Do you think that men are oppressed?

[poshsinglemum]

For example; the traditional male role is to go out and work so technically men are oppressed by capitalism. Aren't they? Mabe not as oppressed as us girls are though. Thoughts please.

TSH - read the thread, you will find that many of these things have already been discussed. As for the rest - I've been through all these things with you before. You repeatedly scrape up anything you can think of where men are worse off...it must be a real struggle.

In response to TheShriekingHarpy,

"Women have a myriad of choices. They can simultaneously assume the role of the working parent (through part-time work and/or flexible hours) and carer."

Does any legislation prevent men doing this?

"womens hour (radio..although I recall hearing about "Men hour" which was only recently instigated Approximatelly 64 years after the equivalent Womens hour was introduced."

"The Locker Room" was a men's equivalent of "Woman's Hour" which ran for several years in the early to mid 1990s.

"There is also the issue of hazardous professions (armed services, sewage maintenance, roofer etc)."

I read on the Skeptifem blog that the most dangerous job in America is prostitute. The death rate for prostitutes in the U.S. is 204 out of every 100,000. For fishermen, it's 129 out of every 100,000.

'"Women have a myriad of choices. They can simultaneously assume the role of the working parent (through part-time work and/or flexible hours) and carer."

Does any legislation prevent men doing this?'

How many women do you know that would want to work and let the man stay at home or go part time? I doubt there would be many, personally I have never met one. Its societal expectations not many women would go out with a man that wont work at all.

'"There is also the issue of hazardous professions (armed services, sewage maintenance, roofer etc)."

I read on the Skeptifem blog that the most dangerous job in America is prostitute. The death rate for prostitutes in the U.S. is 204 out of every 100,000. For fishermen, it's 129 out of every 100,000.'

Look at the miners in Chile that are stuck until Christmas something like that would never happen to a woman. Prostitutes on the street are usually women or girls that have experienced difficult lives and if it was legal and regulated it would stop this from happening as much imo. Up market call girls and lapdancers do it because they want to and the money but the lower end of this market the girls are often forced.

I am not saying that there arent many women that have hard and difficult lives but there are many men that do to. It is silly to say one group has a more difficult life than the other it depends on who you are and how you look at it. You can argue this until the cows come home but some men and women are very priviledged and some men and women are marginalised and suffer for what ever reason.

But no matter how many poorly paid and dangerous jobs men are doing, other men are doing the best paid, most rewarded and powerful jobs in the world. It's therefore ridiculous to say that that is an argument for men being oppressed. It's like saying white people are oppressed because lots of white people are in the army - yes but they're also running the country.

Yeah but ElephantsandMiasmas there are poorly paid women doing crappy jobs but there are also many priviledged housewives that have nannies, cleaners etc and just have to go to the salon etc and not have any stresses. (Nothing wrong with either way of life but obviously huge disparities.

I dont bulk all women in together and say all women do x, y, z because I have met women that have awful lives and women that have had lovely, stresfree lives. I wont say I wont help women with DV as there are many women living priveledged existences because that is ridiculous. I think the same goes the other way round.

Sunny2010 wrote
"I really dont see the point of arguing who has it worse."
then
"Look at the miners in Chile that are stuck until Christmas something like that would never happen to a woman. Prostitutes on the street are usually women or girls that have experienced difficult lives and if it was legal and regulated it would stop this from happening as much imo. Up market call girls and lapdancers do it because they want to and the money but the lower end of this market the girls are often forced."

I sincerely hope those miners are rescued as soon as possible. It must be awful to be stuck for so long underground.

In your comparison between male miners and female sex workers, why do you take the "happy in their freely chosen career" line with the women in your comparison but not apply that to the male miners?

Some men probably are happy to be miners, some are not. Same as with sex workers. Some feminists say that all women must hate to work in sex industry and it must be put a stop to. Thats not true I have worked in a strip club at the bar and have been friends with many strippers who really enjoyed their job. I also have done webcam and phone line sex work and it was a laugh and turn on that just happened to make me cash. I would have no problem with my daughters or sons doing it if they wanted to.

It goes either way there are people oppressed in all areas but that doesnt mean the whole group are oppressed by it.

Let's see, could it be because it's been less than 100 years since women were accorded the right to vote, just 40 years since the right to equal pay was enshrined in law, less than 35 years since women were able to claim mortgages or bank loans in their own right without a male guarantor, and even now the pay gap between men and women in full time work of equal value is 16.4%?

I don't want you to restrain yourself TSH, so I'll reprint my post from earlier: "of course some men are oppressed - gay men in Uganda for example [and there has been a huge discussion of economic factors on here as well, look up]. But "men" as a group aren't oppressed. Whereas women, as a group, are. Some more than others but all at a basic level."

TSH: "I do want to address and challenge this counterfactual, erroneous idea that men don't experience hardship, discrimination, "oppression" or whatever" - you might get a bit lonely arguing with yourself on that, because everyone has acknowledged that men can experience all these things. They just don't experience them because of being men, but because of other factors.

restrain strain. In fact I would love you to restrain yourself, or maybe even retrain yourself. :)

sunny2010 wrote
"How many women do you know that would want to work and let the man stay at home or go part time? I doubt there would be many, personally I have never met one. Its societal expectations not many women would go out with a man that wont work at all."

I know quite a few women whose male partner stays at home or works part-time and does most of the childcare.

I searched for some statistics on stay-at home-dads. So far, I have seen estimates of more than 190,000 for the UK at the f-word and also here.

I think the situation is much more likely to arise after children come along in an existing stable relationship rather than when a woman and man are assessing each other as potential dating material before any relationship has even started.

The men in question had full-time jobs before the children were born and they have been prepared and able to sacrifice their career, something that is assumed most mothers rather than fathers should do.

TheShriekingHarpy and sunny2010,

when I asked my question

""Women have a myriad of choices. They can simultaneously assume the role of the working parent (through part-time work and/or flexible hours) and carer."

Does any legislation prevent men doing this?"

It was a genuine question asked out of curiosity. I am very well aware that society puts pressure and expectations upon everyone. I simply wonder if there is any additional legal barrier preventing men from doing what you implied they are not allowed to do (due to social pressure or discrimination or oppression).

That stat is for women and men in comparable full time employment, so all that biological stuff/sacrifices while relevant to the wider issue, is irrelevant to the truth of that figure. There is a discussion on the negotiation issue above, which showed (since you obviously CBA to read the thread) that people perceive women who "negotiate" to up their salary as "less nice" and are less keen to work with them. So women who don't negotiate hard are in fact reading the signs correctly, that they would be disliked/less likely to find work than if they just take what they're given.

do produce them!

why is the US collecting data on the UK's pay gap anyway? they've got their own issues

TheShriekingHarpy,

I wrote -
"I read on the Skeptifem blog that the most dangerous job in America is prostitute. The death rate for prostitutes in the U.S. is 204 out of every 100,000. For fishermen, it's 129 out of every 100,000."

TheShriekingHarpy replied -

"As a collective whole though (ie the sum total figure for men employed in hazardous roles vs women in equivalent professions ) it is still demonstrably apparent that men tend to be deployed for these type of roles. Of course you're correct though, prostitution can be decidedly dangerous in itself."

It appears one of the reasons for that statistic was made the subject of that blog entry was to highlight the fact that official figures didn't even bother to include prostitutes (or housewives).