Gwazi Magnum

Abortion Discussion

Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!
I knew this was going to happen once me and Jorick hit the Abortion topic! :P *Sarcasm*

In all seriousness though, I'm Pro-Life.
Have been for basically my whole life, but that stance has current had some shaking alterations and re-evaluations done to it which I will describe below.

Mainly, I was always Pro-Life for one reason. I see the child into the mother to be a human life.
I do not care if it cannot live on it's own yet, if it is not yet sentient. It is still growing, and developing.
I love at it's stages of development in the womb the same way I look at someones stages of development once outside the womb.

You wouldn't for example look at a newborn or a 2 year told and call their life less important or valuable than an adult's because they couldn't walk properly, share well, or talk well yet. They're still learning, they're still growing. You value them for being a human being and what they will be once they are fully grown. So with that in mind, I really cannot imagine/comprehend the act of Abortion as anything less than outright murder.

Clarification: I do not see the mother who did it as a murderer though. I understand the rationale others have behind it. I know they aren't going in and thinking "I'm going to kill an innocent life cause it's inconvenient to me". But I personally can really see the act itself as anything but that, even if that's not what's going on in the other persons head.

Now... for such a stance you're probably wondering "What are these shaking alterations? How did you re-evaluate?".

Well. That's when people approached it from angles I have never considered before, made comparisons I never even dreamed of.
Angle's and comparison's such as:

-We don't force people to donate organs to save lives after death. Why do we force women to give birth so a child may live?
-Parent's are not legally obligated to run into a burning building to save their child, why do we expect them to give their life at times so a child is born?
-If a human being in some odd situation became attached to another, and needed that other to live. They would would be allowed to disconnect the person, having that person connected is a violation of bodily rights.

etc.

So if anything, you could say I'm Pro-Life atm. But Pro-Life in a period of doubt and re-evaluating.
Now, anyone here who knows me would know I enter these serious debate topics all the time simply out of enjoyment, interest and expanding ones mind.
But lately abortion topics specifically I have also been going into just to gain more insight from the other side so I have more information to evaluate and hopefully come to a new and better conclusion with.
I wouldn't even say it's that far off to predict I become Pro-Choice within a few months. I can't say for sure yet.

Long story short, the thing keeping me on the side of Pro-Life is seeing that unborn child as a human life.
I know there are scientific definitions people use for life such as ______ month, gains ability to do X etc.

But I don't think life is something you can just define by how old it is or abilities it has at the moment.
But rather than that specific individual will end up growing into.

In other words, it's a pure moral stance/opinion.
Not a stance/opinion that should be used in a legal case or anything of the like.

Modern Feminism

And... In the 2 hours I took to respond to Jorick you posted.
Well, here goes another hour (Or 23 minutes...)! :P

Dark Wind said Adored by society? That's very debatable in a slut-shaming, and often times victim blaming society we live in. And whether or not women have an easier time securing a partner, it doesn't change the fact that shaming a woman for enjoying sex while letting men who can be equally promiscuous get off without any negative social judgment is wrong. When it comes to sex, everyone should mind their own business.

Agreed. But as we see with the world, "Purity Pledge", "Adultery in one's heart", "Gay Marriage still being a debate" etc. People just love to get involved in other people's sex lives. -.-
I will fully admit that women get it worse when it comes to sexual culture and how women are treated opposed to men when they sleep with multiple different people.

Dark Wind said And with gendered slurs, Jorick has gotten to that. The worst things men are called are pricks, dicks, assholes, douchebag, etc. And most men don't really take these things seriously. Whereas with women, specific things that come from being a woman are cunt, pussy, slut, whore, and bitch. Also old time things like "You hit/throw like a girl." In these cases it's like being a girl is a big insult.

Eh...

I don't see any issue in terms such as dick, douchebag, cunt, bitch, whore, pussy etc.
Literally speaking, yes they are based off specific parts of the human body (some male/female specific). But English has words meaning several different things all the time.
Culturally speaking, I find they're more general insults thrown at both genders rather equally, it's a typical case of where I think people need to not be offended by the word itself but rather the meaning and intent behind the word.

As for saying like "You're acting like a girl?".
Those I'm with you 100% on. That's outright saying that girls are less competent/worse then men.
That women are something to avoid and not be like.

Dark Wind said Media does not favor women. Not by a long shot. I'm not sure how you've come to this conclusion. And media matters quite a bit. The manipulation media can have on one's conscious and subconscious are pretty alarming.

Depends on how you look at it.
If you mean as in the image/representation women are given on Media? Then yes, women get the short end of the stick.
If you mean how they benefit from Media? Such as how much a girl may get paid for photo shoots, being revealing etc? Women models and such have it better... by far.
But honestly, that's just a case of female vultures profiting off making a bad image for the rest of their gender.

Dark Wind said
Not saying you were. Nor do I disagree that there are issues that face men that are ignored or brushed off.

