More proof that we are stranded in a culture marked by crass, hysterical fear-mongering about male sexual predation and violence. Last week, Nicole Sprinkle wrote a piece that appeared in a New York Times blog called Seeing All Men as Predators.
She starts out just fine: "When it comes to our kids, men get a pretty bad rap. As a society we talk ad nauseum about racism and other forms of discrimination. But when it comes to men, no one seems to have much to say."
But then she veers off into dark and scary territory. She relates how she recently was looking for a regular babysitter for her preschool daughter. One candidate was a 23-year-old man who sounds like Superman. Sprinkle writes: "He was well spoken and exuded a quiet friendliness over the phone. He was studying to become a paramedic (great to have around in case of emergencies), lived his whole life in the neighborhood, had a mother who owned a local daycare, and worked as a summer camp counselor at the very preschool my daughter was now attending – and got rave reviews from his supervisor there."
Read the next passage carefully. What is both infuriating and chilling is that Sprinkle doesn't have the first clue how offensive it is:
"I told him frankly that I liked him best of all and yet still wasn’t sure I could make the leap of letting a man watch my daughter: one who might have to help her wipe, clean her up in case of an accident, who would be alone with her everyday for several hours."
Sprinkle ended up hiring a woman over the best candidate, solely because the best candidate is male.
After this unpardonable display of misandric pyrotechnics, Sprinkle feigns sensitivity toward the plight of good men. "I . . . told him that I felt really awful about having to feel this way, and that it was such a shame that society forced us to discriminate against kind, competent men as caregivers for our kids."
I can just hear Sprinkle telling a black person in the 1950s: "It's really awful that I have to feel this way, and it is such a shame society forces us to discriminate against good people like you, but I really don't want my daughter being in the same school as your child."
Sprinkle backs up her unbridled prejudice with an offhand comment that "statistically a man is far more likely to molest a child than a woman," blinking at the fact that the vast majority of child abuse is committed by women, and that a child is more likely to choke on pretzels than to be sexually molested by a man. But of course, we ban men, not pretzels, from our children's lives.
Sprinkle ends her hateful piece with the following attempt to paint her as an enlightened good parent: "I can’t help feeling saddened by my well-meaning bias . . . ."
As one comment under the story astutely pointed out, there is no such thing as "well-meaning bias." It is either bias or it isn't. You can't gussy up bigotry as good parenting by hiding behind the argument "but it's for the kids!"
In an era when we are telling men that they need to unshackle themselves from their masculine stereotypes and spend less time being breadwinners and more time being fathers, somehow Ms. Sprinkle, and a number of women commentators under the story, are perfectly OK with the view that men can't be trusted around children.
Huh?
But why am I surprised? Maleness itself has been under attack in this society for several decades. Ours is a culture that insists rape is of biblical proportions when the facts don't support it; it prevents men from sitting next to unaccompanied minors on at least two airlines (a third, British Airways, apparently is reversing its policy after being sued); it chases men in droves from the teaching profession and it prevents most men from assisting a crying child in the mall because the fear of false allegations outweighs the reward of helping kids; it mandates college freshman males undergo sexual assault indoctrination, one such program is appropriately titled "She Fears You"; it puts public service announcements on the side of buses depicting a happy girl saying: "One day my husband will kill me," and a happy boy saying: "When I grow up, I will beat my wife"; it tells women, who are assaulted far less frequently than men, that they need to "take back the night" and that they should feel safe only if they have their own hotel floors, taxi cabs, beaches, gyms, train cars, and buses.
And we could go on and on and on. Let's face it, ours is a culture that regards masculinity as inherently flawed, morally depraved, and downright dangerous to women and children.
And unlike any other group in America, somehow it is perfectly OK to paint all the members of this group, merely by virtue of the fact that they have a penis, with the same brush we use to paint the tiny percentage of members who do bad things. Try doing that to women, blacks, Jews, Hispanics, or Muslims and watch the frankly justifiable outrage. When men complain, they're "whining," because, you know, we're all so "privileged" -- again, just by virtue of the fact that we all have a penis.
If men are legitimately scary, Ms. Sprinkle, shouldn't we make it a crime for fathers to be alone with their own children? Logically, that has to be the next step, doesn't it?
