Suicide-a feminist issue?

[whenwomenruletheworld]

Tragically high male suicide rates have I think wrongly painted this as a men's issue. Aren't all the suicides men and women tragedies? And if the "man up/grow a pair" culture is in part responsible for men killing themselves in such numbers, when will society see feminism as the main opponent to the patriarchal bullshit which creates these gender stereotypes as the main hope for both men and women of dismantling them? It is disheartening to hear men talk disparagingly about feminism when my God the alternatives PUA nonsense MRA, UKIP, are so totally discredited. As someone posted on here when will there be a men's rights movement which embraces feminism as it's sister movement and which focuses on things which damage everyone?

Well no not at all you have Human Rights which covers it all don't you think?

I think the non-human animals might disagree with you on that.

Even a man at the bottom of the pile can hate women.

Actually, I think that men at the bottom of the pile could hate women MORE, if they have been so trained to do so. I am not sure if it is a Mao quote or made up - but "keep them stupid, keep them poor and give them someone to hate". I think in a lot of cases men blame women for where they are - unfairly.

Well unless like certain Romans you want horses to stand for public office, I'd be inclined to deny them certain rights....

I think that's a dangerous misnomer misogyny is ubiquitous across society, a woman is no more or less likely to suffer domestic abuse according economic/social status.

Well unless like certain Romans you want horses to stand for public office, I'd be inclined to deny them certain rights.

Well, maybe that is only because you are conditioned to think that. Should Koko the gorilla have a right to vote? Do we do it on an animal by animal basis? (sorry to digress - just another interesting topic).

No Koko the gorilla shouldn't get the vote. Digression over.

Well no not at all you have Human Rights which covers it all don't you think?

So, assuming a human rights movement covers all of the issues / problems faced - what is to ensure that it leads to appropriate outcomes for all people? Wouldn't we just end up with the same challenge - ie being accused of hijacked to look after rich, white men ahead of everyone else?

Or do you believe everyone will suddenly change not only years of experience and history, but their own social conditioning and jump on board?

Or would you set it up to be some sort of arbiter of what was right for different groups and fight on individual issues?

There is a discussion to be had about the feminization of the workforce. This thread has used examples of men's work e.g. binmen and coalminers, as dangerous and masculine.

However, women did work down the mines in exactly the same numbers as men right up until Victorian times when pictures of them stripped naked to the waist caused a scandal. This is pretty much true of all heavy dangerous jobs. Women have always done them but many men choose to ignore the fact.

It's also true that the more men do a job the higher the status and wages. As a job becomes feminised, the status and wages drop. This can be seen in secretarial work, teaching and lately medicine. The reverse effect can be seen in IT where the early 'computers' were all women. As men joined the profession, wages rose and women were forced out.

As for binmen, that bastion of masculine dangerous working conditions, keeping it all male benefits men

Thanks slug that is a really interesting article. It also makes me wonder (and my knowledge of history in this area is non-existent) how long has the world of work been quite so skewed towards patriarchy?

Was patriarchal ownership of occupations enforced as part of the industrial revolution? Until then, I imagine if you owned a mill the whole family worked, if you owned a farm the whole family worked etc. In those cases would it be a family by family case of who was in charge?

I realise I might be confusing several issues here.

Because of pregnancy/breastfeeding, women have often worked at home whilst also supervising children, then the children could begin working alongside them. So a woman might spin, a younger child might card (comb out) the wool, a man might collect the wool from sheep farmers - or have an entirely different job such as working a field.

Don't forget the even pre IR, farms were probably worked by more people than their owners and the families.

In that sense, every man is a patriarch: even if they do not have these things, they are absorbed in a cultural story that says they are entitled to them. Yes, even if a man is gay and has no interest in sexual relationships with women, he still lives in a culture where women are for these things. That is their purpose, according to this cultural story we are told.

It is this entitlement to these things that men are inculcated with that leads to a great number of the issues that feminism regards as oppressive.

That is a really interesting take. Does that mean even if you were raised and believe none of the above things to be true, you are STILL a patriarch? That if you are raised to reject them (or raised and then choose to reject them) you are still a patriarch?