Feminism is called feminism because it is gender equality for women. For women to become equal with men. It has not been achieved yet. I feel we spend to much time deciding to be feminist, men's rights activist, egalitarian, humanist, etc. Why can't I be all of them? I would not hold myself to a single label or thought. I feel these activist organizations intersect when they are genuinely for what they hope to accomplish.

If you want to identify as all of them feel free to.
I get along with several people who choose to do so just fine.
It's just I personally choose not to cause I don't like identifying with any cause in this case that's focusing on just one element of the overall problem.

Dark Wind said I don't know if there is a majority of people agreeing. This is hard to quantify.

I guess it largely depends on area.
Where I live that's what the majority thinks (or simply of the majority of the kind of people I'm around).
It may be different in your areas and the people you all interact with.

Dark Wind said It's not genuine feminist job to focus on everyone's problems. I have said before there is something to be said about solving problems one at a time. Distractions cause progress to slow down. True feminists are not trying to take away from men's rights. They're simply trying to elevate women to the same level. Once that happens, more progress can happen for both men and women. Meanwhile, there can be other movements to work forward and fight for men's rights as well. I find fighting about what movement is the right movement to be a complete waste of time.

This honestly might be the best solution to the issue.
Having feminist focus on women issues, men's rights focus on male issues and have the two agreeing and on the same side as allies rather than being against one another.

But as long as causes like feminism are plagued and ran by Feminazi's who want to push a female dominant agenda, it's not going to be so easy.
Those who are fighting for men's rights will speak up against Feminazi's, just like they do against anything else that tries to attack and take away men's rights.

In other words, if both sides lost their extremists I can see this working and people simply identifying as both feminists and men's rights.
Until that day comes... Conflict is going to happen.

Modern Feminism

Jorick said Which is worse, being mocked for being raped or being mocked and for being raped? Men are just mocked, women are mocked (less, to be fair) and also blamed for it in many cases. I'd say treatment of rape victims is actually worse for women. It's a horribly complex issue, but as far as the sexism bits go it's pretty equal due to shittier things in different areas. I'd say female rape victims are treated worse, but male reports of rape are less likely to actually be acted upon whereas nowadays female accusations are so strong that false accusations can sometimes get convictions when the only real evidence is he said, she said type things. Women are raped more, but underage victims of rape (be it statutory or true lack of consent rape) are treated differently: girls are generally treated as horribly abused victims, but male victims of things like teachers taking advantage of them are sickly encouraged and approved of. It's all a big mess of awful crap, but in the end I'd say it's pretty clearly a gender equal issue when all things are considered.

Good point, though there have been cases of men being blamed for rape.
Not nearly as often mind you so I'd still give that point over to women. But with comments such as "That Player, he probably asked them too".
However, this is less of a blame in the sense of "She shouldn't of worn that dress" and more simply thinking the male wasn't raped, and simply had willing sex with the girl.
But, that kind of blaming also happens to Girls, with comments such as "She wanted it".

I really hate people at times... -.-

But yea, this is really a too complex issue to be claiming either gender has better or worse.

Jorick said That's the thing though, for anyone who views females as still getting the short end of the stick (which I do, and I imagine all feminists and many of those who identify as humanists and whatnot also do) it's not just a matter of previous generations, it's a thing that's still happening. It's not calling men today oppressors for the actions of their ancestors, it's calling men today oppressors for the current state of things. It's kind of ridiculous to claim men are all consciously oppressing women though, as there are all sorts of cultural things going on that are never consciously considered that lead to sexism, so it's not like it's just cool to go yell at random guys that they need to stop oppressing women. That's why I say even if this was the intent it's an equal issue at best, though honestly probably weighing in favor of it really being a female issue, because what's worse, men being viewed as oppressors or all the female issues that are caused by male actions and behaviors?

More clarification is certainly needed though, because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to bring up as a male issue regardless of what meaning is intended.

You have a point in that there are a number of female issues going on.
But we can't use the number of cases women face to discredit individual cases of men.

That's the whole point of the tally/list at the bottom. To count the male issues and the female issues.
To rule male issues as not male issues before it even get's to that point because female issues exist simply defeats the purpose of the tally.

Jorick said Some trace? It's pretty blatant. Claiming that it's heavily outweighed by the draft is ridiculous given the fact that it hasn't been used since 1973. We've been in wars since then, and the combined action in Afghanistan and Iraq most definitely strained the numbers of active military personnel, but even then the draft wasn't used. Prosecution for failure to sign up for the draft hasn't happened since 1986. Until and unless the draft is actually used again, it's effectively dead and not really worth claiming as a major point of sexist bullshit. Honestly, it seems like a joke to me to equate "having to" sign up for the draft (when the only negative repercussion nowadays is that failure to do so might disqualify you from having a job with the federal government), which has affected barely any men at all since 1986, to how men get the shaft in divorce and child custody proceedings, which affect men all the time. The fact that people have to dig for the draft as a second flagship point for how men have it bad is kind of sad, because when you look at the facts surrounding it it's effectively a non-issue with only hypothetical possibilities of bad things to come.

