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90 Years After Suffrage, Impoverished Mothers Need Another Kind of Equality
The study by the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute decisively links depression, economic struggles, and family well-being. The Washington Post explains, “researchers reported that one in nine infants in poverty had a mother with severe depression and that such mothers typically breastfed their children for shorter periods than other mothers who were poor.”
Researcher Olivia Golden told the Post, "A mom who is too sad to get up in the morning won't be able to take care of all of her child's practical needs,” including constructive play with the child that fosters intellectual development.
The recession has unleashed the assault of poverty across the country: a recent analysis by the Center for American Progress and Women's Voices, Women Vote shows that economic instability disproportionately impacts unmarried women. Depression is a reasonable response for the countless single moms who have to worry constantly about where next month's rent will come from.
These findings affirm previous research on the psychologically corrosive impacts of family poverty. Mental health advocacy groups have reported that in the midst of the recession, unemployment and pay cuts raise the risk of severe mental illness.
An in-depth study on economic mobility by the Pew Economic Mobility Project found that children growing up in high-poverty neighborhoods tend to face similarly bleak prospects throughout their lives. For black families condemned to these economic barriers, all the rosy assumptions underlying the American Dream were turned on their head:
Neighborhood poverty alone accounts for a greater portion of the black-white downward mobility gap than the effects of parental education, occupation, labor force participation, and a range of other family characteristics combined.
The Urban Institute study adds a psychological dimension to the vicious cycle of economic distress. The study comes out the same week as a survey of survivors of Hurricane Katrina that links the trauma of the disaster, economic hardship and children's emotional disturbance. Children's mental health is also shaped by their parents' emotional turmoil as they struggle to cope. Whether or not the Gulf Coast recovers economically, a young child who has already spent his most formative years in a landscape of hopelessness (now doubly devastated by the BP oil spill) may never heal from the the scars of Katrina.
The racism embedded in these dilemmas rubs salt in the wound. Sociologist Francis Adeola of the University of New Orleans explained in a 2009 article that disaster-related mental health vulnerabilities loom larger for blacks than for whites, from depression and anxiety to family conflict.
Among the women studied by the Urban Institute, the Post reports, “The severely depressed group was 44 percent white, 30 percent black and 21 percent Hispanic.” These mothers were also at high risk of domestic violence and drug abuse. Such crises often entangle poor families of color in the child welfare or criminal justice system.
What makes this research especially stunning and ironic on Women's Equality Day is that it shows what feminism hasn't done since women won the right to vote. So few poor mothers will see reason to celebrate civic citizenship in the absence of economic citizenship.
NOW celebrated Women's Equality Day by calling for a revitalization of the Equal Rights Amendment, which would build upon the 19th Amendment with a full constitutional guarantee of equality before the law. The ACLU and the AFL-CIO renewed their call for legislation to close age-old gender wage gap underlying women's economic marginalization. Activists continue to push for incremental state-level reforms as well, like paid sick leave to accommodate working mothers' family responsibilities.
Ninety years on, equal access to the ballot still hasn't yielded fairness in the workforce. Although the women's vote marked modern progress, modern women seeking to overturn economic patriarchy today need something on the order of a revolution.
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Show AllEXCESSIVE WEALTH -- HOW TO GET AWAY WITH IT
“Ninety years on, equal access to the ballot
still hasn't yielded fairness in the workforce.”
LIGHT
Equal rights for women, this means equal power for women, which can only come about by giving government deadly force to women.
For when faced with a charging tiger, men pick up a rock, step forward and yell, whereas women grab their hair, step back and scream. Natural instincts in action, the result being that only men have deadly force.
For it is a man’s world and the only rights women have are those given to them by High Society, actually the men of High Society who pass all mansions from father to son.
The result being, men of the upper half of society never loose in divorce court, men of the lower half never win. The goal being to turn the lower half of society into a matriarch ruled class, and a most pernicious class that makes the immoral wealth of the rich look pale in comparison.
Um, actually, research shows that "when faced with a charging tiger" women grab the kids to protect them, then gather together and present a group force. Honestly, throwing a rock at a tiger is a good way to end up eaten.