Frankly, I fear for Ms. Sprinkle's daughter. It's not the new babysitter who is a concern, it's Ms.Sprinkle herself. She can't help but pass on to her daughter a wildly unreasonable fear of almost half the population of planet earth.
Ms. Sprinkle's hateful piece is found here: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/seeing-all-men-as-predators/?partner=rss#preview
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I posted a flippant comment under the story to make a point about prejudice.
"I am sure that the author will understand why I want to use a male attorney for my legal problems -- men are more authoritative and command more respect and all that. Not to mention, far more men are super-geniuses. I know that's an awful way to feel, but I can't feel guilty about it. I am sure the author of this piece, of all people, understands."
Of course, that is NOT how I view women attorneys. I judge every person on his or her own merits and don't make sweeping prejudgments about them based on their birth class.
Yes, it got my blood boiling.
So let's get this straight: men need to stay in their little breadwinner box, and women deal with children. Talk about a step back. The surprising thing is that more women are buying into it than I thought possible, based on the comments.
It's about the most unenlightened thing I've seen in a while.
Anon: But a lot of women see it for what it is and are as outraged as most of the male commentators.
Sprinkle's article really makes me want to take my kids to the park. Women are looking at me as a potential predator? Well, I guess it's good that I know this.
That is a little secret that they don't like to ever say on tv or in the newspapers.....
Females not males commit the most child abuse and also kill the more children than males.
Sickening.
I guess it never occured to her that there are female pedophiles in this world. Talk about closed-mindedness.
"But of course, we ban men, not pretzels, from our children's lives."
That about sums it up.
Women hit, cut, burn, and neglect children a lot more than men. It's OK if the babysitter has a knife, just so long as the babysitter doesn't have a penis.
Also it's newspapers like the one she wrote the article for that make men out to be monsters.
Does any one else ever watch the news?
It's like a 24-7 white male kick in the nuts fest.
The only time a guy is seen in a positive light is if he is in a jewelry commercial buying some chick a $30,000 ring.
The news: When a man jumps over three rows of seats to subdue the underwear bomber, it's:"Passenger subdues man who tried to blow up plane."
800 men can be killed, and if there's one woman, it's: "800 citizens, including one woman, killed"
Reading the article I had another thought...
This 23 year old guy must be living in a different universe from the one I live in.
Because there is NO WAY I would be alone with someone's kids.
You can get accused of anything and to me it's like playing russian roulette with your life the way things are in the united states.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336448/Girl-16-cried-rape-cheating-boyfriend-jailed-6-months.html
Nicole Sprinkle's article is absolute repugnant how dare she demonize men. I know of a man who is warm and caring. I'd sooner trust him to watch any children I may have than some of these young female babysitters.
A notorious account of child abuse. Known as a child called it. The child was abused by his own mother. What a monster she was to that child.
The story broke my heart and disturbed me greatly.
How can a mother be so cruel to her own flesh and blood?
It sickens me how women can commit heinous crimes against children but we're told to protect children from men.
AfOR,
thanks for the link. funny that her picture is pixelated, and his isn't for legal reasons? Seriously? Who's the criminal in that case?
blinking at the fact that the vast majority of child abuse is committed by women, and that a child is more likely to choke on pretzels than to be sexually molested by a man.
I'm surprised such a remark is completely citation-free. Where did you get the information that the "vast majority" of child abuse (and does that include sexual abuse?) is committed by women. I'd like to see that information. I don't necessary doubt you, but I'd like to see the source of this information.
American Gender / Raunch feminism does not target all men equally, their attacks are targeted toward heterosexual males. This would seem silly if it were not the truth.
The American gender / Raunch community has usurped major societal and social "Empowerment", not by extolling the virtues of their sexual preferences, but by their ceaseless attacks and villifications of heterosexuals.
Precious few American academics are bold enough to study this American Gender / Raunch "Empowerment" phenomena, so what other nations can do to temper, "Forced Gender / Raunch Empowerment" in their nation, is to don't let their nations law enforcement start "manufacturing statistics" that serve to build a prejudice against heterosexuals, and by default "Empower" gender / Raunch.
