Double Standard?

[Nyla]

I am wondering why male bashing is acceptable, but not the other way around.

 

As a woman, I don't want to be put down or dismissed because of my gender so I try not to do that to men. However, I have noticed that this society we live in celebrates male bashing. I even see a lot of this nonsense on LS.

 

The women who are the most militant feminists, tend to insult and blame men as a group for every terrible event in the world. This cannot be the best way to build bridges between the sexes instead of walls. I thought feminism was about equal rights for women, not trying to take away rights and dignity from men.

 

I am well aware that men can be pretty terrible, but so can women! Why is it okay to constantly put down men all the time? This way of thinking is divisive and just as bad as men who don't respect women.

 

Why do you think people accept male bashing? Is it a backlash against men after decades of women being second class citizens? I really don't understand this.

[Pyro]

I don't find any gender bashing to be acceptable. I don't know anyone who feels that way either.

 

Can you really take any individual seriously who thinks that bashing of either gender is acceptable?

[carhill]

Because men are bloodied and killed every day without real concern. It's part of the burden of life we bear being born that way.

 

The reputation of the many is tarnished by the few. I think that's pretty gender-neutral.

[Pyro]

Every now and then an individual needs a little bashing, but that is rare.

 

Especially those individuals who do the gender bashing.....

[sweetkiwi]

This gender war shirt is so stupid. I dont agree with the extremes of either. For me life isn't like this. Grazie Dio. Thank God. If you are immature enough to buy into it then you are not someone I with to deal with.

[Nyla]

True feminism is not misandry.

 

I love the feminist movements which gave women the right to vote and the right to own property.

[Woggle]

Some people think in order to bring their sex up they have to bring the other one down. I don't believe that feminism is a hate movement but misandrists like the ones OP describes certainly help to give it the bad image some people have of it.

[Woggle]

Just because a woman goes around saying that all men are dogs and treats them like crap does not mean she is a feminist. I think there is a tendency for some men to blame any bad experience they with a woman on feminism when she might just simply be a rotten person.

[Nyla]

Just because a woman goes around saying that all men are dogs and treats them like crap does not mean she is a feminist. I think there is a tendency for some men to blame any bad experience they with a woman on feminism when she might just simply be a rotten person.

 

This.

 

A real feminist who understands what the movement was truly about, doesn't badmouth men every chance she gets.

 

Feminists and misandrists are not the same.

[mesmerized]

I've seen waaaaaaay more female bashers than male bashers. Dude, do you even read LS? The amount of hate directed at women on here is mind blowing.

[carhill]

It appears the OP was speaking more to real world male-bashing, with that on LS being secondary. IMO, on LS, 'bashing' is pretty much equal opportunity, with no gender holding the high ground.

 

One aspect of 'why?', relevant to a double standard, relates to men's socialization IMO. If one smashes a hammer into a pillar and the pillar stands firm, then it teaches the lesson to smash one's hammer into the pillar when the mood so strikes. When a man accepts put downs and dismissals because of his socialization to absorb physical, psychological and emotional impacts in a stoic and solitary fashion, he enables and emboldens those who seek to put him down and dismiss him. We, as men, own that. We have choices. We can choose how to act and react to those who seek to oppress/devalue us and we can choose to recognize such oppression/devaluation as the acts of the few and not relevant to the many; in essence, drill it down to individuals. It's not 'women' who are male-bashing and receiving the benefit of a double-standard, it's 'this woman right here, right now'. Individual accountability and responsibility.

[Nyla]

I've seen waaaaaaay more female bashers than male bashers. Dude, do you even read LS? The amount of hate directed at women on here is mind blowing.

 

I agree that there is female bashing on LS and that is disgusting.

 

However, I see a lot of male bashing as well.

[chex]

There's a lot more retribution for publicized bashing of women, I mean, I saw no huge outrage when the view laughed about a man's penis being cut off and put into a blender, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a whole ton of bashing of women that never gets onto the news.

[bentnotbroken]

Feminism has a great deal in common with racism. The same biased mentality, the same divisiveness, the same hatred, the same belief of being superior, the same intolerance, the same blame culture.

 

Using the term feminist to describe oneself, just like using the term racist, is making a very bold statement of belief and intent. Feminists wear the banner of their infamous name with pride that would make members of the KKK blush.

 

Feminism has never been about equality between men and women. It has always been about equality when it suits women and preferential treatment for women the rest of the time. Women don’t want equal workplace injuries and deaths, they don’t want equal military deaths, and they don’t want to get their hands dirty in stuffy old mines.

 

Feminism is very far removed from anything approaching equality and much closer to promoting female privilege and elitism. Feminism and misandry have become synonymous.