You don't need deadly force to survive: you need the chance to cooperate.
I wonder if it is possible to ever have a thread here free from racist, bigoted or sexist posts. Women grab their hair, step back and scream??
Clearly human existence and survival is dependent upon cooperation and not brute force. One would think that this were self-evident.
"Clearly human existence and survival is dependent upon cooperation and not brute force. One would think that this were self-evident." -- Two Americas
I agree with you!
TWO: There are many intelligent men who post on CD, but you are one of the few who GETS it on this issue. Until these fellows read the works of Betty Friedan, Shulamith Firestone, Susan Faludi, Germaine Greer, and others... they will not be able to see outside their own privilege-based paradigm. That is not to say that class is not an issue, or that elites do not do their utmost to keep pay-scales low, bust unions, and turn person on person. The fundamental split in the human template began with patriarchal religions alloting unequal status, and tying men (and the "male side of The Force") to the Divine, while excluding women. Centuries of asymmetric programming followed, giving rise to belief systems, academic preferences, legal rulings that STILL, however covertly, favor the masculine while invalidating the UNIQUELY feminine vision & sensibility.
As we've noted, often when Blacks reach high positions of influence, they adapt themselves to the racist system that is in place. The same modus operandi operates with respect to women appointed to high places.
Until the system itself can be radically altered, these become self-perpetuating outcomes. They speak less about "human nature" than what opportunists will do to improve their lives without regard for the greater good. In other words, it's an imperfect adaptation to a VERY imperfect (i.e. asymmetric) ssytem.
I believe the old systems ARE collapsing. In everything from exposures of naked political corruption, to the increasing pace at which ecosystems are deteriorating, to a global finance system based on legalized FRAUD... the CENTER IS no longer holding. And then, too, there is the waste on war; added to all the lives wasted from it. An INSANE value system this late in humanity's evolutionary plan.
The article about New Orleans and how people learned to cope with disaster and found the courage to resuscitate their lives (through community efforts), added to the lessons drawn from the Cuban population provide prescient pointers as to what lies ahead. We are about to learn what we are made of.
Women are not only in the vanguard politically, they are the glue that holds society together - overworked, underpaid, marginalized, denied dignity, respect and equality. This is a contingent fact of the current social conditions, and since the evidence is all around us in great and in small things and is obvious and undeniable, the pervasive injustice and inequality can only be explained by a distortion in social relations and conventions. If we are not going to examine and analyze and attack that, what ARE we doing?
There are those in progressive and liberal circles who would have us believe that women, people of color, GLBTQ people, and immigrants are engaging in something called "identity" politics and that this is somehow an interference with or a distraction from the grand and glorious left wing cause and with class solidarity. This is false in two ways, though it is often expressed as though it were a given. First, women, people of color, GLBTQ people, and immigrants are not a fringe splinter minority interest, they represent in aggregate the majority of people here, let alone around the world. It is the educated straight white males who are the fringe, the minority, and power and wealth are still disproportionately held by people from that small group. It is the needs, sentiments, and desires of hetero white males that are odd and out of step with the rest of the people, not the other way around.
Secondly, women, people of color, GLBTQ people, and immigrants are not in the way, they are leading the way.
There is no such thing as a political left wing that is led by the same old group of European males, speaking in the same old boss's voice, seeing the world in the same old colonial and imperialistic way.
Thank you, Two Americas, for your post!
TWO AMERICAS: You are my kind of guy! When I noticed your uncommon wisdom in the threads following the stories about racial profiling and the prejudices newly legitimized by official Arizona State policy, I hoped you'd also apply your acumen to THIS topic. I see that my wish was granted (by your posting on this thread) today.
Where I have sought to relate the importance of this topic so that otherwise thoughtful men TAKE IT IN, I have found myself slandered by those of low consciousness. Surprisingly, following a recent article on women's rights, there were several short-sighted posts by a number of males who I would have expected better of.