This wasn't a citation piece, just a quick and dirty read of an awful article. Stats for child abuse are well known, easy accessible, and all over the board. The one thing most have in common is that mothers commit the most child abuse, by far, because mothers spend by far the most time with the kids. Sexual abuse is a relatively small percentage of "child abuse." The comment wasn't meant to disparage women. It was meant to point up the absurdity of suggesting that we should prejudge someone's fitness to care for a child based on whether he has a penis. It is a grossly insulting, morally vapid position.
I would hope the feminist community would condemn this sort of thinking. Women have made a lot of progress breaking down barriers that once confined them to the domestic sphere. Women will never be able to truly "have it all" unless men are freed up to move from the work world to the domestic sphere. Right now, there is a terrible social stigma for men to adopt a significant role as nurturer. (A woman who tells her fiance that she wants to take time off from work when they have children is called a normal woman; a man who tells his fiance he wants to take time off from work when they have children is called "an ex-fiance.") This sort of thinking is scarcely consonant with the notion that women can do what was formerly considered men's work, and men can do what was formerly considered women's work.
My guess is, Archivist, that the feminist community won't care about this issue, or will side with the Sprinkler woman. NOW formerly supported shared parenting, but opposes it at this time, hiding behind the "men as abusers" crap. NOW and the others have become less interested in gender equity than in being a political lobby for certain women, and that's why it's time to scrap the whole feminist moniker and affiliation with these groups.
I agree with you: what other group would tolerate having its individual members prejudged in a negative manner because of the actions of a relatively small subset of its members? My guess is none. I am astonished that women are able to rationalize bigotry in this manner.
And I'd like for just one feminist site to show me the source of the statement that only two percent of all rape claims are false.
It is in this sort of fear-mongering environment that Julian Assange will be tried in Sweden on rape charges.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/07/uk.wikileaks.investigation/index.html
How many of you think he won't be extradited?
How many of you think he won't be convicted?
We've had enough stories out of Sweden here on FRS concerning false allegations. If it is proven that the accusations against Assange are politically motivated, then truly no one is safe.
Hey, April!
How 'bout you pull up your big girl panties and show stats that MEN hurt, murder and abuse children more than women do?
Archivist being such a big fat liar and all.
One thing is true: Men are ALWAYS prosecuted for child abuse. Women? Not so much.
For some reason, women hurt, murder, and abuse children because they are TROUBLED. They can't always be held resonsible. Kinda like making false rape accusations.
Men do it for fun, apparently. They must ALWAYS be held accountable.
Some women are just "too pretty to go to prison". No man is too pretty for prison.
As we all know, sexual abuse by a female just isn't as HARMFUL as that done by a male. Neither is murder or physical injury apparently.
Yours in Sisterhood,
Lisa
Yep. The two percent canard passes feminist scrutiny with no difficulty. Since this site started, a number of progressive sources have been bumping the percentage up to 8 to 10 percent. Our efforts are never acknowledged but we are among the only sources that have publicized the issue in a major way. (How they get that 8 to 10 percent is anyone's guess because we've demonstrated time and time again that while false rape claims are a serious problem, the actual percentage is unknowable. Oh, well, it's better than two percent.)
Lisa, thanks for the commment. I don't say I'm infallible, of course, but I have come across that child abuse stat many times (and there are innumerable different studies that give the typical moving target numbers). Unfortunately, as in the rape field, it is so terribly politicized that the numbers vary greatly. I want to see a study from someone who doesn't also happen to be an advocate whose livelihood depends on the perpetuation of male-as-predator models.
I think I originally got the following citation from False Rape Society, but it might have been Spearhead -- anyway, here it is again:
"The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) defines a perpetrator as a person who is considered responsible for the maltreatment of a child.
. . . .
"For FFY 2008, 56.2 percent of the perpetrators were women, 42.6 percent were men and 1.1 percent were of unknown sex."
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm08/chapter5.htm#n2
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm08/table5_1.htm
In college, my political science professor explained that anything over a ten percent differential is a "landslide." That's a landslide.
P.S. Now April will want to know where you got the stats about the pretzels. Just refer her to Rold Gold.
By the way, April, I agree with your discussion of consent on your website.
There was a case where a teenage couple (older girl, younger boy) were having consensual sex and she told him to stop. He delayed, by her testimony, for as little as five seconds -- he was found guilty of rape by a jury. Rape. Five seconds. Now, that's what I call a lack of common sense on the jury's part.
