things I used to love are turning feminist

[CharonY]

Well, he was a emeritus so his research output was (or should not) have been much of an issue. Notable researchers have, after the fact, supported him and the honorary president of the writer's association has resigned out of protest. So yes, there was a big issue but at least among the scientists and within Royal Society they were willing to reverse their position after the initial bad PR.

 

At the same time, I have to say that the main culprits of the whole thing are not (IMO) the named institutions. Rather it is the modern news cycle which feeds off sensationalized tidbits, rapidly propagated through social media and with little regard for facts or clarifications. You will note that in a number of interviews Tim Hunt specifically decried Twitter blogging and similar outlets.

 

After all, hardly anyone bothers to follow up anymore but it is so easy to twitter your indignation. And this is not a feminist or other group issue, it is a general issue with how we consume news and other information and where we take tidbits as knowledge. Since he is getting new appointments it is obvious that the professional world is able to cut to the nonsense.

 

 

However, you will also have to see the whole issue from the administrative side of the organizations. They obviously care more about PR than anything else. After all an emeritus noble prize winner is one of the shiniest things you can get.

 

While I certainly do not agree with those administrative decisions, I can at least see why they cut him off. Public institutions have to at least appear to react to public opinion as they can be put in problematic spots with e.g. politicians or others who may control funding.

 

Many uni administrations treat profs as staff and/or decoration to attract student. Once one has been embroiled in something controversial, even if not of their own doing, they like to cut them off (after all, profs are a dime a dozen). That is one of the reasons why tenure is such an important fixture especially for research in potentially controversial areas. Here, it is an honorary position, and that is why they can do it. For them it is just the easy way out.

 

Again, to me the issue is that we really have not learned to properly learned how to deal with modern communication, and frankly, neither do the media outlets.

[Strange]

Here's a dishonest tactic often used by religious people: throw up straw-men and assert the unargued. And here we have people attacking OP for hating women and wanting inequality, for arguing against gynocentrism and misandry (what he, understandably, associates with 'feminism').

 

As no (as far as I can see) has attacked the poster for any of those things, that would appear to be a "dishonest" straw man tactic.

[StringJunky]

...At the same time, I have to say that the main culprits of the whole thing are not (IMO) the named institutions. Rather it is the modern news cycle which feeds off sensationalized tidbits, rapidly propagated through social media and with little regard for facts or clarifications. You will note that in a number of interviews Tim Hunt specifically decried Twitter blogging and similar outlets.

The current 'in' word is "viral". Everything goes viral... that's what social media and media outlets aim to do these days. Any news is "news" if they can achieve it; the quality or veracity of the content is immaterial.

Edited April 9, 2016 by StringJunky

[Sato]

Well, he was a emeritus so his research output was (or should not) have been much of an issue.

...

And this is not a feminist or other group issue, it is a general issue with how we consume news and other information and where we take tidbits as knowledge.

...

Again, to me the issue is that we really have not learned to properly learned how to deal with modern communication, and frankly, neither do the media outlets.

 

AFAIK Tim Hunt was still active with his work at the time, despite being a professor Emeritus.

 

Certainly much of what you said is fact, but framing it as a simple error of the modern media landscape is either misunderstanding the crux or dishonest. The people and groups who propagated the fib were feminist groups, the writers were feminist writers. This is not some disconnected mass of people who happened to be tricked about Tim Hunt's character, this was a movement by an ideology and its adherents, institutionalized in many news organizations.

 

From the Telegraph, The Guardian, and The Huffington Post, to Daily Mail and Buzzfeed, the journalists who set and spread the flames were feminists. Let me revise: it is extremely, harmfully dishonest when you say "...this is not a feminist or other group issue...". This is very concretely a 'feminist' issue. This going even past the point of latent ideology into a group of people who actually identify as 'feminists'. An ideology which entails, functionally and empirically, misandry and gynocentrism—in this case, valuing the proliferation of the idea of misogyny and the demonization of men instead of accurate reporting and just treatment.

 

Even with a storm of tweets and some robust analyses of the original author, who'd very clearly miquoted, misrepresented, and misinformed, who had a history of dishonesty, the big buzz of "heavily lied on academic CV", there was overwhelming silence about her and a continued persecution of Hunt. Even after the evidence was reconciled, those originally reporting didn't generally report the reveal (though maybe that was editor's choice, the pattern tells otherwise). Not just this, but many more recent examples and their motivations as outlined in my original post.

