Some men cannot cope with feminism's victory

No holly, I will decline. No good ever comes of it. I had a couple of questions earlier, so I asked them, and people were good enough to reply. Me offering answers to stuff that goes against the consensus just turns what is an interesting thread into a bunfight. Then I get accused of splaining, of not thinking about women, of not realising that because I am not one, I can never 'get it'.

I liked the OP because it had a positive aspect, which is not always the case on FwR. That is why I took an interest.

Or by questoning his apathy towards female patriarch-compliancy.

It just helps that society works to his advantage.
As much as men don't have an interest in keeping women down... Your everyday man has no interest in advancing the rights of women by eg. Working part time so his dw can work full time.

"I don't think men have an interest in keeping women down - at least no more than they have an interest in keeping any other rival down"

So how would you explain the following?

• Women still do far more of the housework and childcare than men, regardless of whether they work more, the same amount or less than their partners. wes.sagepub.com/content/29/1/23.full%20

• Women still paid around 19% less than men across the UK? (16% across the EU)

There are a thousand other issues I could raise, but let's start with those two.

Yops: I believe that it is a commonly-held view on FwR, and in some other feminist communities. That was my point, rather than I believe it to be true. And that is why I asked you the question - which you haven't answered. Do you believe that men subjugate women for their own benefit? I don't care what you think we believe, I'd like to know what you think. Just so we all know where people are coming from.

I didn't answer it because, certainly in here, I/we have to tread very carefully, otherwise I get the dreaded mansplaining net cast over me. And frankly my opinion won't count for much - which is fine. But no, I don't think men hate women. I don't think men deliberately subjugate women. I don't think men have an interest in keeping women down - at least no more than they have an interest in keeping any other rival down. I think the powerful shit on the less powerful. A greedy, powerful man has no vested interest in uplifting another man just because of his gender - he will become a direct rival.

/'splaining

"Feminism's victory"?

When was that then? I must have missed it................

HA!

adds evo-bollocks to list of current favourite words

I'm not sure why, but I suppose I assumed scenario a, that power structures have been reversed but history is as it was.

Yops: I believe that it is a commonly-held view on FwR, and in some other feminist communities. That was my point, rather than I believe it to be true. And that is why I asked you the question - which you haven't answered. Do you believe that men subjugate women for their own benefit? I don't care what you think we believe, I'd like to know what you think. Just so we all know where people are coming from.

And I don't think a fair and equitable world is a pipe dream. I think it may be a long time coming but I think it is something we should all be striving for.

Agreed abbieanders with your 07:15 post this morning. That was what I was trying to say.

No, that was certainly not my conclusion. I have no idea how you arrived at that.

Yes I mostly agree with abbie, world problems are mostly down to wealth divides. Her conclusion is that we shouldn't have more powerful women. Mine is that we should.

squidzin - I think you and abbie might be arguing very similar points. I read it as her saying that class oppression and gender oppression are tied together in various ways, and that both need to be overcome together, which would mean reimagining the way that society works.

Maybe I have misread, though.

*why should
oops

abbieanders
I think there is more opression by the wealthy upon the poor. When you find women (Merkel, Thatcher) in positions of power the continue and often exacerbate the class war.

So yeah, more of the same in different underwear. But why shouldn't women be collectively denied access to this power?

To overcome class war we need powerful men and women. Women know more poverty than men.

Back to men needing piv more than women, so much that they have to pay for it... Sorry I know the topic has moved on (but for personal reasons I have given this a lot of thought). Linked to "Oh men just can't help themselves".

My previous point that sexual desire is not exclusively owned by men. Women have equal desire. We may orgasm more through clitoral stimulation/ need more foreplay yadayada. But still women don't buy sexual services to fulfill their desire (can you imagine "It's only cunnilingus" argument). Women cheat on partners as frequently as men. Men pay for sex 1m times more than women.

Paying for sex, marking your position as the one with all the money and all the more important desire, is linked to opression of female desire and authority.

Women help themselves. I don't openly embarrass male passer-bys or men in bars by calling out etc. Men do 1m x more than women.

Why? Society places men and male desire, male authority, male freedom, male free will, right at the top. Women are taught to be compliant. Paying for sexual services highlights this compliancy and you simply do not find it the other way round (women paying for sex).

Sorry, I'm feeding baby and on a phone so I can't copy and paste. Why do I think things would be different? I don't think that it's because women would necessarily be different, but because the process of women becoming socially, domestically, politically and public life-ily domininant would involve massive social change, which I imagine would render our current modes obsolete.

It's not that I think woman are better, just that the process of change of that magnitude would mean society would change.

We may find that it is a case of more Merkels, fewer Blairs, in other words, much the same with different underwear, but I doubt it.

I disagree that desire is somehow prior to acculturation.

But even if that weren't the case, there is a huge difference between feeling desire and acting upon it. And 'acting' needs to be defined in a much more precise way than having sex - in a way that can capture micro-behavioural reactions to desire, and particularly the way that the gaze is used to oppress.

I know every woman in this thread will know what I mean. You're out, in a bar, on the street, and a guy turns his head to look at you. And it's not just a casual look - it has a meaning: to make eye contact, to get you to notice him, to appraise you and to mark you out as a target for his desire. (The more overt ones will stop, turn around and make a remark). And - once you get over the teenage stage of infantile narcissistic delight at recognition - you find yourself caught up in an exchange that you never agreed to, an exchange that makes it clear that you do not 'own' this space, that you are in some way visually 'up for grabs'. And sometimes, if you don't acknowledge it, you'll get rudeness and aggression - because you've flouted the 'rules' that say that you must acknowledge your own submission in this environment.

I hate the way that those small gestural things that are so oppressive somehow get sectioned off as 'private' and thus 'OK'. You get men saying things like 'I just can't HELP it'. Actually, you can - this is a habitual pattern of behaviour, not a reflex reaction. I know plenty of heterosexual men who DON'T do it. And I'm sick of having to walk around staring into the middle distance to avoid this eye contact and this exchange.

Oh, and I was looking at it from an equal power-sharing perspective, not that women had somehow supplanted/subjugated men.

I accept that anything is possible, abbie, and this is a thought experiment. But why do you - or anyone - think things would be different? I am not being goady - I just wonder what the premise is, given that bar a couple of organs, men and women are exactly the same? We have the same emotions, the same urges, the same drives and ambitions, and bar the top few per cent, the same physical capabilities.

There is no evidence that if women ruled the world, without the current patriarchal structures, that they would behave like men currently do.

I find this whole "if women ran the world" thought experiment to be a bit shallow for that reason. It rests on the idea that because one sex has effectively run the world to date, the other would just take over in the same positions. But this can't be true. If women had the power that men have now, we wouldn't recognise the setup at all, I think. It would be a level of social change ghats difficult to imagine. What would women do with power in a reality that doesn't exist? Who can say?