A woman, or man, says "stop," you stop. But, a five second delay is enough to send a teenage boy to prison for years? Wow! Now that's a tad excessive.
Thanks, Axel. I am aware of that one, and I agree it's a big gap (the gap is caused by the fact that women are the primary caregivers of children). I have seen studies of bigger gaps, but since that is a little off topic, I don't save them.
P.S. What is Rold Gold's telephone number?
"Thanks, Axel. I am aware of that one, and I agree it's a big gap (the gap is caused by the fact that women are the primary caregivers of children)."
That is a plausible explanation. Otoh, how much of that is offset by accusations against men being more likely to be reported, believed, or taken seriously?
"States that submit case-level data construct a child-specific record for each report of alleged child abuse or neglect that received a disposition as a result of an investigation or an assessment during the reporting period"
"Otoh, how much of that is offset by accusations against men being more likely to be reported, believed, or taken seriously?"
Excellent point.
Archivist,
Your "flippant" comment to the NYT might have been a little more...effective?...had you went a different route.
I actually don't use female attorneys. I am a landlord and occasionally need an attorney to deal with asshole tenants and the state. I use the same firm because I've had good luck with the people there, but I've not always had the same attorney. I've gone through several throughout the years. The first one that I had was a man. He did a superb job. He was there when I needed him, did the job that I needed him to do, and left me happy in the end, even if everything didn't always turn out as I wanted it to.
He moved on to bigger and better things, though, so the firm transferred me to another attorney. This one was a female. Like the man she replaced, she knew her job, did it well, and left me happy...for a while. It wasn't long, however before she caved to the ticking of her biological clock and got knocked up. Naturally, it became harder to reach her and eventually she just stopped taking my calls altogether because she had to tend to the little vaginal discharge that she just created. I'm sure she was thrilled to have a little thing that she could dress up in cute clothes, but her joy (or lack thereof, if that was the case) turned into frustration for me as I had to spend more time trying to find people to help me because she was out fulfilling herself. Eventually, I threatened to take my business elsewhere if they didn't give me a different attorney.
So they did. And, because I refused to let them give me another female attorney, I got another male attorney. I've been happy ever since.
I will never hire another female attorney ever again. Sure, male attorneys might take some time off to be with their families, but what are the odds that they'll do so for months at a time? What are the odds that they'll dial down at work to go to breathing classes or because some festering mass is growing inside of them, just waiting to be squirted out like a turd? I don't care what personal problems an attorney, or any other professional whose services I need on a regular basis, has; all I care about is that my own needs are met - and a man is far more likely to sacrifice his own personal happiness to see that my needs are met than a woman is. Period.
I work with some fantastic female attorneys and make no hiring decision based on anything other than the qualification of the individual. The male/female thing doesn't matter to me, because I refuse to generalize.
Oh I'm a usual reader of Jezebel and is amazing the amount of paranoia over men they have there. I went looking for the strong feminist cliché and I found a lot of women that feel that everything a men does is to harm women on some way or another. Didn't they had fathers, brother or good men that treated them well...ever? I myself had been harrased and sexually molested, but I blame the persons that hurt me, not a poor bastard that had nothing to do with the situation just because he happen to have a penis as well as the scum that hurted me. It helps that I had a loving father and a ton of male friends that were nothing but good to me. I will add that there is a book that Jezzies keep mentioning called The Gift of fear. I recently got a copy on the library and man that is such manipulative bullshit written by a paranoid man with a silver pen to make anyone reading it that doesn't know any better to think that all men are predators and potential rapist and keep an eye for anything they do because chances are he is going to kill/rape/beat you at any given moment. Really allong with gender studies this book is making women crazy with fear. Do not let anyone read it without a warning sign... a really big one.
Keep the good fighting the good fight!
the judge said the case is "not about Wikipedia," failing to correct his mistake. "It's about serious sexual offenses on three separate occasions, involving two separate victims," the judge said.
_____________________________
The judge has already named them victims. I can already see how this case is going to go. No bail. I wonder how much the CIA has a hand in this.
Axel, thanks for posting some links; that's exactly what I was asking for.
How 'bout you pull up your big girl panties and show stats that MEN hurt, murder and abuse children more than women do?
