans won't do." http://www.amazon.com/Working-Shadows-Year-Doing-Americans/d...

It makes some excellent points about how pathetically underpaid some jobs are and how crucial they are to the functioning of society. People (mostly men) who do back-breaking labor, like harvest food from the fields, are critical to the food supply, yet it is often paid less than minimum wage. My dad grew up on a farm and was a soldier for more than 2 1/2 decades. I always find it pretty galling when folks who make good money are basically snobby assholes about the value of blue collar work.

We really need to do something about making sure that critical jobs get paid a living wage -- not out of compassion or charity but out of enlightened self-interest. That's the only way the spoiled educated people who made "good" career choices will get to keep sitting on their asses at a computer and still eat. Sigh.

There are some things very wrong with this world. Not in a "gosh, we are all assholes" sort of way but in a "gosh, we are all idiots -- what happens if we can't fill these blue collar jobs and the grocery store shelves sit empty?" sort of way.

There appears to be some concerted effort to leave unhinged comments on any popular article that might be construed as feminist.

I wonder how they'd justify these rants? Do they actually think they're convincing people? Is this related to conspiracy theories in some way?

This article would appear to be what the commenters would want, greater support for disadvantaged men and boys, but it seems to have wound them up even more.

When I was still a fairly generic STEM kid, skeptical of "feminism" and a bit tempted to oppose it via "egalitarianism" or something like that, I got into an argument over the internet where my opposite said this:

"Mainstream, sex-positive feminism is about equality and is concerned with the rights of men whenever they're in question. I'm a total feminist who believes that the significance of male rape is hugely devalued by society, that family court relies on outdated standards, and a few other 'MRA' bulletpoints. I find nothing but agreement when I pursue these ideas in a public, academic, or otherwise serious sphere. The Men's Rights movement, however, is not a legitimate offshoot of a cruel and uncaring feminism. It's a reactionary, hostile internet culture that inevitably finds itself tied up in aggressive takedowns of feminism, responsible for fomenting a lot of denial of its legitimacy through a cherry-picked view of fringe perspectives, poorly considered, half-scientific 'biotruths' and a thin veneer of concern for the rights of men.

Feminism is not called feminism because it hates men. It's called feminism because it comes from societies with a history of gross, outrageous repression of women. As we move closer to equality, it becomes natural that men should involve themselves in the movement and ensure that it considers their rights as well. But feminism does that. MRA denies that only as a stepladder to get into a denial of the legitimacy of the female accomplishments of feminism. That's what it is at its core."

I was very impressed. I conceded, and it's stuck with me to this day.

Regardless of club affiliation, generally speaking it makes no sense to have women stand up for men's rights. Men need to stand up for men's rights because then at least you can assume authenticity based on shared self-interest. In that respect, even MRA is, for men, an improvement on feminism.

Women stand up for men getting better access to mental health care because women are affected as mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of men who die by suicide.

That's just one example where feminism would seek to help men because it's in the interests of women. There are plenty of others, and there are more altruistic examples too.

That's true, there are many legitimate reasons for women to be standing up for men in that way. Even so, a male centered movement is bound to stand up for men's rights in a more complete way, simply because then men have their own voice.

But they often get taken over by fucking wingnuts.

Look at groups that discuss male victims of rape. This is an important subject that doesn't receive nearly enough attention - it's even acceptable to joke about male victims of rape on tv in a way that would be totally unacceptable if it were about women.

But a sizable number of the groups addressing this are dominated by men who try to deny the female experience of rape (rape against women doesn't count as rape because they were drunk, or they were a friend of their rapist, or because they didn't fight, etc) or they distort sexual violence statistics to claim that more men are raped than women.

Or look at groups discussing family courts. There's an unwillingness to accept that some men are abusive fathers or abusive husbands and that children or spouses need protection from those men. Family law is browen and unjust and many men are being denied their human right to a family life with their child (and ditto children their right to family lofe with father) but you need to accept one of the many reasons for that is the huge numbers of women murdered and beaten by their spouse and the large numbers of children murdered and beaten by their children.

Sorry, I think this is not an argument for denying the existence of a by-men-for-men movement. Maybe it's current incarnation is fucked up but your argument is just fatalistic thinking. Besides, feminism is not immune to crazy people either and they do real damage too.

I'm female. I prefer to stand for human rights. Last I checked, men are still human.

FWIW, I don't generally self-identify as a feminist, though I get accused of being one quite a lot.

I think anyone who claims to want a better world and is vindictively hoping that some class of people with more "privilege" gets their come-uppance is doing it wrong.

Cool, but your last sentence goes too far. There is politics to worry about. Hasn't feminism proven that a non-partisan stance (egalitarianism) is less effective politically than a partisan one? I can accuse you of the same 'vindictiveness' that feminists face when men say that feminism is wrong because it's all about women. It's not wrong, it's politics.

I thought her last sentence was actually spot on. When people argue for egalitarianism, I actively support them. When people argue using the approach she condemned, I vehemently oppose such people because it's toxic, drives people apart (as does any type of identity politics) and breeds resentment.

