On reproductive rights:
If a woman terminates her pregnancy without informing her husband, she has not committed a crime. Depending on your judge, it won't even be admissible in divorce proceedings.
If a man terminates his pregnancy without informing his wife, at best he's looking at some kind of assault conviction.
Both of these situations are so horrible as to be beyond my capacity to think about in anything other than abstract terms.
Reproductive rights is a sticky subject. If you, as a woman, want to conceive a child, provided everything is working properly you can both do that and have a reasonable expectation of maintaining custody of that child. A man is beholden to a woman to jointly conceive that child (within the law, rapists can all go die in a fire). If a man does nothing wrong and dedicates his entire life with all his being to both mother and child, he still has no reasonable expectation of keeping the child. By law, if his wife decides to leave, she will almost always be able to take the child with her.
Mother Know's Best is the law, it's sexist as could be, and feminism is absolutely silent about it, except when the time comes to attack a men's rights group as being "pro-rape."
The right to walk away from a sexual encounter with no consequences has nothing to do with reproductive rights.
What you're talking about is sexual rights. A woman shouldn't be judged because she has lots of sex with lots of different partners (or no sex with any partners) or judged in any way based on her sex life. But as a manslut I can promise you there are social, cultural, career, and financial consequences of a lack of discretion if it accompanies this behavior for both sexes. We all of us need to mind quite a bit more of our own business. We all of us also could stand to keep a little bit more of our business to ourselves.
This is the world though. This is how it is: As long as there are sexually transmitted diseases and destructible condoms, there will always be consequences of sex, no matter how unfair it may seem once you're in the doctor's office.
A man has a really tough time getting pregnant! This is how it is, and there are consequences of that. If feminism wants to claim credit for everything, then they get to claim credit for not including men in a women's right to choose. If it makes sense that a woman can terminate her pregnancy, then I should get to choose to terminate mine too. That's equality.
It's also
batshit fucking crazy. Men and women, biologically,
are not equal. To the extent it is possible, they should be treated equally
under the law. Has that been accomplished? I think it has, or at least, it's about 95% there. That last 5%, be careful, because there's a way to fix that the wrong way. If you don't involve us in the discussion because we are "privileged" and therefore irrelevant, then you will over-correct. Which isn't justice.
Fill in the blanks to this sentence with whatever you think is a women's rights issue in the modern world:
"As a woman, I am not allowed to ____, which men are allowed to do. If I go ahead and do ____ anyways, the punishment will be _____"
For example, a third world example: "As a woman, I am not allowed to DRIVE A CAR, which men are allowed to do. If I go ahead and DRIVE A CAR anyways, the punishment will be LASHING"
I'm not aware of anything like that in North America.
Independent of what you think the validity of the other arguments are, how would you fill this out? And then what is the response to that issue. I fill out for myself, as a man, what I am not allowed to do, which women are allowed to do, etc. And then as a response, it's mostly alot of, well you can avoid the situation, or you can deal with the punishments.
As an example: As a man, I'm not allowed to discuss the working of my reproductive organs in the workplace, which women are allowed to do. If I go ahead and do it anyways, the punishment will be job loss, and potential civil sexual harassment/hostile workplace suit.
Talking to myself, I'd say, dude, first off, that punishment is highly unlikely. And second of all, that is inappropriate conversation for the workplace.
But what I don't do, is go try and get a law passed or repealed to change that, because I recognize both that most guys are way grosser than I am, and if I'm ever an employer of women I'll be grateful a law exists that lets me kick the jackasses out. But I also won't abuse the law. The right way to deal with this situation wasn't those punishments though, it was sit down and fucking have a conversation about what we don't do in this shop. And then if those rules don't work for someone, they go find another job.
Every. single. time. a man is accused under these conditions he is guilty, and faces additional punishments culturally outside of what is just. And if he dares speak up about that, he is buried under a shitstorm of feminist crap.
Agreed, historically men have done bad things, but that doesn't justify this now.
So when you see men and women push back and say, things have changed alot in 50 years, maybe we consider that things are just the right amount of unfair for everyone, and let it normalize a bit, that isn't irrational.
Some of us are thinking the scales are tipping towards overcorrection. We don't hate women, we believe in equality. If there's a clear and evident injustice we want to see it corrected. But it's also possible that some of it will normalize over time. Attitudes have improved over time, you cannot deny that. Things have gotten better. It is not entirely your fault they have gotten better, it is not entirely our fault they haven't gotten better faster.
The pay gap troubles me. My current job is about 50/50 men and women, right up to the top of the company. At lunch the other day a co-worker was whining about not getting a raise in awhile.
"Did you ask for one?"
"They should just give it to me, I shouldn't have to ask."
"Well, I agree with the sentiment, but bosses are human too, don't let your manager's oversight cost you actual money."
I'm not saying the pay gap is entirely because of this, but both people talking were women who worked for a woman, and it's the first time I've ever heard one of them say anything like "go ask for a raise". I tell people, men and women, all the time, if you don't like your current pay ask for more. If you don't get it go somewhere else. If you aren't sure, start looking, and if you don't find higher paying work elsewhere, maybe your current wage is fair. It sounds sexist, so I hate to even think it, but maybe women are just less willing to risk pissing off their boss by asking for a raise. Maybe a large number of people are unwilling to see the world
as it is, full of people who are honestly trying their best to be as fair as they can within the bounds of their resources, and instead assume widespread "institutionalized" discrimination against their particular group. Full disclaimer, I know people, men and women, who've been fired for asking for a raise. Personally, I'm not the type. I just go find a new job. If you want to keep me as an employee, you pay me to stay.
The blind studies where male names get better hits then female when resumes are sent out: fuck those companies. Seriously. You are better off. I know it's not a solution, but it's what can be done now. Let them wither and die with their complete lack of female employees. Oh they do still employ women? Weird.
As a man, I am not allowed to start a company or organization which hires/accepts only men, as women are allowed to allow only women into their organizations. If I do it anyways, my business will be forced by a court order/point of a gun to allow women. And once there are women there, we can't talk about our junk anymore. It was the whole point of the club!