 

When a woman says they are a 'different type' of feminist, that there are good and bad feminists bear in mind that is akin to there being good and bad racists. Feminists only want equality as they define it.

 

I will happily support any cause that promotes equalism. It's a pity many mistake that concept with feminism.

 

 

Got another one....:laugh::laugh:

[bentnotbroken]

Just because a woman goes around saying that all men are dogs and treats them like crap does not mean she is a feminist. I think there is a tendency for some men to blame any bad experience they with a woman on feminism when she might just simply be a rotten person.

 

 

:bunny::bunny::bunny:

[fortyninethousand322]

In my experience, the difference is that male bashers usually base their opinions on the interactions they've had with men. So while perhaps what they say about men is not universally true, it does have some element of truth because it's based on actual real world interactions.

 

The female bashers on the other hand tend to be men who have very little to no actual interactions with women and thus base their opinions on what they've read or heard or even observed from a distance.

 

In other words, one is based on anecdotal fact while the other is based on no facts.

[Els]

I don't see any double standard. There are people of both sexes who think gender-bashing is okay, and people of both sexes who think it isn't.

[bentnotbroken]

It doesn't look like I need another one. You have done nothing to refute anything I said originally. Is that just passive acceptance?

 

 

There is no reason for me to refute anything you write. :laugh: It is only about your perception of the world. My thought processes are a bit more balanced than that. Go ahead...rant away. And I will take the label. I collect them like I do football cards. :lmao: And I hate the view.

[Nyla]

In my experience, the difference is that male bashers usually base their opinions on the interactions they've had with men. So while perhaps what they say about men is not universally true, it does have some element of truth because it's based on actual real world interactions.

 

The female bashers on the other hand tend to be men who have very little to no actual interactions with women and thus base their opinions on what they've read or heard or even observed from a distance.

 

In other words, one is based on anecdotal fact while the other is based on no facts.

 

Interesting. This has not been my experience.

 

I have seen female bashers who have actually had bad experiences with women.

 

Carhill was right; I was talking about male bashers in society and not just LS.

 

If anyone needs to see examples of male bashing on LS, they are free to PM me so that I can point them to it.

[aed]

I remember an radioshow, 3 months back;

 

A girl calls to the host and tells: "I am so proud of my gf, her bf cheated on her and she kicked him in the balls". The host says good for her, or something like that.

 

Now imagine: I (a guy) call to a radiohost and tell: I am so proud of my friend, his women cheated on him, and he kicked the **** out of her.

 

How will the same host react?

 

I truly support equal rights, and when a women is having the same job etc, its absolutely bull**** she doesn't make the same about of money as her male counterpart. But men and women are not the same (what the femminst movement tried to make everyone believe). We are different (we have are own advanges, disadvandges).

 

Yet I do believe: Masculine emotions are more taboo then female emotions. See the post of allot men here, that vent their frustrations about dating etc, and they are being called miscogynist (some are true) But most of those frustrations come from just being a men, and dealing with how we experience the world and our place in it.

[Charlie Harper]

yep its a double standard, because sexes are treated equal in a lot situations (work being one of them).

Personally I dont care, because extremism its always bad, so being feminist or macho (opposite parts on the scale) is never good.

[VodkaShots]

There seems to be a a lot of griping about "feminists" yet it seems nowadays that hardline "Men Rights Activists" are the far more vocal group. I'm not just talking about on here, but I'll use this forum an example.

 

A lot of threads on here basically start off with a dating complaint men have about women, whether it's how women ignore nice guys or how women are shallow, 5 pages later the discussion derails and the OP starts spouting about how women are insecure and worthless after age 30, how women need men, how women have lower IQs than men, how women are inferior to men, how women in Third World country XYZ don't get fat, are better looking and have "better attitudes" (what this usually means is that they are subordinate to men) than women in whatever Western country they're living in, feminism did this, feminism did that, then they'll add in the tiresome pseudo science/psychology or misconceptions to look smart and dismiss any counter argument as "political correctness" or some other right wing dismissive term.

 

FTR I don't hate men or bash men, but MRA's really do get on my nerves, and on here MRA rants are far, far more common than feminist rants.

[TheBigQuestion]

Yes, there is a HUGE double-standard when it comes to gender-bashing in real life, and to a certain extent on LS. As other posters in this thread have already pointed out, no one bats an eyelash when women go on national TV and laugh and celebrate the idea of male genital mutilation. Get a group of men to go on TV and joke about the female equivalent and you will see a hysterical uproar that would probably culminate in death threats.

