Battle of the Sexes: real or imaginary

BE CIVIL
This is not a place to bash men or women
This a place to intelligently discuss issues between the sexes

 

Okay, so I just read this article and I must say, it is the worst thing I've read since 50 shades of Grey.
The writers seems to have serious chip on his shoulder about something and is just spouting the worst nonsense I've ever heard in my life. If you haven't already, you need to read it here. As much as it skeeves me to do so, I'm going to reach for SJW sword and cut up this article.

"Marriage is dead"
First of all, we have to remember that marriage was traditionally a necessary tool for survival back in the day. People HAD to get married for all sorts of reasons and love was practically never one of them. So yea of course in our bright shiny present we really don't need it anymore and people are figuring that out fast.

"Women have given up on monogamy"
Newsflash buddy, EVERYONE is jumping off the monogamy ship Monogamy isn't the end all be all. Human relationships are rapidly evolving and people are figuring out that there is more than one kind of love. There are still too many people believing that anything outside of monogamy is unnatural and that's not okay.

"In France, we even have to pay for the kids a wife has through adulterous affairs."
Really France? that's kind of messed up

"In school, boys are screwed over time and again. Schools are engineered for women"
The guy adds some links to back up his claims (as everyone should) but like almost everyone does, he takes the information and tailors it to fit his assertions. Even worse, the article he sited was practically rubbish within itself "there were 135 females for every 100 males who graduated from a four-year college" OF COURSE there are more girls in school now than before, its only been one or two generations since women have gone from Just-Stay-At-Home-and-Raise-Kids to Go-out-and-get-an-Education. That has absolutely nothing to do with radical feminism.

"In the US, they force-feed boys Ritalin like Skittles to shut them up."
Once again, this guy is only focusing on males. Adults are medicating ALL the kids who are seen as "too rowdy", but what the hell do they expect? They keep abolishing recess and feeding them processed sugary junk foods. Bring back the playgrounds.

"And while girls are favored to fulfill quotas, men are slipping into distant second place"
Yea, I can't figure that one out because all he did was link to a bunch of stats that didn't have anything on it to show male vs female, but I'm going to say right now that schools aren't pulling for men or women, they're going to make decisions based on getting as much funding as they can get their grimy mitts on

"All that wouldn't be so bad if we could at least dull the pain with girls. But we're treated like pedophiles and potential rapists just for showing interest"
THERE, RIGHT THERE is the problem. Girls are NOT playstations, they're not booze, they're not t.v. They are not entertainment, they are PEOPLE and just like all people, they are going to react a certain way, based on how you approach them. The writer then refers to a social experiment, but I can't trust the behavior of >Mice< to represent humanity (sorry Stuart Little).

"Never before in history have relations between the sexes been so fraught with anxiety, animosity and misunderstanding. To radical feminists, who have been the driving force behind many tectonic societal shifts in recent decades, that's a sign of success: they want to tear down the institutions and power structures that underpin society, never mind the fall-out. Nihilistic destruction is part of their road map"
Just woooow. Do I even have to say anything? I would think anyone in our forums would know to steer clear of anyone who makes broad assumptions and puts words in the mouths of other people. Not to mention he just sounds really upset about the destruction of these power bases because they strongly favor his group (white cis males). Yes there is fallout and mayhem ensuing these days, but thats what happens when there is CHANGE. He seems to assume that causes that bring about social upheaval must be inherently bad and gotta be smacked down, but we all know thats not true. Did civil rights get ushered in without a hitch (hell no), but was it a good thing (yes, unless you're racist, in that case screw you)

"among men of about 15 to 30 years old, ever-increasing numbers are checking out of society altogether, giving up on women, sex and relationships and retreating into pornography, sexual fetishes, chemical addictions, video games and, in some cases, boorish lad culture, all of which insulate them from a hostile, debilitating social environment created, some argue, by the modern feminist movement"
B.S. First of all, that ever increasing number is completely owed to the fact that these "advances" are practically brand new. Secondly, men aren't flocking to these devices because they're "scared of women", its because they're more private and dependable sexual outlets than actual women. Average Joe doesn't have to worry about getting slapped in the face for ogling Laura crofts ass when shes crawling through a tunnel or be judged by the people in his favorite rubber suit porn videos. Why should Joe spend a friday night possibly striking out with real girls all night when he could stay at home and get guaranteed gratification.