 

I mean, it's stomach curling that you, who present yourself with some rationality and humanism here on the forum, would say something a flat out off as that. There are many people, 'feminists', who care more about proliferating their ideology than they do about truth or justness, and they (a collection of people with similar ideology and means of communication, certainly a "group") fill many news reporting organizations. I mean, just—I was going to write "how can you say this?" but obviously it's very easy to say, that you share the ideology, and so proliferating it may be more valuable than otherwise. I suppose the only thing I can say to crack through it (and if you're not a 'feminist' this may sound condescending, though if you are you may focus in on this very assailable line), that if you want to minimize mistreatment across the board, maximize liberties across the board, this is anti-optimal.

 

 

 

As no (as far as I can see) has attacked the poster for any of those things, that would appear to be a "dishonest" straw man tactic.

 

OP asserted that the media conception of the pay gap is bunk, Phi for All asserted directly in response by connecting people who think there is no pay gap and those "who have been misinformed from years of misogynistic leadership at multiple levels". OP being misinformed by misogynistic leadership at multiple levels, like any man being misinformed by white supremacist leadership at many levels, entails that his beliefs were formed in a pool of misogyny. OP is easy to take as a sexist hillbilly dolt because he has poor communication skills. Typical SFNer knows the rules of rhetoric better than to say "You hate women!"; it makes a much more intellectual, more general point to describe that people with OP's beliefs tend to have come from misogynistic institutions that spread misogynistic beliefs. If you would like to side-step this and assert that such a post has no implication that OP is a misogynist (that his beliefs are misogynistic), then the dishonesty is on your court.

 

OP very clearly expresses his disdain for this bad kind of feminism, which I refer to 'feminism' above, and asserts that many only support such a bad ideology because of political correctness (institutional pressures in biased favour of progressivism, if you're not familiar). Swansont suggests of those who are actually against 'feminism' that "they're actually misogynist", in this particular case he says. He does slightly worse than Phi or All on the rhetoric front by adding an extra degree of conviction, "along with the people uttering the phrase", referring to those who believe much of 'feminism''s public support is out of political correctness, something OP quite clearly believes. This covers people asserting that he's a misogynist, i.e. that he hates men.

 

His wanting inequality comes from Swansont's assertion that a keystone of those 'feminist' beliefs that OP rallied against is equality, that is he rallies against equality, and that equality is foreign to people who hold the beliefs of OP (+10 for rhetoric). "...gotten used to a bias in the system, equality feels like a bias in the other direction" asserting that OP has no objective understanding of equality, rather a subjective one which is really inequality. OP is used to bias in the system, he likes equality so long as it's biased towards him, in reality he favors in equality.

 

These are things that do not have to be so rigorously wrought out. A quick glance through a 'feminist' lens shows OP clearly favors inequality and is a misogynist.

 

However, a glance at OP's profile shows that he's (supposedly) a girl. Since the probability that OP then is a misogynist, advocates for institutional bias against her favour, and has been acclimatized to a system which favours her because of her gender is low, though not nil (rationalizable), asserting these things seems almost ridiculous. Good rhetoric would be to negate all previous accusations by claiming that this was obvious, and that all uses of "you" were royal and accusations were against only those who might associate with her beliefs and were truly misogynistic. Given this, one can also take away OP's agency and say she was shaped about a patriarchy and so cannot have rationally come to those conclusions in her best interest, or assert she might be a transgender or catfish, without addressing any of the actual points made about accusations levied against her.

 

The more fundamental matter is that you were much more concerned with trying to avoid, undermine, and shut down opposing points than consider what might be a really awful reality. You got four lines into a much more substantial chain of reasoning and information asserting an idea, and in impulse to avoid it, rushed to shoot down a remark that might just be assailable, that didn't align with your memory or squint of the thread. That's the bias, the ideology, the kind of thing a fundementalist Christian does on forums in discussion of atheism, that I was referring to. Though, they're usually not as keen to posh vernacular, or as educated on logical fallacies, as this. That is to say still, even those who've taken courses in psychology or debate don't care much. Mainly, instead of considering the arguments in broad, you found yourself (unjustifiably) inclined to attack as soon and quickly as possible.

 

Part of the argument was that like other ideologues, 'feminists' block themselves from counterarguments, reasoning, and information by an adopted bias and ideology, i.e. they do so in a similar fashion to many other fundamentalist faiths. Could you already be attached to the ideology and equipped with the biases it brings; could that be the reason for how you went about feeling and responding? Well I've not looked through your posts, but page 1 in this thread shows that you align with many 'feminist' ideas and believe that the ideology is needed, and your avatar is a recently acclaimed feminist "hero", so it's a bit more than unclear.

