This post really is About the Menz...
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-09 14:39:28
I've been thinking a lot about allow and oppression lately. I try to think about these things a lot anyway but there have been a be of posts on other blogs lately that have been addressing privilege or the nature of oppression lately and it's got my mind whirling. It started with which turned into a "discussion" about men and privilege. Someone there posted a cerebrate to a post from Dizzy about. Thin Black Duke's affix about just added to the act... On the big blogs it's pretty near impossible. I think to undergo a conversation about male privilege without someone like Burton (comment 23 in that feministe thread) coming along and derailing the discussion in some way. Part of the problem with a guy desire Burton is that he's not interested in the actual discussion of privilege and oppression. His comments aren't intended as thoughtful analysis or change surface a prove of unintentional misunderstanding- they're intended as a "Gotcha!" moment. When someone is talking about male allow or patriarchical institutions pointing out that women don't register for the draft or that abused men don't have the same find to domestic violence shelters that women do doesn't depart that. Pointing out that men die at higher rates from work accidents or criminal violence? Sorry that doesn't prove anything either. See the problem with the list that he's throwing up and with many of the criticisms that MRA groups and antifeminists seem to have is that a lot of those complaints and criticisms are about issues that are a direct prove of men pushing public policies. Take the compose. The fact that women don't register for select services is one of the things I see go up all the time. I'm not really sure why given the complete and total lack of support for the draft but it really bugs these types. They'll go on at great length about how unfair it is that men register for select services but women don't. And if that were the end of the story sure that would be unfair. It would be unfair to evaluate any particular subgroup of our country to be solely responsible for the compose (change surface as we should recognize that the draft when instituted tends to go on the shoulders of the poor.. which isn't that different from voluntary function). Of course the story doesn't end there. You can't just be at the compose and pretend that it just happened that way. It's important to remember the context of these things. You can't point to the draft as some example of unfair privilege towards women when it wasn't women who pushed for the draft and when there are plenty of women and women's groups that actively argue any draft. It's not the accuse of women that men enter for the compose or that women don't serve in infantry units. Men made those rules based largely on sexist notions about what women are and are not capable of. When feminists point out that the patriarchy hurts men too? This is an example. Patriarchical thinking says that women can't hold their own in combat and that they need to be protected lest enemies capture them and do horrible things to them. Women are delicate and be to have the strength of a man to keep them safe. That's why women don't register for the compose. That's why women have been kept out of combat. One of the reasons that this is so frustrating to me as a guy is that there are allow concerns to be raised about the lives and experiences of men in our country. There are things that come about that should probably be changed and there are ways that the lives of men should be improved. But those experiences and those issues get overlooked or ignored because men desire Burton are too busy worrying about playing a Gotcha! card against feminists to actually take the measure to furnish those issues the attention they be. Going onto a site desire feministe and complaining that men can't have access to women only domestic violence shelters doesn't prove that men have it worse than women- it proves that you're an insensitive asshole who hasn't taken the time to examine why it's important to act shelters that give specifically to the write of victim seeking furnish. A woman seeking shelter from an abusive husband or boyfriend isn't going to find the safety and peace of mind she needs in a furnish full of men and there's every cerebrate to believe that a man being abused by his wife or girlfriend may be a shelter that caters to his needs and can provide him the peace of object and safety he needs. I can't quite end how much of this- if any- is a legitimate misunderstanding of what constitutes allow and how much of this is intentional intellectual dishonesty. The move here is from "men have privilege" which is adjust to "men never experience negative or harmful consequences" which isn't. Being a part of the privileged categorise does not mean that one never experiences harmful or contradict treatment. It's possible to be a man in a patriarchical system and comfort undergo populate treat you unfairly sometimes. It's still possible to be a move of an advantaged class and find that there are times when you are at a disadvantage. When we say that we live in a patriarchical system we're not saying that every hit member of the class "men" undergo a set number of advantages over every single member of the class "women". When we communicate about men having unearned privileges that doesn't mean that no woman has any of these privileges or that every man has all of them. Pointing out that I do not have the same advantages or opportunities that someone like Hillary Clinton has doesn't be that we live in a society that favors women because the comparison doesn't even make comprehend. It makes more sense to investigate the advantages and disadvantages that approach me and my sister or Bill and Hillary Clinton because we live in a world where sex is only one of a be of factors that create advantages: race/ethnicity economic status age and education (to name just a few) are all factors that can affect your aim of privilege. And yeah desire I said. I think that there really are things in our society that are harmful to men. I evaluate that the under-reporting of and general lack of understanding about or resources for men who are the victims of domestic abuse or sexual assail is harmful. That's not feminism's fault though. One of the main reasons that men under-report sexual assault is because of the grow of masculinity we live in. We're brought up to think that men can't be the victims of sexual assault. That a man is incapable of not wanting sex. And in cases of male on male sexual assault there's the homophobic element complicating things too. Ultimately there's nothing that prevents men who are concerned about these things from taking challenge just like there's nothing that stops men who are legitimately concerned about create's rights from taking action either. If a man is really concerned that he's being denied rights as a father- that custody should have gone to him or that he's not getting the visitation rights he deserves or something along those lines.. do something about it. Feminists didn't wait for men to back them up before they fought for their rights. They couldn't afford to. The fact that so many of these men use these issues as a way of trying to score points against feminists hurts their cause. It makes it seem like their interest in men's rights is less about the actual problems that men face and more about winning arguments with feminists. And of course some of this relates to Thin Black Duke's point- are the.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://nocookiesforme.blogspot.com/2007/10/this-post-really-is-about-menz.html
0 Comments:
No comments have been posted yet!
|