In Robert Jensen's book, based on research into the world of pornography ("Getting Off") he speaks of the still-abundant misogyny that fuels an "industry" of this nature. Just as Hollywood has a tendency to up the ante on violence to support the audience's growing "taste" for this type of spectacle, Jensen relates some insidious (and DISGUSTING to me as a woman) parallels with respect to the types of items now featured in "popularly consumed" porn. These images reduce the worth of EVERY woman.
Women's rights and place in the workspace have displaced men and made a lot of them angry. And who among us, from either gender, hasn't had our heart broken at least once by unreturned love? A lot of men seem to harbor grudges and project a basic resentment (of that) onto women. Also, and I take this for the underlying theme of the Biblical story of Samson... a woman can know the vulnerability of her intimate male partner in a way that other men cannot (lest he's gay or bi-sexual). That sense of vulnerability has been all but beaten out of men as they are trained from the crib to identify with the images of the male (frequently prone-to-violence) action hero, what I term "Mars rules."
It gives me hope that men like you and GW North, and a few others, really don't let their "other head" get in the way of SEEING this matter for what it is. In the same way a Caucasian can never fully understand what it means to be Black in a White-dominant society, many men take their sense of power for granted. How many men fear walking down a street at night? Most women do. We know that rape happens ALL the time, nor does one have to look like a hooker with provocative clothing to become its victim.
In any case, I want to thank you for being part of this forum as your understanding is broad and profound. More of that is needed... in both genders.
You're a smart person, so I want to respond under that assumption, since I know I'm in the implied category of neanderthals who doesn't "get it". You also write very well, which is a virtue in and of itself! :)
I take issue with your characterization of identity politics in this post. When people like me crawl up and suggest that the practice of identity politics *can* be a distraction, that's a legitimate position. Obviously, in a system where there are varying degrees of equality, justice, and social consideration, groups form naturally--both on top and below.
I agree in principle that social claims are not inherently a distraction or an interference. They are, in fact, vital and necessary componennts in identifying and, hopefully, rectifying unjust imbalances. Most people who share my position take this for granted in the sense that from any "progressive" point of view, this should be a given. What usually drives us up from the primordial man-mud is how the politics is practiced and utilized in a strategic reality, and the context of the politics of identification. In my case, I tossed out my pithy post because, frankly, I see people like Chen as basic peddlers of a corporate view of justice. So my post was largely directed at her, because that strikes me as her pattern (she also plays largely the same zero sum cards in the immigration/migrancy debate, and frequently pays homage to positions not all that different than that peddled by a Wal Mart release).
I also dismiss the idea that you can just "aggregate" group claims and then present them as a unifying force for justice. This is an absurd position, since it essentially conflates the biggest issues of different groups in relative equality with each other; i.e., that gay marriage is of the same moral and social equivalence as equal pay for women.
This sentence you write, "It is the needs, sentiments, and desires of hetero white males that are odd and out of step with the rest of the people, not the other way around", illustrates the problem nicely. It is a caricature of an "enemy" that you need not make, especially if you're advocating sensitivity and rectification from this very same group for offenses committed now and in the past (as if we're a monolithic frat to begin with. We are most certainly not). And this is where ID politics can fail and fail big: it reduces social struggle to a zero sum game and forces each of us to tribalize in order to ensure that we're not only on the winning "side", but in doing so, we relegate the Other to a place outside of Paradise. As a leftist, I think this is bad politics moraly and strategically.
As we fracture and defend against other groups who in many ways have much in common, we cement power on its throne, not shake it.
It's a good (and very timely) discussion to have, but I would ask that we all not assume so much about each other that our ability to interact productively becomes mired in useless stereotypes that reflect more about the person typing them than the reality of the world we all occupy.
THanks to all of you who have posted some good food for thought.
DRONE: You write well, too, and raise valid issues. It was not until I read most of your post that I realized you were speaking to "Two Americas." (The comment line-up seems to have altered, unless it's just my computer?) I expect he will answer your questions; however, perhaps I shed some light on them in my response to Mcoyote further down the thread.
