Only Children

[Mr. Tea]

I think the reason you said Mr. Tea's points about why men get a bum deal too in this world were better was because that it painted men to some degree as social failures, people who need 'brought back up' to the level of women, whereas my post painted them as simply unlucky victims of a fairly arbitrary world, as much as you want women to be.

Your point about the prevalent legal culture re. custody battles in divorce cases was well made, certainly. And I notice nomad patly dismissed it, just as I've seen her patly dismiss it in the past.

 

[nomadthethird]

Your point about the prevalent legal culture re. custody battles in divorce cases was well made, certainly. And I notice nomad patly dismissed it, just as I've seen her patly dismiss it in the past.

This is because it gets tossed around by stupid groups like Pat Robertson's, and The Promise Keepers, and people on this message board, even though statistically there's little to the claims.

The laws regarding marriage and divorce and child custody are a bunch of labyrinthine weirdness: yes, of course. Do courts tend to favor mothers in custody battles? Yes. Do children tend to prefer to live with their mothers when given the choice between the mother or father? Yes. Do mothers tend to expend more time and energy in the care of their children than fathers do? Yes. Is this entirely "fair" or "good"? No. But does this mean men are actively "discriminated" against in the legal process? No.

In fact, since men in every relationship tend to make more money, they actually have a much better chance, legally, of getting what they want, since they have the resources to drag out the legal battle much longer than their wives (in many circumstances) could.

In the U.S., most parents who are both working get joint custody, end of story. Equal time, distributed over weeks, alternating weekends.

The remedy to all this, if you're a man or woman and don't want to deal with custody battles in court? DON'T GET MARRIED. DON'T HAVE KIDS.

 

[grizzleb]

I was a young child during the Clinton administration.
In a far off country.

Yeah, you ignored alot of my other points. You really don't like men do you?

 

[Mr. Tea]

This is because it gets tossed around by stupid groups like Pat Robertson's, and The Promise Keepers

Just because you don't agree with some of the groups that draw attention to this issue, or even if they're manifestly stupid, that doesn't mean there isn't an issue there.

The laws regarding marriage and divorce and child custody are a bunch of labyrinthine weirdness: yes, of course. Do courts tend to favor mothers in custody battles? Yes. Do children tend to prefer to live with their mothers when given the choice between the mother or father? Yes. Do mothers tend to expend more time and energy in the care of their children than fathers do? Yes. Is this entirely "fair" or "good"? No. But does this mean men are actively "discriminated" against in the legal process? No.

We've been through this before...it's got more to do with (non-) enforcement of visiting rights that with who 'gets' the kids after the divorce.

In fact, since men in every relationship tend to make more money, they actually have a much better chance, legally, of getting what they want, since they have the resources to drag out the legal battle much longer than their wives (in many circumstances) could.

This could be different in the US, but in the UK the gender pay-gap is smaller than a lot of people think, and is mainly accounted for by the relatively small number of top executives whose earnings are pretty irrelevant to most working men and women. Though of course more women work part-time, admittedly, which leaves more time for actual parenting.

But all this is by-the-bye...can you not see why it gets people's backs up when they mention important issues and you dismiss them as "bullshit Bill O'Reillyisms"? I know you're not a fundamentalist on this - you just said "men get screwed over by the system too, on some issues worse than women", in so many words - so why not engage a bit rather than dismiss? All too often you sound a bit "Well you're a man, what have *you* got to complain about?"...now I know you well enough to know you usually think about things a bit deeper than that, but do bear in mind grizzle is a n00b, eh?

DON'T GET MARRIED. DON'T HAVE KIDS.

Works for me.

 

[nomadthethird]

Is there some kind of proof or statistical evidence that the court doesn't "enforce" custody arrangements, or is this just something people say because it sounds like it could be true? I'm not sure about the U.K., but I'm positive that in the U.S. this is not a big problem; everything gets litigated to death here. You could go to jail for not following a custody order, it happens all the time.

Yeah, you ignored alot of my other points. You really don't like men do you?

Don't. Feed. The trolls.

