White Men are the Most Discriminated Against Demographic

[BoodeBeep]

My boyfriend has just said this to me. His reasons were women and ethnic minorities get schemes/help/AWS etc. I asked why exactly he thinks they have them, who they were trying to equal women up to etc. He said we should have a meritocracy and I agreed but explained we haven't ever ever had that and not all men are there on merit. I asked if he thought the reason there wasn't 50/50 represention was because women just weren't up to it and he said of course not but what other explanation is there?

I left it because there is just no getting through the complete arrogant certainty that he is right despite having done zero reading around the subject, having zero experience of being a woman/ethnic minority and seeing and hearing the experiences me and many other women have.

It's so frustrating. He's generally great but blind on this issue and obviously unwilling to think about it in any depth beyond how it may affect him should he fall victim to the discrimination of an all women shortlist.

Do men ever really get it?

The most egregious positive discrimination in society is the bit where men in authority do not harass men the way the do women in education and employment.

YY @thebewilderness. I wonder just how many women and girls would take bigger chances, say no to boys taking their lego, and go to e.g. computer clubs where they will probably be the only girl present if they didn't fear male harassment and male violence?

@thebewilderness "Yes, absolutely.
The only way we have found to address class inequalities in a hierarchical society is to disadvantage some of the ruling class members so that the subordinated classes may have an opportunity."

It absolutely baffles me that anyone can think like this. The poorest of the poor white men are not, nor anywhere close to being a "ruling class".

Just to clarify and use a real world example: Are you ok that working class white boys are the group least likely to go University, and are you ok for that trend to continue, for resources that might be spent addressing the problem to be diverted towards other groups?

@QuentinSummers why do you assume I'm a man?

@Transexclusionarymra

"Just observe how Jess Phillips was minimising Jo Cox’s husband actually putting his throat around women’s throats, yet a scant few weeks before was baying for the blood of a conservative MP who’d had a hand on a thigh!"

Just this week it turned out that a bunch of Lefty Professors in the USA including Judith Butler had signed a letter in support of a colleague up on a Title IX sexual harassment accusation

Despite not knowing any details of the investigation they state that they believe the professor is innocent and that the accusation must be malicious! leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2018/06/blaming-the-victim-is-apparently-ok-when-the-accused-is-a-feminist-literary-theorist.html

Also, didn't Lena Dunham also come out in defence of a male friend/colleague during peak #metoo

"Believe the victim! (except when the accused is a mate!)

Because you said you were before fms and I pay attention

@fmsfms Believe the victim! (except when the accused is a mate!)

it's a phenomenon called "not my Nigel".

Add to that that one of my male relatives, at his workplace, sacked a female cleaner who complained that a male technician had sexually harrassed her because it was easier to replace the cleaner, even though the technician had previously harrassed other cleaners and said relative believed the cleaner.

So when @thebewilderness said that the biggest positive discrimination going on is men not sexually harassing and raping other men anywhere near as often as they do that to women, she was bang on the money.

When women are raped, assaulted, and harassed at the same low rate that men are, then we can talk about removing positive actions for women.

Are you ok that working class white boys are the group least likely to go University, and are you ok for that trend to continue, for resources that might be spent addressing the problem to be diverted towards other groups?

I am a Feminist. A member of the political movement for the liberation of women. White boys of any class are not among my concerns. Advocating for the interests of the female half of the population keeps me busy enough.
If the poor white boys are your major concern I suggest that you go right ahead and advocate for them.

In the words of the Notorious RBG 'There will be enough women on the Supreme Court when there are nine'.

Give me a five thousand year female dominant planet and we can call it even.

Ok, so you're not interested in equality then. I'll remember that next time someone tries to tell me that "feminism just means equality"

@quentinsummers

Find that post and I'll paypal £1000 to the charity of your choice

fmsfms Wed 13-Jun-18 21:52:33 Ok, so you're not interested in equality then. I'll remember that next time someone tries to tell me that "feminism just means equality"

I hope you do. That is a backlash against Feminism slogan. Feminism is the political movement for the liberation of women. The only political movement that is constantly criticized for not prioritizing everyone else over their own interests.

