The Men's Rights Movement

[ibanezmonster]

Somehow, the headline made me think about this thread.

The plight of the bitter nerd: Why so many awkward, shy guys end up hating feminism

And the article underneath is recommended reading.

Yeah, if you want to read a ton of overgeneralizations and BS.

[lisa needs braces]

That Salon article is BS and designed to humiliate Scott Aaronson, who works at MIT and is widely respected in his field. There's a some bitterness and envy from those down with 3rd wave feminism against the likes of Mr. Aaronson -- males who are successful in STEM. Using his picture like that is nothing but an attempt to shame and ridicule, regardless of how much Arthur Chu says he's a nerd himself.

[Purusha]

Wait a second. This isn't THIS Arthur Chu we are talking about, is it?



I had no idea Salon's standards had fallen so low.

[ibanezmonster]

Wait a second. This isn't THIS Arthur Chu we are talking about, is it?



I had no idea Salon's standards had fallen so low.

It is... just click on the link to the other articles written by him.
Here's one: http://www.salon.com/2014/10/30/that_creepy_guy_from_the_internet_how_gamergate_shattered_faith_in_the_geek_community/

[kishnevi]

It is hard not to think of feminism as man-hate when you find screeds such as this.
http://time.com/3653871/womens-bathroom-lines-sexist-potty-parity/
Yes, there biological differences, but they are caused by nature, not patriarchal oppression.

[Rinaldo]

It is hard not to think of feminism as man-hate when you find screeds such as this.
http://time.com/3653871/womens-bathroom-lines-sexist-potty-parity/
Yes, there biological differences, but they are caused by nature, not patriarchal oppression.

Think harder, then. Feminism is not a hive mind, it's an ideology that has its crazies, for sure. But at its core, it's an ideology that promotes equal rights and equal opportunities no matter what your gender is.

Sure, there are biological differences, caused by nature. But do you really think the lack of women in IT for example can be blamed on nature? That the vagina mysteriously makes women inept at operating a computer or coding or simply uninterested in machines? The women of Bletchley Park might disagree with you there. Blaming inequalities that are wholly societal on 'biological differences' is a cop out.

[Ken B]

Think harder, then. Feminism is not a hive mind, it's an ideology that has its crazies, for sure. But at its core, it's an ideology that promotes equal rights and equal opportunities no matter what your gender is.

Sure, there are biological differences, caused by nature. But do you really think the lack of women in IT for example can be blamed on nature? That the vagina mysteriously makes women inept at operating a computer or coding or simply uninterested in machines? The women of Bletchley Park might disagree with you there. Blaming inequalities that are wholly societal on 'biological differences' is a cop out.

"Blamed"? Why is some alleged imbalance in IT blameworthy?
Your comment about vaginas and computers is the usual boilerplate bullshit too. That you think IT is about "operating" a computer suggests to me you have no clue what IT is all about. Either that, or you happily misrepresent it.

[ibanezmonster]

But at its core, it's an ideology that promotes equal rights and equal opportunities no matter what your gender is.

No, it isn't. That's called egalitarianism. And you're welcome to join.

So when are feminists concerned about issues that disproportionately affect men?
(and same goes for MRM when it comes to issues that disproportionately affect women)

[lisa needs braces]

Men and women are DIFFERENT but EQUAL. The under-representation of women in IT (and, say, in the medical sub-field of surgery) is due to differences between the genders in TASTE for particular sorts of labor vs others. That men and women have different tastes and gravitate towards different forms of employment (even within the same field -- eg medicine) does not mean that discrimination is occurring.

[lisa needs braces]

Moreover, the male sex is more variable than the female sex in many attributes, be it intelligence, psychopathy, creativity, and so on. On metrics like these you'll find males over-represented at both extremes -- the top and bottom. The men who luck out in the top end of intelligence/creativity/ambition etc will often gravitate towards success, but that does not mean that this benefits all other males or that women are being discriminated against.

[Purusha]

Sure, there are biological differences, caused by nature. But do you really think the lack of women in IT for example can be blamed on nature?

Of course. What makes you think this would not be the case?

[Rinaldo]

That men and women have different tastes and gravitate towards different forms of employment..

..is very often a societal construct. As I, naively, tried to explain in this thread, women for example don't gravitate towards technology because they weren't allowed to go near it for centuries and if they do now, they encounter a glass ceiling that turns them away / requires more effort to overcome than a man has to exert to achieve the same success (e.g. the Silicon Valley story). Same with politics and other endeavours that've been kept from girls 'cos we boys said so. And if you're a girl that grows up into a world where you don't see many women engineers or politicians, you're basically conditioned to think those fields are not for you.