[EdEarl]

My wife and I have been together for thirty-something years. You might think that conversation would be easy between us; often it is. However, miscommunication is frequent. When someone publishes their thoughts, whether on purpose or inadvertently, the ambiguities of language and different personal perspectives assure that some will not understand and others will misunderstand, even if the original statement was intentional. To make things worse, people sometimes utter nonsense without realizing it. The courts in the US disallow hear-say as evidence. The media and public do not. People love to gossip. It is tragic that lives are ruined by gossip and mournful that some have committed suicide over gossip. C'est la vie.

Edited April 9, 2016 by EdEarl

[CharonY]

The current 'in' word is "viral". Everything goes viral... that's what social media and media outlets aim to do these days. Any news is "news" if they can achieve it; the quality or veracity of the content is immaterial.

 

Pretty much. And since anything with sufficient circulation is considered news, it is easy to push agendas whatever they are. Sato, the point of disagreement is that in you are saying that in this particular case it is a "feminist" issue (in asterisks as those involved in feminism are not a monolithic unit or ideology. In fact we seem to be talking about the extreme here). However, my assertion is that this is happening to all kind of topics, in which spin has taken over the news reporting and is fashioned to generate outrage, one way or another.

Take the black lives matter movement. You have outrage against the deaths by police shooting, at the same time outrage against conduct of members of the BLM, outrage regarding whether "all lives matter" etc. The whole discussion is framed outside of actual facts. Even ridiculous things (like war on Christmas) go into circulation.

Tim Hunt was the victim of such spin. What you see as a feminist witch hunt, I see as a consequence of the modern Twitter/Blogosphere/media landscape. By having any crap being news you can easily take the tidbits out to give yourself an air of legitimacy while spinning a narrative that generates the largest outcry (i.e. readers). And if you look at his interviews, Hunt may somewhat agree with that assessment. Obviously there are then interest groups which further seizes these kind of news and use it at ammo to further their agenda. To be fair, this is a of a side-point to OP, but on the same note I do not see Tim Hunt's case as such, either.

 

Any semi-public figure has now be careful about public statements as the "viral" world (thanks Strange) can take it out of context faster than you could contextualize with. In this case it was taken up but a rather unthinking part of the feminist movement, but as easily it could be anything controversial. It is especially bad if it feeds some kind of stereotypes as it just validates people's prejudices.

It is ironic as Tim Hunt at this point of his career was more about promoting research (his lab shut down ~2010 and he has mostly published reviews and, I presume maybe leftover data from that point. If he had been still in an active (tenured) position people would have needed to go through the proper channels to terminate his contract. At which point they would have figured out that he was represented.

 

Oh, if your overall point is whether there people on the feminist side but have an utterly uneven response to issues and/or prefer to utilize the outrage machine without checking facts? Sure, it is not either/or statement as you seem to think. It has just gotten easier to spin as you have plenty of material to choose from. But to be fair, I have a hard time to distill the main point of your post so am just trying to frame one of your examples into a broader context. However it seems that you insist on viewing it through a particular lens, which is similar to what certain interest groups like to do.

Edited April 9, 2016 by CharonY

[StringJunky]

 

. However it seems that you insist on viewing it through a particular lens, which is similar to what certain interest groups like to do.

I think that is what he is asserting everyone else is doing: forcing things through a particular lens. Whichever stand one takes, one will usually find data to support that view, consciously or not, especially in sociopolitical matters.

Edited April 9, 2016 by StringJunky

[Phi for All]

OP asserted that the media conception of the pay gap is bunk, Phi for All asserted directly in response by connecting people who think there is no pay gap and those "who have been misinformed from years of misogynistic leadership at multiple levels". OP being misinformed by misogynistic leadership at multiple levels, like any man being misinformed by white supremacist leadership at many levels, entails that his beliefs were formed in a pool of misogyny. OP is easy to take as a sexist hillbilly dolt because he has poor communication skills. Typical SFNer knows the rules of rhetoric better than to say "You hate women!"; it makes a much more intellectual, more general point to describe that people with OP's beliefs tend to have come from misogynistic institutions that spread misogynistic beliefs. If you would like to side-step this and assert that such a post has no implication that OP is a misogynist (that his beliefs are misogynistic), then the dishonesty is on your court.