Thank you for your thoughts. You do not appear as a Neanderthal Mud-man. The fact that you think as deeply as you do and consider different angles on the issue in question is a wonderful thing. I wish more people did so!
I appreciate that Sioux. In some ways, your own post describes accurately why honest communication is so vital in multitendency movements. We can only understand the other's experience so much with empathy and imagination. Some things each of us will not get, and that "blindspot" for which there is no cure can easily get in the way if we don't allow room for each other to make mistakes and have misunderstandings that naturally arise from different life conditions. But the imperative is to always bear in mind that the street goes both ways...:)
DRONE: If I understood your post correctly, I can agree with it... and you. A forum like this can engage great minds and catalyze new understanding. I appreciate it most when posters are here for sincere purposes, with learning, chief among those.
" A forum like this can engage great minds and catalyze new understanding. "
Unless they disagree with you to strenuously, SR. Then you throw out the personal insults like "Neandrathal Mud Man" and much worse.
But hey that's new age thinking for ya.
JOE: As USUAL you get it wrong... blinded by your own arrogance and sexism.
The Neanderthal quote was taken DIRECTLY from someone else's post. I responded to him with his OWN words.
And I engage in MANY debates on this site and am quite cordial so long as the fundaments of MY beliefs are not attacked. I am one of a handful who has been attacked on all sorts of false bases MANY times.
And astrology is ANCIENT knowledge, so when you call it "new age thinking" once again it reveals YOUR ignorance.
It amazes me the type of mindset that argues FOR its earthbound limitations and would throw stones at the poet who sings the song of the stars.
In your case, the advice to go back to your cave does apply.
"It amazes me the type of mindset that argues FOR its earthbound limitations and would throw stones at the poet who sings the song of the stars."
Only when the poetry's trite.
And why do you presume knowledge of my core beliefs.
I've rocked and wailed ecstatic with the best of them and experienced moments of real inspiration. But I do not claim enlightenment or teachable knowledge only connection.
Assuming and asserting one's own personal spiritual superiority is an intellectual and spiritual conceit of enormous proportions and a sign of mental illness.
Your attitude and words are blatantly spiritually condenscending. It is both baffling and hilarious. The mark of the arrogant neophyte. You know the one, Arcana numero uno. The Fool.
How much acid did you eat back then, anyway? Just wondering. Aquarian Conspiracy and all.
Excellent post, many good insights. Thank you.
I would suggest that what you are seeing and objecting to could be better described as gentrified politics rather than as identity politics.
I agree with the point you allude to, that there is a penchant among liberals and progressives to divide everything up into discrete and isolated causes and that this is counter-productive. I don't think it is an accident that this happens, as it is a way to seemingly address some of the worst effects of the system without actually permitting any fundamental or radical analysis of the system. It is a way in which we are kept in line - we can think that "at least I am doing something" while we are kept impotent and ineffective. All opposition to the system is steered into safe and gentrified directions where it can be neutralized and then made to disappear.
As to the danger of alienating "potential friends and allies" along white males or upscale liberals and progressives, I can't help but think back to the 60's when upscale people and whites welcomed critiques of the privilege and status of the demographic they belonged to, and saw liberation for themselves in the shucking off of the "whiteness" and privilege of their social status, not a threat. It is not stereotypes I am talking about, rather it is about roles and positions in society, and about the rules that govern our social relations and conventions. It is not about what people are, not about their internal state, but rather about what they do and about their external conditions and roles in objective material reality. No one should take this personally, and in fact the politics of personal belief system.
"White liberal male" is not anyone's essence, not who they are, it is a role in the social dynamic. The politics of personal belief systems has caused people to internalize their political identity. This is no accident either, as that is a mechanism by which we are isolated and neutralized and unable to then think critically. We see this in action when someone makes a racist comment, is called on it, and then becomes indignant and offended - "how dare you call me a racist!" They heard a criticism of what they said as a criticism of who they are. That is a logical fallacy, introduced by years of right wing propaganda, that we need to move beyond as it is a serious barrier to thought and discussion.
I see what you are saying about the author.
