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.

Makeourfuture is just as bad

Well.

I think we are staring straight at something like The Road within 50 years.

We must have feminism. Men have done this to the World.

But Sports Direct will not save us. Nor McDonald's.

Educating and empowering women is our magic silver bullet. It always works. Every time.

Bailing out banks does nothing but encourage them. Cheap flights warm our planet. Biodiversity is decreasing with every acre cleared.

The challenges are far, far greater than we perhaps can handle. Perhaps, as with our own mortality, we are forced to look away. But we can't.

This is our challenge. I think feminism is up to it!

And one zero hours in Sports Direct has a pension. The ones who do get one opt out because it's so measly.

My point wasn't about whether or not workers in Sports Direct have a pension or can afford one. It was about whether they are viewed as deserving of one. And generally anyone in paid work is viewed as having 'contributed' and therefore deserving of a state pension (however rubbish it might actually be in financial terms). Whereas women who have been stay at home mothers, or long term unpaid carers for a sick or disabled relative are viewed as non contributors, despite the fact that certainly in the case of caring for the sick/elderly they will have saved 'the state' far more than they would ever be likely to claim in pension.

You seem to understand the concept of capitalism and are able to look at it on a worldwide scale John. So why are you struggling so much with the concept of male privilege? If nothing else you must agree that it's a privilege not to face a 1in 4 chance of being sexually assaulted, eh?

Whereas women who have been stay at home mothers, or long term unpaid carers for a sick or disabled relative are viewed as non contributors, despite the fact that certainly in the case of caring for the sick/elderly they will have saved 'the state' far more than they would ever be likely to claim in pension.

That's a fair point, and I would fully support a full pension for the SAHP.

you must agree that it's a privilege not to face a 1in 4 chance of being sexually assaulted

This must be eradicated. We cannot have this awfulness. It has caused the greatest damage to our world.

OK, so I have the privilege of not being at such a high risk of sexual assault (though I'm not sure NOT being sexually violated should be understood as a privilege).

What other privileges do I have? What privileges do I have in the world of money and work? Name one.

A basic income/citizen's wage would do away with the non-functioning retirement system.

In case you are struggling with the concept of male privilege John and not just being disingenuous, let me break it down for you.

Up to 100 years ago (so not even a millisecond in historical terms) if you were a woman you were basically a non-entity - you had no entitlement to higher education, no access to money, property or a career, no control over your own body, no right to vote or participate in any way in politics or the running of any institution. You were allowed to have children, but only while under the ownership of a man and even then the children weren't yours, the man had sole rights and could take them from you whenever he wanted. Women were essentially slaves - there for sex, breeding and housework and nothing else. So that's the footing we started from, barely a century ago. Things have changed since then but incredibly slowly and only with feminists fighting for every single right - at no point have men ever just made things fair, women have always had to go through protracted battles just to be treated with basic human respect. Rape in marriage was only made illegal in 1991 FFS! Male privilege is about the fact that men (white men, specifically) belong to a group that controlled literally everything and designed systems to ensure it stated that way. On the surface things have changed but in reality battling against that weight of unfair advantage is fucking exhausting for women. And yet we're doing it. So well done us.

That woman are at greater risk of sexual assault and are more sexualised by the media and in culture generally is not a feminist complaint that I am in any way quibbling. You're absolutely right there, and far be it from me to say you've got that wrong. Though even this is changing with a year by year increase in women consuming pornography (more women that men look at it on phones, weirdly) and doing their own share of sexual objectifying. And there seem to be more media reports of women abusing children. However, it's still nowhere near on the same scale, with the overwhelming majority of sexual violence perpetrated by men against women.

What I do struggle with is this simplistic idea that women are being held back economically by the patriarchy independent of context. In certain careers they may be, but overall the trend is one of rising male unemployment/low wage waged employment and increasing pay and workforce participation for women. Most of the unemployed and rough sleepers are men. There is currently what has been described as a 'crisis' of working age men absent from the workforce in the US.

It is far from simple. Someone says straight white men have loads of power and then you go 'No they don't; there's one sleeping on a park bench' they say 'well, I just mean men as a class'. But what does that mean? I don't know what it means. Is the rough sleeper not part of this class of men? Why is he there then?

Sparrowhawk you're right about all those things but the nature of the economy has changed in a way that doesn't privilege men.

Western economies were, until very recently in history, agrarian and/or industrial and militarist. Nation states or other territories of power were economically run either on the basis of a feudal system or, later on, one of industrial production. This meant there were lots of jobs demanding upper body strength that needed to be done by men, leaving the children to be raised in the home by women. Furthermore, these territories needed to be defended by armies, or were colonially expanded through force. The male warrior played a key role in these societies.