 

OP very clearly expresses his disdain for this bad kind of feminism, which I refer to 'feminism' above, and asserts that many only support such a bad ideology because of political correctness (institutional pressures in biased favour of progressivism, if you're not familiar). Swansont suggests of those who are actually against 'feminism' that "they're actually misogynist", in this particular case he says. He does slightly worse than Phi or All on the rhetoric front by adding an extra degree of conviction, "along with the people uttering the phrase", referring to those who believe much of 'feminism''s public support is out of political correctness, something OP quite clearly believes. This covers people asserting that he's a misogynist, i.e. that he hates men.

 

His wanting inequality comes from Swansont's assertion that a keystone of those 'feminist' beliefs that OP rallied against is equality, that is he rallies against equality, and that equality is foreign to people who hold the beliefs of OP (+10 for rhetoric). "...gotten used to a bias in the system, equality feels like a bias in the other direction" asserting that OP has no objective understanding of equality, rather a subjective one which is really inequality. OP is used to bias in the system, he likes equality so long as it's biased towards him, in reality he favors in equality.

 

These are things that do not have to be so rigorously wrought out. A quick glance through a 'feminist' lens shows OP clearly favors inequality and is a misogynist.

 

However, a glance at OP's profile shows that he's (supposedly) a girl. Since the probability that OP then is a misogynist, advocates for institutional bias against her favour, and has been acclimatized to a system which favours her because of her gender is low, though not nil (rationalizable), asserting these things seems almost ridiculous. Good rhetoric would be to negate all previous accusations by claiming that this was obvious, and that all uses of "you" were royal and accusations were against only those who might associate with her beliefs and were truly misogynistic. Given this, one can also take away OP's agency and say she was shaped about a patriarchy and so cannot have rationally come to those conclusions in her best interest, or assert she might be a transgender or catfish, without addressing any of the actual points made about accusations levied against her.

 

The more fundamental matter is that you were much more concerned with trying to avoid, undermine, and shut down opposing points than consider what might be a really awful reality. You got four lines into a much more substantial chain of reasoning and information asserting an idea, and in impulse to avoid it, rushed to shoot down a remark that might just be assailable, that didn't align with your memory or squint of the thread. That's the bias, the ideology, the kind of thing a fundementalist Christian does on forums in discussion of atheism, that I was referring to. Though, they're usually not as keen to posh vernacular, or as educated on logical fallacies, as this. That is to say still, even those who've taken courses in psychology or debate don't care much. Mainly, instead of considering the arguments in broad, you found yourself (unjustifiably) inclined to attack as soon and quickly as possible.

 

Part of the argument was that like other ideologues, 'feminists' block themselves from counterarguments, reasoning, and information by an adopted bias and ideology, i.e. they do so in a similar fashion to many other fundamentalist faiths. Could you already be attached to the ideology and equipped with the biases it brings; could that be the reason for how you went about feeling and responding? Well I've not looked through your posts, but page 1 in this thread shows that you align with many 'feminist' ideas and believe that the ideology is needed, and your avatar is a recently acclaimed feminist "hero", so it's a bit more than unclear.

 

Wow. Wall o' Assumptions and Imagined Motives.

 

Interesting that you look into such personal detail from a poster before assigning those motives. I generally just go by what they write, so I don't taint my judgement of what they're saying.

[Lyudmilascience]

 

 

I believe the point was unequal rights was like a ship that's off course. A long-standing bias, which is still present, though worse in the past.

what exactly is still present? give me a right that men have that women don't.

[swansont]

what exactly is still present? give me a right that men have that women don't.

It's not the presence of a right, it's the implementation of it. To ask this question suggests that one believes that women are treated equally. Are you prepared to defend that?

[nec209]

I used to really like to watch ted talks and the youtube channel dnews. i also am a big fan of hermiony from the harry potter series. I like the actress who played her and now there are more social justice or feminist videos on ted talks, laci green who hosted dnews is a feminist and same with the actress who plays hermiony in harry potter. I think there is a good kind of feminist that is for equality but the represented in the media feminist is trying to give women more rights then men and they usually use all their arguments just to complain about something. these feminists are going along with the more radical feminists in the media. I just cant believe how so many people in the media are going along with feminism to protect their image. they might not even agree with it they just want financial supporters and if they have a good image they will get more supporters. will feminism in the main stream die out soon? how can the media have so many people saying something so illogical like the pay gap? its been disproven many times yet reputable people still say its true. I think women have all the political rights they fought for. feminism is no longer needed.