" I can't help but think back to the 60's when upscale people and whites welcomed critiques of the privilege and status of the demographic."
You have got to be kidding. To conflate upscale and white is to do a deep injustice to the many poor and working class whites who had and have no real status or privilege to shuck off, unless you call waist deep in shit a privilege just because its not up to your neck.
If anything, poor whites were shucking off prejudiced beliefs that were imposed upon them by their education, culture and political rulers.
Get it straight, working class whites are also victims of capitalist oppression in all its myriad and malignant forms, even the working men!
"White liberal male" may be skin deep but working class is in the muscle, blood and bone.
"Working class whites are also victims of capitalist oppression."
Who even suggested otherwise? Not I.
JOE is a one trick pony. His cause is the oppression of the working class, thus locked into his sense of injustice, he's inured to any other form of suffering... especially that which has been woman-borne for centuries.
Some people can only view the world through an either-or prism; and like the fear you related in men who feel displaced as a result of women claiming their equal rights to not only self-determination, but the direction of their nation, he has difficulty (apparently) in expanding his worldview.
I remember reading how Black women felt the sexist oppression of their own "Brothers" during the Civil Rights movement, and thereafter. Often from an unconscious place (and I see this as the subliminal result of centuries of patriarchal religious saturation) men expect (and demand) women to support "the greater cause" without seeing how that often retains the status quo that insures 2nd class citizenship to women.
I hope debates in this forum break through Joe's resistance. He could rise above his own self-limiting paradigm, and probably open his heart in the process.
Yes.
Women are mostly working class. People of color are mostly working class. GLBTQ people are mostly working class. It is not about "their cause," but rather our cause.
People from those groups are our working class brothers and sisters who are at the most risk. We must stand with them. That is not divisive, it is inclusive. It does not work against solidarity, it is the basis for solidarity.
We stand with all in the working class who are being persecuted and oppressed, regardless of the pretext being used for that persecution and oppression.
Feminism has been destructive for working class men in a number of ways.
1. Many have been criminalized by Family Court for inability to pay child support or for very minor domestic violence incidents, incidents that while wrong should not rise to the level of criminal. False claims of domestic violence abound in child custody disputes.
2. Identiy politics has weakened the focus on working class issues, regardless of gender. You like to talk nobly of solidarity. I see many unions actively working to promote women's issues, but I see little solidarity among feminist leadership for working class males.
While women are mostly working class, working class women are not a large part of the "feminist movement." It is bourgeoisie to the core and awash in Rockefeller and Ford Foundation grants.
Furthermore the feminist movement is a pro-police force and relies on "the Man" to enforce its moral standards.
Understood. I see your point now.
I don't have much contact with the people you are referring to - relatively upscale professional suburban people - having lived in a blue collar AA neighborhood most of my life, and in farm country more recently.
"...working class women are not a large part of the feminist movement."
Agreed. True for all of the liberal and progressive movements.
"I see many unions actively working to promote women's issues, but I see little solidarity among feminist leadership for working class males."
I don't see any of the gentrified liberal cause organizations fighting for the working class, so this observation is accurate I think.
I have no knowledge on the domestic violence and child support issues.
You say "the feminist movement is a pro-police force."
Again, I see that as true with all of the liberal and progressive causes.
I don't see what I have been saying as contradictory to your points in this latest post.
"I see people like Chen as basic peddlers of a corporate view of justice. So my post was largely directed at her, because that strikes me as her pattern (she also plays largely the same zero sum cards in the immigration/migrancy debate, and frequently pays homage to positions not all that different than that peddled by a Wal Mart release)."
Yet, downthread, it is clear that you are painting with a very broad brush, and engaging in lots of lazy generalisations.
No, I was only engaging in one lazy generalization. Not every post needs to be a manifesto unless it looks like a promising discussion. At least not for me.
The only reason I even toss out a throwaway like my OP is because I don't want the Chen's of the world to be the *only* word, just as many of you wouldn't (and shouldn't) want mine or anyone else's to be the only word.
And yet men suffered widely disproportionate job loss in this Great Recession. No mention of that in this article.