"ridiculed as basement-dwellers for avoiding aggressive, demanding women with unrealistic expectations, or called rapists and misogynists merely for expressing sexual interest"
dafuuuuuuuuuq. You wanna talk about aggressive? How about having a guy corner you against a wall while he "spits game" at you. Unrealistic expectations? How about having to constantly listen to how guys aren't interested in fat chicks, stretch marks, or body hair. Being called rapists and misogynists? How about being called a slut simply for...owait NO REASON

"Teenage boys always have been useless with girls, but there's definitely a fear that now being well-intentioned isn't enough, and you can get into trouble just for being clumsy," he says. "For example, leaning in for a kiss might see you branded a creep, rather than just inept."
Got a question buddy, did you ASK to kiss her beforehand. I bet you didn't. COMMUNICATION PEOPLE its not that difficult. Maybe if guys stopped putting women on a pedestal, treating them like rare mythical creatures that you have to get a wizards blessing and be spelled wild oats to offer them, you wouldn't have such a hard time. Stop thinking about it as US and THEM.

"The new rules men are expected to live by are never clearly explained, says Rivlin, leaving boys clueless and neurotic about interacting with girls. "That might sound like a good thing because it encourages men to take the unromantic but practical approach of asking women how they should behave, but it causes a lot of them to just opt out of the game and retreat to the sanctuary of their groups of lads, where being rude to women gets you approval, and you can pretty much entirely avoid one-on-one socializing with the opposite sex."
Right here, they give you the answer to having a successful relationship (of any kind), opening your mouth and ASKING questions, but if you literally can't even work up the decency to do that, then you're not a worthwhile human being and deserve to be exiled.
Playing stupid "Guess how I feel, Will I, Won't I" mind games, is for high schoolers. ADULTS, use their words.

"There are also a lot of blokes who ignore women because they are scared and don't know how to act. It goes without saying that boys who never spend any time alone with women are not very good at relationships."
What they heck are ya'll scared of?

"Women today are schooled in victimhood, taught to be aggressively vulnerable and convinced that the slightest of perceived infractions, approaches or clumsy misunderstandings represents "assault," "abuse" or "harassment." That may work in the safe confines of campus, where men can have their academic careers destroyed on the mere say-so of a female student"
This is perhaps the only bit of truth in this whole bundle. Women need to be very careful about raising the alarm on issues like this. Too many "false" cries causes the powers that be to ignore real claims when they're made, its already happening that women won't report rapes mostly because they don't believe anyone will believe it happened.

"Boyishness and boisterousness have come to be seen as "problematic," with girls' behavior a gold standard against which these defective boys are measured. When they are found wanting, the solution is often drugs"
This is a no brainer. Basic classroom behavior is: sit down, be quiet, learn. Its not anyone's fault if males are predisposed to be more energetic, but just like any disadvantage, they need to overcome that themselves. Not with drugs, but through determination.
We are too quick in this day and age to pop a pill when we don't want to do something ourselves and that needs to stop.
The article moves on to re state how males are falling behind in school because academics is giving all the glory to female students, but this time (not surprisingly) they don't list reasons why, but if you ask me its probably because of internet and videogames, which i bet is decreasing academic performance for everybody, but of course the writer is only applying it to males.

"For the past, at least, 25 years, I've been told to do more and more to keep a woman. But nobody's told me what they're doing to keep me"
Here is the short list for you buddy: Stay at home, raise kids, do the cooking, do the cleaning, shave, wear makeup, always be feminine in dress and manner, let me make the decisions. Thats all women have been hearing till recently.

"Why bother trying to work out what a woman wants, when"
Cutting that short, because once again, ASK MAN, JUST ASK. Its getting tired watching people try to play psychic with each other, that needs to stop. And ladies, you sure as hell better not keep up that He-should-know-what-i-really-mean bs. its get no one nowhere and its just childish.

"So they use apps like Tinder and OK Cupid to find women to have protected sex with"
LIIIIIIES, Tinder doesn't work at all ; 0 ;

The article closes with some final thoughts and sites pointing you to more sources of info. Ladies, gents, and everyone inbetween, i conclude this rant.

 

@GuyStripes
That article really stirred me up. But I hope some of the things I said will encourage you not give up on the ladies just yet

 

Back when I was living thoroughly as a cis male, I used to think things like women were the ones given special treatment and that women had it easier in society because of their looks, and when they were complaining that they were often just exaggerating for attention. I used to hate feminists and anything to do with feminism; I saw it as a hateful movement and a perpetuation of sexism against men who hadn't done anything wrong. I was one of those "I don't support feminism, I support equality" assholes.

