Men's Rights

[Shady]

http://t.thestar.com/#/article/news/canada/2012/05/21/prostate_cancer_screening_test_costs_ontario_patients_30.html?referrer=https:%2F%2Fwww.google.ca%2F

Not covered by OHIP.

[kimmy]

...

- 92% of workplace deaths are male.

As with the shortage of women in STEM careers, or the ratio of male:female students at university ...isn't this really just a result of people choosing their own way?

To me, this statistic is the flip side of the pay gap statistic. Women are more likely to choose safer careers that also happen to pay less. On a semi-related note...

- Males make up 77% of murder victims.

Aren't a majority of crimes that are classified as murders actually what we might call "occupationally related"? Being in BC, I often hear on the news about the latest homicides from the Lower Mainland, and most of them have a connection to drug trafficking. I would think that men could greatly reduce their chances of becoming a homicide statistic by choosing a different line of work.

Male suicides outnumber Female suicides by 4 to 1.

I think there are two main factors in this. One is that men are simply better at committing suicide. A woman is likely to swallow a bunch of pills, puke her guts out and pass out, and get medical and psychiatric help. A man is more likely to do something that's actually fatal. I learned during my firearms course that the large majority of gun deaths in Canada aren't homicide, and they aren't accidents, they are suicides. Almost exclusively by men.

The other issue, which you and Michael have touched on, is that men are expected to "tough it out"... which tends to mean they're less likely to seek psychological help than women. Men are less likely to talk to a friend or a doctor if they're depressed, because admitting they're depressed feels like an admission that they're weak.

Is there anything that could be done to change that?

-k

[WIP]

There are three issues which I think are relevant:

1) The system is set up in way to make it very difficult for non-custodial parents (usually men) to get away without paying child support. At the same time the system makes next to no effort to ensure that visitation rights of non-custodial parents are not denied by a hostile custodial parent (usually women).

Unless you or someone else has posted some numbers supporting the claim that men are still unfairly treated by family courts today, I'm inclined to see it as a no-win issue for all sides....sort of like splitting the baby!

*I have to note that in at least a couple of cases I am familiar with, where the guy is complaining about not being allowed to see his kids or have them with him on weekends, there are extenuating circumstances, like domestic violence requiring restraining orders, and inappropriate conduct during visitations (one case, the dad and his new girlfriend went out and left two girls (under 13) unattended, and was hardly with them during their weekend visits. Why did he want that order in the first place? Something to fight for? It didn't seem to be motivated out of any love or concern for his daughters!

2) The system is obsessed with "the best interests of the children" and this obsession does have the effect of imposing huge injustices on non-custodial step parents (again usually men). I realize that "best interests of the children" is a religion for many that may not be questioned, however, these injustices are real and if there were being inflected on women there would be a huge out cry. There is only silence because men are mostly affected.

Beyond keep your marriage together and don't get divorced, I can't think of any other viable solution to the grounding premise being what's in the children's best interests.

3)The shift in the onus for rape (yes mean yes) leads to a situation where two drunk university students have sex and man suddenly finds himself an accused of rape, presumed guilty and facing expulsion. Much is made of how difficult it is for women to come forward with accusations but there is little discussion about the harms caused to men who have may done nothing other than misread signals while drunk.

If we step into the wayback machine, and go back to the 70's and even the 80's, guys spiking girls' drinks, or just deliberately getting them drunk, was a game for some to play. And there was no price to pay if they got caught! And what do ya know, as soon as 'yes means yes' becomes the point of reference, guys are coming out of the woodwork playing the bloody martyr!

[Michael Hardner]

http://t.thestar.com/#/article/news/canada/2012/05/21/prostate_cancer_screening_test_costs_ontario_patients_30.html?referrer=https:%2F%2Fwww.google.ca%2F

Not covered by OHIP.

Interesting, but it's not a prostate exam it's a blood test. It's weird that he was tested for pre-cancer and the article doesn't say why. If people are afraid that they have cancer, then I don't think OHIP pays for blood test unless a doctor agrees. This government document seems to agree with what I am saying:

http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/phys_services/docs/lab_tests_is_ea_en.pdf

It's not quite the same thing as saying that OHIP doesn't pay for prostate exam. The standard exam is the gloved-hand-into-the-rectum, which the patient only pays for in temporary pain. I suspect that the Star glossed over the circumstances around this patient as it often does, to provide a basis for the story.