Now, that aside, I'd say the thing about men being expendable in emergencies (which by the way is a holdover from times long ago when maintaining a viable breeding stock was of vital importance, wherein losing half of your population's men would just mean the other guys have to pick up the slack but losing half of your women halved your breeding capabilities) is made up for by them being of greater importance in almost all other circumstances and by the associated negative things for women about them being frail and weak and incapable of saving men and whatnot.

I wouldn't rule this as a major issue at the moment.

This issue is more dependent on the time/situation we as people are in at the moment.
The concern is though, with how politic's work a big war that requires draft could break out at any moment.

As a male, you need to spend your entire life living, with the risk that the government could at any point drag you away and force you to kill or be killed if the situation ever arrived.
That fact that's a constant (though unlikely) danger for males is why I still list it as a valid issue and not simply grasping at straws.

As for the expendable men being countered by women being more frail?
I use the same response I said early of you can't rule male issues as not male issues before it reaches the tally because women issues also exist.
You're right in that women being frail and less capable probably does balance it out, but that's a call to make at the tally and not before hand.

Jorick said I'd revise it to be 3 male specific issues, 4 gender equal, and 1 for women. The changes I'd make are removal of the draft altogether and moving the expendable men thing to the neutral category.

But yeah, this is by no means an all-inclusive list, and trying to claim who has it worse just based on a listing of concrete issues would be foolish anyway.

I'd rule it as 5 Male/3 Equal/2 Women

Keeping the Drafts as a male issue (But a minor one depending on the times), and keeping the Expendable men as a male issue. But also noting the women being seen as weaker/more vulnerable and adding that as another women issue of it's own.

But I do agree, making an overall ruling based off such a list would be foolish.

Jorick said I think there would be more harm done by trying to force a name change than by leaving it and having to make a clarification once in a while.

Also, I think those feminazi types are more to do with people declaring humanism and so forth instead of feminism than any naming issues. The name thing is minor, but the awful parts of the group that are after female dominance rather than equality is a huge reason for why people distance themselves from feminism. I am an example of this in action.

That makes two of us examples of the action then. :P

Jorick said First wave feminism and humanism are basically the same thing, so yeah, they could be. Feminism is far better known in general culture though, so odds are heavy than any non-vocal supporter of equality will call themselves a feminist rather than a humanist.

That's more an issue of general awareness of the options out there though.
How many of those quiet feminists do you think would remain feminists if they were all aware of the Humanist movement?

Jorick said Right, I know there are things that wouldn't be affected by just dealing with female gender roles, that's why I prefer the simultaneous approach. What I was getting at is that there's already all sorts of groundwork laid for dealing with female gender role stuff courtesy of feminism, all kinds of momentum for that side of things while male issues are rarely even acknowledged, so there's an argument to be made that it'd be more efficient to just focus on one problem before dealing with the other.

The fact that humans are a sexually dimorphic species is exactly why I am doubtful that gender roles will ever go away completely. So long as there are differences, there will be people who discriminate based on those differences. That's just how the human mind works. The best we can do is minimize the impact, not eradicate it. At least that's how I see it with my cynical world view.

Humanity has over 6 billion people, we're capable of dividing up effort and multi-tasking. :P

We can have people deal with the laid out and easier to carry out female issues while still having people work on the male issues.

In total agreement for the dimorphic point though. We still have examples of that with black and asian racism, people who still follow Nazi tradtion's and beliefs etc.
But in a species over 6 billion big a few bad eggs are bound to happen, making every single person accepting of everyone is a pointless effort.
As long as the rules/laws we live by and the culture that influences us is not being sexist, racist, homophobic etc then that's the best we can do and focus on.

Jorick said I already did a little of that in what I said about the draft being a non-issue. I can go for more though, sure. The child custody and divorce thing is the one and only area that I actually weigh as being equal to the major female issues, and they've got three big ticket items as far as I'm concerned: pay gap [note: see next quote response section for a bit of clarification on this one, and why I downgrade it to a minor issue after further research, and in the future I'll probably refer to this realm of issues as employment issues since "pay gap" actually doesn't describe it well, not rewriting things because fuck it, let people see my mistakes], bodily autonomy, and the clusterfuck of media things. That alone is a three [note: two with the correction] to one difference on major things. Now, for the lesser things, let's take a look at what we've agreed are male only issues.

So we basically got Child Custody Rights VS Bodily Rights and Media?

Fair enough, I can agree with this one.

Jorick said The genital mutilation thing, eh, big fucking whoop? Circumcision is gross and weird, sure, but what does it do exactly? From everything I've read on the subject, it lessens sexual pleasure and sensitivity, but it's also cleaner and makes it so some problems with foreskin aren't an issue. Aesthetics is a wash, people tend to prefer circumcised versus uncut based on personal experiences and what they were first made aware of and such. It doesn't do any real lasting harm to the guy, it doesn't inhibit or prevent sexual activity (like a lot of female genital mutilation does), it just makes it feel slightly to moderately less good (which is a wholly subjective thing anyway, since there's no objective way to measure pleasure) and potentially solves some problems. This is nowhere near as big a problem as things like the pay gap, and if you look at it as a part of the broader picture of sexual things it's dwarfed by some of the crap women face in that area. The genital mutilation thing is a very minor issue in the grand scheme of things, and honestly it's more of a strange religious problem than it is a sexist problem. Circumcisions don't happen out of malice for men, they happen because old books said it should and then it became a tradition. In the first world it's a male only problem, sure, but it's a really small one.

