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[GreatJustice]

great solution...except when there is a minimum wage in your country. McDonald's doesn't offer lower wages if you aren't profitable below $8 or whatever. Because they can't. They just don't hire you, period. Nobody does, because that is an absolute cutoff, there's nothing else available ANYWHERE if your labor is not worth minimum wage.

i.e. one of the following must happen to such people:
1) Gutter
2) Welfare
3) Laws that force companies to not discriminate

OR the same thing happens if the cost of living in your area is too high to make ends meet at lower than standard or minimum wages, even if there weren't a law. "A slightly smaller house" doesn't work indefinitely. Try it out yourself. Go type in "Seattle, WA" let's say, into google, and find me a house for $30,000, or an apartment for $100 a month. If they do exist, which I doubt, they're probably not appreciably different than living in the gutter in terms of quality.  If they don't exist, then guess what? You're homeless, even if somebody offers you such a job.  And you'll probably get fired soon anyway for smelling bad or getting sick too often due to being homeless.

Okay, I think we've just argued right past each other, so I'm going to clarify something.

From the start, I was making my arguments relating to maternity leave largely with respect to the high paying STEM jobs that women seem to be less likely to take, not minimum wage jobs, because they're entirely different animals. For example, if a software company has 4 programmers and one suddenly leaves while in the middle of a major project, not only is that project unlikely to be completed but the remaining programmers will potentially have a hard time maintaining existing code, never mind training up someone new to use the systems in place. Thus, there is a very good reason to avoid anyone that seems to be more likely to take leave (the flipside being that the workers that actually have jobs likely get great perks and pay). Meanwhile, if I'm Wal Mart or a similar company, someone taking maternity leave is a minor annoyance at worst, and the costs of training up a substitute when necessary are very low.

Actually, I'd say women generally have an easier time getting entry level, low skill jobs, though I'll have to get a bit anecdotal. Where I live, it's fairly common knowledge that girls looking for part time work (or full time work, for that matter) will have a much easier time getting most non-farmwork jobs, and several jobs are well known to be basically female exclusive. Why? Because, generally speaking, people prefer women serving their coffee, taking their order, delivering their flowers, helping their parents at the retirement home or filling up their gas tank. This generally extends to other "protected" groups as well. These jobs have entirely different incentives and logic to their hiring, and the issues we've spent time going over don't really apply in the same way. But the previous discussion wasn't about whether women had an easier time getting a job so much as it was about whether women had an easier time getting a high paying STEM job and about the gender wage gap, which are very different things.

Oh, and while this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand, I find it a bit weird when people complain about costs of living or not enough opportunities where they live when they're perfectly capable of moving to an area with more opportunities or a lower cost of living. I understand that moving is easier for some, but then I worked with several Mexicans that had jack shit in terms of money and moved right through a place filled with people that often hated them, past people actively trying to prevent them from moving, into a country where they knew neither the language nor culture, yet they somehow managed to make the best of things. There are very few circumstances in which moving away isn't a viable option.

Citation? This is not common sense to me.
Nearly everyone who is not on welfare is part of a business, most of which are large enough to have greater than zero instances of having to make such hires. Therefore it seems quite reasonable to directly compare. Everybody in the nation's wages virtually are directly affected by companies making less money, and nearly all businesses should have a similar share of such cases. Just like everybody in the nation pays taxes.

Pointing out that business X might not have EXACTLY the same burden as business Y is irrelevant, unless you can demonstrate that the differences tend to be larger than the differences between how much taxes person X pays versus person Y, which differs quite a lot as well.

Went over this above. A business with a small, specialized workforce is adversely affected by hiring controls/restrictions significantly more than one with a very large, untrained workforce for very obvious reasons. "Business" is not nearly as homogenized as you make it out to be.

[Rolepgeek]

Reelya, I'm kinda confused as to your point with this.

I never said anything about computer science.

Reelya is pointing out the double standard.

Here, I'll do the same:

LordBucket, are you a member of the MRA? Because whether or not you are, the type of things you're saying and claiming lead me to believe you're one.

No. Even my guess as to what it stood for wasn't correct. Than you google for the correction. Though I did guess two of the three letters right.

You understand why I ask? Even from a purely logical viewpoint? And why it isn't usually considered a good thing?

So...you appear to think that:

Women's rights activist = good
Men's rights activist = bad

See, all we do is change the gender and suddenly everything is different to you. You have a very strong anti-male prejudice, and you seem to not even be aware of it. This is why Reelya is pointing out the double standard with the computer science example and you're not even getting it.