Since I started looking into living as female and identifying as female, I see now just how completely fucking wrong I was.

In my experience, a lot of males (GENERALISING MASSIVELY HERE) also have the stance that I used to, but because they're cis males, they never experience life from the other side and are apparently completely devoid of empathy or even the will to bother trying to see life from the other perspective. They often just flat out won't believe what females tell them about their experiences or chalk it down to something stupid like their clothing or hormones. I find that discussions about sexism often steer towards females having to justify and explain that things are worse for them than most men realise (or care to approach).

I read a blog post by a woman some time ago that begins: "I am tired, not of arguing in favour of equality, diversity and tolerance, but of having to explain, over and over and over again, why such arguments are still necessary, only to have my evidence casually dismissed by someone too oblivious to realise that their dismissal of the problem is itself a textbook example of the problem." and I think that line alone hits the nail on the head in describing the current state of social disequilibrium that we live in. And even Lewis' Law ("the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism") is proven more often than it reasonably should be.

Now, by no means do I believe that my explanation of my perspective here nor my beliefs are flawless, but I'd just like to capitalise on the point of how drastically my opinions shifted due only to switching which "side" I experience life from.

 

I can see what you mean. How can you show someone a problem if they can't even see that it exists?

 

I think a battle of the sexes is going on but I wrote my opinions on the other thread.

 

I would say that the battle is very much real, and both sides are trying to go about winning for all the wrong reasons using all the wrong methods. Rather, I should say that the members of each side shouting the loudest are the ones making ammo for both sides' arguments.

We're stuck in a cycle where both sides shift in gaining headway for their "cause", but the only difference is that now the women are coming out of top more often during these spats for superiority. On the one hand I'm glad that women have a voice that is not only heard, but acted upon with the accompanying results coming in their favor. On the other hand, I see this newfound power that they have been granted being used to perpetuate the very ideas and social constructs that they claim to be abolishing. Leveling the playing field does not mean to tip the odds laughably in your favor.

Like you mentioned in the other thread, there's no middle ground. Both sides are guilty of going overboard, both sides are guilty of committing unspeakable acts to the other, but when all you do is spew out a litany of hate speech about your rival and completely ignore the possibility that maybe, just maybe both sides have been wanting to get along for a while now and might actually want to make mutual progress to this whole equality thing?

My views on this situation are not shared by many of my peers. I'm in the minority on this, sadly enough. I want to live in a world where men, women, transgendered, EVERYONE can just be decent fucking human beings and mingle together without worrying about sparking some ridiculous amount of drama and/or rage. Some people's actions just sicken me and it sucks that for all the progress that gets made on this issue, all it takes is one incident to break all that progress down and have to start again.

 

I don't know why everyone keeps talking about their soggy knees.

 

I want to get in on this debate but I'm at work and can't take time to get fully informed I have seen it bad on both sides of the argument on the Internet there are too many keyboard warriors nowadays...

I just want everyone to hug ya-kno

 

I will absolutely reply to what you said soon. I'm a tad busy with other matters to sit down and really reply to things.

I am working on it though.

 

It's kind of funny to me to hear about the proposed issue of men giving up on women for various reasons such as those mentioned above. Not funny in an amusing way, more like funny in a... confused kind of way? I guess? These articles all act as though women have everything handed to them because men are the chasers and women are the chase-ees. Women can just sift through boundless options in potential mates and pluck out the most desirable, because women are the ones with the boobs and the pretty faces.

Firstly: I have been the one to ask out men more often than I have been the one asked out. Sometimes this ended up in relationships of some months, and in one case I was engaged for almost five years. I have also been rejected. When I am the one approached for things from men, it is more often of a sexual nature than a relationship nature. However, I have also done the approaching for sex only purposes.

The whole thing about this stuff that gets me is it assumes women don't ever have the same types of problems. Yeah, I could probably get a date if I wanted one. I could probably have a boyfriend. That isn't the problem. The problem is I don't trust people and I don't trust my own judgement. I've been burned really bad in the past, by my fiance abandoning me for new friends and by a male relative betraying my trust. It's made me readily cynical and jaded, and for a while I pretty much shut down all my emotions. It doesn't matter how many people you have clamoring for your attention if you look at all of them and find yourself imagining the ways in which they could either disappoint you or screw you over for their own gain. How am I supposed to know who will treat me like a decent human being, and how is it my fault or feminism's fault that the reason men are going to have a harder time getting me to do what they want is because of what other men have already done to me?

