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.

And you're saying the guy's homeless cause life's not fair?

Shit care system and life's not fair.

U-huh.

A shit care system and a bunch of men like you who couldn't be bothered to help him, they just use him as an example on the internet to try to get at women.

You're the one who said 'That's not fair' in response to what I said, John. And I mocked you for it because it makes you sound like a massive man-baby.

How do you think women went about changing the system that denied them the vote? Do you think they sat there and said 'well I'm just a woman with no rights, what can I do?'

You're an absolute joke complaining about feminism when all you do about the homelessness you're so 'concerned' about is use it to make a point.

There are little things we can do - we can vote for more progressive parties, we can take civil action when the opportunity arises, and we can help others in our local community.

But I hate to say this, but the financial and information networks on which capitalism depends are so intractably entrenched that there isn't actually much that can be done. What sort of revolution is possible? Where are the centres of power? It was straightforward in the past: you stormed a palace or government building and had the head of state shot. Job done. How do you being down multinational monopolies that ride rough-shod not only over nation states but supra-national organisations like the EU?

However, I would say in 50 years max capitalism will have hit a limit.

The social and infrastructural order of the UK is starting to disintegrate.The NHS is collapsing. Homelessness is at Edwardian levels and set to rise to half a million by 2040. The richest 5% of UK residents owns more than the poorest 25%. Wages are stagnating while rents and living costs continue to escalate. Investment and productivity are in decline and debt-based industries are creating asset bubbles. The western financial system has already collapsed once and will inevitably do so again.

Lawless, gangster capitalism is emerging, most notably in the internet in the form of the sex and gambling industries. Money from Mexican drug cartels, identity theft, child abuse videos, fraud and people trafficking operations is coursing through western banks.

Also the world is heating up. Not only Sub-Saharan Africa but Mediterranean Europe will likely become too arid for agriculture. That is going to mean mass migration - possible a lengthy period of masses of people permanently on the move. But when this happened last in the early Middle Ages there was complete chaos and a third of the population died. And this was a comparably tiny population.

Also, jobs are vanishing. Capitalism aims to transfer labour into capital and now it will pay the price.

So it's looking pretty bleak - an increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of an oligarchic elite while vast numbers of people live in debt-slavery eking out a living doing poorly paid, casualised work, engendering pathologies of ethnic fundamentalism, nationalism, terrorism, slavery, lawlessness, drug abuse, rising homelessness, social breakdown.

Too late to do much now.

I think, like the original point of the thread and many men around the world, John can't fathom a situation where women might just get on with stuff that concerns women without considering men first. So if women want power they must first concern themselves with men that don't have power to prove they are not a threat and are still, even within a movement for women's equality, putting men at the front and centre of their lives.

Why, if feminists aren't putting homeless and dispossessed men at the top of their agenda are they heartless capitalists? Is that because it's easy to dismiss them and their thinking? I can safely say no feminist is putting men out on the street but it's an easy way to dismiss feminism as man hating and a very vivid straw man. What's this hypothetical homeless man done for women's rights except for pontificate about how women aren't good enough on the internet?

But shouldn't he be helping himself? That's your logic isn't it?

He shouldn't be griping, he should sort himself out. That's what all you pseudo-left identity capitalists are saying. Or it's up to some other poor person to help him. He's not screwed because of an economic system, he's therefore because he's lazy and didn't have what it takes to compete in the free market economy.

In fact part of the reason that capitalism is at this irreversible point is that at some point in the 1980s the middle-class left gave up on the working-classes - on economic, Marxist thinking generally in fact -
bought into a lot of specious postmodern cultural theory and generally disappeared up their own arses in bourgeois academies. They did very nicely out of it, but the proles not so much.

It's not so much feminists prioritising women's issues - of course they do - it's more this whole vision of the world which has it that power relations are purely a matter of identity. That is a problem.

I think most of you people do think the homeless guy is such because he 's inadequate as a person. What other reason could there be?

You're doing capitalism's work for it.

In what way are you standing against capitalism john, with zero things you do? Do you have any right to tell anybody what they're doing when you do absolutely nothing yourself?

What's this hypothetical homeless man done for women's rights except for pontificate about how women aren't good enough on the internet?

It's always why are you worrying about 'X' when 'Y' is more deserving of your worry isn't it.

And, lets face it, some of the reasons there aren't as many homeless women are that they stay in abusive relationships in the hopes of protecting their children, or that they flee to shelters set up by women (with their children), and so are a higher priority for re-housing - because they have children to look after. It's not like women aren't homeless because of privilege.

And those shelters were set up by women for women and their children. Men are just as at liberty to set up their own (and some men do) - and men're in a better position to do so within society - but no, most men can't be bothered, they just want to use it as another bludgeon for women.

You're arguing with yourself and the words your putting in other people's mouths.