Circumcision VS Pay Gap

Pay Gap I'll address later where you talked about the study you were using.

As for Circumcision, we're in agreement in that it is an issue caused by religion.
But honestly I'd be ruling this one category up against women bodily rights because it's essentially the same battle under a different light.

Women being told what they can and cannot do with their bodies when pregnant.
Men having people make choices for them about what to do with their body before they're even old enough to resist.

From a Health Concern standpoint women have it worse in this by far.
But from a standpoint of pure control over your bodily rights, I'd rule men have it worse cause it's made for them when they have no way to stop it.
If a woman truly is against it they are at least in their power to move somewhere it is allowed (Not a great defense, but it is at least more control over the situation than men with circumcision are granted).

However, I will grant there is a way shown to recover from the effects of circumcision.
The method being you take a specific kind of metal weight (I forget what it's called) and warp your penis skin around it.
The idea is that it slowly stretches the skin causing it to grow, do it long enough and you're penis is in it's natural state again.

As for people preferring the circumcised penis look, you can credit largely because of the religious influence raising people to basically prefer it.
Because that's the state that you're 'supposed' to be at, and it's what media will show more often.
Where basically people are being raised to dislike and shy away from our natural bodies features.
If you grow up and on your own free will decide to alter your body and you don't like _________ that's fine and totally in your rights.
But it should not be because society told you to.

Jorick said For prison sentencing, the level of sexist bullshit present in it is heavily mitigated by those stats of offense and recidivism rates I brought up. You can't just call it an anti-male thing when there are clear and logical reasons for why it is this way, and why logically women would have harsher sentencing if they instead had the higher rates. There's also the fact that the United States justice system is ridiculously backwards in the first place and in need of major reform just to make it not brokenly stupid, so trying to point to bad things in this area as proof of wider badness is like saying the US military being backwards and stupid about things is proof of society at large being backwards and stupid in the same ways; they're largely separate areas governed by very different rules, so you can't really look at them and judge them in the same way as you'd look at social interactions. This is also a minor issue that gets nowhere near the importance of the big ones, though certainly a more important one than the genital mutilation thing.

You have a point in that it's something based on fact, and not a matter of people trying to make women better than men.
But still a male issue none the less. May it be ruled more or just as important as genital mutilation probably depends on how much value you put in Prison sentences vs Bodily Rights.

Jorick said -Snip of saying there are more woman issues than males-

If I think of more issues against men I'll be sure to bring them up here.
But with the issues we currently have addressed here what you say would be correct.

Jorick said Well now, you've seen the notes I made to pay gap stuff in the previous section, so here comes a somewhat embarrassing correction. Those numbers I was quoting? Yeah, thought they were from a legit study, got it from a solid site, but I traced it back and found out that it came from a heavily biased feminist organization and it didn't have very good documentation on methodology. That might've still flown sort of, if not for the fact that I then found very contradictory information when I went to find legit data. Turns out childless women under the age of 30 actually make an average of 8% more than their male counterparts, but it does actually swap back the other way after 30 even if the women remain childless. The overall pay difference is indeed about 20% as I said before, so there's that, but I couldn't find any solid data for pay differences between childless women and mothers in the same field with the same level of experience and education. Also, it's not universally in favor of men: the Bureau of Labor Statistics looked at a bunch of different fields in 2009 and found that women made more money in jobs falling under the headings of "bakers," "teacher assistants," "dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers," and "other life, physical, and social science technicians," whatever the hell that means. That was 4 out of 108 occupations looked at but hey, some advantageous areas are better than none. I also found some things giving more detailed breakdowns of how pregnancy and motherhood might explain a large segment of the pay gap, which was already a blatantly obvious thing, but I'll be giving them a read to see the details bits on how they estimate the effect this stuff has on a woman's pay. There's an argument to make about how taking time off of work to be with kids is largely due to gender role things expecting women to always be the one there for the kids, and they should put their children above all else while men are expected to focus on work, but there's still a large choice aspect going on there since working women and stay at home dads are becoming more and more acceptable, so I can't really count this as just another problem caused by gender roles.

So yeah, I'm downgrading the pay gap thing from a major to minor issue as I see them. It's not as bad as I thought, there are areas where women truly have advantages, but it's still a problem area. It's just no longer as important imo as bodily autonomy and the media clusterfuck, so downgrade ahoy. Thanks for questioning this and pushing me to go do better research Gwazi. Doesn't change the overall picture for me, but I like being as accurate as possible and this helps.