 

Sorry what things are you see in sociaty that is really feminist today? Females playing video games, females in army, females that are cops?

[Phi for All]

what exactly is still present?

 

Try this: list some names people call men who like sex a lot. Stud, wolf, gigolo, playboy, Romeo, etc.

 

Now list some names people call women who like sex a lot. Whore, slut, tramp, floozy, harlot (these are the nice ones).

 

Notice the difference in how we perceive who's enjoying sex by gender? All the names for men sound pretty cool and sexy, while all the names for women sound shameful and hurtful. This kind of thinking pervades our society, and causes us to judge women by different standards than men when it comes to sex, at least. This is the kind of thing I want to change. It's not giving anyone more rights than anyone else, it's about respect for half the planet's human population based on the fact that they are human, and happen to be women as well.

[Strange]

That applies more generally as well. There was a radio program about the architect Zaha Hadid after she died recently. She was described as "uncompromising," and it was clear from the context (and tone of voice) that this was not a positive trait: it implied she was stubborn and difficult to work with.

 

On the other hand, it would generally be considered positive to describe a male architect as uncompromising, with the implication that he had a clear vision and was determined to see it though. Strength rather than being difficult.

[swansont]

Assertive women are considered bossy, while men are showing leadership.

http://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-women-ban-bossy-2014-4

 

 

 

In stories about scientists, there's always some mention of how women dealt with aspects of family life. Rarely so with men. Before the Times edited Yvonne Brill's obituary, the opening paragraph was "She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children. “The world’s best mom,” her son Matthew said."

 

Do you often see male scientists' obits that read that way? Who usually takes time off from work to raise children? Think it has anything to do with how work logistics is structured?

 

Here's a link to more on the Brill obituary and to the so-called Finkbeiner test:

https://proswrite.com/2013/04/18/pros-avoid-sexist-language/

 

Things that show up in stories about women that generally don't in stories about men

1. The fact that she’s a woman
2. Her husband’s job
3. Her child-care arrangements
4. How she nurtures her underlings
5. How she was taken aback by the competitiveness in her field
6. How she’s such a role model for other women
7. How she’s the “first woman to…”

 

(You can also investigate the Bechdel test for gender bias movies. We could probably devote a whole thread to the misogynistic reaction to a female lead in the last Star Wars movie, much less the movie industry in general)

 

 

 

See also: Why bias holds women back

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/01/opinion/urry-women-science/index.html

[Strange]

We could probably devote a whole thread to the misogynistic reaction to a female lead in the last Star Wars movie ...

 

I am glad I haven't seen that. One of the things that I loved about the film was that she wasn't explicitly portrayed as a caricature "Strong Woman", just as a character who had had to learn to survive. And hence was pretty tough.

And, never mind the massive pay gap in Hollywood, here is some detailed analysis of the relative roles of male and female characters in movies:

http://www.statschat.org.nz/2016/04/09/movie-stars-broken-down-by-age-and-sex/

http://polygraph.cool/films/

[Sato]

Pretty much. And since anything with sufficient circulation is considered news, it is easy to push agendas whatever they are. Sato, the point of disagreement is that in you are saying that in this particular case it is a "feminist" issue (in asterisks as those involved in feminism are not a monolithic unit or ideology. In fact we seem to be talking about the extreme here). However, my assertion is that this is happening to all kind of topics, in which spin has taken over the news reporting and is fashioned to generate outrage, one way or another.

Take the black lives matter movement. You have outrage against the deaths by police shooting, at the same time outrage against conduct of members of the BLM, outrage regarding whether "all lives matter" etc. The whole discussion is framed outside of actual facts. Even ridiculous things (like war on Christmas) go into circulation.

Tim Hunt was the victim of such spin. What you see as a feminist witch hunt, I see as a consequence of the modern Twitter/Blogosphere/media landscape. By having any crap being news you can easily take the tidbits out to give yourself an air of legitimacy while spinning a narrative that generates the largest outcry (i.e. readers). And if you look at his interviews, Hunt may somewhat agree with that assessment. Obviously there are then interest groups which further seizes these kind of news and use it at ammo to further their agenda. To be fair, this is a of a side-point to OP, but on the same note I do not see Tim Hunt's case as such, either.

