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In response to certain threads I have read on this and other forums, and lacking the proper space in which to fully communicate the sum of my ideas, I have decided to start this thread with the intention of giving a male perspective on a so-called "man's-world". I cannot tell you how many times I have had to sit idly by while I and other men are judged unfairly simply by their birthright, and not in small isolated circles of the bitter and jaded but prominently and innocently displayed as a societal standard. Worse still, I have been exposed to and felt the brutal impact of some of the most radical ideas held by those who advocate equality. When simple, powerful emotions such as love become clouded by something so artificial as politics, one begins to question the basic goodness of both man and woman.

I have a fair bit to say on this subject, so I plan to do this in segments. About three times a week I'll post something on here. I will do my best to insure that this thread remains as open-minded as possible. Feel free to comment or criticize, but I ask that you try and rationally support your arguments instead of espousing ideology as fact.

I'm actually just going to lock the "femi-nazi" thread I think, and then move it, since she's not posting in it anymore (to my knowledge), and it's just promoting conflict among the users who strongly disagree with her.

Sorry. sweatdrop

First of all, thank you for locking that thread. It wasn't predominantly the sexism that got to me, it was mostly the racism. Being a multiracial individual (half Indian, half Caucasian, but I look Arab) in the suburbs, that sort of thing really gets to me.

Also, while that thread did inspire this one, it was merely a point of accumulation where I finally snapped. But I try not to be bitter. And hey, I just realized this morning that I could turn this in for my Humanities class

Oh, and I decided not to post anything the first time because it was late and I was tired. As to the eloquency of my first post, for some reason I do my best writing after the sun goes down (vampire).

But I digress.

In many ways, this is a man's world. Or so we are lead to believe. In truth, it is a man's world mostly in the sense that it was built and controlled by men. But for the most part, and in a very subtle and pervasive way, the tyranny of men has given way to the tyranny of women. If you pay enough attention, you can see its footprints everywhere you go; Commercials, sitcoms, movies, the news, school policy, even in how the two genders are raised. Few people notice it, fewer people talk about it, and with each passing generation its grip grows stronger. I remember a very iconic episode of The Simpsons, in which Lisa thinks she's inherited the Simpson family gene for stupidity. In the end, she discovers that the gene only affects Simpson men, and that while the men entertain themselves by putting pots over their heads and ramming into each other at full speed, the Simpson women are all doctors, laywers, and the like.

This idea is not unique to The Simpsons. Malcom in the Middle, Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Ray, Family Guy, American Dad, and The War at Home, to name a few, all propogate the idea that men are idiots. In each and every one of those series, there is one female character who is the shining beacon of truth and reason in the family, without whom everything would fall apart. Similarly, how many action movies have you seen where the gruff, machismo commander orders some suicidal, ego-inflating operation, all the while ignoring the pleas of his beautiful yet intelligent female advisor? In the end, the commander's ideas fail and bring certain doom to us all. Or just look at Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. In both of these books, especially the latter, the author makes a very clear connection between immoral acts of violence and male chauvinism. The villains are brutal murderers who think look down upon women, while the heroes are women and male feminists. The most telling quote comes from Angels and Demons, when the main character reflects on a class he taught about sexual mysticism. it was something along the lines of, "The women nodded with a knowing smile . . . the men snickered and made lewd jokes." In popular culture, men are portrayed as stupid, slovenly, stubborn, immature, selfish, proud, single minded creatures. And this popular perception of men has made its way into everyday life.