Anonymous/Lisa, shut the hell up, seriously. I asked a polite question and in no way showed any disrespect to this blog, the author of this blog, or the subject matter of this blog. Nor did I ever call him a liar. I simply expressed my surprise that a link to stat supporting his claim was not included. As a blogger myself, I make sure that I do this as often as I can because I tend to get plenty of MRA types questioning where I get my information. And anyway, I certainly don't parade around dismissing valid concerns about the ways in which men are harmed by our society. If you're so keen on criticizing other women for what you perceive to be feminist beliefs, you should try harder to find something real to jump all over.
Archivist- Thanks. As a self-identified feminist, I'm also especially interested in calling out feminists and feminist organizations for perpetuating bullshit like what Sprinkle wrote. I'm interested in equality between genders, not putting all the blame for the ills of society on men.
And, as you mentioned, women can never "have it all" if men can't, too. While we've made progress, to be sure, men are still privileged over women in the business world, and women are still privileged over men in the domestic world.
I'm writing a post on my decidedly "feminist" blog about this piece, too, and it is certainly not going to be in support of anything Sprinkle has said.
In other words, I agree that the article was bullshit for exactly the reasons you've detailed in your post.
Thanks, April! Please excuse the reactions of some of our readers. All of us here, especially me, have a hair-trigger at times because we are constantly challenged by people who misjudge us as Neanderthals. Then they try to argue with us, and they quickly find that we are lots more sophisticated than they thought, and probably lots more sophisticated than they are.
Can't wait to read your post.
men are still privileged over women in the business world, and women are still privileged over men in the domestic world.
April,
I'm going to have to disagree with you on this part. If men are so privileged, how does that explain that it is mostly men that have lost their jobs in the current economic climate, when net, women have increased in the numbers that are working. That doesn't seem like privilege to me.
Anon 9:38,
I've read that, and a bigger load of garbage, I wish I had never read. From the Amazon review:
Each hour, 75 women are raped in the United States, and every few seconds, a woman is beaten. Each day, 400 Americans suffer shooting injuries, and another 1,100 face criminals armed with guns.
Please notice how in the first sentence, it specifically refers to women. In the second, those that suffer from shooting and facing criminals armed with guns..... who are, usually, men. But nope, label them as Americans. The misandry that the book pushes is disgusting.
I've learned to disregard any of those "every hour, X numbers of women/people are . . . " whatever. These are advocacy tactics trotted out to make a point, and they are usually wildly wrong.
I was watching old NASA footage from the first moon shot in 1969, and every employee pictured at Mission Control was male. That scene would be jarring if it occurred today, because so many women now do what were traditionally male jobs, typically with sincere encouragement (I know, it hasn't always been that way). I "get" how daunting that NASA scene was to little girls who dreamed of working in the space program. Or of doing other traditionally male jobs. I do. But the world is a changin'. For women, at least.
Men, on the other hand, are still stuck in their traditional gender box. They rarely have the choice to be the primary parent, or to do the traditional nurturing jobs. The point that feminists typically don't appreciate is that not only are men not encouraged to do these things, they are actively discouraged. And here's the shocker: men are taking their cues primarily from their mates, not their macho buddies, not the guys in their pick-up basketball games, not the other guys at work. Women still want their mates to have breadwinner credentials, and men oblige. I wish it weren't so, I wish men had more freedom, but women are still largely choosing their mates based on their abilities as providers.
If women were to suddenly start choosing mates based on their fathering skills, you'd see a hell of a lot more guys vying to be the primary parent. Why? Because if there is one things guys want more than money and power and prestige, it's to mate. That's a fact.
Given that reality, it's a little odd to be talking about "privilege." Men are only doing what they understand women want them to do.
@E. Steven Berkimer,
I'm going to have to disagree with you on this part. If men are so privileged, how does that explain that it is mostly men that have lost their jobs in the current economic climate, when net, women have increased in the numbers that are working. That doesn't seem like privilege to me.
Jobs that are dominated by women weren't hurt as badly in the recession as male-dominated fields. Think nursing vs. construction.
But what I was referring to with that statement wasn't which jobs are quickly lost in recessions, but jobs in the "business world," i.e. finance, law, etc., which still privilege men over women. Women have a harder time being promoted in jobs like these, especially mothers. Check out this blog post and the subsequent comments: http://bit.ly/19qAYc
Women are still viewed as less capable in terms of decision-making, functioning well under stress, and the all-too-frequently cited menstruation apparently affecting our ability to think rationally.