 

[grizzleb]

Fuck, the stupid shit you say to people on the internet. Yeah there was probably no need for the man jibe.

peece

 

[Slothrop]

It's funny. Dworkin often gets accused of being a foaming-at-the-mouth misandrist. But really, it's women Dworkin dislikes--she hates the fact that they aren't the male power double, and that many of them are disinterested in becoming just like men, some kind of "default" "human" "subject" who gets to rule over a domain.

This seems to be a bit of a standard trap for 'progressive' politics and thought, though? Opressor / opressed is a subject / object relation, hence there's a tendancy to generalize opressors into morally culpable rational agents and the opressed into mechanisms that respond to environmental conditions. I always kind of suspected that it was more prevelant in marxist thought and class politics (cf the way that you never hear anyone not working class described as 'a product of their environment') than in feminism owing to the fact that there are a lot more women involved in feminist academia than there are blue collar workers in marxist academia... but then I know very little about either so I might be way off.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

just for the record I didn't say either of these 2 things:

So it's not really the case that Western society exclusively benefits men at the expense of women.

specifically, the word "exclusively".

should men fight 'matriarchy' and 'reassert their hidden nurturing instincts'?

your sarcasm is lame and toothless, friend.

this:

This is all true. But it's also true that men are more likely to suffer depression or other mental illness, abuse drink or drugs and kill themselves. Boys do less well than girls at school in almost every subject and the fact that men commit the majority of crime and make up almost the entire prison population is so obvious as to be hardly worth mentioning.

these all seem to be largely self-inflicted problems tho, yes? & likewise the more likely to be murdered bit - by other men, men killing/attacking women is surely much more common than the other way round. (the one exception might be the bit about school, tho that's a tough one to call as a large portion of education policy makers - the administrators, deans, etc. as well as theorists - are male. I'd be interested to find out if getting better grades/test scores actually translates into more opportunities at higher education, access to better jobs, etc. for girls. It may, I've no idea.) anyway, no one's saying men don't have plenty of problems, that we aren't objectified, alienated, heaped with social expectations, etc. just that, yunno, there's a pretty unequal balance of power - more unequal in some places than in others - and that it generally, not always, favors men. tbh I'm not sure how it's possible to argue otherwise.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Positively, without a doubt. Sex offenders, murderers, serial killers, rapists, prison inmates--all have abnormally high concentrations of testosterone in their systems.

the link between excessive testosterone & violence (tho surely sometimes this is an advantage - I wonder if any studies have been done on the testosterone levels of soldiers in or shortly after combat? or in veterans once they've returned home? nomad or anyone else?) or sexual crimes is clear, but "prison inmates"? that's an enormously broad category including a ton of nonviolent offenders. anyway I have a hard time believing that statement - for sex offenders, alright, but the rest? surely numerous violent crimes are caused by a whole host of factors, some of which have little or nothing to do with testosterone. it also kinda seems like letting people off the hook - like, it wasn't me, it was the hormones.

 

[grizzleb]

your sarcasm is lame and toothless, friend.

My point there was that such imprecise dogmatic language frequently serves no other function than to get peoples backs up. Have political ideas dammit - say what you mean and what you want. If you just admitted that your concept of matriarchy has no real relevance in the dialogue we are having - why use it at all?

 

[nomadthethird]

This seems to be a bit of a standard trap for 'progressive' politics and thought, though? Opressor / opressed is a subject / object relation, hence there's a tendancy to generalize opressors into morally culpable rational agents and the opressed into mechanisms that respond to environmental conditions. I always kind of suspected that it was more prevelant in marxist thought and class politics (cf the way that you never hear anyone not working class described as 'a product of their environment') than in feminism owing to the fact that there are a lot more women involved in feminist academia than there are blue collar workers in marxist academia... but then I know very little about either so I might be way off.

No, I think you're right, and I think your point applies to feminism and to Marxism--although more on the theory end than the practice end.

Padraig--the "prison inmates" thing would most likely apply across the board, because high testosterone levels are found even in white collar criminals. "Risk taking" and "risk seeking" behaviors (like, say, Madoff's scheme, embezzling funds from a Fortune 500 company, making shady hedge fund deals, etc.) are overwhemingly prevalent in people with abnormally high testosterone levels.