For example, have you read the statistics on ADD diagnosis? Of children who have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, boys constitute 75%. Boys diagnosed with ADD/ADHD are also more likely to recieve behavior-modifying drugs than girls diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, and in larger doses as well. There was recently a case in the news about a male student who was suing his school because while he was receiving high marks, he was not placed on his school's Honor Roll. It was noted that at this particular school, the Honor roll consisted mostly of girls (about 70% if memory serves me correct. I have to look that up). My dad once went to a parent/teacher seminar about education. During the seminar, the school brought in an education expert, who layed down characteristics children have that determine their success in life, and then broke those characteristics down into statistical groups. When it came to gender, the education expert said, girls excell against boys in all characteristics. As much as I hate to quote him, my father is fond of saying that, "society tends to treat boys like they are defective girls." I for one could not agree more. I was among those children in the Ritalin generation. For years I was given a mixture of Prozac, Adderall, and Ritalin, and dragged off to a psychologist every other week. Why? Because my mother, a staunch liberal, a commited feminist, and a single mother of two, wanted to essentially stamp the male out of me. In many ways, that relationship my mother and I had has probably done more to turn me towards misogyny than anything else in my life. Thankfully, my father and friends have done just as much to turn me away from misogyny.

Speaking of misogyny, simply by looking at the definition gives us even more insight into just how rooted our society is in this mindset. Misogyny is defined as hatred of women. Notice, however, that there is no similar word for hatred of men. This could be interpreted as a sign that society at large doesn't consider such a thing possible. If a woman doesn't like men, she is called many things (in extreme cases, yes, a man-hater), but is more likely to be called a feminist, or is said to be "asserting herself", or "striking back at a chauvinistic society". If a man doesn't like women, he's a misogynist, plain and simple. There's nothing more to it.

The most devastating effect that the "man-dumb-woman-smart" paradigm is that it is being more forcefully ingrained into our society by exposing children to it. By current divorce law, mothers in a divorce are generally granted primary custody of the children, excepting dangerous environments (drug use, crime, abuse, etc.). This means that children spend most of their time living in the same house as their mother, and so are more open to their mother's take on gender issues. Therefore, impressionable children are raised with the notion that men are cruel, stupid, stubborn, and inferior to women. This, of course, occurs in varying degrees, and perhaps in some cases not at all or actually cases children to gravitate away from their mother's ideas. More than likely, though, the severity follows a standard deviation curve, where it is less likely to have children in that situation grow up to be misogynists or "femi-nazis" than it is to have children grow up with a greater amount of respect for their mother than for their father, and for women in general. This is the mechanism by which ideas such as those in the "femi-nazi" thread arise.

So, am I a chauvinist? Do I believe that men are the breadwinners and women the homemakers? Not really. I think it would be nice if dads were like Ward Cleaver and moms were like Oprah Winfrey, both putting aside gender politics and raising their kids to be wise, thoughtful, caring, and productive. So why did I make this thread? Because for a while now I have been frustrated by this feeling of being cast as a typical male by everyone around me. And considering most of my "friends" are in actuality girls that don't know crap about me, this happens quite often. I now know how most women must feel in very chauvinistic societies, and have an even greater amount of respect for women in societies where they are inferior in the eyes of the government and the law. But the purpose of making this thread was to, at the very least, simply state my opinions on gender politics in Western society and provide a bit of balance to this guild.

By the way, kudos if you read the whole post.

Questions, comments, opinions, flames?

Well . . . I did see a recruitment commercial at a showing of Memoirs of a Geisha once . . .

But you are right, my complaint is mostly aimed at American society.

My main complaint is this: you did exactly what I was afraid you'd do and generalized that all women are man-hating and buy into the stereotypes you mentioned. You went as far as to call them female ideas and say we all have them and are using them to twist children. This may as well have been Hashbrown's thread: part deux. But instead of cruel brutish men it's about manipulative power-hungry women.

I'll start by saying this, not all women are your mother. So while she was the main female role-model in your life, you can't base your entire knowledge of women on her or her ideas. No more then I base mine about men on my father, if I did, I'd think you were all a bunch of lazy sexist slobs who think girls are only good for cleaning and should have to do everything while you sit at home playing all day.