Who can say why a hypothetical person is homeless? Doesn't mean it's women's specific responsibility or role to sort it out for them or it's their fault they are homeless. Your POV seems to be that it's women getting on that's holding unsuccessful men back and that's not fair and women need to change it. I'm sure your tune would change if you were winning in the current system.

I've said already (repeatedly):

I've volunteered for my local food bank and homeless shelter.
I have helped out with political campaigning.
I'm a member of a Union.

But you keep going 'uhhh but you do nothing'...it's like banging my head on a wall.

I mean it's not much but I dunno wtf you expect me to do with a disability? - and it's a great way to avoid engaging with my points isn't it? Just keep chucking everything back at me.

Presumably if I was chained to railing in Canary Wharf it still wouldn't be enough.

Who can say why a hypothetical person is homeless?

OK, why are there increasing numbers of homeless people. Why is their a trend of rising homelessness? Answer that. Just one possible reason. It really isn't hard.

It's rich you saying that I'm 'chucking everything back at you' - you're the one on a feminist board criticising feminists you total idiot!!

I've had enough of talking to you.

In fact part of the reason that capitalism is at this irreversible point is that at some point in the 1980s the middle-class left gave up on the working-classes - on economic, Marxist thinking generally in fact

The New Left is of concern. Yes.

John, do you follow George Manbiot and Deborah Orr from the Guardian? They write some interesting stuff on Neo-liberalism:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/14/neoliberal-theory-economic-failure

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/08/neoliberalism-financial-elite-governments-ransom

Yes, I do read them both, ty :)

What has rising numbers of homeless people got to do with feminism specifically? What has this thread got to do with rising numbers of homeless people specifically?
If you, who care so very much about our hypothetical homeless man, can't do anything to alleviate his suffering, what do you expect women's rights to be able to do?

Because there is a big connection between high unemployment and poverty and violence against women. Building domestic violence shelters or increasing social workers care orders deals with some part of the problem but it’s symptom not cure. A Focus on tackling high unemployment and a dehumanising and exacting welfare system can help the whole of society. saying that that can lead to happier healthier families across all demographic levels.

Think of Maslow hierarchy of needs, if someone hasn’t even got the basic physiological needs met how can they have the headspace to improve themselves or those around them. And if feminists solution is just to fling them aside as defective, better off not breeding, is it the feminist or the eugenicist talking?

many women have a desire to have children, even poor women, but they need worthy mates to do so. That worthiness doesn’t have to be financially worthy but just stable temperate individuals. Even if the birth rate is even between the two genders Econonic circumstances can make forming families harder so it’s still a high sex ratio in reality.

And if feminists solution is just to fling them aside as defective, better off not breeding, is it the feminist or the eugenicist talking?

Not another one who's hard of reading. No, it's not. But it's not feminisms problem other than tangentially either.

That's creeping very close to the idea that we'll get back to women's rights once we've fixed everyone elses - which is obviously not going to fly here.

I don't know what you're going on with about sex ratio - anywhere where the sex ratio is out of whack, it's because they've been killing females. That's the problem, not women being unable to find mates.

I think to be fair to John, he's not calling you all wrong for being feminists or feminism wrong or any such thing. His critique is of the capitalist order and he's suggesting that modern feminism is now simply a part of the capitalist system that ultimately places certain people above others and that male or female this creates inequality.

I disagree with his assessment of the solution but his description of the problem is fairly accurate I think...

Yes in Societies with high sex ratios like China or India it’s to do with female infanticide and their large numbers of unmarried males are a problem for different social reasons. In the uk though there are more Male births than female in adulthood the dearth of males ready to have children make us almost a low sex ratio community. Women have to compete more and more for less and less suitable men And then possibly be at the mercy of men drowning their sorrows or anguish with their fists. Capitalism plies the working class high streets and towns with drink and gambling houses and payday lenders to lock those men into poverty, closing down the factories etc, taking more out of the gene pool and then plays on women’s insecurities forcing them to compete with one another for what’s left. Profit is made from dysfunction and insecurity and anguish. If feminism is about giving women choice what choice is there in this situation. In every other mammal species the Male competes for the female but with us humans it’s the other way around because capitalism sets us against each other.

Feminists aren't on the whole about making life harder for men. If you apply capitalist concepts to everything you will see competition everywhere. If I get a promotion or a degree it's not done to trap a man in a dead end job. Is it a zero sum game? I don't know but if it is, I don't know anyone playing it that way.

What reason is your theoretical man homeless man homeless? No chuffing clue, he's a theoretical construct in your mind to allow you to engage in sophistry in an attempt to attack feminism, so I guess that's the reason he's homeless, as he wouldn't exist as a concept otherwise.

If you could kindly point to a specific homeless man I could go up and ask him, and then we might get somewhere.