As for the completely ludicrous notion that criticizing patriarchy or mentioning matriarchy equals hating teh mens...There's nothing "dogmatic" about pointing out that in traditionally matriarchal cultures, you don't see nearly as much rape, violent crime, and sexual inequality. It's just a fact. There's nothing dogmatic about suggesting, as Padraig did earlier, that matriarchal cultures are hardly cultures where women existed as a dominating force in anywhere near the sense that men do now in our patriarchal culture. Really, what are named "matriarchal" societies are usually just cultures that were/are more egalitarian in all sorts of sane, logical, practical ways.

I don't understand where this thread is going. It's devolving rapidly.

 

[grizzleb]

But that's just it, either it has no relevance to our current political situation, or it does and it isn't anything to do with the words matriarchy and patriarchy.

Anyway, you've consistently throughout this thread dropped snide hints that your motives aren't purely based on finite political issues. As for the implication that all criminals have higher levels of testosterone, it's also true that alot of criminals have a high incedence of pre-frontal cortex damage in the brain which affects impulse control, so to imply that the male sex hormone is a bad one and by logical extension that men in general are bad is a bit shite.

There are many positives in risk taking the like anyway, I'm sure they don't have to be pointed out.

 

[nomadthethird]

What are you talking about?

Patriarchy DOES have "relevance" to our current political situation, since it IS our current political situation. Matriarchy DOES have "relevance" to our current political situation insofar as it is a counterexample of what's possible when power isn't unequally distributed along the lines of gender (and given to men almost exclusively in certain matters) in a society.

I certainly have not made any such "hints" about anything. Anything I've had to say I've stated plainly and unequivocally.

There are very few positives to pre-frontal cortex damage, but beyond that, you're wrong--nobody "extended" anything logically to say that "all men" are bad. I simply pointed out that criminals are almost exclusively men with exceptionally high levels of testosterone.

The "positives" in risk taking are far from self-evident.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

If you just admitted that your concept of matriarchy has no real relevance in the dialogue we are having - why use it at all?

eh? who admitted what exactly? The problem isn't "imprecise & dogmatic language" but, rather, your poor grasp on what are, frankly, two quite essential terms if you want to discuss gender. it's not like I'm bedazzling you with, I dunno, abstruse dialectics or a bunch of crit theory mumbo-jumbo (not my dept anyway). get a dictionary & use it.

I always say what I mean.

 

[nomadthethird]

Btw, I think Grizzle meant to say pre-frontal cortex dementia up there, which is different from damage, and ultimately has more to do with sociopathy or psychopathy than it does violent crime per se--two different but often overlapping domains, those.

 

[Mr. Tea]

these all seem to be largely self-inflicted problems tho, yes? & likewise the more likely to be murdered bit - by other men, men killing/attacking women is surely much more common than the other way round. (the one exception might be the bit about school, tho that's a tough one to call as a large portion of education policy makers - the administrators, deans, etc. as well as theorists - are male. I'd be interested to find out if getting better grades/test scores actually translates into more opportunities at higher education, access to better jobs, etc. for girls. It may, I've no idea.) anyway, no one's saying men don't have plenty of problems, that we aren't objectified, alienated, heaped with social expectations, etc. just that, yunno, there's a pretty unequal balance of power - more unequal in some places than in others - and that it generally, not always, favors men. tbh I'm not sure how it's possible to argue otherwise.

This seems to be coming close to fallaciously painting "men" as a monolithic entity that creates "its" own problems. Yes, of course most politicians are male, as are most people who hold a lot of power in some way or other (directors of big companies, media magnates etc.) but if, for example, some law or budgetary decision is made which leads to the economic degeneration of part of a city, which in turn leads to an increase in gang activity which leads to young men being more likely to either commit or become the victim of violence, it doesn't really make sense to say "men" have brought this on themselves because most policy makers are male.