Archivist- no worries, I understand the knee-jerk responses for issues like these, and see them form the other side frequently, as well. I just get upset when someone makes such vastly inaccurate assumptions of me personally when I've given to reason for it.
Oh, I just put up the blog post I was talking about, too, just as an fyi.
"Jobs that are dominated by women weren't hurt as badly in the recession as male-dominated fields. Think nursing vs. construction."
Sorry for the double post, but I just reread this and realized I hadn't finished my thought. What I meant to convey is that it's field vs. field, not men vs. women. So, it's not as though a business who needs to lay off employees is going around laying off all the men and no women. It's not a direct discrimination in this case. It's not society or women's fault that men are more likely to be physically stronger and more suited to, and therefore more interested in, labor-intensive jobs than women are, and it's no one group's fault that many non-necessary construction jobs, like kitchen remodels or pools and gazebos or whatever, are lower on the priority list than other items when money is tight.
That isn't meant to downplay the affect the recession has had on men, though. I'm just not sure that the way that you're framing it, as a systemic oppression men face, is entirely accurate.
Females not males commit the most child abuse and also kill the more children than males.
Rather interestingly, while men kill their sons and daughters at about equal rates, women preferentially kill their sons.
The one thing most have in common is that mothers commit the most child abuse, by far, because mothers spend by far the most time with the kids.
I would be careful with this phrase. Overwhelmingly, I see it employed to hide, obfuscate, and deny abuse by women.
For FFY 2008, 56.2 percent of the perpetrators were women, 42.6 percent were men
A child identifying a man as the abuser when the real abuser is female, because the child doesn't believe he or she will be believed if a woman is blamed, is a well-known phenomenon. I wonder how much the initial report of a male abuser poisons these stats.
Nice try, April. But no-one actually claimed that it was conclusive proof of systemic oppression against men. Steven simply brought this up to counter your claim that men are "privileged in the business world".
i.e. it may not conclusively prove that men are discriminated against. But it sure as [expletive] blows out of the water your claim that men are "privileged".
I just love the way that feminists like you seem to be able to understand market realities when it comes to explaining why men get the shaft, and yet will moan and bitch that every time the tables are turned and women face any deficits it must always be "discrimination".
Oh dear. Another attack of the earnest feminists!
OK, some stats. They're not about the perp, but do give an idea of the rate of sexual abuse of children.
The source? The Australian Bureau of Statistics, the aussie statutory authority for all statistics. Paid by the government, but not political themselves (hubby works for them).
In particular, publication 1307.8 - Australian Capital Territory in Focus, 2007.
The ACT is the Territory in which I have lived my whole life.
The summary of the publication:
- 8,064 notifications of child abuse were reported in 05-06
- Of those, 3,292 (41%) were investigated (it doesn't state why not)
- Of those investigated, 2,497 (76%) had been finalised
- All up, only 49% of the fully investigated reports were substantiated
- Of the substantiated cases, a whole 2%, or 31 cases, were sexual abuse
- Emotional abuse was the biggest contributor at 71%
So, for a Territory of around 330,000 people, just 31 cases of child sexual abuse are known to have occurred.
If even half of those were a male perpetrator, the risk of your child being sexually abused by a man are about... one in 20,625 in the ACT.
April, I am sure that you are correct that discrimination is not the main reason men have fared much worse than women in the current recession. I have no doubt that market realities, as you state, are the main cause. If discrimination against men is a factor, it probably only accounts for a fraction of the discrepancy in job losses. But I don't think anyone was seriously suggesting that discrimination is entirely responsible (Unlike feminists, many of us here are actually capable of realizing that not everything that goes wrong with our own gender is part of some evil conspiracy).
But the point is that it is ludicrous for you to claim that men are "privileged" in the business world when they have fared so badly. Tell me, if men really were so "privileged", wouldn't they have been able to do more to stem the loss of jobs, find new employment etc. And it is also beyond rich for a feminist to come and lecture us about economics, when feminists invariably display the deepest ignorance of economic realities (like claiming that most of the difference between average male and female earnings is due to discrimination). Please, clean up your own movement before telling us what's what.