The next thing I'd like to leave you with is the ACTUAL definition of feminism, not the male-bashing tripe that gets passed off as feminism. There are many people who call themselves feminists who are not about equality of the sexes at all, just as there are many people who are Christians who don't embrace the idea of unconditional love and forgiveness which should be one of the most prominent beliefs of their faith. In both cases, some people are just assholes and it's human nature to want to be superior to others. Everyone to some extent does it.

But the dictionary definition before I digress again:

feminism n (1895) 1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes 2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests -- feminist n or adj -- feministic adj

*Taken from Sar's article about what Feminism actually is: http://www.tomatonation.com/youare.shtml

One more point, the hatred of men is called MISANDRY. You now have a new vocabulary word. While not as commonly used as misogyny, more then half the people I talk to don't know that one either. It's not exactly a daily word everyone uses.

So while I understand you're angry, I don't feel you accomplished what you wanted to. You just spewed a lot of angry crap right back at women and thought that should even the score. Which, come on, that doesn't help anyone and it definitely doesn't make it right. Generalizing on either side and villifying obviously don't work. There are horrible men in this world, there are horrible women. There are negative stereotypes about men, there are negative stereotypes about women. Men are portrayed on TV in a negative light, women are portrayed on TV in a negative light.

The only point I will concede to you in all of this, because it's fact and not opinion, is that yes, the CURRENT academic environment does favor little girls over boys, only because they generally have problems focusing and sitting still. So they're pushing learning standards earlier when girls are more likely to be able to handle them and boys aren't ready yet and sadly, we're seeing a flip of what was happening when I was in grade school: boys are now falling behind. We're also seeing recess being taken out of over half of elementary schools and more losing them every day which leads to too much energy and lack of focus.

15 years ago, none of this stuff was happening and I was still being told things like, "It's ok if you can't do math, sweetie, girls just can't do that." Most of my teachers believed that girls just couldn't learn as much as boys do, but most of my teachers were older then the teachers I see in elementary schools now. So hopefully you will believe me when I say I understand the pain of seeing someone else and their strengths favored over mine or being shot down before you get a chance. And at your age I can understand that to you, it seems like thing have always been the way you see them now, but they've changed alot even in my lifetime. I think it's going to take awhile to see a balance in education where both boys and girls can thrive in it.

I'm not going to really touch on your comments about TV shows, because any day someone tries to argue that Lois from Family Guy is the voice of reason, I get scared and don't take it seriously. Or Lois from Malcom, or even the mother from The War at Home. Most of the women in those examples show anything but reason and are usually neurotic and two of the three have drinking problems. Definitely not your strongest argument. And failing to mention that all of these same shows stereotype women as being vain, petty, self-absorbed, etc., would weaken the point you've actually made, but would have strengthened your argument that you're about equality.

And on that note, trying to search out lists for writers on said shows [I chose Family Guy for mine], I popped up only male names. Sorry, no female axis of evil producing those pieces.

Equality starts with the individual. Until you and everyone of us can see people as individuals rather then genders/races/etc and judge them based on that, there won't be true equality or peace. And contrary to what you've said, it's not exactly a problem that no one has noticed or addressed before, nor is it purely a problem with oppressive women trying to put men down, as you tried to simplify it as.

I will agree that my earlier post was a lot more of a rant than I had intended. I apologize.

Also, I do not believe that ALL women hate men, nor do I believe that ALL men hate women. However, I do see that there is a kind of underlying power struggle between the two sexes. Frankly, I think that this is harmful whichever way the scales tip.

I resent the idea that I base my perceptions of all women on my mother. That is a very played-out stereotype. To the point, however, I respect women in general. In fact, I would think that I draw more inspiration from the women I know than from the men. But I will acknowledge that my father, a bitter b*****d though he may be, has indeed shaped my thoughts in more ways than I notice.

