Ian Duncan-smith says unmarried men are a problem for society

[QuentinSummers]

m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/uk_59d3b8f9e4b04b9f92054af5
Seems to me there are undertones that women should be controlling men better.

Also quite a lot of blatant sexism such as men who aren't married develop "low value for women" which suggests to me that the value women hold is intrinsicly linked to their chastity/marriageability to ID'S

Interested to hear what others think because I'm being a bit inarticulate on this.

I suppose it might be the case that women haven't done enough to change the world on his behalf eh John? That feminism has failed him?

Everyone is evading my questions I notice.

Forget about me entirely. The homeless man. He has privilege and yet he is homeless.

Give one reason why this might be?

Obviously it isn't because women failed him is it.

So why might it be?

He's a man - he's white, he's straight. And yet...he is living in the gutter? Why?

Well according you it's because feminism failed him, surely?

Oh no I don't think feminism failed him. But what is now called feminism is serving to legitimate the neoliberal economic system that failed him. What i call the 'neoliberal left' have deserted him.

According to you why might he be homeless? Just one possible reason...

Because men like you have no interest in actually changing anything? They spend their time on mumsnet complaining about feminism?

You're not answering because the only possible answer you can give is that there's something wrong with him - that he's lazy, that he hasn't worked hard enough, and therefore he deserves his fate.

Because if you are abstracting individuals from their position within an economic system and placing the emphasis entirely on their identity as gendered, racial or sexual subjects, then the implication is:

1. People who do have so-called privileged identities who are poor or socially marginalised have no justification for being where they are.

2. The task is to diversify the capitalist system and therefore falsely legitimate it as socially progressive.

Nope, I definitely think it's because men who aren't homeless, like you, just sit around whining and waiting for women to fix everything.

The way you make everything the responsibility of the individual also betrays your neoliberal assumptions. This is the same right-wing logic which dictates the interventionist state, workers unions and other collectives should be substituted for individuals doing a bit of low level protesting and charity. Or making social media giants rich with click-tivism.

I mean, you could help those homeless men you seem to be so concerned about but you have excuse after excuse after excuse. You have no intention of helping them, you just use them as fodder for your nonsense argument. Hypocrite.

I don't want women to fix everything for me. Why do you keep making up things I've said?

I have volunteered at my local shelter, as I said.

However, this is all beside my point. You still won't answer my question seriously.

What possible reason could there be for the man's homelessness?

And the reason you dodge that question with imputations of what I have said about women wanting to do stuff for me, or by throwing questions back at me, is that your true answer would betray how far to the right your vision of society truly is.

All those groups are made up of individuals. No individuals, no groups.

Sorry I don't know what you mean by that?

You're in favour of unions and collectives, right?

Yes. Are you?

I'm a member of USDAW. They're crap.

Yes. But if the people who should be part of those unions and collective sit on their arse and just complain about feminism on the internet, then nothing will get done, right?

You see all you do is say how crap everyone else is. How about doing something yourself instead of just complaining?

I can't organise a strike group. I'm too ill. If I lost my job I would be homeless. I can't risk that. They'd sack me. I have no family support,

That's not fair really - you're dodging my questions, and placing the onus on me. I do my bit writing my book which I hope one day to publish and going to local council meetings.

My critique is of a set of right-wing assumptions I believe your position rests on - which you will not engage with.

What possible reason could there be for the man being homeless?

It's not fair is it? What are you, 12?

You have a tonne of excuses. Your 'concern' about that homeless man is entirely pointless because you intend to do nothing about it.

I've already said that that man is homeless because the men who could change the situation that led to his homelessness (eg a shit care system) sat on the internet making excuses instead.

Oh I just remembered I'm a labour party member and did a bit of campaigning for them last GE.

I don't know what the fuck you think I, personally can do, about global capitalism. Take to the barricades in my local high street?

I think really we've gone beyond such solutions now. Capitalism is so globalised and out of control that it will be stopped with it's own inevitable self-destruction. You can't turn back a globalised market system with civil action - this is why Occupy failed. Wall Street could not give a fuck.

It's too late now. The Match Strike Girls and the Tolpuddle martyrs did these heroic things back in the 19th century because back then there was a real possibility of changing things through direct action. Firms were mostly very small, and depended upon the extraction of manual labour from a large workforce.

Not like that now is it? We can't bring Google down.

You're saying he's homeless because of a 'shit care system'? Is that all?

Yes so all we can do is lie down and take it.

God no wonder men have made such a hash of the world.

Women fought for every.single.right they have, every single one, with absolutely not a shred of power. They couldn't even own property. I hate thinking that men are pathetic but that's all I can see - men whinging and whining and just doing nothing.