"While we've made progress, to be sure, men are still privileged over women in the business world, and women are still privileged over men in the domestic world."
This is a disingenuous comparison, because while female privilege in the domestic world is real (and reinforced by society through family law courts favoring mothers in custody, or women getting more in divorce settlements etc.), there is simply no real equivalent "male privilege" in the world of work or business (at least that most men have access to). To the extent that men are more successful at all in business or the labour market, this is often because men make more sacrifices to get ahead because they are judged more by their ability to earn and status (especially by women). How is this "privilege"?
"So, it's not as though a business who needs to lay off employees is going around laying off all the men and no women. It's not a direct discrimination in this case. It's not society or women's fault that men are more likely to be physically stronger and more suited to, and therefore more interested in, labor-intensive jobs than women are, and it's no one group's fault that many non-necessary construction jobs, like kitchen remodels or pools and gazebos or whatever, are lower on the priority list than other items when money is tight."
Sigh! No-one suggested that this is all women's fault. The problem is that feminists are so used to seeing every issue in terms of blame and a zero-sum competition between the sexes that they assume everyone else sees the world exactly the same way. This is Projection 101. (Shocking I know, but some of us are actually a bit more enlightened than that!).
Of course women are not to blame for the fact that a downturn in the economic cycle led to a greater fall in demand for occupations where men predominate. But a certain subsection of women are at least partly to blame for exacerbating these problems by demanding more affirmative action for women in the workforce, etc.
What surprises me is that you seem to believe you can come to a forum like this, and sweet-talk us all around with a bit of condescending tokenism. Really, do you think all men are stupid and that we can't see through this stuff?
"Women have a harder time being promoted in jobs like these, especially mothers."
First, you should know that in large urban areas, young women in their 20s and early 30s earn more than young men, and that's been true for several years. When the NY Times reported this a few years ago, did it celebrate this achievement? Nope. It bemoaned the fact that professional women are finding it difficult to date a peer of the opposite sex (because, I guess, women rarely date "down"). So, even when women "win," they are still victims, according to the NY Times. Sigh.
As to your comment: let's do the math: on the one hand, we have the members of one gender who are completely devoted to work, who are biologically more competitive and able to work longer hours, and who must do well financially to attract a mate. On the other hand, we have members of a gender who want to work but also want to have children before their biological clocks tick away, who don't put in the long hours on average to work devoted by the other gender, who aren't under a compulsion to be financially successful to attract a mate, and who aren't as biologically competitive as the members of the other gender.
So, what can we do about all that? Legislatively mandate that businesses reward workers who aren't as valuable to the company? Or, should we have a frank national dialogue that admits there are still small pockets of discrimination that can be eliminated (and even Robert Reich said that discrimination was just a small part of the "pay gap"), but that also acknowledges, once and for all, that the pay and promotion "gaps" are largely the product of choices people make.
Biology isn't "fair" to either gender. But pretending there are no differences between men and women, especially in their 20s and 30s, is flat-out silly. We can't legislate away those differences. Worse, characterizing those differences as "privilege" or "discrimination" or the product of a bogeyman "patriarchy" isn't helpful, doesn't reflect reality, and distracts from attacking real discrimination. We need to start looking at the world as it is -- a complex, confusing, nuanced mish-mash of culture, biology, and tradition that can't be explained by looking through a gender lens.
Pierce, it appears that the comment you are quoting from has been eaten up. That's just as well, as I don't think I can handle any more claptrap at the moment!
There is little point trying to reason with them. Feminism is a religious cult. It is based on blind faith, rather than scientific or economic reality.
So, even when women "win," they are still victims, according to the NY Times. Sigh.
MIT just published a paper that studied "female outcomes" of men being imprisoned. Here's what the abstract said: "higher male imprisonment appears to have lowered the likelihood that women marry, modestly reduced the quality of their spouses when they do marry, and shifted the gains from marriage away from women and toward men".
If prison reduces the quality of available spouses, that implies that criminals make higher quality spouses than the men taking their place in the marriage market. It's a revealing take on female hypergamy.
We all know how misandrist family law is, so I can't figure out how "gains from marriage" (as if that were a woman's natural right) accrues any less to a woman just because a potential husband is in prison.
The concept of this study smacks of "men imprisoned, women hardest hit".
