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[–]FlippyKingSadly this sub welcomes rape apologists and victim blaming. Bye! 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I'm wondering why this is directed at GC, or why QT is not also being asked the same question.

I think people who have raised the privacy and dignity matter, make the point very well for men being entitled to male only spaces.

[–]Omina_SentenziosaSarcastic Ovalord 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I'm wondering why this is directed at GC, or why QT is not also being asked the same question.

I suspect that OP had a fight with some GCer who wasn' t fine with her ideas and was hoping that we were all going to back her up. I am happy to see that this was not the case.

To me it' s an all or nothing situations: boundaries need to be respected. It would be supremely hypocritical for me to make it the biggest reason why I want sex segregated spaces while at the same time being perfectly ok with not respecting other people' s. If sex is important, then it' s important for everyone, not just for us. Of course there are power imbalances, but working on that doesn' t have to be about destroying other people' s boundaries.

OP' s way of dealing with this is frankly illogical and obnoxious to me.

[–]FlippyKingSadly this sub welcomes rape apologists and victim blaming. Bye! 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Well stated!

I think men should be addressing men's behavior when that behavior is bad. I think that is best done in private, or among men. I think it would lead to a more open and frank set of discussions than any other way. I don't think men generally meet to do that. I think men mentoring each other is badly needed, but I think the power problems in our society are not purely about men but about rich men and politically connected men and all the ways power is both gained and wielded in less than virtuous manners.

I think the operative scam being run by the current ruling class on the rest of us is them taking their crimes and their abuses and smearing it over huge but powerless populations. Its akin to the way unions are demonized for demanding (not even getting, just demanding) decent pay for their members while other workers might work more dangerous jobs for less pay. Unions have problems, but advocating for their members is not one of them. Union workers are not as oppressed as non-union workers, just as non-immigrant workers are not as oppressed as immigrant ones. That does not make either group the oppressor of the other, the oppressors are further up the food chain.

[–]BiologyIsReal 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think men should be addressing men's behavior when that behavior is bad. I think that is best done in private, or among men. I think it would lead to a more open and frank set of discussions than any other way. I don't think men generally meet to do that.

Yes, it would be great if men adressed each other's bad behaviour, but I'm not holding my breath for it. In practice, guy's talk seems to be about enabling sexism and misogyny. And while I agree that economic and political power play a role on this, I don't think your average guy needs much incentive from the ruling class to act like this.

[–]FlippyKingSadly this sub welcomes rape apologists and victim blaming. Bye! 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Obviously I can't speak for all men. I agree what we're talking about, men 'schooling' each other to be better, does not happen often or in a consistent way. I can think of plenty of times where a guy who shows a pattern of misogyny will have the problem pointed out to him by someone, and if it is in a small group of confidants then it will be discussed for a bit. I've seen situations where younger men and adolescent men were taken aside by their 'elders' of either men in their 20s-30s or middle aged men, or older men, and given corrective advice or more (depending on the circumstances). I do not want to go into detail. I'd say it has more to do with the specifics of the many 'sub cultures' or cultural niches that our society is broken up into that coincide with class divisions and divisions of labor, and regional divisions which also reflect those previous divisions. Also though, I'm older at this point and I suspect such a thing even as it was limited is more a thing of the past, partly for reasons I mention below.

I think the division between men and women as we see it today, the subjugation of women historically, and the reverberations of that subjugation still felt today even where the ruling class rewards women who "buy in" or "lean in" or what ever the phrase is, are tied directly back to the rise of capitalism where women lost their place in society they had during the "dark" ages. Women had economic roles that were integral to the function of communities that allowed them some of them status and some freedom and independence. They had places in the very stratified society, but I'm not talking about the nobility but the peasants and lower working classes. I do not think the witch burnings during that time were some great stamping out of paganism or a killing of some ancient wisdom that many today romanticize it as. I see it as a breaking of local economic power that allowed these communities to operate independently from the ruling class. I think the religious overtones of it were a cover, and made men suspicious of women, and the burnings specifically terrorized young women especially but also whole communities. The days of the ruling class simply demanding of a village some amount of their produce were over, and a more complete domination of all people was required to satisfy the ruling class's greed. Making women nothing more than sex objects, as in reproductive vessels, making them something a man had to earn the right to posses instead of coexisting together in what ever way it was in the dark ages, served the purpose of the ruling class and I believe firmly that it created hardship on both men and women socially, psychologically in terms of the dynamic in the relationships between couples and within families, and economically.

We've seen the old memes about how one of the signs of the rise of fascism is the increasingly stringent demands placed by society on men and women to be more masculine or feminine. The violence related to frustration over the unrealistic nature of those demands are both easily predictable and seen in history. The attempts to escape those demands, be it retreating into fantasy worlds or just switching sides, are also both easily predictable and seen in history.

That is a long winded way of saying I think the wounds that divides men and women needs healing. I really don't think anyone with any power has any interest in that happening. I don't think anyone trying to direct or lead our culture have any interest in that. I think maybe none of us really have very much interest in that because we call carry the wounds within us and we resent the pain.