No, the MRA is bad. Look up the shit they do. Seriously.

And yes, men's rights activists tend to be ridiculous because men have it better off than women and it comes across, in almost all cases, as wanting to focus on their issues and ignore women's, as if they didn't matter. All of them? No. But there's a reason masculism isn't a movement. Women do not have it 'better off' than men. Feminism is a movement that is beneficial for equality. I've given my reasons for this multiple times, and you have failed to even acknowledge them, multiple times. It's an underhanded tactic and makes me realize this argument is pointless, because you aren't here to try and gain a greater knowledge of the subject, or try to share your knowledge with others. You're here to cause conflict, and you're here to disrupt conversation that could be put to otherwise more creative use. You will never change your opinion, however untrue it is, because you don't want to learn or change. You want to, to be blunt, troll people. And you've been succeeding. It makes me remember why your forum avatar was Trollestia for so long(at least I think that was you...might be getting mixed up). And in all honesty? I'm sick of it. I'm sick of you. Because you're spewing bullshit and refusing to clean it up when people point it out to you, in favor of trying to show that they pointed out the bullshit in the wrong way. You're arguing to win, not to enlighten. Just like GWG.

What would you do if a woman bought you a free drink? Would you instantly start thinking of a way to get into
her pants? How many people do you know who would instantly start trying to think of a way to get into her pants?

...because...let me guess: wanting to have sex with a woman who buys me a drink is somehow a bad thing? Why?

Are men just fundamentally evil or something? Wanting a woman automatically makes me a villain?

That kind of seems to be where you're going with a lot of things you say.

Wanting to have sex with someone is not fundamentally evil. If you begin effectively plotting to do so or make it the prime focus of your interaction with someone, it's objectifying them. I dislike using the word, but basically, you're seeing them as a tool, something to be used for your sexual satisfaction, rather than a person who might just think you're a cool dude and want to hang out.

there's a fairly significant difference between 'didn't show interest in course
or felt it was too difficult' and 'got raped in an alleyway'

If "because rape!" is your answer to everything, that makes meaningful conservation difficult. Go through the past couple pages and do word searches for rape. You're using it as a response to discussions of college admissions, discussion of social favoritism, you're saying it's ok for society to think it's better for men to be hurt than women because women can be raped...go back a another thread page or two and you were responding to discussion of waitressing, coal mines and dating with "but rape!"

You seem really fixated on this.

That was in response to Reelya's reference to rape, actually.

Pointing out that "someone wants to fix it" doesn't make something that happened to a person non-discriminatory. For any women's problem someone wants to fix those too, so it proves nothing. Giving "tips" doesn't say anything about the underlying problem, and it could easily interpreted as a "blame the victim" mentality, i.e. those "don't get raped" tips everyone hates.

It wouldn't have come up otherwise. I was pointing out that tips to help someone make it through a class and 'tips' on how to avoid getting raped aren't quite the same.

Congratulations, LordBucket, you have succeeded in being a troll. I'm done responding to your posts pertaining to this subject, as they are neither useful nor do they make for good debate anymore; you appear to be ignoring any valid points made by those who disagree with you, so I cannot believe you are trying to have a rational debate. If you manage to convince me otherwise, I might reconsider, but from all I can see, the following is the case:
You're wrong.
You know you're wrong.
You know you've been shown to be wrong.
You refuse to acknowledge this, in favor of continuing the argument and (apparently) ignoring what people have shown.
You choose instead to try and find little details you can niggle at, to try and pry at the infrastructure of the arguments, as though it was the entirety of the argument.

So, I think I'm done with you. You aren't worth it. You're a troll, and while I have terrible problems with feeding them, I'm done feeding you.

[Orange Wizard]

No, feminists are bad. Look up the shit they do. Seriously.

[Samarkand]

No, feminists are bad. Look up the shit they do. Seriously.

I'm confused where Rolepgeed said this. Regardless, men in relationships with feminists are happier. So there's that. Really, it's good for men to be on good terms with feminists, regardless of this discussion about their viewpoints.

[Orange Wizard]

His actual quote was talking about men's rights activists, in response to LordBucket:

Spoiler: Relevant Stuff (click to show/hide)

Reelya is pointing out the double standard.

Here, I'll do the same:

LordBucket, are you a member of the MRA? Because whether or not you are, the type of things you're saying and claiming lead me to believe you're one.

No. Even my guess as to what it stood for wasn't correct. Than you google for the correction. Though I did guess two of the three letters right.

