Some men cannot cope with feminism's victory

[jezestbelle]

Spent the evening yesterday with a male friend of a few years standing who I see from time to time. We always talk about everything and since DS left home I have more time. I had a really really long in depth chat with him about the different pressures on men and women. He is I have to say relatively empathetic about women and societal expectations, entitled men etc. He did make one point which made me think. He said that nobody actually chooses to have sexual feelings, and how much he longed to be able to temporarily switch them off, for example long periods when he has been single. I did of course counter that believe itornot women also experience such feelings, but he said he knew that but was just relating his own experience. He also said he reckons just about every example of unacceptable male behaviour is down to insecurity, and that many men cannot deal with women having relative success in the modern world. Well too bad! I do feel we women are on the up in general and men are..not.

Yops,

IF that is what feminism is, then I am a feminist! It is when some feminists start talking about the 'patriarchy's' tendency to violence and evil, and that the World would be a different place were women running it that I take issue.

I am all for equality and allowing women and men to try to achieve what they can and, as you say, be equally prattish about what they do with it.

Given that according to various studies a high proportion of women don't orgasm through PIV I would imagine men's 'need' for PIV is higher than that of women. There are some women who go through their whole lives never orgasming during sex and plenty of others who go off sex entirely at some point, possibly for the rest of their lives.

Larry - I've never read any feminist saying that the world would be different if women ran it - can you point me to where you found that?

As a woman, I have no desire to 'run' the world, whatever that might mean. I simply want to improve the way I and other women can live our lives.

I don't believe we have got there yet, but hope springs eternal.

Funny how we all throw around 'if women ran the world' - men and women alike, and quite often those who claim feminism has 'succeeded' or that feminists are power hungry or want all men dead or something and yet in that statement we all admit we know who runs the world.

And aint that strange.

The only difference will be that there will be more women of power, equally abusing it as men have over the years.

That is feminism in a nutshell though, isn't it? What is good for the goose etc.

No. HTH.

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

As a woman, I have no desire to 'run' the world, whatever that might mean. I simply want to improve the way I and other women can live our lives.

If the men in charge were 'nicer', would it matter that they still ran the world? Or do you think it would be a better situation if there was a 50/50 split of those in power between men and women? I don't really get this. If it's still 99 per cent male dominated, I cannot see the lot of women improving. The common consensus appears to be that men continue to subjugate women for their own benefit. How else do you change this?

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

Women and men are both human. Brain difference is somewhere between minimal and non-existent. All societies need a structure of some sort. There may be no evidence that women would behave like men, but that is simply because you haven't had a crack at it yet. Unless there are significant biological differences between the sexes that compel men to be more divisive, greedy, cruel and violent, I put it to you that it would be pretty much what we see now.

Why wouldn't it? HTFH.

I think the key is that you are looking at it as if we would be under similar conditions to now. With the same discriminations, levels of violence etc. That wouldn't necessarily be the case.

It's all a bit irrelevant though isn't it? Because we don't one sex to rule the world. We want oppression to disappear and differences to be celebrated not be discriminated against.

The common consensus appears to be that men continue to subjugate women for their own benefit. Do you believe this, Yops?

Actually, Yops, in my vision of an ideal world, there would be no hierarchical power structures at all, so there would be no need o split the power 50-50 between men and women.

There would be a community based sharing of responsibilities and duties and decision making, with real education and discussion, so that people understand the consequences and ramifications of their decisions.

But I am realistic enough to understand that my personal dreams are just that. So in the meantime, as a feminist I believe we should work from the bottom up. There are fewer women at the top, and those that are, like the men, are in a position of privilege. Therefore, it is the women at the bottom who most need help and change. Up from the grassroots, and eventually it will get to the people in power.

The common consensus appears to be that men continue to subjugate women for their own benefit. Do you believe this, 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.

Like DenPas, I want a fair and equitable world. But we all know that it's a bit of a pipe dream. In the meantime, i'd like as close to 50-50 representations of men and women in all walks of life. I just sometimes get the impression that people (well, feminists really) believe that this will automatically pan out into some sort of Utopian society, as though women are somehow more inherently fair and just, and lacking in vices. I accept that this is only my interpretation though.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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).

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.

*why should
oops

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.

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.

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

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.

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