So essentially. younger childless women are paid more then men, but older women are paid less than men?
Personally though, until I see a legit study showing the pay differences I'm going to be operating by the explanation of that the original "Pay Gap" is a result of parental and maternity leave of mothers more often than fathers, and the fact that women tend to pick less paying jobs then men tend to do. Simply a natural result/by-product of other Gender issues going on, not any kind of conscious discrimination against women. An issue that in theory doesn't need and should not be countered and handled on it's own. But rather something that should fix itself over time as other gender issues are resolved. If it is something that get's addressed separately all you'll have is an issue of women being paid even more then men once the other gender issues are solved.

You're welcome for pushing it. That claim specifically in gender equality is something I've learned to approach with caution and suspicious cause without fail every claim of such a wage gap existing has been proven to be false and/or from a bias source.

Jorick said I think I already covered this stuff when I responded to a rape thing earlier in this post. The point about it differing by area is important though, definitely has some merit to it. Women who accuse "important" people of rape are more likely to be mocked and disbelieved than those who accuse some average schmuck of rape. The thing about raping men being a myth in some places is also very important, and in some states and countries the laws on the books define rape in ways such that legally it isn't rape if done to a male, such as saying rape is the forcible penetration of the vagina. The legal side of things is improving slowly, but the perception and reaction to rape accusations is still pretty awful and hasn't gotten much better in the past decade, and that's pretty shitty.

Technically you can rule that when a woman rapes a man that she forcefully uses the mans dick to penetrate her vagina.
Therefore still a forcible penetration of the vagina and can be legally claimed to be rape. :P

We're in agreement here with that it's an awful situation still being worked on, and it is easier to accuse an average person for being a rapist than it is to accuse an 'Important' person.

Jorick said Well, you should've already read what I had to say on bodily autonomy, so whether or not you agreed with that you should have an idea of what the argument is for why it is indeed a female issue above all else. Pro-life attacks on bodily autonomy aren't really sexism (it's not about gender and they'd probably say the same things if men could get pregnant too), and they aren't exactly discrimination against women for being women, and it's good to make the distinction that it's not a sexism-based thing, but it nonetheless a major issue for women that isn't an issue for men. Explain it away with sexual dimorphism all you like, the fact remains that female bodily autonomy is under attack while the sovereignty of male bodily autonomy isn't even questioned. Aiming for gender equality isn't about dealing only with the differences that stem from sexism, it's about dealing with all gender-based issues regardless of what they stem from.

Oh, and that thing you said about it being a women's rights versus men's rights thing, those two things needn't be in opposition for an issue to fall under one or the other. Abortion and thus female bodily autonomy is a women's rights issue that has literally nothing to do with men's rights. And the parent versus child rights thing... Actually, nah, that'd be getting into abortion debate territory. I'll take Protagonist's lead and not go there.

I read it, and I've debated this topic tons on the atheist group I've mentioned in the religion thread.
So I've heard almost every argument in the book, argument's that have definitely caused me to re-look my stance on Abortion.
The only thing really keeping me Pro-Life at this point is claiming a child before birth isn't a life.

That's a debate for another topic though.
As for Abortion and Gender rights though?
Although I personally view it as a child vs parent issue rather than a gender issue, it is still a topic which I grant does count as an example of a gender issue for women.

Dark Wind said
Man, I will respond to you Magnum and you Zaresto… But Jorick did such a good job of summing up most of my beliefs. Give me a moment to look at these things carefully.

No problem. These posts are getting pretty long to read and reply to anyways. :P

Religion(s) and Atheism

Protagonist said Also, I tend to think that a religious extremist without religion is still an extremist, and now doesn't even have religion to restrain them, as a religious extremist at least limits himself to perceived enemies of his religion.

Or to be fair, uses Religion as justification for their views or extreme acts.

Modern Feminism

Protagonist said And then there's the more radical feminists who try to make the pro-life movement out to be filled with sexists or say that men can't have an opinion on abortion. I do not wish to argue about abortion here, but as a very pro-life man, I cannot in good conscience align myself with these types of people.

I'm honestly Pro-Life myself so I can sympathize.

Personally though when I look at the issue of Abortion I see it as a "Child Rights VS Parent's Rights" issue, not a "Women's Rights VS Men's Rights issue".
If men could also be pregnant, but they had abortion rights that women didn't... then I'd call sexism.

But as it is? The fact only women are targets of this is a biological result of only women can get pregnant.
So it does bug me when people use Abortion as an example for discrimination against women (at least in the sense of discrimination because they are a woman).

Protagonist said Back to the video game example, it seems very difficult to actually present a female character that feminists like.

If people like Anita are your basis for that, it will never happen.

Even if a female character is written perfectly to be a great character in every way they will still be attacked for "Trying too hard to be a man".
It's just a logical fallacy that people like Anita cling onto so they can stir up the most controversy and cash in the most from it possible.

Religion(s) and Atheism

Brovo said Gwazi I'm pretty sure everyone knows exactly how you feel about religion. Whether they want to or not.

They chose to read it. :P

I'm just open about it when it's relevant.
I don't go around with a Science book going "ATHEISM! ATHEISM!".