Poverty destroys men and women of all colors.
Perhaps the feminist movement has done so little to address poverty because it, like liberal political organizations in general, is run by and for the professional classes.
That sums up Chen's work in a nutshell. Classic ID politics.
The universalist claims to equality mean nothing if the group you are trying to be equal to is also getting severely shortchanged. I'ts like a group that gets tortured twice a day carping about achieving equality with a group that gets tortured only once. While it's a valid claim--and Chen's right that it is--it's also a little on the self-defeating side.
One would think that the person "that gets tortured only once" would have a little more sympathy for the "group that gets tortured twice a day." Is that too much to ask?
By your logic, no injustice could ever be redressed. "Quit your carping" could be applied to all, including you.
Yes, it could very much. And again, I agree that the sympathy is necessary. I don't agree that you build a movement around it (after all, how's about just not having anyone tortured at all?!) and leverage the energy, resources, and resiliency of people into bargaining and struggling for so little a payoff.
I'm certain you understand the point here, so 'nuff said.
Got it. Thanks. I agree.
The analogy here would be the twice tortured (ie women) denying that the once tortured are even victimized, which is the approach of many non-marxist feminists like Chen.
This is only the second of Chen's articles that I've read, but, nontheless, she seems rather narrow in her focus. She overlooks the obvious point that women are not the only cohort that has been abused by the ruling elite (that includes men as well as women) in Amerikkka.
I think you've hit the point right on about the feminist movement. In order for advancement of women's rights to occur, gains must be made for all of us, not just the female gender.
Wins for any segment of the working class are wins for all of us.
You say that "in order for advancement of women's rights to occur, gains must be made for all of us, not just the female gender." How does advancement of women's rights harm any of us? Why could it not be that "in order for any to advance, those most oppressed must first be advanced?"
Are you not saying that women must wait, and that they will be advanced only by a general advancement? Is this not the same argument used against other movements for social progress from the past?
The rights of any are the rights of all. A blow to any of us is a blow to all of us. I don't understand upon what other basis solidarity could ever be achieved.
There is a resistance to seeing the struggle for gender equality as being on the same level of importance or seriousness as other struggles. Could this not well be because gender inequality is more deeply embedded into our social relations that other forms of injustice and oppression? I think that is the case.
Sexism is the expression of bigotry and social dominance that is discussed the least and dismissed the most cavalierly, yet there is much evidence that it may be the most pervasive and destructive. I think that is the case.
You've put many words into my mouth that I never spoke. I never said and I do not believe that women or any other cohort should have to wait for rights or equality.
As I wrote in another post on this thread regarding unions, the only way lasting gains can be made for all groups is solidarity among all groups.
I think the ruling elite would much rather have the rest of us squabbling about who is more oppressed. This squabbling works to defeat our own interests without the ruling elite having to lift a finger. As I said in my earlier post, unless and until there is "One Big Union" that is open to all races, genders and so forth, gains will be fewer for all of us.
Please don't make presumptions about my beliefs that don't exist. Nothing I wrote in any of my posts on commondreams or anywhere else implies that I think women's issues are less (or more) of a priority than any other group's.
I quoted you directly, and did my best to understand your point of view. Thanks for clarifying it for me, and I agree with you completely.
I don't care about or speculate on anyone's personal beliefs, as I see them as irrelevant in any political discussion.
It would not be completely fair to suggest that men suffered more than women in this Great Recession, actually the next Great Depression. Women are usually more likely to keep their jobs and not expect much out of fear of not being able to find another job as easily as men do. That said, employers often exploit their situation by working women to longer hours and on weekends too. Single women are more likely to be overworked than single men and that goes the same for divorce and widowed status. Furthermore, if you look at the sexual harassment cases at work, most of them are men against women and that would definitely be more so when the economy is bad and people are afraid to switch jobs. Overall, it is dubious at best to suggest that men have suffered more than women in this great job loss. If anything, I would say that women have had the most to lose in this economic era.