"Each hour, 75 women are raped in the United States, and every few seconds, a woman is beaten. Each day, 400 Americans suffer shooting injuries, and another 1,100 face criminals armed with guns."
Those numbers are pure horseshit.
April's piece is great:
http://ethecofem.com/2010/12/08/trend-piece-tuesday-men-are-scary/
85% of repeat violent offenders currently in Americas prisons not only came from homes with no fathers present, but came from homes with no adult male supervision at all.
By American law enforcements refusal to hold women and girls "Equally Accounteable" for their transgressions against a civil society, we manufacture an uncivil, violent society, that that has the greatest prison population in the world.
Sure, America can "Break the patriarchy", keep the Patriarchy divided, and keep them from the voting booths, but the unintended consequences are escalated matriarchal underclass violence.
American academia is now dominated by perverts, or they would study "American matriarchal underclass violence".
""Jobs that are dominated by women weren't hurt as badly in the recession as male-dominated fields. Think nursing vs. construction."
Sorry for the double post, but I just reread this and realized I hadn't finished my thought. What I meant to convey is that it's field vs. field, not men vs. women."
And why is it that the one field is male-dominated, April?
My suggestion: because women don't do jobs unless they're cushy.
Practically 100% of dangerous and physically demanding jobs are performed by men.
Right across from where I work, there is a building site. The men there - and it is only men - have been working for months on end. And yet I have seen not a single female protestor or heard a single complaint from a female about this.
Surely there should be, right? - men and women being the same, and all?
No. Women don't do this kind of work, out of choice. Because it's just too difficult for them. The influx of women into the world of work only happened when work became cushy. That is, when work can be done by pressing buttons.
As soon as construction can be done by sitting in an air-conditioned room and pressing buttons, women will flood into the construction market.
And then we will hear endless whining about how men 'oppressed' women for all those years, and the patriarchy held them down, and did not let them participate in the liberating world of construction.
@Sonja...
re the discrepancy between notifications and investigations.
Notifications, instances of abuse and investigations are distinct actions.
There may be several notifications resulting in one investigation. These may represent one or numerous instances of abuse. There are numerous possible combinations.
If accurately reported the thirty one instances of sexual abuse probably represents fewer than ten women and fewer than twenty men as perps. Male perps are more likely to have multiple victims so it may devolve to about eight to ten of each.
The Misandric bias is everywhere.
The denigration of human males wholesale not only lacks reason but heart for half the entire human race.
This is the greatest hate crime ever committed, males are deemed sub-human as greatly evidenced by the legal/educational/social systems heavy negatively biased against males.
See: 'manwomanmyth'
At this rate, males shall be imprisoned, and children raised by the State. Once males are reduced to imprisoned slaves there shall be no resistance to do with at will anything to the women. Yes, I said women, watch rape then become the real, not the snow-job statistic, choice of the day as the psychotic corporate cabal satisfies its every whim with not a single man free to stop them - Wimmin, and manginas, you fools, grow up.
A cold, dark cloud is coming down people.
United we stand - Divided we fall.
Its all part of the pal to break and divide the American patriarchy. When the patriarchy is broken, and divided, they don't vote. When the patriarchy is broken and divided, boys will be yolked into servitude until death, with no voice to complain. With a broken American patriarchy, the femi-nazi will be the only voices heard in academia.
"it was such a shame that society forced us to discriminate against kind, competent men"
The NYT writing staff has a problem with personal responsibility--in their own personal lives and politics in general. She wasn't the one who discriminated--it was society, and society forced her (not "us", Sprinkle). Instead of white guilt, NYT and other liberals are moving on to female guilt.
Is anybody else tempted to bookmark this and lob it at the next person who writes an article about how men need to "step up and help more with childrearing"?
Cuz I know I am.
I for one am sick of the stupid contradicting messages society wants to send men.
"You need to take care of your children." but if you do we'll think you're a pervert. and if you don't we'll call you a good for nothing deadbeat.
Ugh.
Considering the way this person felt, and the conclusion that she reached, there was absolutely no reason for her to interview any male candidates in the first place, and above all no reason to write the article that was eventually written -- unless she was being smug and smarmy on purpose.
Somehow, I wonder if she didn't just invent this whole charade out of whole cloth. Any way you slice this, it smells like PHONY-BALONEY.
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