Brovo said I dislike it vehemently because it completely contradicts what the original surge/movement was... That I could be allowed to not believe in God and be accepted in society anyway was all that I asked for. It's all I need. Christians don't barge in my home, they don't harass me when I go out in public, they don't do anything like that. Yes, there is the occasional fucking nutbar on the public bus that will loudly read his bible about how everyone who doesn't repent will get stuck up the ass with some jolly red dude's personal flaming pitchfork, but that person is not representative of the entire spectrum of believers of Christianity.

The "new atheism" movement that most people reference is where people can't just be content to be accepted as atheists. No, they have to go so far as to try and disprove religion and what not. Bloody hell, a few people doing that is fine, an entire movement is just... Ridiculous.

Though, I fully admit, it is fun sometimes to engage in philosophical battle.

I do have to agree that those who troll and harass those who are religious just for being religious is just ridiculous.
It doesn't help the case for either side.

But from what I understand people like that normally come from communities where there were surrounded by hateful religious extremist.
And then one atheist, mostly just focus on those religious extremist specifically.

That or they work in a field of education or science and get annoyed when Religious people try to argue science or get Religion on the same pedestal.

My issues personally are more just with what Religion does when followed or taken too seriously.
If someone is religious, but doesn't force it on others or try to slow down education and science then I'm fine with it.
Even if I find the idea of Religion silly to begin with.

Jannah said
Exactly. Yes I'm atheist, but I really don't give a damn what other people believe as long as they're not trying to force it on me. I understand a lot of atheists are angry, particularly ones who grew up in fundamentalist households, but ridiculing religious people and acting intellectually superior is not going to help the situation. If anything, ridiculing religious people just gives them more fuel for their whole "war on religion" nonsense they like to spew. To give a recent example, there were atheists whining for the removal of a roadside cross at a car accident site. I wish I could find the article again :/. Anyway, that goes too far. There's family mourning ffs.

This Article?

When I initially heard of the case I was annoyed at the atheists who did this also.
But arguments were made such as if one case was allowed then they all would be.
And how it could be dangerous if everyone who was religious who lost someone to an accident started placing memorials near the road for it.

Essentially for many the issue wasn't a "Let's make this mother suffer cause she's religious" but rather "We need to keep the roads a safe place, and letting one through opens the door to all the others who want the same".

Personally it's still an issue I'm somewhat split on.
But I'd rather have the roads be safe than see another accident happen cause drivers got distracted by all the grave stones.

Modern Feminism

Jorick said -Counter Points Snip-

To start with, I'll just list the topic's we already agree on.
Then I'll proceed to counter-argue the rest of the points.
Both mine and Zaresto's though, cause they both make arguments for how men are discriminated against just as much or more than women are.

+Clarification on my points: I wasn't trying to say "These are men issues, and not women issues" but rather "These are men issues, that people like to try to ignore at times are issues/discrimination men face". Cause often times when feminism is mentioned people go "Women are discriminated in _____, ______, _____ & ______" but then go on to claim men are never discriminated against, and/or ignore the fact that women discrimination issues also have a male version of it going on.

I probably should of made a paragraph for each of those points rather than just listing them in order to clarify this back then.

Agreed on

-Child Custody (Male issue)

-Feelings (Equal Issue)

-Family Stuff (Equal Issue)
But to note here, it's the men who normally have to empty the wallets and do most of the hard work for culture while women get it easy.
But like you said, women are shamed for doing the same. So I guess it boils down to what is worse? Being expected to foot most of the bill and effort? Or being treated as if you shouldn't be expected to?
Or would said issues be about equal?

Either way though, I agree that this one seems to be a gender equal issue.

-Body Image (Female Issue)
Like the Clarification above. I wasn't trying to deny a female equivalent, but with the rise of things such as feminist frequency people have really started to highlight bad female influences in the media and appearance (Even if Anita's specific arguments are total crap), but in the process forgotten than men are also exposed to some of those pressures and influences.

-Genital Mutilation (Male Issue)

-Draft (Male Issue)

-Parental Expectations (Equal Issue)

Rape - I remember that case... Everyone who helped in covering up that case should of been charged with assisting rape and evidence fraud. The Hacker who exposed them should of been hailed as a hero, not charged with Jail time. And all those people who defended those boys should be publicly exposed and shamed for supporting rape *end rant*.

I will agree that the idea of victim blaming has many more factors to it than just gender.
It's a more complex issue than that. But I'm merely pointed at how (depending on the area) if a woman get's raped it's a serious issue, but in a man get's raped it's a joke.
There's even cases where people claim "Men getting raped doesn't happen", and rarely do people claim the same for cases of women getting raped.

So in terms of rape itself? The prevalence and such I'd rule women get it worse.
But when it's specifically how we treat the person who is raped, I'd say men get it worse.

Both a Male and Female dominant issue in different areas.
I won't rule which gender get's it worse here yet, since this also devolves into a big and sensitive topic for people of what's worse in rape?
The act of being raped, or the way you're treated for it?