P.S.: I don't understand what you have against feminists. A couple of feminist minded women were kind enough to counsel me and my two daughters after I lost my wife to cancer a long time ago. Let me know and I would be happy to do what I can to help you overcome any misunderstanding you have. Thanks.
"Overall, it is dubious at best to suggest that men have suffered more than women in this great job loss. If anything, I would say that women have had the most to lose in this economic era."
The job loss statistics are publically available. You try to refute them with your hypothetical fairy tales.
Re your PS, I think feminists are waging a battle of the sexes but cry foul if men respond in kind. Feminists will try to spin any statistics that don't agree with their stereotyped portrayal of women as victims, men as victimizers. Usually they will use exagerated, oversimplified tear jerker anecdotal evidence in order to make their intellectual opppenent feel guilty, just like you did, Stanley.
"The job loss statistics are publically available. You try to refute them with your hypothetical fairy tales."
Are those the official numbers or unofficial ones? I have plenty of experience and witnesses to prove that none of what I said is a fairy tale. I take into account a variety of factors without any bias. Numbers don't give the whole picture when you consider what isn't included in those numbers. For example, those who have given up work are not included in those unemployment numbers. I would assume that married women who are unemployed long term are likely to give up and hope that their husbands can work and earn.
As to the rest of what you wrote, your anger against feminists is off the mark. I never said a single thing to make you feel guilty. In fact, I was interested in helping you overcome whatever misunderstanding you had of feminists. You could have simply said no but showing your anger like you did doesn't help me figure out how I could help you and it only hurts you further. Like it or hate it, of the victims, most of them end up being women. Of the female victims, the vast majority of the culprits are male and it hurts our reputation as males. Even among the male victims, most of the culprits generally turn out to be men more than women and that further hurts our reputation as men. There is nothing guilty of stating the obvious truth. The overwhelming evidence, and it is not just the anecdotal type, hasn't weakened those facts. However, to be fair with what you said earlier, I am with you that poverty destroys everyone of all races and both genders. I don't recall ever seeing or hearing a single feminist who has ever turned down a male for responding to a woman in kind.
Well look, feminists have been touting there 69 cents for every dollar statistic for decades. So statistics were introduced into this debate long ago. The statistics regarding gender disparity in job loss in this recession are out there and are generally accepted as fact. Google it.
You categorical beliefs about victimization and gender are way off the mark. Males are suffering disproportionately in our so-called education system.
Men are victims of female violence with great frequency, and the prevalence of domestic violence by gender is not nearly as skewed as your weepy anti-male propaganda implies.
As for anger, I don't buy the new age hippie bullshit that anger is bad bad bad. That bullsh*t pseudo-pacifist rhetoric has pretty much destroyed the left as a potent political force.
"Well look, feminists have been touting there 69 cents for every dollar statistic for decades. So statistics were introduced into this debate long ago. The statistics regarding gender disparity in job loss in this recession are out there and are generally accepted as fact. Google it."
Well I have to hand it to you that feminists are doing a much better job of calling for changing our capitalist system to a more socialist leaning type. Why is it in this country that the majority of men still believe in capitalism even when they are losing out even more in the Great Depression as you suggest?
"Males are suffering disproportionately in our so-called education system."
Women are usually more determined to educate themselves than men which may explain why they have been able to excel despite the authoritarian nature of the educational system in this country. Instead of privatizing education, public education should be saved and restored so that fewer students, male and female, suffer.
"Men are victims of female violence with great frequency, and the prevalence of domestic violence by gender is not nearly as skewed as your weepy anti-male propaganda implies."
Is there a statistic to prove it because from what I looked up, domestic violence against women is far greater than against men? There is nothing anti-male about what I said. Your singling out violence to just female violence against men concerns me. I would like to see the source you are referring to on the greater frequency part.
"As for anger, I don't buy the new age hippie bullshit that anger is bad bad bad. That bullsh*t pseudo-pacifist rhetoric has pretty much destroyed the left as a potent political force."
