Population Pyramids of the Whole World

So, I figured out the spellchecker....I hope (it seems chrome does not like to have German as your browsers language and to spellcheck in English). On with the queue which is at about 351 (350 with that one) posts. Anyhow, this is one of my recent links and well, to be honest there isn't much I could say about this one in particular. It gives you a look at population pyramids, so one can check out the development after say WWII or recent age differences. Russia is a prime example as there is a huge gap, both in the path and more recently.

When overt misogyny doesn't happen to the average woman....

A discussion on SRSDiscussion (SRSD from now on) on the topic why some women chose to be "FeMRAs".

What would cause a woman to

1) say feminism is completely unnecessary

2) Say that women as a whole have already achieved enough and are viewed as equals to men.

3) Say that Mens Rights is both pressing and necessary?

Interestingly as someone who is quite "Men's right-y" I would wonder about 1. and 2. as well. Feminism is always a useful tool to view society in and see how it impacts women. Also complete 100% equality will never be achieved as there will always be issues we need to work on. I am certain women are not viewed as equals in some regards in the same way that men are not viewed as equals in some regards. This is the point where my egalitarianism comes in, figuring the stuff out for men and women. Point 3. is the view of a certain kind of feminists, which I would term gynocentric feminists, who could not comprehend how there is a merit to the concept of men's right at all.

So this is mostly about that topic. One comment I found telling really showed me with what I griped with. As usual in SRSD there is the notion that "misandry don't real" as misandry as compared to misogyny is not institutionalized (perhaps the underlying reason for point 3.), yet one reads such a comment:

People tend take their own, personal experience and apply it to everyone around them. If you're average enough and live in a safe place/bubble, you could have never experienced the kind of overt misogyny that many women face. You might adhere to traditional gender roles and ideals of femininity just because that's who you are. You might not be the type of person who seeks out information on the rest of the world and it might be difficult for you to empathize with people who are very different from you.

So, essentially, if you're a white, middle class woman in an average town who isn't ugly or insanely beautiful and who fits in well to your traditional place in society, you're going to think this is the case for everyone else. You're going to see feminist claims as overblown. And it's going to be easy for you to unknowingly buy in to patriarchal propaganda (after all, most societies are designed to spread such propaganda… I mean, the male gaze is everywhere in America).

So the average woman does not face misogyny, yet many women do face overt misogyny. How can it be overt if the average woman does not face it? This points me to another gynocentric talking point, "men can not be oppressed as men". The idea behind that is that when men are oppressed, it is because that the man in question is from a minority or poor or from the GSM spectrum, that he just couldn't be oppressed because he is male because patriarchy or misandry don't real. However looking at the above one could argue that women are not oppressed because they are women. "if you're a white, middle class woman in an average town who isn't ugly or insanely beautiful and who fits in well to your traditional place in society [... y]ou're going to see feminist claims as overblown", If you are average (not poor not from a racial minority etc) you do not face oppression.

Personally, would I say that men/women are oppressed, in the western world? Well you could probably draw a line somewhere and argue that neither or both are. I am sure though that there are gendered expectations that do hurt women as well as men and we should work to eliminate both. Do women have it worse than men? Well, maybe. Or maybe not. How do you quantify having it worse? From my point of view arguing this is a pointless exercise that leads nowhere. The issues also influence each other. If you get more father's involved with their kids you also influence the wage gap issue. It is not a zero sum game. Which leads us to this question someone asked in regards to Point 3:

Do you think men face no gender issues whatsoever in society, or do you feel that the social issues faced by women should be solved first before addressing men's issues.

Good question, and a typical answer follows:

Many of the gender issues faced by men stem from patriarchy, in that its restrictive gender roles harm both men and women by forcing them to conform to a set of very narrow rules. However, the important thing about patriarchy is that it is set up to benefit men (who follow it unquestioningly), but even then, only some men.

Because the voices and the views of women have been suppressed, currently it is important to focus on women's rights because they are the oppressed group. But feminism is not the elevation of women's rights over and above those of men's; it is the eradication of sexism. Seen in this light, it should go without saying that feminism will improve the lives of both men and women by dismantling gender roles. Even things that MRAs complain about - child custody, the overlooking of male rape - can be traced back to patriarchal origins (the belief that women must care for children, the false assumption that men are sexually aggressive and thus cannot be raped), so feminism is a way of fixing these things. [I omitted the critics of MRAs here because it is not relevant to that topic and I really do not care]

The social issues faced by men and women, though different, do not exist independently of each other. However, in our present society, women suffer more than men. The eradication of the power structure that enables this inequality is ultimately a benefit to all genders, not just women.

Again this is a very word-y cop out. Interestingly there is a rebuttal to this on a very gynocentric feminist blog (FF101):

Why are you concentrating on X when Y is so much more important?