 

Any semi-public figure has now be careful about public statements as the "viral" world (thanks Strange) can take it out of context faster than you could contextualize with. In this case it was taken up but a rather unthinking part of the feminist movement, but as easily it could be anything controversial. It is especially bad if it feeds some kind of stereotypes as it just validates people's prejudices.

It is ironic as Tim Hunt at this point of his career was more about promoting research (his lab shut down ~2010 and he has mostly published reviews and, I presume maybe leftover data from that point. If he had been still in an active (tenured) position people would have needed to go through the proper channels to terminate his contract. At which point they would have figured out that he was represented.

 

Oh, if your overall point is whether there people on the feminist side but have an utterly uneven response to issues and/or prefer to utilize the outrage machine without checking facts? Sure, it is not either/or statement as you seem to think. It has just gotten easier to spin as you have plenty of material to choose from. But to be fair, I have a hard time to distill the main point of your post so am just trying to frame one of your examples into a broader context. However it seems that you insist on viewing it through a particular lens, which is similar to what certain interest groups like to do.

 

In asterisks (quotation marks?) because we're not speaking of "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men", just as when referring to Black Lives Matter we're not speaking of "the belief that the lives of black individuals are of value".

 

This does certainly happen with all kinds of topics, with all kinds of interest groups that bother me. In this particular case, it is 'feminist' interests setting the agenda of the news. As in the other handful of more recent cases I described.

 

Consider a group, let's call them "westernophiles". Consider that there exists a body of literature and theory in the name of "westernophile literature" and "westernophile theory" that happens to contain themes unfavourable to persians, even derogatory to them. Then look at a trend of certain popular news organizations like The Guardian, Huffington Post, and Buzzfeed, for example, to focus in on news and media "gossip" degrading the culture of persians, certain persians in particular in order to extrapolate from them criticisms of persian culture in general, and for the most part evading and ignoring buzz about westerners. Now, what if overwhelmingly we found that the authors of these articles all, even publicly, self-identified as 'westernophiles'. You don't think this should be considered a problem, not at the random whim of modern media, but of 'westernophilia'—of 'westernophiles' who've instituted themselves in popular media organizations?

 

Here we have 'feminism' which has regular themes of gynocentrism (of course) and misandry, an almost exclusive and often hyperbolic focusing in on the failings of men and masculinity, ignoring to troubles facing men and the failings of femininity in most of the popular news (i.e. The Guardian, Huffington Post, and Buzzfeed, and the others listed previously), and a set of authors who produce these articles who overwhelmingly align and identify with 'feminism'. By what reasoning do you say this trend, in particular, doesn't satisfy the criteria to most certainly be labelled a 'feminist issue'?

 

A "lens" is making assumptions where there is little information available, based on some idealogical "theory" of the world. Extreme use of a lens would be, say, attacking a television station for sitting a female host to the left (or the right?) of a male host for sexism and misogyny, that the side of the screen the male was sat on was dominant and the motivations for this placement were an either intentional or ingrained misogyny in the producers. Here my assertion was that there is a strong gynocentric and misandric bias in the popular news media, at the hands of those who align and identify with 'feminism'. Taking the articles being pumped out of these stations, the recent related "big" scoops, and the authors behind them, this as far as I can see (perhaps you've seen what I've not?) is more "probable inference" than a peer through an ideological lens.

 

 

 

Wow. Wall o' Assumptions and Imagined Motives.

 

Interesting that you look into such personal detail from a poster before assigning those motives. I generally just go by what they write, so I don't taint my judgement of what they're saying.

 

The wall was rigorously roughing out exactly how OP was thrown into the misogyny bucket, in response to his calling out many of the media orgs he enjoyed for taking on an overwhelming misandric, gynocentric bias. And particularly, that you were the one who drew his beliefs about the wage gap to "those who have been misinformed from years of misogynistic leadership at multiple levels".

 

In any case, that's insubstantial to any of my actual points, about 'feminist' bias. That you chose to make a clever quip instead of to address, and rather ignore and swipe off, any of the actual arguments against, is just the sort of "ideologue" behaviour I took umbrage with.

 

---------------------------

 

The heart of it is that news organizations are very powerful and influential institutions. While there are many more institutions in the periphery where misogyny and androcentrism take the cake, that there exists such a news/media bias against a whole class of individuals is a problem. It moulds the prejudices and bumps the behaviour of at least tens of millions of people, and in turn affects tens of millions more. In reporting discrimination, assault, abuse, and fumblings, the media shows heavy misandric bias, sometimes working to minimize their conditions or the idea of their suffering.