I would argue, however, that television, in its portrayal of gender roles, is not as balanced as you say it is, but at the same time it is not as lopsided as I had made it out to be. Perhaps the most accurate statement would be that both genders are portrayed in a negative light, but it is men who come out worse for the wear. This is what I have noticed:

a.) Men doing stupid/harmful things are doing them either because they are self-serving, they hurt someone else, or they have no reason at all, while women are generally justified (i.e. Peter Griffin blows off dinner with his wife to build a bar in the basement so he can drink with his buddies. Lois Griffin begins taking martial arts classes to empower herself because she feels that Peter disrespects her.).

b.) The males' actions are often of a greater magnitude than the females' (Hal knocks out his bedroom wall with a sledgehammer. Lois gets drunk and decides to scratch another woman's car with a key.).

c.) Males are more likely to commit stupid/harmful acts than females(# of episodes centered around Homer or Bart doing something stupid: <200. # of episodes centered around Lisa or Marge doing something stupid: >10.)

d.) More often than not, it is up to the women to set things straight.

In the world of drama, I know of only one (very unsuccessful) movie about spousal abuse where the husband was the victim. The popular portrayal of domestic violence is the drunken/enraged/psychotic husband beating the defenseless wife. Though I will admit that there have been occassions where the male is the victim.

It occurs in commercials too. I remember a car commercial where a woman is adeptly rearranging the seats in her minivan (the focal point of the ad) while her husband is shaking a baby stroller, trying to collapse it. In the end, the wife calmly reaches over and undoes a latch that collapses the stroller. The husband looks on incredulously.

Then again, these could be construed as propogating the idea that women are primarily caregivers, or that women are meek. And again, these are fairly general, and there are exceptions to the rule.

Kukushka: I do sympathize with you when I hear about your school life. I too was on the condescendee end of relationship. I guess that shows how much the paradigm has shifted in the past few years. But I do disagree with you when you say sexism is to blame for hiring practices. The Ottawa firm's experiment illustrates more of a discrimination based on appearances than one based on gender, which are different issues in their own rights. Studies have shown that handsome criminals are likely to receive 50% shorter sentences than uglier ones, that good-looking defendants are more likely to be acquitted, and that a similar gap occurs among men when it comes to reporting sexual harassment. For that matter, consider the Lifetime-style wifebeater dramas I mentioned above. How often is the good guy handsome? How often is the wifebeater ugly?

And yes, when it comes to sex lives, women get the s**t end of the stick.

Finally, I resent the idea that this thread could be considered the male counterpart to the Hashbrown thread. Have I advocated that all women be led around naked on leather leashes? Have I ever said that women are the root of all evil, or that women should not be mentioned in history books?

3nodding QFE. That's where I had attempted to go at the end of my own post. The focus needs to go to people as individuals rather then fighting for one gender's rights vs. the others. It needs to go that way on most issues.


I'm still going to agree with my original point on the TV shows like Kukushka has pointed out: none of those are good examples of your point you wanted to make. Having watched some of those as long as I have, the 'rational' character is usually a minor one on the outside who makes observations. None of the women in any of those shows are rational or overly competent, they screw up just as much as their husbands do and they're just as idiotic. Who screws up to the greater extent really is left up to opinion. In the Malcom example you gave, Hal tends to screw up due to an accident or blunder which is harmless, but Lois does things because she's vindictive and out to get people. So in the one you cited, I'd argue hers is a far greater a mistake because her aim is to hurt.

In domestic abuse situations, only about 10% of reported incidents are from men saying their wives or female counterparts abuse them. Now whether that's because that's the true situation or only because men refuse to report it, I don't know. But it is what it is. Women are more likely to be victims of domestic abuse and stay in the situations and as such, you will see more of that portrayed in the media. Current statistics say that 1/4 women will live in an abusive situation like this. So those shows aim to reach out and speak to them or the people who know them. If it's a more wide-spread problem for men, I don't think it will be addressed until they start coming forward more and talking about it.

The thing is, that's television, we can't base real life on that. Those are exaggerated and comes down to the writers of those shows. I'm just saying that talking about inequality and stereotypes is different in real life and real practice and real thought, rather than a fictional world. It's like satire. It's like taking SNL's political skits and saying that is the world news.