I never said that anger was bad but in this case, the way you displayed it for the issues you have with feminists will only cause others to misunderstand you and/or look at you in a negative light. I have plenty to be angry about including feeling bad about the way I voted in the past and failed to listen to real heroes such as Ralph Nader but I choose to channel that anger towards correcting my mistakes and making amends and improvements. Instead of blaming feminists for men suffering, I choose to convince others that capitalism has divided and conquered us and that we should replace it with socialism for all so that fewer people suffer.
Hey Stanley.
I voted for Nader in 2000. McKinney in 2008.
I don't really care if my rhetoric makes people look at me in a negative light. What I am aiming to do is shake the cages of the calcified minds.
I think feminism is a fraud and that as males we have to look after our interests as fathers and people with dignity. Feminism is destructive of that end as it villifies males and maleness.
Feminists have been despising males for decades now. I will not sit silent about their bigotry and destructiveness any longer.
I'm a man not some sort of cringing drone.
I understand your view of feminism and while I don't agree with that view, I think that we have debated well enough on it to call it a day.
As for who you voted for, you beat me on that. The last time I voted third party was in 1980 when I voted for John Anderson. After that, I had a lot to fear from the Republicans. It was one year ago when my niece introduced me to this site that I had slowly begun to see politics differently. I regret my last Democratic vote for Obama in 2008 but wish to start off with correcting that by voting for Midge Potts instead of Robin Carnahan for US Senate after careful consideration. I hope we get a third party progressive come 2012. If not, I just might not vote unless I can think of a great write-in.
Joe: Although you think the matter is irrelevant, your spiritual consciousness is at a level of absolute retardation. And your anger at women is real. It distorts your outlook and capacity to look genuinely at the big picture.
STANLEY: You did a most-admirable job in attempting to apprise Joe of his failure in the department of empathy, added to his defense of the indefensible. Thank you for your efforts. Maybe some anonymous reader learned something... since Joe apparently CAN not.
Sioux, I am glad I could do my best to try to help him. He usually doesn't act like this on other issues when I come across his posts. Perhaps it is this economy gone worse that is hurting his mindset to the point of showing his frustrations on the wrong targets like this. I too hope that others learn from this discussion if not Joe.
Similar qualifications, from not high having completed high school, to graduate degrees, less pay.
Perhaps people ranting about the feminist movement might want to address that fact.
This is only true if we completely ignore and take for granted most of the work that women do. Yes, it is true, women do not "suffer job loss" during economic downturns. Their massive load of unpaid work continues, under yet more difficult circumstances than before.
No one would deny that "poverty destroys men and women of all colors." That does not mitigate, however, the fact that women and people of color suffer more than whites and males do, does it? Perhaps good time help all, but that does not change the fact that some - whites and males - are helped more, does it?
Typical feminist dishonesty. You can't argue with the statistic so you make up a little homily about unpaid work.
Also, women have made substantial gains in education and now are the majority of college students and graduates. This has led many feminists to label men "education refusers" in a hypocritical blaming of the victim.
It seems that feminists are very reluctant to give up their victim status.
Feminist rhetoric is divisive, bigoted and most of all outdated.
Whoa. Where did that come from?
Have you no sense at all that your post undermines your case and supports mine?
"Have you no sense at all that your post undermines your case and supports mine?"
This particular tactic would be known as the fallacy of the complex question.
"Whoa?"
I just got started.
Julian Assnge of Wikileaks was falsely accused of rape in Sweden.
"The complaint was lodged by a radical feminist Anna Ardin, 30...
Ardin has written and published on her blog a “revenge instruction”, describing how to commit a complete character assassination to legally destroy a person who “should be punished for what he did”. If the offence was of a sexual nature, the revenge also must also be sex-related, she wrote. Ardin was involved in Gender Studies in Uppsala University, in charge of gender equality in the Students’ Union, a junior inquisitor of sorts."
-ISRAEL SHAMIR and PAUL BENNETT at the counterpunch website
Uh...OK.
Well, maybe we should invade or bomb Sweden. I dunno.
I made no attempt at responding thoughtfully or logically to your remarks, by the way.
Right because one person, who is a (radical) feminist*, advocates one viewpoint, it means that all feminists advocate that viewpoint.