 

Not everyone born with a penis happens to be an atomic clock researcher at the US Naval Observatory, or even just "okay". Many are downtrodden, troubled, from a dearth of opportunity. Ignoring the problems they face, blasting the idea that others, by virtue of their gender, are worth more concern than them, directly minimizing their experience, and sweeping claims about them for chromosomes they couldn't control, is harmful. Maybe not to women, not to those men who are living the unfettered life, but to those actually suffering from it—victims of violence, sexual abuse, emotional trauma, gender bias in the family court system, gender bias in criminal conviction rates, perhaps those sensitive and demoralized in the face of sweeping characterizations of men's criminality, evil, idiocy, and privilege abound, or in general, those alienated/ostracised for their gender (male).

 

Are you happy to see a barrage of white supremacists overtaking concern for black people being shot down by police, filling a thread instead with comments about how so many more white people die in total, spewing a bunch of links to news articles reporting white people killed by blacks, derailing the OP's topic of police violence against African Americans? You've all done to this to a topic trying to discuss the problems men face, mainly in and at the hand of 'feminist' media institutions, with comments about how people didn't like Star Wars including a female, about descriptions of promiscuity that have connotations favourable to men, and advocating a bake-sale that pressured men into renouncing their gender identity if they wanted a more accessible price. Completely derailing the original topic, working silence discussion of several millions' troubles. This is just... bigotry.

[hypervalent_iodine]

I think you are reading something into the OP that frankly, wasn't in the OP. Lyudmilascience did not frame the discussion as being about men's issues, it was framed explicitly as an issue about feminism in the media, and how women have all the "political rights" they fought for, etc. You are correct that they did not say they were against feminism, just the brand that preaches hate and for the rights of women to supersede those of men (i.e. not equal treatment). It seemed to me, and apparently to others, that the OP thought this particular type of feminist (I would not call those people feminists) was the only one represented in the media, that gender pay gaps were not real, that people are going along with feminism to protect their image, and so on. That isn't an argument for men's rights, in an argument against feminism. It's not the same thing.

 

Furthermore, I am baffled at the insistence of people such as yourself that conversations about female rights and feminism has to come at the cost of men's rights. Why is it that any time someone wants to talk about these things, the people having the conversation get accused of being sexist against men because they weren't also discussing the situations in which men are discriminated against? You don't have to talk about these issues at the same time to recognise them both as being issues that need addressing.

[swansont]

Not everyone born with a penis happens to be an atomic clock researcher at the US Naval Observatory, or even just "okay". Many are downtrodden, troubled, from a dearth of opportunity. Ignoring the problems they face, blasting the idea that others, by virtue of their gender, are worth more concern than them, directly minimizing their experience, and sweeping claims about them for chromosomes they couldn't control, is harmful.

 

 

No, but by the same token, I wasn't born an atomic clock researcher. You don't know what path I took to get here. But that's not the point. The point is that, whatever headwinds you face in life, they will on average be less than what you would face as a woman (or person of color). Nobody is claiming that men face no obstacles — it's that they aren't obstacles that are there just for being men. Which is not true for women.

[Phi for All]

 

The wall was rigorously roughing out exactly how OP was thrown into the misogyny bucket, in response to his calling out many of the media orgs he enjoyed for taking on an overwhelming misandric, gynocentric bias. And particularly, that you were the one who drew his beliefs about the wage gap to "those who have been misinformed from years of misogynistic leadership at multiple levels".

 

I don't know how to respond when you put so much of your imagined motivations into your claims about what I said. You've read into it what you wanted, it's slanted and biased your way, when all I wanted to point out is that there has been an unnecessarily perpetuated male domination for years in many situations, processes, and levels of society. I'm sorry you deny the obvious, and I'm sorry you choose to assign motives I don't have to my words.

[MigL]

Absolutely right, Swansont.

The ostacles men face are, on average, less than obstacles faced by women.

The solution, however is not to throw up additional obstacles at men so as to equal the 'playing field'.

Obstacles previously described as 'oversteering the ship in the opposite direction', or charging a man more for baked goods ( although the response to this is what troubles me ).

The solution is to remove the additional obstacles women face also.

[Phi for All]

Absolutely right, Swansont.

The ostacles men face are, on average, less than obstacles faced by women.

The solution, however is not to throw up additional obstacles at men so as to equal the 'playing field'.