Oppressors - In regards to oppressing in the whole of the debate.
You're right in that history gave women the short end of the stick. But that's not a valid excuse for seeing men as the Oppressor's today.
It's blaming the men of today for the actions of the men of the last generation.
If feminism is really going to attack today's men for what they're ancestors did... The feminism is attacking the wrong time era and lost it's relevancy.

In regards to that men should be dominant though.
You are correct, this is an equal issue against both men and women.

I'd need clarification as to what he meant here though before I rule this for any side.

Prison - Given the stats, it is more logical like you say to be harder on men than women.
That doesn't make it right, or equal treatment though to be doing so.

A criminal should be charged appropriate to the crime on hand, and their criminal history.
Not their crime +What other's of their gender are responsible for.

Expendable Men - I'll agree there's some trace of female discrimination here. The idea females are seen as more vulnerable and needed to protect.
But I think that's more than outweighed by that only men are forced to go to war in a time of draft, and when people do start saving lives it is the men made the lowest priority.
They're lives are essentially given the lowest value. If having your life mean less than another's cause of gender isn't sexism and gender discrimination then I don't know what is.

---

So in the end, our total results so far are:

Male Specific Issues: 5 (Child Custody, Genital Mutilation, Drafting, Prison, Expendable Men)
Gender Equal Issues: 3 (Family Issues, Feelings, Parent Expectations)
Women Issues: 1 (Body Image)

Now obviously, there are many women specific issues not being highlighted here.
Mainly because this debate began because we were simply trying to argue for how men are discriminated and feminism ignores it.
So we will still need to address all the female discrimination issues before a ruling can be put down on who get's it worse.

Jorick said Oh, and for the sake of fairness, this sort of garbage also exists on the other side of the aisle too. There are those who claim to be concerned with male issues but use it as a disguise for misogyny and such. People suck, they always try to co-opt well meaning movements for their own shitty agendas.

I'd argue these cases are for more rare (though that's probably a direct result of those support specifically men's rights are far more rare than those support specifically feminism), but this is damn annoying to have to deal with when it does happen. -.-

Jorick said Because when it first became a thing females were second-class citizens even in otherwise progressive nations, so naming the movement for gender equality based on the current lay of the land made all kinds of sense. Part of the core ideology was always a removal of gender roles, which included those of males that cause all sorts of issues, but it did indeed focus solely on women at first because that was the area in need of vastly more work. The main reason there hasn't been a name switch is because feminism is such a huge movement that renaming is impossible; attempts to change monikers leads to people being viewed as splinter groups that aren't part of feminism, so they lose a lot of their credibility and sway in society. This is part of why people who say "I'm not a feminist, I'm a humanist" are given shit, because humanism isn't a well known thing that has a lot of social clout like feminism.

It's sort of goofy that a movement seeking gender equality has a naming bias like that, but hey, a rose by any other name.

I can understand the confusion and division that can rise up from changing the name.

But it's still inaccurate and harms the goal and focus for gender equality if the cause that's meant to be supporting for gender equality sticks with a name showing bias to one side.
It would still imply and give the subconscious message that female rights are more important.

Which may have roles to play in feminazi's calling themselves feminist, and people choosing to move to causes like Humanism instead.

Jorick said I'd agree with the split down the middle estimate, though only when talking about those who openly talk about being feminists. Those who don't make a big hubbub about it tend to be the kind that want gender equality, but of those who'll describe themselves as a feminist it seems roughly 50/50 for being a real feminist versus being a pro-women advocate, which are indeed different things

Those who don't make a big hubbub about it could he humanist though also.
1st wave feminism claims to be gender equality, so does humanist.

So those who claim to simply support gender equality but aren't vocal about could be either feminist or humanist.

Jorick said Not necessarily. It's entirely possible that if female gender roles are eradicated, male gender roles will either go with them or follow soon after. They appear to exist in a sort of parasitic opposition, so if you remove one the other ought to shrivel away. Even if that's not the case, getting rid of female gender roles would at least make it bloody obvious that the same is going on with men, so full attention could be turned to getting rid of that side of things. Ideally though, both sides of the equation should be strangled simultaneously if at all possible. That'd make things cleaner and neater all round.

This is all ignoring the high probability that due to human nature gender roles will never actually go away, but hey, it's all hypothetical anyway.

I'm not denying eliminating women issues would help men issues.

But there may still be some cases like genital mutilation which remains a male issue if we simply address women issues and hope that men issues vanish as well.
We're in agreement though in that it would be neater to simply handle both at once, rather than handle only one and hope it ends up aiding the other.

Humanity over time though has abandoned and grown above more and more of their human nature.
I don't see it being a permanent influence over how we treat each other by gender.

In my mind though, even if after all cultural stigma's are gone and men and women are treated 100% equally we still see more men doing X and more women doing Y due to factors like physical builds, hormones etc that's completely fine with me. As long as they are like that because that is who they are, and not because that what society told them to be like.