Come to think of it, one of the people commonly held most responsible for much of the social ills in this country over the last 30 years was a woman (dear old Maggie T., of course).

Though you're ultimately right, of course, that there's a very unequal balance of power - I certainly wasn't trying to argue otherwise, because this would clearly be futile.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

This seems to be coming close to fallaciously painting "men" as a monolithic entity that creates "its" own problems.

I wasn't getting at anything so complicated as all that. just that when someone says "men are more likely to be victims of murder", well, yes. by other men. so it seems rather a silly argument to make against the existence of what might be termed patriarchy, if you see what I mean. depression, suicide, etc. are less clear cut but at the very least it seems hard to pin on them on any one thing in particular, whereas, say, the overwhelming majority of sexual assault can be pinned on dudes. not all dudes, of course.

I mean, I'm not a great expert on gender studies or feminist theory, I just try to use my common sense. I think there's a difference between saying that most power structures are largely - not totally - male, both in #s & character, and saying that men cause all the world's problems. the latter being a classic distortion of feminist critiques tho innit - i.e. they just hate men kinda thing, like our boy the grizzla.

I don't think that men don't always muck things up so terribly, or really any more than women would/do, just that a significantly fairer balance of power couldn't help but be an enormous improvement.

 

[grizzleb]

Yeah, that bit about the prefrontal cortex I remember reading about a few years ago so it might have been discredited. Quick google shows plenty articles linking prefrontal cortex damage to crime though.

http://www.autismwebsite.com/crimetimes/00b/w00bp1.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/09/970913073401.htm
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1737651

etc

Anyhoo - I'm not saying that the power balance isn't generally male in alot of cases. What I was saying is that patriarchy is a fairly blunt term and no amount of shouting 'its patriarchy dammit' is going to get away from that.
The problem I have with your attitude is that you attribute any statistical imbalance in favour of men as a cynical one engineered by men, and any imbalance in favour of women as merely accidental, or even better, as something which is only a side-effect of earlier exploitation by men.
If I told you the 50% of child abuse cases are by women you would probably say that this is due largely to social reasons, not anything wrong with the female brain, or hormones or whatnot, and I would agree with you. The problem is you don't seem to want to extent the same courtesy to men.

padraig - the question I pose to your statement that 'patriarchy and matriarchy being essential to discuss gender' is - in whose lexicon? If we don't look at how words are used then it's easy to scapegoat and hide things under the rugs.

And you probably do damage to your (worthy) cause by reeling out tired old jargon like that.

At what point does patriarchy cease to be our current situation? When the statistics for everything aren't identical?

Anyway...It's an interesting discussion, I apologise if I got anyone's back up!!.

 

[nomadthethird]

Uuuggghh.

NOOO. You still don't get it. I'm really beginning to think is a futile discussion. I NEVER said patriarchy was "engineered" by men. As with any longstanding cultural tradition, patriarchy is something that largely came into being as a product of a bunch of accidents--cultural, social, economic, agricultural, evolutionary, biological, historical, military, etc-- which added up over time and coalesced into one significant factor unto itself.

I'm not at all surprised that 50% of child abuse is at the hands of women. Not one bit. I've heard it suggested by psychiatrists/psychologists who treat victims of sex abuse that it's likely that child molestors are nearly 50% female as well. I wouldn't blame these crimes on ANYBODY but the women themselves, and on the families they come from (and then, in a larger sense, their communities and societies). Abused people tend to become abusers.

But you also have to put that statistic in context, too: women statistically spend far more time alone with children, so they also have far more opportunities to abuse children. So, given the limited amount of opportunities men have to abuse children, they actually abuse children a disproportionately large amount of the time.

 

[nomadthethird]

Research has concluded that there IS something wrong with some men's brains, and with some women's brains (but far, far fewer of them), when it comes to violence and psychopathy. It has also concluded, in the case of men, but not in the case of women (though there is some evidence that female criminals also have higher levels of testosterone than average), that male criminals--but not ALL men--probably have something wrong or abnormal going on within their endocrine system.

Get your facts straight. Nobody is saying that all men are bad because some men have pituitary problems, for fuck's sake.