A common argument that is used on people who are talking about special interests — such as feminism — is to say that, instead of talking about Special Interest X the person should instead talk about Important Issue™ Y. This proposed correlation between X and Y is problematic on a few levels:

- It assumes that X and Y are mutually exclusive
- It assumes that there is an objective determinant for what is “important” and what is not
- It creates a hierarchy of issues, which in turn creates a supposed “correct” order/path that must be followed

And all these points really apply. Asking "shouldn't you feminists focus on women's rights in Africa first?" or even "shouldn't we work on world peace first and solve the hunger problem?" is the same kind of derailing as saying that women have it worse and we should focus on them first and that feminism really also helps men. It is a stupid topic really. Feminism has mostly treated men's right as collateral benefits. And who can blame them as it was focus to emancipate women. I agree that it was the more pressing issue at the time. But really, it is about time now that men get some help, too. And really it is not mutually exclusive, quite the contrary.

Bonus points for my resource section, Dworkin's book "Right Wing Women" and the Dworkin Online Library. (The more you know)

Several resources, cleaning up my "to post" list....

There are several entries that are just entirely to big to comment on, that have to be read as a whole, are good when you need to find something etc. These all do not necessarily need a new post (while some do) and it is mostly just to clear up my cluttered "to write" list (228 more to go....YEAH). Anyhow here it goes:

There are several accounts of male rape victims on reddit, and with several I mean many **Trigger Warning**: IamA Requests (comments), SRS Thread and one who did not want to share in said thread, AskReddit Thread, 2 prison rape IamAs, several IamAs more in the comments.

WMST-L File Collection, an Email forum of women's studies teachers. Pretty interesting read.

"Frauengewalt" (female violence) a German source with many English quotes of DV studies. And a somewhat similar thing.

CURRENT CONTROVERSIES AND PREVALENCE CONCERNING FEMALE OFFENDERS OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE - Why the Overwhelming Evidence on Partner Physical Violence Has Not Been
Perceived and Is Often Denied - Straus - 2009. I should probably post about that one in detail. It is the go to source for feminist critique in terms of male victimization of DV. Also, Processes Explaining the Concealment and Distortion
of Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence - 2007.

We also have the feminist position by Johnson. And the NOMAS task force link.

This is the page where the CDC has the data on their youth risk studies. I still feature a slightly older version here as the numbers do not differ that much. But for future references, this might be interesting.

Baumeister's "Is there anything good about men?". A classic.

Contemporary perspectives on masculinity. A book I will read when I have time (never).

Mensrightslinks, studies via r/mr.

The science and politics of comparing women and men.

Male Rape and Human Rights - Lara Stemple

Feminist position on privilege, oppression and power.

SRSD on sex positivity.

I collected some links on the history of women and the draft that somewhat left me nowhere.

bell hook's "Feminism is for everybody", one of those books I too want to read sometime.

"15 Intriguing Thoughts About Men, Women and Relationships" by Warren Farrell, Ph.D.

Sexismsbusters is a nice overview for issues men face.

Regender is a site that swaps male and female pronouns so one can have fun to switch those around.

There were 2 experiments where women lived like man, Nora Vincent's "Self-made Man" and "Macho like me". I want to watch / read both....sometimes. Sigh.

Female Offenders lists quite a few studies / resources.

Changes

This time a purely administrative post.

I beefed up the ressources list on the right side and included some of the finest links about Domestic Violence there are:

• DV_Stats 

DVStats.org is a nice search Engine based on t he Fielbert list, that links to many studies.

• DV_50 Myths
• DV_Fact Sheet

Two links by Mediaradar.org. The 50 Myths cover almost everything. In addition the Fact sheet is a nice short overview. Mediaradar itself is a very well designed site and has much more ressources but those are the ones, I think are the most useful.

• DV_Fiebert List

 And of course the fielbert list that recently crossed *drumroll pleased* the 200 Studies mark. Whew....a lot of resources.

This bibliography examines 256 scholarly investigations: 201 empirical studies and 55 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.  The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 253,500. 

 It keeps growing and growing and growing.

Secondly as you probably noticed (if you visit my blog and not just read about it on antimisandry, you lazy git) I drasticly changed the Layout of this blog. The main reason for doing so was the squeezed text & pictures in the previous setting. With more space my uber-long posts are far easier to read. I am not sure if I keep the colour though, doesn´t look bad, but eventually I´ll go back to black. It would be perfect if the column on the right was on the left, but well one can´t have everything (if someone is willing to help, I am willing to listen).

What are your thoughts on the new layout? Better? Worse? Also I am looking for a new title...the equality from a mans perspective is just to generic.If someone comes up with a good idea, kudos to you.

Thats it...Feck out....

EDIT: Yowser turned the sides upside dow... I mean leftside right. Looks better now.