One of the most obvious problems with this argument is that the National Organization for Women has stood in the way of alimony reform (http://www.flnow.org/press%20release%202013-4%20alimony.docx) and supports the Obama administration's expansive Title IX interpretations, both of which are harmful to men. If this author's ideal pro-male feminism does not exist at NOW, then where can it be found, and to what extent is it actually relevant to a discussion of real-world social movements?

I would also point out that to a great degree, the public face of the feminist movement is Jezebel and other such mainstream sites. The author you quote essentially claims that these feminists aren't True Scotsmen ("public, academic, or otherwise serious"), but on the other hand he or she has no problem judging the men's rights movement by its most grating voices.

What are the best voices for the men's rights movement?

I haven't done a ton of reading on the movement, but I can point to Warren Farrell as a thoughtful author who has important things to say about men's issues.

People argue equally well that feminism as a word is used up and all kinds of bad things happen under the label of feminism, so it might be better for you and your friend to distance from it.

More to the point, you might want to have a look at this video from a female, also check out her other videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp8tToFv-bA

Not all feminists believe the same things. I've met plenty of feminists who consider their feminist views mainstream and they hardly agreed with one another on many issues considered to be fundamental. Not all MRAs believe the same things. Near as I can tell, the person who said that basically generalized about entire groups of people without really considering that there is probably a lot more variety in the types of supporters on both sides than first meets the idea.

s/idea/eye/

Why not counter comments rather than commentators?

I have no idea what your question means.

The comments are unhinged, that was my point:

"Women have taken control of society. How? Through misandric laws and policies that give women the power to destroy men's lives (forced redistribution of wealth and power); to wit:

The VAWA, Yes Means Yes, Title IX, no-fault divorce, alimony, child support (alimony light), false rape, false DV, false harassment, false sexual assault, exemption from selective service, Affirmative Action, SNAP, WIC, women-only scholarships, lighter/no punishment for equal crimes, use of state and federal funds for majority/female only funding and soon paid maternity leave and free child care for single mothers.

Who enacted/will enact these laws? The white knights of the patriarchy - at the behest of the pathologically narcissistic, entitled gynocracy. Why? To get elected/re-elected - the majority of men have been tossed mercilessly under the bus - by other men - for decades."

Notably here, he's blaming other men for all of societies problems. Because although woman run society for their own benefit, they still have to bribe "white knights" to pass the laws for them.

He's angry, but arguably every item in his list is valid, so shouldn't he be angry? Why do you call this unhinged?

Its recruitment for like-minded people, by which I mean the very "societal dropouts" the article mentions. While I am not sympathetic to MRA at all, I understand why this article is aggravating to them. From their perspective, anything that tells them what they need to do to integrate back into the work/family/debt system is based on society's interests at the expense of them as individuals, the same old societal pressure to "be a man" just wrapped in a different ideology. The result (to them) is the same, immolation of self for the social and economic benefit of others. This is in fact one of the reasons they don't see feminism as compelling, as since in the past Patriarchy would have explained the subjugation of the male to society, as feminism's influence has increased, their lives have actually gotten worse and they still are being harangued to join back into the workforce, but with drastically reduced incentives. We could argue over if it's really feminism's fault or it's just that it coincided with the inevitable loss of these jobs because of the changing economy (this is the article's starting premise) but they don't see it that way in any case.

I did also notice several comments that wanted a return to traditional family arrangement and employment, but they seemed to be the minority.

This may mark me out as an asshole, but I don't have very much sympathy.

Back when I was about 15 and still in school, a bunch of our classmates dropped out to go working in construction jobs after completing the Junior Certificate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Certificate). At the time Ireland was enjoying a boom in construction, so there was decent money to be made for anyone willing to stop their education and haul bricks around a field all day.

To my friends and I this was a transparently idiotic strategy, grasping at an easy short-term gain which no-one believed would last more than a few years. But of course we were made out to be the real chumps for staying in school.

Fast forward to now and every one of the dropouts is un-employed, having enjoyed a few short years of decent wages and then witnessed their livelihoods disappear into an economic black hole around 2008.

What happens when the tech bubble bursts?

Yes, certainly we live in the information age, and there will always be a need for tech workers, but the demand will fall with the economy. So isn't there an element to short-term gain for people who went into tech simply because of the past decade?

What happens when the medicine bubble bursts? Or the engineering bubble? We could say this about any profession, that the good times may end some day. That doesn't make the decision of those young men any less short-sighted.

They had every chance at _not_ being under-educated labourers, but they chose explicitly to take that path, even when most around them advised that the construction bubble was in serious danger of collapse in the near future.

Maybe I too will be destitute some day, but that's a different story.

It would be nice if Economist could post an article discussing the supply of "marriageable women" (using their words).

Also, plenty of old failing "you can have it all" narrative like:

"Women have learned that they can be surgeons and physicists without losing their femininity."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3078210/Number-wom...

In much of the world they still enjoy social and legal privileges simply because they have a Y chromosome.

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-logic-behind-France-banning...

But there were some good conclusions: "More generally, schools need to become more boy-friendly...".

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