Jorick said Many men also do little to quell radical feminists. This isn't an indictment of feminism so much as it is an indictment of the bystander mentality prevalent in humanity. Lots of times people see something bad or stupid going on, they won't step in even if it'd take a trivial amount of effort. Trying to call bullshit on feminists for not reining in the radicals is like trying to call bullshit on politicians for not reining in political extremists. It's not really their job and they've no obligation to do so, it's up to the listener to decide whether a voice is worth paying attention to or is full of shit.

In a sense I agree with you.

But in terms of feminism specifically, I'm not surprised less men bother quelling feminism.

Feminism in modern days is largely a movement that discriminates and hates men. Men naturally are going to be more opening to ignoring said feminism and finding a cause that does support them, rather than try to give the movement that's outright attacking them a fair shake.

Jorick said There we go. Your list of male problems was a lot stronger than Magic Magnum's. Solid 50/50 on clear male problems versus ones that have balance in related female problems, none that were obviously outweighed by the female side. I could argue that these are a lot smaller issues than the core female problems, but I'll let that half a sentence suffice rather than taking a paragraph or two to do it, though I'll go into detail if asked.

I will admit he brought up more good arguments than I was able to think of at the time.

But if you're going to make a claim that female problems are worse than men problems when most of the arguments so far are making points as to why Men's right are just as bad if not worse.
I'm going to want to see the detailed version to support said claim.

Jorick said Okay, rant over, on to the other things. Women do have the right to vote, yep. Equal pay though? Nope, not at all. When you look at full-time workers, women are paid on average 77% of what men are paid. This figure is an average from across all kinds of occupations, but there exists a pay gap between men and women who have the same level of experience and qualifications doing the same job in almost every field, including those that are typically dominated by females like teachers and nurses. A lot of people like to bring up maternity leave and such to explain it, but even when you look at a childless women they're only paid an average of 82% of what their male counterparts are paid. These are all figures from the United States, from data gathered in 2012. I wouldn't call being pay about 1/5 less than men "equal pay," so I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say women have it.

So there are studies supporting that when childless women work equal hours with equal skill than a man in the same job that the man is still paid more?
Can I see the source? Cause up to this point every time someone claimed women were paid less, they were either referencing the flawed study that didn't consider factors such as leave or career choices, or simply just quoted it cause it's something feminism always states.

Jorick said Women are adored by society? Hmm. Who's doing the adoring? Why are they being adored? The only adoration I see comes from men to women they find attractive. Is this a boon for women, or is it a product of objectification? When it comes to sex, sure women have an easier time getting a partner, but they're also shamed for doing so where men are congratulated for their conquests. That one's a two-way street though, as there are plenty anti-male things with sex (such as sexually inactive males being subject to far more mockery than women, and sexual dysfunctions in men being the subject of jokes whereas they're viewed almost universally as serious medical problems for women). For gender-based insults, I think Dark Wind was talking about things like bitch, cunt, slut, whore, and pussy that are derived from female sources (the first two), mainly directed at females (slut and whore), or insult by way of likening someone to stereotypically female traits (pussy). The only similar insult for men is dick, so if you buy into the idea of gendered slurs and such (which I don't, as my phrasing should have made clear) there's a pretty clear bias.

I'd have to agree with this.
Thunderf00t also once made a good video about how being an attractive women could be a disadvantage in that the extra attention and praise you get is from your looks and not your skill.
That simply by having a pretty face it becomes harder to be appreciated for your knowledge or skill than it would be otherwise.

Jorick said Eh, that's talking about domestic violence, not rape. People (not just men, though men more often to be sure) get laughed at for reporting rape for other reasons. If you go take a look at studies on victim blaming, you'll see that people in general tend to blame the victim of a rape (which in turn implies a lack of sympathy and a chance of mockery); when you look at it separated by gender, men blame the victim more often than females, both when the victim is female and when the victim is male. As I've said elsewhere in this post, the negative attitudes about rape victims has a lot to do with things other than sexism. It's true that men are less likely to be taken seriously when reporting rape, and that difference between genders is where the sexism lies, but you can't ignore the fact that women also get mocked and blamed for being raped. There are deeper problems in this area that make a foundation upon which sexism is one of many layers, so claiming that any kind of nonsensical attitude about rape is solely for sexist reasons is not taking all the facts into account.

Even if men blame the victim more often than women do, doesn't make the fact a man being raped is a laughing manner that's rarely taken seriously unlike a woman's case is still an argument. It simply means that men have more work to do in this area in smartening up and to stop blaming the victim.

I do agree that women also get mocked and blamed for being raped, and that there are also other causes at work here.

I find the amount women get blamed compared to men though depends on the area.
You'll find those area's whose main concern are those football kids who can land big bucks for their hometown of the rape is covered up.
But also find those area's where raping a women is totally unacceptable, but raping men is a 'myth'.

What's Bothering You?

Jannah said
Some of them have privacy concerns of their own, which is understandable.

:/ With enough tweaking it is possible to have people on your friends list but still see very little.
Then have a separate close friends group to show stuff to.

Though I imagine the odds of convincing all these political buddies to also change their settings is a bit far fetched.