[-1=e^ipi]

Are you sure there's an "issue"?

Do you think that men are being denied the opportunity to attend university, or is it more likely that the lower percentage of men at university is because a larger percentage of men pursue lucrative non-university career paths like skilled trades?

It isn't necessarily an issue but it might be. Perhaps all the emphasize on empowering girls and pushing girls to go to university has discouraged boys from doing so. Perhaps boys are falling behind in early education (maybe due to changes in the way western countries do education; such as less emphasis on competition, more emphasis on social justice) results in the lower rate of boys attending universities. Perhaps the combination of most primary school teachers being female + the increasing number of fatherless households results in boys having fewer male role models. Perhaps the greater availability of female only scholarships relative to male only scholarships is causing some of this university gender gap.

At any rate, it seems inconsistent to claim that when males made up 56% of university students it was sexist, but now when 60% of university students are female it is perfectly fine (and this is the position of many mainstream feminists).

[Argus]

Do you think that men are being denied the opportunity to attend university, or is it more likely that the lower percentage

of men at university is because a larger percentage of men pursue lucrative non-university career paths like skilled

trades?

Personally, from what I've gleaned in various readings, I think that schooling, all of it, from pre-school on, has become more and more female focused and hostile to boys. There are less and less men involved in education, in large measure because of the hostility and suspicion they operate under, especially if they teach the lower grades.

Teachers being almost all female, the curriculum and teaching has tended to become slanted towards the way girls learn, which is more cooperative and group oriented, and very much away from the way boys prefer, which is competitive. Schools have become much less accepting of the typical rambunctious behaviour of boys, demanding the more congenial, quiet atmosphere more typical of girls. In addition to having few or no role models at school boys are clapped into a straightjacket insofar as behaviour is concerned. God help the six year old who hugs someone or wants to wrestle! That sort of behaviour brings calls to parents to come in and discuss their child's 'innapropriate behaviour problems'.

And in some cases we've seen studies which show teachers (all female) showing a preference for girls over boys in marking and grading.

A study on gender disparities in elementary-school performance found that boys received lower grades than girls, even when their test scores were equal to or higher than the girls’ http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/06/do-teachers-really-discriminate-against-boys/

[Argus]

As with the shortage of women in STEM careers, or the ratio of male:female students at university ...isn't this really

just a result of people choosing their own way?

Since when was that acceptable? When women choose not to join the police or military or firefighting or ambulance services, strenuous efforts are mandated to go out, find them and recruit them. Special help is provided. Testing qualifications are lowered. It is deemed extremely important to have more female firefighters and paramedics and police (for some reason)

[WIP]

To be accurate, it is mainstream feminists not caring about men's rights. There are individuals that identify as feminists that do care about men's rights (example: Christina Hoff Sommers).

I only have time for this first point - as soon as I see the name Christina Hoff-Sommers's name dropped as the acceptable feminist, I can tell I'm talking to someone who's politics are way on the right (like hers) and just wants someone calling herself a feminist for cover. In brief: Hoff-Sommers is a fellow of the American Enterprize Institute....that's usually the point where I stop reading their crap...whatever subject they are dealing with...they are getting paid by the largest, most well-funded right wing think tank that has saturated the public media over the last 40 years with their right wing propaganda! Not that there aren't others, but AEI is the biggest and worst of the lot!

Now, what's really egregious about Hoff-Sommers's writing on gender issues is that she skews her treatment of the issues as much as possible towards favouring men and disfavouring women. She doesn't go over the top and openly embrace MRA clowns, but by being a woman and having Phd's she is to women what Ben Carson is to civil rights in America! A token minority for the fat cats to put up front and declare:'see, we don't discriminate, we even have a chick who backs all of our stupid ideas and rhetoric!'

In brief, when Hoff-Sommers writes about problems for boys growing up now (this is an issue that concerns me too) she tries to paint the picture of a society that has over-supported women to the point where boys are falling behind in a future that will consist of amazonian women running all of the business and controlling academia. So, it's all girls' fault that boys are no longer exceeding girls in grades in many subjects today! Boys are unfairly constrained and not allowed to be aggressive as is natural for boys....seems to me that back in the day, we boys were expected to have a lot more self-control than today, so I'm not sure where those crappy arguments are coming from, that supposedly will be fixed by re-segregating schools by gender today.