Feminists remember what was said over 100 years ago.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." Anatole France pseudonym for Jacques Anatole Thibault (1844-1924)

@wacademia I apologise, I was too loose with my wording. Women currently in the jobs market are not up to it. They are not as confident, committed, well educated, ambitious and so on as their male counterparts by virtue of different standards of education, early socialisation and expectations both within and outside of the workplace that women should be less assertive and less aggressive than men in perusing their careers. Obviously not all women scumb to these social pressures and many are intelligent enough to compensate for their educational disadvantage. These are the women who make it on merit, the ones who don't need positive discrimination, the ones who are up to it. However, these women are not most women. Instead to trying harder to eradicate inequalities in work place cultures and tackle inequalities early in life to create more women who are equal in attainment to their male counterparts of their own merit the current push is to just give women these jobs they should have out of pity. This makes it look like less of a problem and as a result there is less of a push to support women to be more up to it instead it actually reinforces the current system and effectively keeps women down sending out the message that instead of actually fighting against the inequalities they face woman are better of waiting patiently for their gender based promotion like good little girls. Positive discrimination is patronising bullshit.

Something certainly is patronising bullshit.

Positive discrimination also doesn’t happen.

The OPs boyfirend has a point. Politicians are winning across the western world, feeding off the resentment of the forgotton White Man. Trump, Brexit and other elections across Europe have shown us, in part, that many working class white men feel forgotton by society.

Everyone can close their eyes and pretend it's not happening, not face up to it, put their fingers in ears; and then act shocked when Jacob Reece Mogg is PM.

Couple of things. Every day sexism, girl up are great places for men to become enlightened to the experience of woman both individually-harassment, workplace sexism etc, and the wider issues-insitututimal sexism etc. Also...and I think this is a useful to get men to understand Male privilege...and it’s a take from someone else so I’m not claiming credit
No one is saying your life is not hard, it’s just not made harder by the fact that your a woman/person of colour etc.
Also the idea that someone is stupid because they don’t get it...I’ve worked with many men..especially from the forces...whose attitudes and opinions have been completely transformed through discussion and debate and have become passionate supporters of women/feminism.

Obviously not all women scumb to these social pressures and many are intelligent enough to compensate for their educational disadvantage

More women (in our society at any rate) attend university than men, girls consistently perform better academically at school than boys so your argument that somehow men are better educated just doesn't stand. There must be other factors at play such as, hmmmm, male privilege?!

@racecardriver less aggressive

Anyone who is aggressive at work is a huge problem.

The entire Western working culture is built by men for male convenience. If it was built by women for female convenience, it would be less competitive and traits like team skills would be valued more highly. Traits like aggression make for adversarial relationships between colleagues, which are not conducive to a strong team. Most jobs involve working with others and yet team skills were not assessed during the last three job interviews I went for. This is a problem.

Instead of training women to fit the current unhealthy culture, change the culture. It's better for business if we are cooperating instead of trying to one-up each other all the time.

PPs have said that men enjoy the huge positive discrimination of not being sexually harassed. That's the first bit of culture change that needs to happen: sexual harassment is one of the major reasons why women never even get the chance to prove themselves.

waiting patiently for their gender based promotion like good little girls

We don't get promoted for being women. We don't wait around for gender-based promotions, they don't exist. Every place I have ever worked in my life has had a policy that all promotions must be applied for by the worker. You've created s strawman there.

@Richie567

Everyday Sexism is the feminist equivalent of Overheard in Waitrose

@IfyouseeRitaMoreno

"Positive discrimination also doesn’t happen."

How do you know?

If you speak to corporate recruiters then I'm sure they'll tell you there is a strong push/desire for a more balanced workforce.

The only way to achieve that in industries/professions that are mainly one gender is through positive discrimination, which is illegal

The Google lawsuit alleges that Google discriminates against white men

Monzo bank recently stated they'll only work with recruiters that can provide gender balanced shortlists, although when pointed out that would involve positive discrimination walked it back to say the best person would still get the job

@fmsfms Everyday Sexism is the feminist equivalent of Overheard in Waitrose

Everyday Sexism is where women catalogue the abuse we face daily. It's evidence of how men treat us. What do you gain from dismissing it so flippantly, I wonder?

Because she's one of those women who is anti-women.

Dis anyone see that Matt O'Connor tool on GMTV - he is one of the Fathers4Justice crowd. He made a total dick of himself, ranting about showing his balls and how badly he was treated! 🤣 I LOVE it when MRAs show themselves up on TV!!

Oops - Good Morning Britain!! He was just on!

@haXXor

Do I really need to explain the reference? 😮