 

The nefarious offshoot of this double-standard on LS isn't so much that the women here freely joke about men having their genitals mutilated, but rather in the fact that many of the most prominent female posters insist that whenever they comment about gender relations or participate in "gender war threads," they are simply using reason and possess no gender bias. This is just plain nonsense. There are plenty of women who post here (primarily flash in the pan types, I admit, but there are several regulars to whom this applies as well) who are flat out ANGRY at and distrustful of men, and who honestly show little to no moderation in how they view men and paint them with a broad brush. It doesn't always come across in angry rants ABOUT men, but it often becomes clear when they give advice to other women about men. Rare is the occurrence where women team up to hound her for her hatefulness to the same degree as when a man does it.

 

What is worse is that whether people here realize it or not, the viewpoints considered "acceptable" on LS are not as diverse as some would insist. Indeed, there is an established orthodoxy of thought here. This orthodoxy is not established by the moderators or owners of the site. Rather, it is perpetuated mostly by a handful of female posters with high four-digit to five-digit post counts and a few sycophantic males. There are a few tenets of this line of thought that stand out the most:

 

(1) Criticism of a group of women, or musing about several negative traits that women generally might possess more so than men, will almost always eventually be shouted down as misogynistic, because saying that someone is "hateful" is far easier than engaging in an argument where one might have to face the possibility that their her deeply-held beliefs on gender might be illogical. This is the only message board I've found on the internet that is not explicitly a third-wave feminism site wherein criticism of the opposite sex is so frequently and hungrily dismissed, and subsequently used as a justification to hurl ad hominem attacks.

 

(2) Criticism of feminism to any degree tends to be shouted down and discouraged, usually by (yet again) labeling those who have something negative to say about it as "misogynists."

 

(3) General propositions that are easily verifiable that clearly indicate a male disadvantage (i.e. that men tend to be more financially and emotionally devastated by divorce than women) will be dismissed as wrong or irrelevant whenever a female poster has a personal anecdote of what is clearly an exception to that proposition. I should add that this response will almost always be accompanied by a hysterical and hyperbolic rant full of ad hominem attacks against the ones who dared to *gasp* make a factual statement.

 

(4) The use of fallacious logic, ad hominem attacks, and so forth, will not be called out, and indeed may well be celebrated, so long as the conclusions are in line with what the regular posters believe.

 

(5) Men who display any behavior or hold an opinion that a female poster finds distasteful will often be subjected to admonitions that they are (1) dateless losers; (2) serial killers/mass murderers (yes, posters who have held certain beliefs that have NO correlation to being homicidal have been accused of being like Anders Breivik); (3) not "real men," and so forth.

 

(6) Many times, an attempt to start an honest discussion about issues that disproportionately affect men but get overshadowed by women's issues will also get shouted down. Regardless of some of the less savory characters that may troll the comments sections of MRA websites, most MRAs are simply trying to rectify legal wrongs against men. It's easier to insult and dismiss everyone involved in that movement as being a bunch of hatemongers than to sit back for a moment and think, "Hmm. Maybe my gender has actually been benefiting from a lot at the expense of men and I just haven't thought about it." When you point out men's issues here, some women will say that they know they exist and that they feel bad that they're wrong, but they themselves will literally NEVER commence such a discussion. When is the last time a female poster said anything about the draconian and disgusting alimony laws present in most of the United States, for example? If you care, if you are governed by reason rather than by your gender bias, where is your outrage? Where is your activism? I guess I myself shouldn't paint with too broad a brush; arguably the most popular MRA blogger is a divorced, bisexual woman with exclusive custody of her kids.

 

The above attitudes are present in many areas of life, but they are particularly remarkable here.

Edited January 22, 2013 by TheBigQuestion

[TheBigQuestion]

When is the last time a male poster said anything about, say, the assault on women's reproductive rights in the US?

 

There are plenty of men here who post on the politics subforum who hold this viewpoint and other similar liberal viewpoints. Go on that forum and I'm sure you'll find a few posts about the supposed "war on women."

 

It's also worth noting that the "war on women" gets seemingly endless coverage in mainstream media. Commentary on draconian domestic support payments is comparatively rare, as is coverage of nearly any issue that disproportionately affects men in a negative manner.

[TheBigQuestion]

This conversation reminds me a lot of the time a male friend was getting all bent out of shape because breast cancer has a gazillion-dollar fundraising/"awareness" machine (which I don't really support, by the way) behind it, but you never hear anything about prostate cancer. I pointed out that that's because breast cancer survivors became activists and built the machine, and prostate cancer survivors apparently didn't. He said, "Oh, right," and changed the subject. Point being, if you really think your cause is valid (or even if it isn't; this is a country that still thinks evolution is up for debate!), attention-whore it. If you're not doing that, don't complain that people are paying attention to the cause that is.

 

This conversation is tangential to my broader points. Do you agree or disagree that LS has a certain prevailing orthodoxy?