When it comes to grounding philosophy, Hoff-Sommers created her own brand of feminism (calls it "equity feminism) that will just institute equal by law, but not attempt to delve into the why's of wage inequality, inequality in job promotion/the tendency for women to receive more negative comments in their work records than male workers...even men who have received disciplinary actions....etc....the kind of feminism that asks the why questions she calls "gender feminism" ...and that's socialistic, so it can't be allowed.

[Michael Hardner]

Schools have become much less accepting of the typical rambunctious behaviour of boys, demanding the more congenial, quiet atmosphere more typical of girls.

As per usual, you start with facts that are verifiable and a basis for common discussion, then step forward into prescribing a solution based on unverifiable ideas.

I could say that boys have been conditioned by men into going into sports and war too, or some other so-called feminist agenda, but that wouldn't be verifiable either. Then the discussion declines into sterotyped, identity arguments that go nowhere.

[WIP]

As per usual, you start with facts that are verifiable and a basis for common discussion, then step forward into prescribing a solution based on unverifiable ideas.

I could say that boys have been conditioned by men into going into sports and war too, or some other so-called feminist agenda, but that wouldn't be verifiable either. Then the discussion declines into sterotyped, identity arguments that go nowhere.

Thank Christina Hoff-Sommers for those unverifiable ideas! I kind of mentioned it already, no need to go further.

[TimG]

They met more foreign-born women than Canadian-born women in their line of work. It seems a stretch to me to think that Canadian women are intrinsically less capable of dealing with math and science than their foreign-raised counterparts.

I think you read too much into my phrase 'intrinsic differences'. I did not mean it to imply that women were not capable of those careers. I meant only to imply that when women are freely given the choice of any career they want they choose STEM careers at a rate less than men. Part of the reason are social factors such as the lower social status given to people in STEM careers in NA. However, as long as a women who decides that she wants a STEM career faces no barriers preventing her from acquiring the qualifications, finding work and succeeding then there is no problem that needs fixing.

[Moonlight Graham]

To be accurate, it is mainstream feminists not caring about men's rights. There are individuals that identify as feminists that do care about men's rights (example: Christina Hoff Sommers).

I disagree, there's lots of "mainstream feminists" (i don't even know exactly what that means) who care about men's rights. In the academic field of gender studies, there has been a lot of effort to include male gender analysis alongside the traditional female/feminist gender analysis, largely due to the fair criticism that you can't talk about gender issues by ignoring close to 50% of the population.

If you support gender egalitarianism then you should support men's rights, as well as women's rights and the rights of non-gender-binary-identifying individuals.

Agreed.

[TimG]

Unless you or someone else has posted some numbers supporting the claim that men are still unfairly treated by family courts today, I'm inclined to see it as a no-win issue for all sides....sort of like splitting the baby!

The point you are missing is the failure of the support payer to live up to the obligations easy to track (was the money paid or not). It is much tougher to determine when a hostile ex-spouse is resorting to dirty tricks to poison the relationship with a non-custodial parent. That puts the non-custodial parent at a significant disadvantage and since we are mostly talking about men, it is a men's issue.

Beyond keep your marriage together and don't get divorced, I can't think of any other viable solution to the grounding premise being what's in the children's best interests.

How about common sense? If women splits from a step-dad and goes back to the bio-dad the step-dad should not be expected to pay support. In general, people entering into 2nd marriages should be entitled to explicitly define the relationship expectations in a contract and these terms should not be changed later just because kids are involved.

the point of reference, guys are coming out of the woodwork playing the bloody martyr!

You illustrate the problem. With any crime there is a spectrum and the degree of guilt often depends on knowing the mind of the perpetrator. i.e. some gets into a bar fight and breaks someone's arm has a different level of culpability than someone who breaks someone's arm while mugging them. If you push the onus too far in one direction you end up convicting people who never deserved the punishment they are given.

[-1=e^ipi]

As with the shortage of women in STEM careers, or the ratio of male:female students at university ...isn't this really just a result of people choosing their own way?

Maybe, maybe not. Certainly testosterone is linked to aggression and risk taking activity. However, societal pressures may play a big role (in both people choosing career paths, and how much risky behaviour people perform).

Even within the same workplace and after controlling for career choices, males tend to have higher death rates. Male police officers are more likely to be killed than female police officers, male soldiers are more likely to be killed than female soldiers, etc. Personally, I have experienced in the workplace the expectation from my employer and my coworkers that because I am male I should 'be a man' and perform more risky workplace activities compared to my female coworkers that are paid the same.

