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.

HA!

adds evo-bollocks to list of current favourite words

"Feminism's victory"?

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

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

"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.

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.

Or by questoning his apathy towards female patriarch-compliancy.

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.

I respect you enough not to butt in any further. How is that?

I've often wondered if and how the world would look if women had had more power. Even if you change just one thing, say matrilineal inheritance instead of patrilineal, what would the effects have been? Or down to seemingly innocuous things like architecture. Would the Washington Monument be a dome?

Would it be two domes, NiNo? lol.
Would there be the hijab (getting serious...)?

One big dome with a smaller one on top

But if you listen to some architects, they'll tell you that the way we live in and occupy a building shapes your life and affects your mood. So I wonder if we didn't have all these phallic buildings about and had lower, rounder ones, would that affect hierarchical societal structures too? Like Arthur's round table, style of thing. I may also be talking complete arse!

Got to take DS to the doctor now, but will be back later!

The biggest phallic symbol in London, The Shard, is also completely empty. Basically a massive eye-sore waste of space.

Millions of people homeless. Millions of empty spaces in some sort of phallic triumph...

I asked a couple of posters other than you, Buffy, a couple of questions. The someone asked me a direct question, and I responded. But what it feels like now is that I've been caught by the school prefect and asked what I'm doing sneaking around the grounds.

I haven't goaded you into anything. I don't believe I even addressed you. You took that upon yourself.

I dont know why seatbelts can't be X shaped and clasp in the middle of the chest.

They would, which is why they have similar in children's seats.

In that case, we'd have to consider socialisation pretty heavily in the mix, rather than some culturally relative trans-fucking-historical testicles of objectivity theory about evo-bollocks, I reckon.

Yes exactly. This is why I think that society would have gone such a radical change that it's impossible to speculate about what the effects would be - we don't really know what would create the circumstances where women are socialised differently, what other aspects of society would have changed in tandem and whether life is organised around power and profession.

Would there be the hijab

Interestingly, with the matrilineal Tuareg people, it's the men that take the veil upon acheiving manhood.

The wiki entry on matrilineality is also fascinating reading (if a little oddly written in places).