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?

Oh yes, @fmsfms. We get the reference.

@fmsfms

I understand perfectly. You are dismissing the harassment listed in Everyday Sexism as "middle-class" in order to trivialise it. It's a variation on the "women in India are dragged of buses and raped, so stop bitching about a man putting his hand on your knee" argument.

What you fail to understand is that feminists recognise male violations of female boundaries as a continuum, and understand that a culture in which women are told to shut up about hands on knees is also a culture in which women are shamed and silenced for men raping us. We understand that a "small" boundary violation is a red flag indicating willingness to carry out much bigger boundary violations. We understand that all male expressions of sexual entitlement harm all females. We understand that "stop complaining, it was only your knee he touched" will rapidly become "it's your fault he raped you, you should have told him no when he put his hand on your knee, your silence led him on". If a man puts his hand on my knee, it is only the length of my thigh away from being a hand on my vulva. And women will be oppressed by men as long as "how high his hand can go before it's too high" is a deemed by men to be a matter of debate, when it is actually a sovereign decision by the woman whose thigh is being touched.

@haxxor "I understand perfectly. You are dismissing the harassment listed in Everyday Sexism as "middle-class"

Well you don't understand, because that wasn't the point of the reference.

The point was a website that accepts anecdotes without any verification/fact checking isn't very compelling/convincing.

If anyone anywhere can write anything then why should it be taken seriously.

A lot of the funny posts on Overheard on Waitrose are clearly false, it's no different for everyday sexism

What percentage do you reckon? 5%? 25%? Or more, 75%? If you discount the percentage that you decide are invented then what number of real incidents do you think remain? Enough to see it as a problem?

What record of women's experiences would you accept as valid? After all, women could make things like this up when responded to surveys or research too. What verification and fact checking would you like to see in place?

@fmsfms I see, the old "bitches be lying" trope. What motivation would we have for making it up? We don't get money for writing on Everyday Sexism, we don't get justice, we don't get revenge, we don't get to out our assailants (it's pre-modded), and it takes up our time. Falsifying entries makes no sense at all.

The British Crime Survey also relies on unverifiable statements. Yet noone says that the victims of theft or assault are lying in that. It's only ever female victims of male violence or sexual entitlement who are disbelieved. Your attitude is misogyny, pure and simple.

@AssassinatedBeauty After all, women could make things like this up when responded to surveys or research too.

How convenient for men that sexual violence is almost always perpetrated in private and therefore the victim seldom has witnesses to corroborate her complaint. It makes it easy for the rapist to get away unpunished and the victim to be disbelieved, allowing MRAs to pretend that rape doesn't happen as often as it does.

People make up stories online all the time, see Overheard in Waitrose for examples.

Oh and yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

I don't find anecdotes compelling evidence of anything. This does not make me a misogynist, but congrats on the yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

@fmsfms Overheard at Waitrose, you might falsify a story for the lols because the point of the entries is to make people laugh. No decent human is laughing at Everyday Sexism.

Enough anecdotes, put together, constitute qualitative evidence. There's no way that any more than a tiny minority of posters on Everyday Sexism would lie, because we gain nothing from doing so.

You will discount every single person's personal experiences as a logical fallacy, just to clear? So as far as you are concerned nothing women can say to you about their personal experience will be accepted, as they could all be lying.

You really shouldn't use concepts you don't understand, fms . Saying 'you are a misogynist' would be an ad hominem. What haXXor said was 'your attitude is misogyny', which is not an ad hominem at all because it's describing your attitude , as evidenced in your (unpleasant, goady, rude and insulting) posts.

What exactly are you trying to achieve here? Because it's not working, unless your sole objective is to waste your time and everyone else's.

@fmsfms Calling your attitude isn't an ad hominem, it's an observation. If I said "you're a misogynist therefore so everything you say is wrong", that would be an ad hominem. If you're going to accuse me of logical fallacies, at least read what I actually write and not what you want to see before you sling the accusations.

So as far as you are concerned nothing women can say to you about their personal experience will be accepted, as they could all be lying.

This would be the misogyny I was talking about. Assassinated nailed it.

fmsfms does this on every single thread. In short his view is that it's all about the menz and all women are stupid liars.

@gorgonlondon @haxxor It's still a direct attack on me personally for the crime of not being convinced by Everyday Sexism

Having created Western Civilisation and sacrificed tens of millions of lives defending the way of life we enjoy today - I'd say white males are discriminated against today to some extent.

@fmsfms It's not a persobal attack, it's an entirety justified observation based on your behaviour throughout this thread and your insistance that the thousands of contributors to Everyday Sexism must all (or at least mostly) be lying.

I will not prioritise your feelings over my observations.

Having created Western Civilisation and sacrificed tens of millions of lives defending the way of life we enjoy today - I'd say white males are discriminated against today to some extent

All the lols
Women have created every single human on the planet.
Western civilisation was built off the back of slaves.
You sound very entitled.

@A4710Rider

Having created Western Civilisation and sacrificed tens of millions of lives defending the way of life we enjoy today - I'd say white males are discriminated against today to some extent.

Let me fix that for you.

Having set up a civilisation based on subjugation of women as property for rich[1] white men's benefit and started many many wars so that rich white men can send soldiers to fight and die over which of the rich white men will rule a particular bit of land, I'd say white males are frightened of losing their undeserved privilege today.

[1] In the beginning, under feudalism, it was all for the benefit of noble men: noble women and all serfs were property of noble men. When common men were freed, common women became their property.

Western civilisation was built off the back of slaves

Have you never heard of the Industrial Revolution

Women have created every single human on the planet

Indeed, natures most wonderful creation.

You sound very entitled

I don't care.

Having set up a civilisation based on subjugation of women as property

Yeah, not sure I agree with that to be honest.

The slave thing is interesting. Slavery has been in existence since the start of humanity. It was Western Civilisation that actually brought that millennia of slavery to and end.

@haxxor "It's not a persobal attack, it's an entirety justified observation based on your behaviour throughout this thread and your insistance that the thousands of contributors to Everyday Sexism must all (or at least mostly) be lying."

And now you follow it up with a straw man! Brilliant!

I compared EveryDay Sexism to Overheard in Waitrose, and you've misrepresented that as the majority of contributors must be lying!!! hilarious.

As for my behaviour throughout this thread? What, you mean believing people should be treated equally and that it's unfair to sacrifice poor white men just because of the success of richer/more privileged white men?

The same post that drew replies of "good" and people admitting they don't care about poor white men?

Ok, if I'm a misogynist then there are plenty of misandrists on this thread.

You discounted Everyday Sexism in its entirety, no? Or is that not what you meant?

There needs to be a law for the point at which we arrive at the allegation of misandry.