A few questions about modern feminism (Q3 might trigger, I don't know if it will)

[Burke1]

Hi Mumsnet I'm a man in my early 20's and I was hoping to ask you a couple of questions about feminism and gender equality.

1. Do you feel that men and women are equal in terms of opportunity, and legal/social rights in society today?

1. What is your opinion on quotas such as "This company aims to increase female recruitment by 10% over the next 2 years", or all-women shortlists?

1. I've noticed on mumsnet that some women view all men as potential attackers because something bad has happened to them in the past. Why is this?

I personally wouldn't describe myself as feminist, because to me the "fem" part suggests it's a one-way thing that only covers female rights and not male rights. Personally I just believe in "people" having rights because that's who we are, the fact that some of us have a dick and some of us have a vagina shouldn't factor into what rights we get. I know some people will consider that what I've just described is feminism, and while it's fine for you to have that opinion, my equally valid opinion is that it's not feminism. I'm not interested in an argument over who thinks what is defined as what, but I would quite like to see some answers to my questions because I am interested in this topic. Thank you to anyone who decides to talk

"I've seen plenty of campaigns about domestic violence but they almost always portray it as though it's a woman being the victim (which I think is sexist because men get abused to). For example most of the posters I see tend to say that you shouldn't hit "her" or a helpline for if you are abusing "your wife". "

Do you really think that campaigners against DV should waste their resources by targeting everyone, rather than targeting the majority perpetrator group?

Something in the region of 90% of domestic violence perps are men and something in that region of victims are women. It makes sense to direct resources where they are most effective. There is no point doing a campaign sternly telling single octogenarian women not to commit DV. They don't have much opportunity to commit it. That doesn't mean that if octogenarian women are committing DV, that's OK, but it does mean that in a world where financial resources are extremely restricted to campaigners against DV, it would be wilfully stupid for them not to try and target those scarce resources responsibly - ie as effectively as they can.

They wouldn't be wasting money by targeting everyone, they would actually be reaching more people for the same amount of money. My concern is that constantly acting like DV only really affects women by saying the "majority" of cases are male-on-female has caused this discrimination against men where a woman abusing her male partner is largely seen by society as a laugh, and "he must have deserved it somehow". We've just about eradicated the attitudes of the past where hitting a woman was ok if she "deserved" it, yet no/very very little progress has been made in that area regarding female-on-male abuse.

I suppose the issue for me isn't so much the advertising about DV as the facts of it. Absolutely it's more known that it's 'not ok' but the fact remains that an awful lot of men still do it and really not very many women, comparatively.

I agree in theory that campaigns could try to reach out to everyone. I think it's interesting that campaigns need to 'reach' a certain gender, as though you'd need to speak differently to a man vs a woman.

However the previous point about money is valid I think. It is not big budgets paying for this stuff and so I guess they need to focus on the bigger problem. Also, DV against men by women leads to death very very rarely. Much more often when it's the other way around. It seems to me that with those things being the case, it makes sense that things are the way they are- I don't think many people think it's a laugh or not serious when women are perpetrators of DV- maybe the same people who'd say a woman 'deserved' it- which as you say isn't many these days.

I agree op.

suicide as well is a silent epidemic amongst men that is largely ignored.

So do something about it. Have a look at te causes and work to combat them.

Burke, all posters, even government information ones, have a target in mind for the numbers of people reached and influenced. If a drink drive campaign can afford 500 poster slots for a week, is it better putting those posters in nightclubs or community centres? Different demographic concentrations will visit both and some potential drink drivers will be in each group.

Having picked a target demographic, probably the one with the largest problem, the posters need to make an impact on them. Are they likely to be parents of young children ? Show a child as a victim or a child receiving the bad news. Etc.

MrBloom, the Samaritans certainly reflect their demographic in their posters, the current campaign is people talking about how the charity helped them and the one that sticks in my mind is a 40 something guy.

CALM also recently had a major campaign and they are explicitly focussed on men.

What do you think of those two charities?

Didn't we have a thread about CALM? A while back. I seem to remember one of the posters being involved in the charity?

Yes, we did.

CALM have posters all over the local shopping centre. By the OPs logic, they should instead be putting them in women's toilets instead.

Most street-sweepers and bin-collectors are men. Should we enforce some "positive discrimination" to get more women into those jobs?

Topical, jwukk, given all the equal pay cases where councils tried to get around equal pay by giving bonuses to binmen, but not care home supervisors.

juwukk, absolutely no one was complaining about CALM. A PP mentioned male suicide; CALM is campaigning in this area.

Seriously?

Oh, your post leads me to believe you might be the charmer who equated objecting to advertising with a naked woman saying 'ride me all day for £3' to objecting to breast cancer prevention.

Yawn.

I think if you want to see a positive change, either do something about it yourself or donate to charity so they can do it on your behalf. It really is that simple. What issues other people choose to focus on is up to them.

Slightly YY my sister is paid less than the refuse collectors in her area. Her job is classed as "skilled" requiring a lot more training and focus than refuse collecting. Their wages were raised in the name of fairness and a living wage - her sector's in the same council wasn't.
Guess what, it's 90% female.
And in a meeting it was never quite said but implied the "living wage" thing wasn't such an issue because they'd all be married to a higher wage earner, surely? So they were just being selfish and demanding for tge sake of it taking money from those male refuse collectors struggling to feed families --perhaps because their DP'S were being underpaid??).

squizita, do you know if your sister or her colleagues are able to persue it further?

I think the union is dealing with it now.
As with many councils a lot of pro equality language and rules are a veneer over 1950s values.

"They wouldn't be wasting money by targeting everyone, they would actually be reaching more people for the same amount of money. "

But they would not be reaching the people they need to reach.

There is no point reaching people who are not in your target group.

That's why luxury brands don't advertise in the Sun. Yes, they'd reach millions more people than they do by advertising in the Economist, but so what? Those people aren't in the market for their products.

It's really basic targeting. The most junior media planner understand this, Burke. Hell, probably someone with a media studies GCSE understands it.

Well that came as a surprise. The OP wasn't posting in good faith. I'd never have guessed that would happen.

Hint for the future OP, if you want to talk about your belief that men get a bum deal, because they make up 10% of the victims of DV but don't get 50% of the money/advertising/awareness raising, it might be an idea to mention that in your OP. So we can pass it over like all the other MRE threads we get.

Thanks.

"3. I've noticed on mumsnet that some women view all men as potential attackers because something bad has happened to them in the past. Why is this?"

Because feminists are close-minded and rigid thinking. One man does something bad so they think all ~4 billion males in the world are all evil.

It makes as much sense as hating all muslims just because of the actions of a very tiny minority who are terrorists.

zayyele... have you noticed you've made the same mistake as you are accusing others of?

Feminists are not all one homogenous mass who all think exactly alike. So you are making exactly the same error by asserting that all feminists are "closed minded and rigid thinking".

Zayele often posts such tripe, Culture, save your pixels.