(btw, as we talked games here - this entirely artificial 'not for you' construct was exactly the thing that happened to the game industry)

The chief aim of feminism is to simply level the playing field where it has been twisted by a history of patriarchy. Thankfully, those glass ceilings already cracked (e.g. Intel investing $300 million to improve its workplace diversity - I guess listening to you guys could've saved them a lot of money, right?) and will go down in a few decades, dragging the bullshit reasoning about 'women not capable / interested due to their biological yadda yadda yadda' along with it.

[Purusha]

..is very often a societal construct.

According to whom? When was that ever proven?

Again, what we are seeing here is a very clearly nominalist perspective being pitted against a realist reaction with the underlying assumption that the nominalist perspective is the "correct" view, simply because this perspective is the hallmark of modern thought. The problem however is that at no point has nominalism being proven to be the correct view, and i for one believe that it isn't. This was clear to the vast majority of human beings up until the Renaissance and the so called age of "reason", rationalism always seeming to eventually degenerate into some form of relativism or another.

[ibanezmonster]

And if you're a girl that grows up into a world where you don't see many women engineers or politicians, you're basically conditioned to think those fields are not for you.

And if you're a guy that grows up in a world that doesn't see many male nurses or cosmetologists, you're basically conditioned to think those fields are not for you. Following the feminist line of reasoning, the only reason why is because oppression. "Women only" clubs that discourage men from joining.

[Ken B]

And if you're a guy that grows up in a world that doesn't see many male nurses or cosmetologists, you're basically conditioned to think those fields are not for you. Following the feminist line of reasoning, the only reason why is because oppression. "Women only" clubs that discourage men from joining.

Rinaldo can also explain why there are so few black baseball players, and why ony a small fraction of college students are women.
Anyone can claim this or that or the other effect. What matters is evidence.  Without evidence it's just prattle.

[Rinaldo]

And if you're a guy that grows up in a world that doesn't see many male nurses or cosmetologists, you're basically conditioned to think those fields are not for you.

Yes, of course. And there certainly are 'women's clubs' worth dismantling. Just not on a comparable scale.

Following the feminist line of reasoning, the only reason why is because oppression.

*sigh* No, the 'feminist line of reasoning' takes into account what actually happened throughout history. Unlike women, men do not have one where they've been actively banned from pursuing certain fields / persecuted for doing so.

What matters is evidence.  Without evidence it's just prattle.

Exactly. What do you think brought me into the feminist fold? Evidence, both scientific (e.g. studies about the aforementioned conditioning) and anecdotal (when it comes to my field, mostly the #1reasonwhy campaign where women - and men - shared their often horrendous stories from the game industry). The links I provide contain heaps of evidence, while I've yet to see any that seriously supports the claims in the vein of 'women are by their biological nature not interested in XY'. THAT is just prattle.

[lisa needs braces]

..is very often a societal construct.it.

Why haven't other societies emerged such that they constructed things differently, i.e, lots of female engineers and lots of female surgeons? If it's just a construct, after all (or as you put it -- "very often") then surely other societies over time should have had socially constructed things differently?

[ibanezmonster]

Exactly. What do you think brought me into the feminist fold? Evidence, both scientific (e.g. studies about the aforementioned conditioning) and anecdotal (when it comes to my field, mostly the #1reasonwhy campaign where women - and men - shared their often horrendous stories from the game industry). The links I provide contain heaps of evidence, while I've yet to see any that seriously supports the claims in the vein of 'women are by their biological nature not interested in XY'. THAT is just prattle.

Unfortunately, it's hard to find statistics (and I don't see any from you, either). But from my experience, the idea of a female being discouraged from entering IT is something I haven't even heard of until I read stuff online.

And the whole assertion that the "nerd" crowd is full of misogynists, which is the reason why women are discouraged from entering IT, playing video games, etc. is completely alien to anything I've seen. If anything, the only opinions about "girl gamers" I've ever seen is that guys fantasize about having a girlfriend that shares the same hobbies.

[jochanaan]

...why ony a small fraction of college students are women...

Um, better check your statistics on that one.  The last I heard, women actually outnumber men at many colleges and universities!

[ibanezmonster]

Um, better check your statistics on that one.  The last I heard, women actually outnumber men at many colleges and universities!

Yep. The patriarchy has been failing to award us men our male privilege on this one lately...