You understand why I ask? Even from a purely logical viewpoint? And why it isn't usually considered a good thing?

So...you appear to think that:

Women's rights activist = good
Men's rights activist = bad

See, all we do is change the gender and suddenly everything is different to you. You have a very strong anti-male prejudice, and you seem to not even be aware of it. This is why Reelya is pointing out the double standard with the computer science example and you're not even getting it.

No, the MRA is bad. Look up the shit they do. Seriously.

And yes, men's rights activists tend to be ridiculous because men have it better off than women and it comes across, in almost all cases, as wanting to focus on their issues and ignore women's, as if they didn't matter. All of them? No. But there's a reason masculism isn't a movement. Women do not have it 'better off' than men. Feminism is a movement that is beneficial for equality.

It's kind of silly, really. In the same breath he claims that the MRA is bad, not all of them are bad (?), and that only feminism is beneficial for equality.
I brought this up before, that campaigning for the betterment of one gender's situation is not campaigning for equality.
Rolepgeek's argument is that no effort to improve the situation of men will further equality, but the same effort - directed at women - will.

He also says that there is a reason that "masculinity" isn't a movement, but fails to state what that reason is.

Edit: I just read the article you linked to. It's interesting, but clicking on the link to see the sources results in a redirect to another website. So there's that.

[Samarkand]

His actual quote was talking about men's rights activists, in response to LordBucket:

Spoiler: Relevant Stuff (click to show/hide)

Reelya is pointing out the double standard.

Here, I'll do the same:

LordBucket, are you a member of the MRA? Because whether or not you are, the type of things you're saying and claiming lead me to believe you're one.

No. Even my guess as to what it stood for wasn't correct. Than you google for the correction. Though I did guess two of the three letters right.

You understand why I ask? Even from a purely logical viewpoint? And why it isn't usually considered a good thing?

So...you appear to think that:

Women's rights activist = good
Men's rights activist = bad

See, all we do is change the gender and suddenly everything is different to you. You have a very strong anti-male prejudice, and you seem to not even be aware of it. This is why Reelya is pointing out the double standard with the computer science example and you're not even getting it.

No, the MRA is bad. Look up the shit they do. Seriously.

And yes, men's rights activists tend to be ridiculous because men have it better off than women and it comes across, in almost all cases, as wanting to focus on their issues and ignore women's, as if they didn't matter. All of them? No. But there's a reason masculism isn't a movement. Women do not have it 'better off' than men. Feminism is a movement that is beneficial for equality.

It's kind of silly, really. In the same breath he claims that the MRA is bad, not all of them are bad (?), and that only feminism is beneficial for equality.
I brought this up before, that campaigning for the betterment of one gender's situation is not campaigning for equality.
Rolepgeek's argument is that no effort to improve the situation of men will further equality, but the same effort - directed at women - will.

He also says that there is a reason that "masculinity" isn't a movement, but fails to state what that reason is.

Ah. Well, the MRA aside, feminists are good partners, in every sense of the word.

[Rolepgeek]

His actual quote was talking about men's rights activists, in response to LordBucket:

Spoiler: Relevant Stuff (click to show/hide)

Reelya is pointing out the double standard.

Here, I'll do the same:

LordBucket, are you a member of the MRA? Because whether or not you are, the type of things you're saying and claiming lead me to believe you're one.

No. Even my guess as to what it stood for wasn't correct. Than you google for the correction. Though I did guess two of the three letters right.

You understand why I ask? Even from a purely logical viewpoint? And why it isn't usually considered a good thing?

So...you appear to think that:

Women's rights activist = good
Men's rights activist = bad

See, all we do is change the gender and suddenly everything is different to you. You have a very strong anti-male prejudice, and you seem to not even be aware of it. This is why Reelya is pointing out the double standard with the computer science example and you're not even getting it.

No, the MRA is bad. Look up the shit they do. Seriously.

And yes, men's rights activists tend to be ridiculous because men have it better off than women and it comes across, in almost all cases, as wanting to focus on their issues and ignore women's, as if they didn't matter. All of them? No. But there's a reason masculism isn't a movement. Women do not have it 'better off' than men. Feminism is a movement that is beneficial for equality.

It's kind of silly, really. In the same breath he claims that the MRA is bad, not all of them are bad (?), and that only feminism is beneficial for equality.
I brought this up before, that campaigning for the betterment of one gender's situation is not campaigning for equality.
Rolepgeek's argument is that no effort to improve the situation of men will further equality, but the same effort - directed at women - will.