The higher death rate is also related to the normalization of violence against males in society.

Aren't a majority of crimes that are classified as murders actually what we might call "occupationally related"? Being in BC, I often hear on the news about the latest homicides from the Lower Mainland, and most of them have a connection to drug trafficking. I would think that men could greatly reduce their chances of becoming a homicide statistic by choosing a different line of work.

I am not really sure if most murders are occupationally related or not. Certainly some of the murder gender gap is due to greater risk taking activity by males (which may be partly due to society pressures and partly due to biology). However, another factor is that it is more socially acceptable to harm males than females and many people are conditioned from birth to accept this. So given similar situations (being kidnapped, being a prisoner of war, being mugged, etc.), men are more likely to be killed.

It being more socially acceptable to harm males is related to the fact that males are the biologically expendable gender. Societal evolution (and arguably biological evolution) favored societies that valued men less than women.

I think there are two main factors in this. One is that men are simply better at committing suicide. A woman is likely to swallow a bunch of pills, puke her guts out and pass out, and get medical and psychiatric help. A man is more likely to do something that's actually fatal. I learned during my firearms course that the large majority of gun deaths in Canada aren't homicide, and they aren't accidents, they are suicides. Almost exclusively by men.

But it may also be related to male gender disposability and men having less intrinsic value in society. It may be related that there is less social support for males than females if they are in distress. It may be related to the fact that society is overall less sympathetic to the concerns of males and males are often told to 'be men' or 'grow balls' and stop complaining.

Is there anything that could be done to change that?

Support awareness campaigns that try to make people question 'masculinity' within society. Encourage governments and society to provide more support for males in distress. Fund advertisements to help deconstruct traditional gender roles and encourage greater gender equality. Rather than have a minister for 'women's affairs' have a minister for 'gender affairs'. Rather than have 'women's studies' in universities, have 'gender studies' in universities.

I'll also add to the list: Genital mutilation of male infants is socially acceptable, but genital mutilation of female infants is not socially acceptable.

[cybercoma]

Well to start with, I made no such comments so I will thank you not to try and put words in my mouth. Men have traditionally worked in jobs where there is more opportunity for accidents. Ya know, the men nailing the shingles on a house have a bit of a higher risk of falling than the girl who sits in the office making out the invoice. Nothing to do with stupidity. Just tradition.

Do you find female agency somehow threatening

Men traditionally worked jobs. Full stop.

But if we're going to look at traditional jobs, phossy jaw was an occupational hazard that women faced as switchboard operators at a time when most of them weren't working.

[cybercoma]

Prostate exams were being performed too often without reason. They were leading needless surgeries. They are still covered, but only if there is a reason to do them.

We had a long discussion about this another time, where I changed my mind on it. This is correct. If a doctor thinks there's a specific risk then the exam is covered. What's not covered are routine exams which often times lead to false positives and unnecessary surgeries, etc.

[cybercoma]

Surely that's a result of women making their own choices, not anyone denying them an opportunity in those fields. An effort has been made to attract women into these fields, and the biggest obstacle seems to be women themselves. I've written about this before...

-k

As with the shortage of women in STEM careers, or the ratio of male:female students at university ...isn't this really just a result of people choosing their own way?

-k

So, I agree with you that people make choices. No you need to take this a step further and ask why those choices aren't made equally between the sexes. There's a significant difference in what women choose to do versus what men choose to do. Beyond that, we need to consider why male dominated fields are more lucrative.

[cybercoma]

It isn't necessarily an issue but it might be. Perhaps all the emphasize on empowering girls and pushing girls to go to university has discouraged boys from doing so. Perhaps boys are falling behind in early education (maybe due to changes in the way western countries do education; such as less emphasis on competition, more emphasis on social justice) results in the lower rate of boys attending universities. Perhaps the combination of most primary school teachers being female + the increasing number of fatherless households results in boys having fewer male role models. Perhaps the greater availability of female only scholarships relative to male only scholarships is causing some of this university gender gap.

At any rate, it seems inconsistent to claim that when males made up 56% of university students it was sexist, but now when 60% of university students are female it is perfectly fine (and this is the position of many mainstream feminists).

If men don't go to university, they will often enter well-paying trades. What do women do if they don't go to university?

[-1=e^ipi]

If men don't go to university, they will often enter well-paying trades. What do women do if they don't go to university?