Obstacles previously described as 'oversteering the ship in the opposite direction', or charging a man more for baked goods ( although the response to this is what troubles me ).

The solution is to remove the additional obstacles women face also.

 

It never ceases to amaze me how your perspective works. In the instance you're mis-describing, the normal price of the baked goods were a dollar. That's what a white male was charged, normal price, $1. Got that? Now bear with me. Some people were charged less to show how pay disparity works. MEN WEREN'T CHARGED MORE, I REPEAT, MEN WEREN'T CHARGED MORE!!!!!!

 

You obviously perceive this as unfair, and you should, but it's what's been going on with women's pay for quite some time now. Yet, you still perceive all this as being "additional obstacles" thrown up at men to even the playing field. I'm sorry, but wtf does paying women fairly do to throw up obstacles at men? Is that really how your mind works, that if we try to fix the system so it STOPS unfairly abusing women, that it makes it harder for men?!

[Delta1212]

I don't mind the cupcake thing because that might as well be considered performance art. It's also not like any men involved were blocked from getting anything truly important. We're talking about a slightly more expensive bakesale cupcake.

 

If you want to make a point about a real life problem in a way that isn't going to actually negatively impact anyone's life, I'm willing to tolerate some simulated "dickishness." Sometimes it's the only way to get people to pay attention.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Delta1212

[swansont]

Absolutely right, Swansont.

The ostacles men face are, on average, less than obstacles faced by women.

The solution, however is not to throw up additional obstacles at men so as to equal the 'playing field'.

Obstacles previously described as 'oversteering the ship in the opposite direction', or charging a man more for baked goods ( although the response to this is what troubles me ).

The solution is to remove the additional obstacles women face also.

 

 

As far as I can tell, it's the removal of these barriers that's been suggested. What are these additional obstacles you're referring to?

 

That sounds exactly like what I meant when I said that leveling the playing field sometimes feels like bias in the opposite direction.

[MigL]

Oh FFS ( I guess that's acceptable now ), Phi, put aside your pre-conceived notions of my perspective and re-read my post !

 

Nowhere did I say women don't face more challenges than men, in pay or numerous other opportunities.

Nowhere did I say these barriers shouldn't be eliminated.

 

I simply stated that discriminating against a group to correct past ( and present ) discrimination against another group, is doubly wrong.

And I realize the bake sale was simply a demonstration of the wage disparity, but...

MEN AREN'T PAID MORE, I REPEAT, WOMEN ARE PAID LESS !!!!!

Any way you wanna slice it its discrimination against one group and favouring another. but this was all meant to illustrate a point ( poorly I might add ) and a demonstration only, none of these people were forced to buy these 'discriminatory' baked goods, so the threats and inappropriate responses should definitely be called out, and if possible, arrests made. No-one should behave like that.

 

Maybe you'd care to explain exactly how your point of view is different ?

Or is Sato right about you ?

[Phi for All]

I simply stated that discriminating against a group to correct past ( and present ) discrimination against another group, is doubly wrong.

And I realize the bake sale was simply a demonstration of the wage disparity, but...

MEN AREN'T PAID MORE, I REPEAT, WOMEN ARE PAID LESS !!!!!

Any way you wanna slice it its discrimination against one group and favouring another. but this was all meant to illustrate a point ( poorly I might add ) and a demonstration only, none of these people were forced to buy these 'discriminatory' baked goods, so the threats and inappropriate responses should definitely be called out, and if possible, arrests made. No-one should behave like that.

 

Maybe you'd care to explain exactly how your point of view is different ?

Or is Sato right about you ?

 

My POV sees men paying a dollar for a cupcake (the normal price) as normal, not discrimination. That women make 70 cents to that man's dollar, and so only pay 70 cents for the cupcake is showing that inequality for what it is. Yet your POV says that's discrimination in reverse somehow. Women aren't being favored in this situation, but I'm not sure you'll ever be able to see it that way. You're too fixated on the the unfairness, and don't understand why spotlighting the fact that this is what women deal with every day is valid, while claiming it's unfair for men isn't.

 

There is a difference between men being paid more vs women being paid less, as you yourself point out. However, you don't respect that stance since you then claim it's all discrimination of one group against another, instead of what you said earlier, that WOMEN ARE PAID LESS!!!!! This reminds me of your stance that crazy ideas come from both major US political parties, when the evidence clearly shows a preponderance on one side. You can't say that men are being discriminated against by any of the suggestions put forth so far.

 

Remember how what the men are paying is the normal price?