Certainly, I come from a long line of families where women rule the roost quite considerably. And if I was ever found to think this way I would have been for the high jump.

In that way, am I stained by who I am, rather than what I do? Doesn't that sound a bit familiar?

Even if you are raised to reject these issues, you still benefit from them. You are paid more, leaders of businesses/councils/the country all reflect you and your needs. Your issues are treated as important and mainstream rather than as "special interests" Your gender and it's issues is reflected on the screen and in media. When you speak, people listen. You are not told to stop being shrill/aggressive etc.........

MM and slug - but I am much more impacted by other aspects of my identity. I see my gender as only one of those. I will give you a personal anecdote as an example. I remember having a conversation with a colleague of mine in a central team in a HQ for a very large corporate. This was FTSE100 in the City of London by way of context.

She said "It just is harder for women, you couldn't possibly understand". As I turned around and looked at the rest of the team (which again, for context was led by a woman that reported into another woman) and saw

A working class boy from a Northern shit-tip town
A child of Bangladeshi immigrants
A child of impoverished Indian immigrants
Two men - both with physical disabilities

I couldn't help thinking that perhaps this white privately-educated well-connected woman hadn't realised there are OTHER issues which have an equal or greater impact on your life chances (this is purely from a work / career point of view).

The point I am clumsily trying to make is that whilst I might have benefitted from being born a man, other aspects of my identity more than made up for that to kick me in the teeth.

So should there be some sort of hierarchy of which things impact us most - and then work out where patriarchy fits into that?

Not sure that is coming across the way I want it to.

unexpsoc wrote - "A working class boy from a Northern shit-tip town ... Two men - both with physical disabilities
I couldn't help thinking that perhaps this white privately-educated well-connected woman hadn't realised there are OTHER issues which have an equal or greater impact on your life chances"

Were there any working class women from a Northern town or any women with physical disabilities?

"o should there be some sort of hierarchy of which things impact us most - and then work out where patriarchy fits into that?"

That's intersectionality; feminists often discuss and acknowledge that black women, disabled women etc have disadvantages of further prejudice on top of sexism.

It's time for the computer game settings link, isn't it...?

whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/

vesuvia How would that negate the premise that there are other factors that have a greater impact on your life chances ? I don't think he is claiming that being a women has no impact, just that other factors contribute to a greater extent. e.g. wealth, access to private education and connections.

Also, re identifying anyone who benefits from a system they reject as part of that system...this seems like shaky ground to me. Are all white europeans imperialists ? We all benefit from western powers exploiting brown skinned people and taking a vastly disproportionate share of the worlds wealth by military means.

Personally the statement that men are culturally taught that they will one day "own" a woman is deeply offensive and delusional.

I would say very few white Europeans are imperialists, but white Europeans as a class benefit from the legacy of imperialism.

Ditto patriarchy - individual men aren't called patriarchs (that was unexp's word) but men as a class benefit from the patriarchy even if they were brought up by women etc. To go back to the refuse worker point - a man,whatever his upbringing. may well benefit in an application process against a woman because the interviewers would have been socialised to consider it men's work.

So....um...why are you here talking about the need for a men's-rights-movement-but-not-the-one-with-arseholes-no-very-different-from-that-one? Kinda baffled about that.

Exactly what I thought after I wrote it. Simply put because this was only talking about workplace achievement / position - and there are many other areas where it DOES matter (I currently believe). So the same, only without trying to poke fun at me for a cheap shot.

I could just as easily make up an anecdote about a Cambridge educated black man who is a partner in a city law firm, moaning to his white, female, working class cleaning lady about how hard his life is because of racism.

Although mine isn't made up, actually happened and it really isn't good form to suggest I am lying here. Not when I have done EVERYTHING I can on this forum to be open and honest. You would have known if the story wasn't true - I would have added a smilie face as I have been told to.

I wasn't trying to shut up the argument - why would I do that?

The point I was trying to make (although I don't think I did it well) is this belief that even if I do my best to fight for gender equality, behave in a way I believe appropriate, overcome numerous obstacles it doesn't matter because "fuck you, you're a man".

Actually, to be totally fair, I should expect that on a forum which is directly for feminism, taa daa the thing people see as most important is the battle facing feminism.