 

This ^^ I'm male but been fucked over by numerous x's in past by them cheating and it's now allmost impossible for me to trust even if they gain my trust then break it then it's even harder for me to trust them again
Sigh humans are horrible

 

Maybe if we stopped staring at little screens, and spent more time actually seeing and hearing others around us, this wouldn't be such a fucking problem.

It doesn't matter what gender you are. What your sexual preference is. It's called being civil to other people, showing empathy, and recognizing that you are not the only human being on this planet.

I disagree with your statement on monogamy. I think cheating is wrong UNLESS you and your partner have a prediscussed agreement.
Everyone is not 'jumping off the monogamy ship' or else this wouldn't be a problem. Having trust issues that haunt you for years afterward wouldn't be a problem.

 

I'm going to say something unrelated to the topic, but I'm sure that with everyone on here, they're not just sitting there staring at a screen. What most people don't see, is that on the other side of those screens, are friends. Sure, it's not the same as real life, but can you tell me the difference between hanging out with your friends for a day in real life, and hanging out with your friends for a day online? About twenty bucks. And really it's no different from talking on the phone, or writing a letter, and nobody has a problem with those being antisocial.

 

Because being around with people and interacting with them,. verses typing on a screen and 'liking' a status isn't the same thing. At all.
That's why you find people who do most of their socializing online, seem so awkward in real life. They don't know how to grasp or deal with real life social interactions. Also, social media gives people the idea that THEY are the center of attention. That everything is always about them...and that's...not how the real world works at all lol.

Also, physical touching, reading facial expressions and body language helps you better understand empathy and releases endorphins that can help improve your mood, and ease a lot of sources of depression. I know this first hand, as I used to be addicted to the computer.

 

I don't know... I have way too many conflicting feels about feminism and how many men act IRL. I don't really favor either side, but I am definitely not exactly the biggest fan of feminism. While I see faults in males, I also see faults from females that need fixing too (but I never see anyone willing to accept that they make mistakes, too or that things need to be changed).

I think more and more with feminist movements from the radical side of things, I see a lot more and more hate on males in society. I also see a lot more general assumptions about men, too. "Oh, gross pigs that always _____" etc etc. On the other hand, many men AND women make assumptions about women too. Honestly; I just wish feminism could be equalism/humanism and everyone could just learn how to get the fuck along. Everyone has problems they need to fix, no matter the gender. Why not work on them together as a team?

As for what's said about interacting online versus in the real world, I have a MUCH better time interacting online. When I try to talk to people about issues I have in real life with someone in real life, I'm never heard. I usually just get a bunch of angry, know-it-all shit spat in my face. At least online, I can type out what I have to say without having a worry about being interrupted. If the person is just downright rude and immature, it's easy to hit a block button and have them no longer exist in your life. You can't exactly just get rid of someone in real life if they don't have the courtesy to listen to you or act like a mature human being. :c

 

Imaginary. We're all a-holes and need to stop all the bullshit.
We should be loving everybody around us and chilling having some hot chocolate.
Having been mistreated by a girl and when she broke up with she said I mistreated her, I don't want anything to do with any other hoomins around until we all chill out.
Pls, people. Let's all hang out, hippie style and have some fun.
This world would be a better place if everyday we told our beloved ones that we love them. And strangerS too, because why not?

 

True story! There's not one person in the world that could say they've never judged a book by its cover. I think everyone needs to learn the humility and respect to just love everyone regardless of sex, age, gender, beliefs, etc. Just be a human being, without the inhumane qualities and selfish assumptions. Just don't forget who you are in the process! ฅ’ω’ฅ)

 

One of my biggest problems with socialising in real life is that I come across so many people I want to hug and/or comfort (after getting to know them), but I'm too scared of being labelled as some touchy-feely personal space invading weirdo.

That, and I can't seem to find anyone with any mutual interests who isn't an offensive or raging homo/trans/gyno -phobic fucktrumpet.

 

Here is the issue, I feel like most societies have various expectations for men and women and in large social gatherings you decide to play with or against that instead of maybe being yourself. Often in social, flirtatious, or other situations I've seen the same men and women act very VERY differently or out of character which can burn bridges and change the dynamic for the worse.