He also says that there is a reason that "masculinity" isn't a movement, but fails to state what that reason is.

Edit: I just read the article you linked to. It's interesting, but clicking on the link to see the sources results in a redirect to another website. So there's that.

I was referring to the MRA in particular. People who are advocates for equality coming at it from an angle of getting rid of gender roles and the like with a focus on men are not the MRA. Did you look them up? Or making assumptions?

Also, where did I say only feminism is beneficial? Seriously? I said it was, because LordBucket claimed it wasn't.

Also, apologies, I thought the reason masculinism wasn't a movement was for exceedingly obvious reasons given context and history. >.>

[Orange Wizard]

I was referring to the MRA in particular. People who are advocates for equality coming at it from an angle of getting rid of gender roles and the like with a focus on men are not the MRA. Did you look them up? Or making assumptions?

I'm using the acronym MRA to refer to men's rights activists in general, rather than any specific organisation of them. My apologies for the confusion. I guess I'll just have to type out "men's rights activists" any time I want to refer to those people.

Also, where did I say only feminism is beneficial? Seriously? I said it was, because LordBucket claimed it wasn't.

You say that advocating women's rights is beneficial for equality, but advocating those of men is not. This is a double standard and I'm calling you out on it.

Also, apologies, I thought the reason masculinism wasn't a movement was for exceedingly obvious reasons given context and history. >.>

That's fair enough. I was being unnecessarily nitpicky.

[Rolepgeek]

It is a double standard. That's an unfortunate fact of life. We have double standards. That's what we're trying to get rid of. At some point we'll reach the point where advocating for men's rights will be helpful and beneficial. However, right now, that's not the case(usually). Right now, the things that Bucket had been bringing up? Those are problems that affect everyone, for most of the problems. People getting murdered. People having limited life spans. Those aren't 'men's problems'. Those are people problems. They affect both genders significantly in a harmful way, and it's hard to justify 'lower the rates of crime' as an aspect of masculism; why would that be trying to bring men's rights up to standard? Unless you wanted to just shift the murders onto women? Which seems like you're just being insane, at that point, but...

Meanwhile, things like domestic abuse, which disproportionately affects women? It's a people problem too in that men also suffer, but it's one that's been going on for so many years, engrained into people's patterns of thought, into cultures. Murder is not ingrained into culture in that way. It doesn't happen anywhere near as often as something like domestic violence. And it's a case of one gender effectively terrorizing the other, while most murderers are male, not just most murder victims.

Female CEOs getting paid 40% more than their male associates is not a 'problem' in any real way other than the ludicrous amounts all CEOs get paid is a problem(certainly not when it's 16/500 CEOs being women...). On The Job Deaths are not perpetrated by women. It's not a gendered issue in the same way rape or domestic violence are(and I use those because they are the most clear-cut examples, but there's many others).

So, when you can come to me and say that the problems men face are inherently gender dependent, and affect them and society as a whole as much as the problems women face do? Then I can believe men's rights advocates can be trusted to do a good job and aren't just people trying to shift the focus back onto them, people trying to make the conversation about what they want, what they 'need'. And to be fair, there's people who manage to advocate these rights without being assholes about it. They find important gendered issues that affect men adversely. A lot of these stem from the same sources the ones that affect women do. But if you're fighting the same causes as feminism, advocating the same things in order to try and reach equality, why try and make a whole new movement? Just join the one that's already there. You'll get less flak, for one thing. >_>

I feel like this post has been more productive in trying to help people understand than all my replies to LordBucket combined. But maybe that's just because I'm not intensely annoyed and frustrated right now like I was. You, at least, InsanityIncarnate, are trying to be reasonable, and that helps greatly.

[Reelya]

But if you're fighting the same causes as feminism, advocating the same things in order to try and reach equality, why try and make a whole new movement? Just join the one that's already there.

Have you seen the outright hostility people face bringing up any men's issue on a feminist site? Or even men's point of view. Well, you're allowed to have your men's point of view as long as it's affirming the woman's point of view. If not, prepare for flaming.

While there's still outright hostility on women's sites to a man's mere viewpoint (mansplaining, privilege etc), even when you're not bringing up a separate issue for men, then it's really silly to say that it's a movement that has 100% of the population covered, as opposed to 50%.

It's like having a white anti-racism site which doesn't allow black people to have a voice, but still claims to have blacks and whites equally covered. Oh, but we can have token blacks speaking, but if they contradict some group ideology we'll slam them for "blacksplaining".

