Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them!

[SOLDIER #819]

This is in regards to Alpha's comments on things like violence against women or men and how one may or may not be prioritized over the other.

While I feel do that most people do push for gender equality, we continue to maintain ideas of how men and women normally act or even should act in spite of this. That is, even as the gap in academic level or economic standing continues to close and we're able to say that any individual person has an increasingly similar starting point, when we get down to the basic character traits that the "man" or "woman" should have, we don't think all that differently from a few decades back.

We're pretty progressive in my neck of the woods, but I don't think we're quite at the point where we simply judge people as people. We still reference norms and stereotypes that we've learned from our parents, media, etc. and compare them to individuals we encounter. So if a man cries often the general train of thought is more likely to be that he's "emotional, for a guy", or that he's "like a girl," rather than them simply saying that he's just an emotional person. As we become older the stereotypes become more complex and varied, but the result is about the same. Even if we strive for equality in some aspects, deep down most of the world probably isn't about to accept being completely equal. The opposite is probably more encouraged. There is still a push for men to be masculine and for women to be feminine despite that gender roles in more practical areas of life continue to blur.

[Heartless Angel]

I absolutely agree with you Alpha. Most men probably donn't care about alot of things that masculism would support, the ones that do are shut down, because society sees these complaints from a man as weakness. Feminism is not a blow against sexism, it's just turning it in the other direction. If you want to strike against sexism, what needs to be advocated is equality, not favoritism for one side or the other. Now men probably don't need as much to maintain that equality, since society has almost always been to some extent patriarchal, but that doesn't mean we can ignore the few things we do want or need.

[Sinister]

Interesting, are you saying that society has pressured and is pressuring men into overlooking obvious male-targeted sexism as status quo? I'm not suggesting the idea is ludicrous. Actually only perceived societal 'norms' would be very able to do that...pressuring an entire gender into becoming inured of some possibly offensive act. It's happened before.

But then, as my philosophy is, I'm not really concerned with most social problems. So, I suspect the cause and effect is different in my case.

-Sin

[Heartless Angel]

In fact I'd say male targetted sexism has been integrated and accepted as a norm for so long, that a majority of men don't even care about it anymore, and advocate it themselves. Alpha suggesting that this thread would sound like whining is a prime example. If a girl had made a thread talking about anti female slogan t shirts or something like that, we'd have the feminists here in full force supporting her, yet when a male makes a thread suggesting this possibility I'm forced to say, if I were to hear a guy complaining about shirts saying throw rocks at boys even my own natural reaction would be, "Wow dude, don't be a *****, it's a shirt, man up and deal with it". I'd be willing to bet most men have in some way accepted male targetted sexism as so normal and even acceptable, that we'd see the occasional person who would be hurt by this and complain about it as weak or whiny.

Social issues aren't my cup of tea either just so ya know lol.

[Sinister]

Then my question, similar to the "if a tree falls in the forest" chestnut, is if men have gotten to the point where they no longer care, isn't that sort of transcendental? Kind of a desirable state, really?

I mean, if we really don't care anymore and there are no repercussions... Then why agonize? It's more just marginalia. I think(imho) that men are more covetous of an equivalent to the feminism movement, then feel persecuted. I.e., they feel excluded more than persecuted.

-Sin

[Heartless Angel]

Oh I wouldn't say it is a huge problem since for the most part we aren't concerned, but on the rare occasion we are, we need to be heard out just as much as any female would demand to be in a similar situation. Our movement wouldn't want much, but when we want something, our requests have to be taken just as seriously as a feminist's in the interest of equality, which is really what started the feminist movement, as well as most other civil rights movements around the world.