Late capitalism is very different. Our modern societies are globally-interconnected service sector economies with little manual labour. War is mainly conducted through technology rather than standing armies of men.

The world has changed, and in some ways late capitalism is far more congenial to women than it is men.

I think you want to go back to the good old days don't you GentlemenJohn?

Women get paid less than men, for the same types of jobs and in many cases for exactly the same jobs. How is that not economic disadvantage?

Also two thirds of the world's illiterate people are women, largely because men prevent women from receiving an education. How is that not an economic disadvantage?

The vast majority of single parents are women. Thousands of men with children simply do nothing to sustain those children. How is that not an economic disadvantage to women?

There may be increasing workforce participation for women, but women still only make up tiny proportions of the world's economic leaders. So in what way are men losing out on that front?

Yes, not all men are successful, of course not. But on the whole, if you're a man, your chances of success are higher. You may not be able to take advantage of those chances for various reasons but that doesn't mean those chances don't exist. Heck, if you're male your chances of being born in the first place are higher.

And if late capitalism is far more congenial to women then men, so fucking what? Why should I care? Men didn't really give a fuck when women had no rights at all did they?

The undertone of all your posts gentlemanjohn is a strong refrain of 'it isn't fair!!' I am so fucking sick of men saying that women can have power but they must use it to benefit men or it's not fair. FUCK OFF.

Men had every opportunity to make things fair for women and they never did it, EVER. So if women don't bother doing it for men, don't be surprised.

That said, I don't see women ever removing men's rights and turning them into sex slaves. So even if women never go out of the way to make things fair, we're still never going to treat men as badly as men treated women. So console yourself with that.

Also, john, and this is a genuine question, if humans don't need to compete with each other, why do they do it? Why haven't men succeeded in setting up a world where everyone has what they need yet?

And if late capitalism is far more congenial to women then men, so fucking what? Why should I care?

Well, that depends on your politics. If you're on the political left, you presumably wouldn't think female empowerment is ideally located in the context of capitalism; but then if you're on the right you wouldn't. It's not just me saying this. There are lots of left-wing feminists saying feminism has become capitalism's hand-maiden. It's not just me having a 'poor menz' moan.

Btw, I'm not saying 'It's not fair' in a moany way - I'm just saying it's a fact that should be integrated into feminist analysis. Capitalism has never been fair for anyone. Even if some women do very well within it, lots won't of course.

The choice is this. Either there is neoliberal version of equality in which women gain the power men had and do all the bad things they did with it - or there is equality. ML King wanted equality - not just for blacks but poor whites. He knew there could only be an end to racial equality if the world was a kinder place for all.

So what do you want? Power or equality? Do you want all the wealth and power men had? Do you want to stand on some necks? Do you want a big house and a massive salary? Be honest.

The idea the people compete for each other goes back to Adam Smith. He thought that this is what people naturally do. Before there was money there were barter societies and money came into existence as a means of more efficient means of exchange. However, in truth the barter society barely existed. For millennia people had not competed with each other for goods and status, or engaged in market transactions. The idea that they naturally do is a very recent (16th century) construct.

I'd settle for not being raped tbh john. If you threw in men stopping killing women then I'd be made up.

Power is the chance to impose your will within a social context, even when opposed and regardless of the integrity of that chance.

• Max Weber

'The idea the people compete for each other goes back to Adam Smith. He thought that this is what people naturally do. Before there was money there were barter societies and money came into existence as a means of more efficient means of exchange. However, in truth the barter society barely existed. For millennia people had not competed with each other for goods and status, or engaged in market transactions. The idea that they naturally do is a very recent (16th century) construct.'

This makes absolutely no sense. Have you ever heard of the Romans? Or the Greeks? Or any of the many civilisations that existed and thrived on competition long long before the 16th century?

If you're part of the already privileged class and you're not succeeding I don't see how a different system where you don't even had that privilege is going to work out better for you.

I personally don't want to go back to a system where my job is to be the supporting role to the main event of the man, with his manly job. Growing up where women worked they still had to massage egos and do all the shit work. If me and dh split up I would never have a live in relationship with another man, it's not worth the effort. If men want more stability and more marriage they need to, as a group, put more effort in and stop expecting women to do it all for them.

I agree Handbag. Women put up with being married to crap men because they had no choice. Unsurprisingly, as soon as they had a choice, they stopped marrying them. And now men are whining that women won't put up with them any more. Diddums. If they were decent partners plenty of lovely women would marry them. But they're not. And men's response is to imply that women have destroyed the family. Because suddenly women won't put up with being treated like shit any more. Eh fuck off.