[alexandertnt]

I have spoken to feminists IRL about men's issues and gotten no such hostility. But then again I wasn't there trying to shift conversations about female issues to male issues.

[Angle]

I've heard a lot of people getting loads of abuse from MRA's, and seen plenty of such abuse myself, so there's that. I haven't seen any such thing from feminists. This is of course, only an anecdote, but in the absence of proper evidence I'll put it out there.

[Rolepgeek]

But if you're fighting the same causes as feminism, advocating the same things in order to try and reach equality, why try and make a whole new movement? Just join the one that's already there.

Have you seen the outright hostility people face bringing up any men's issue on a feminist site? Or even men's point of view. Well, you're allowed to have your men's point of view as long as it's affirming the woman's point of view. If not, prepare for flaming.

While there's still outright hostility on women's sites to a man's mere viewpoint (mansplaining, privilege etc), even when you're not bringing up a separate issue for men, then it's really silly to say that it's a movement that has 100% of the population covered, as opposed to 50%.

It's like having a white anti-racism site which doesn't allow black people to have a voice, but still claims to have blacks and whites equally covered. Oh, but we can have token blacks speaking, but if they contradict some group ideology we'll slam them for "blacksplaining".

Allow me to demonstrate to you why that's wrong.

First, let's start with the fact that men aren't oppressed. Certainly not in the systematic manner that people of color are. So comparing white people to women, and black people to men? Bad choice.
Second off, do you believe in 'racism against whites'? Allow me to direct you to this article. Please read it.
Thirdly, in all honesty? They have women's interests, at the moment, because for a lot of men, the current system works just fine. They benefit from the oppression of the opposite sex, often because they're the ones doing the oppressing. The issue is how you present your viewpoint. If you say 'well you're all wrong and actually it's like this and I'm the one being oppressed so stop it', no shit you'll get hostility. They hear that shit all the time and it gets tiring. How do you feel when rich people complain about taxes, when they can afford them so easily, and can effectively get out of taxes completely above a certain income? When you're the rabbit, hearing the wolf complain about a toothache from crunching the bones of your buddy too hard doesn't inspire much sympathy.
Fourth, what men's issues are you referring to? Are they inherently gendered issues, or are they issues caused by men, and felt by men? Because if they are, you're focusing the conversation back on yourself in a discussion regarding gender, rather than participating in the current discussion.

[Lyeos]

... Anti-racism as in "against all forms of racism" not "racism against whites", is what I'm assuming he's saying. A white-led group against racism, not allowing blacks to speak.
Similar to a woman-led group for "equality", that refuses to let men speak on their opinions or issues if they vary from said group's ideology.
Really, it's pretty obvious to see the point people are trying to make...
You just... Seem like you don't want to.

Edit: I may be missing something here, and he might, in fact, be speaking of a group solely against racism against white people, but it would be one under the guise of removing racism against all whilst not dealing with anything from another side. There are parallels, whether you like them or not.

Doubleedit: I actually do agree with basically what II said in the post below this one, though. Do we >need< a men's rights movement? No. But we also don't >need< a women's rights movement in the Western World.

[Orange Wizard]

((Five new replies? Crap. I should have learnt how to touchtype after all.))

Rolepgeek, I see where you're coming from. And for the most part, I agree with you. Personally, I think activism for men's rights is silly, because it's not necessary.

I do not believe that activism for women's rights in the Western world is beneficial to gender equality. I do not believe that activism for women's rights in the Western world is necessary.
Women have the same (in some cases, better) legal rights as men. If anything, what needs to happen is a cultural shift, where people in general expect women to be able to perform as competently as men in a given position. Barring physical differences, like weight-lifting or whatever.
This kind of cultural shift isn't going to happen overnight, but rather several generations. Marching up and down the streets chanting "WOMEN ARE PEOPLE TOO" isn't going to speed it up.
Incidentally, this shift started decades ago. We're likely nearing the end of it.

Rape and murder fall into a category called "crime", and it's not going to be stopped by women being treated in the same manner as men. Crime rates are lowered by better policing, whatever form that may take.

Domestic abuse is not a "woman" issue. It does affect women. It also affects children, and in exceptionally rare cases, men. Activism for generic women's rights is not going to lower rates of domestic abuse. (Or, if it does, it will be indirect.)
Rates of domestic abuse are lowered by harsher penalties and encouraging those who are in an abusive relationship to speak out, not by victimising half the population.