Are you implying that women cannot do trades?

Talk about sexist...

Anyway, to add to the list:

- Traditionally, men are expected to pay for dates for some reason.

- Traditionally, it is up to the male to make a marriage proposal.

- In scenarios of natural disasters or wars, there is a sexist concept of 'women and children first' (see the Titanic movie for example).

- It is more socially acceptable to be a stay-at-home mother than a stay-at-home father.

Edited April 4, 2015 by -1=e^ipi

[TimG]

No you need to take this a step further and ask why those choices aren't made equally between the sexes. There's a significant difference in what women choose to do versus what men choose to do.

We don't need to take this any further. As long as no barriers exist that prevent either gender for choosing whatever career they want we don't really care why they self segregate. The progressive belief that a problem exists if every identifiable subgroup in society does not have exactly identical preferences is a mystery to me. Who wants to live in a world where everyone is exactly the same?

Beyond that, we need to consider why male dominated fields are more lucrative.

Risk is rewarded and men are generally more tolerant of risk. But risk comes at a cost. It is also true that a larger number of the homeless are men and a larger number of men are killed in workplace accidents. You can't have one without the others. Are really demanding that equality in homelessness and work place deaths? If not then why should we care that jobs that are open to women but dominated by men pay better? Edited April 4, 2015 by TimG

[-1=e^ipi]

As long as no barriers exist that prevent either gender for choosing whatever career they want we don't really care why they self segregate.

I disagree TimG. If gender outcome is different due to social conditioning, that should be treated differently than if gender outcome is different due to biology.

[TimG]

I disagree TimG. If gender outcome is different due to social conditioning, that should be treated differently than if gender outcome is different due to biology.

Why do we care about social conditioning as long as the social environment is open enough for individuals to make choices that go against whatever social conditioning may exist?

All you are really doing is taking a "social conditioning" environment which is organic and changes as people need and replaces it with a "social conditioning" environment that is driven by social engineers with an unhealthy obsession with statistics.

Edited April 4, 2015 by TimG

[Argus]

As per usual, you start with facts that are verifiable and a basis for common discussion, then step forward into prescribing

a solution based on unverifiable ideas.

I've prescribed a solution? That's news to me. Is the fact boys and girls learn better in different environments something you consider unverfiable, or is that boys tend to be more rambunctious than girls? Which of these do you find to be a huge leap?

Edited April 4, 2015 by Argus

[Argus]

Thank Christina Hoff-Sommers for those unverifiable ideas! I kind of mentioned it already, no need to go further.

You're saying Christina Hoff-Sommers invented these ideas, which are held by and supported by only her and her adherents?

What ideas, by the way? Do you believe boys and girls learn in exactly the same way, thrive in exactly the same environments, and that their behaviour patterns are exactly the same?

Edited April 4, 2015 by Argus

[-1=e^ipi]

Why do we care about social conditioning as long as the social environment is open enough for individuals to make choices that go against whatever social conditioning may exist?

First of all, social conditioning doesn't just affect the choices an individual may make, but also how society may treat an individual based upon the choices they make.

From a psychological heath standpoint, gendered social conditioning can reduce a societies psychological health either by putting societal pressure on a person to perform actions they would not otherwise perform or by reducing the social safety net for persons in distress. The 4 to 1 male to female suicide ratio has a lot to do with expectations that males fulfill their gender role and the fact that there is not as much support for males in distress. On the other hand, gendered social conditioning can lead to health problems such as higher rates of anorexia in females.

From an efficiency standpoint, strong social conditioning can harm the long term productivity of a society. Suppose for the sake of argument that 2% of males are biologically suited to be computer programmers and 1% of females are biologically suited to be computer programmers. If you have societal social conditioning where society treats computer programming as a 'male profession' and discourages females from being computer programmers because it does not fit their gender role, then you will discourage a large portion of those potential female computer programmers from considering computer programming as a career option, and you now have a smaller pool of potential computer programs for the market to choose from (which means there will be fewer computer programmers or computer programmers of lower quality). Gendered social conditioning generally leads to a poorer allocation of labour to the appropriate professions.

All you are really doing is taking a "social conditioning" environment which is organic and changes as people need and replaces it with a "social conditioning" environment that is driven by social engineers with an unhealthy obsession with statistics.

You can counter social conditioning in 'organic' ways such as awareness campaigns.