Masculism

[broken iris]

Do you seriously expect every theory to allow for the opinions of its detractors?

Yes. Otherwise it is not a theory, it's called dogma.

[McParadigm]

The argument is that patriarchy is so all-pervasive in culture, it's a demonstrable factor.

So walk me through the logic then. How are these suicides statistics illustrating patriarchy as demonstrable?

I don't need to 'walk you through it'. You could just do some reading on the subject of patriarchy, what people actually mean when they use the term, instead of thinking that every mention of it means 'McParadigm'.

I'm aware of the definition of the word, harm. I'm not taking this as a personal affront, nor am I even necessarily disagreeing with you. I'm primarily interested in the degree to which measured, observed human behavior correlates to different theories, and I'm simply not seeing that here. Where the two don't appear to feed one another, I grow skeptical of the theory.

Thanks for dismissing me like that, though.

[harmless]

Do you seriously expect every theory to allow for the opinions of its detractors?

Yes. Otherwise it is not a theory, it's called dogma.

Wow, that's pretty fucking strange. When you say 'allow for', do you mean 'acknowledge', 'answer to' or 'bow to'? Because intersectionality does plenty of the first two, none of the third, just like every damn theory.

[harmless]

The argument is that patriarchy is so all-pervasive in culture, it's a demonstrable factor.

So walk me through the logic then. How are these suicides statistics illustrating patriarchy as demonstrable?

I don't need to 'walk you through it'. You could just do some reading on the subject of patriarchy, what people actually mean when they use the term, instead of thinking that every mention of it means 'McParadigm'.

I'm aware of the definition of the word, harm. I'm not taking this as a personal affront, nor am I even necessarily disagreeing with you. I'm primarily interested in the degree to which measured, observed human behavior correlates to different theories, and I'm simply not seeing that here. Where the two don't appear to feed one another, I grow skeptical of the theory.

Thanks for dismissing me like that, though.

This is about how 'pervasive' you do or do not see patriarchy being. You're asking me to demonstrate the ways in which patriarchy is all-pervasive in culture to begin with, right? To answer your question, I would need to do that before even referring to your essay of statistics. Since we don't agree on the initial premise that patriarchy is actually an issue, we can't discuss statistics. Regardless, even if patriarchy had *nothing* explicitly to do with the statistics you've posted, it would not prove the original tweets wrong, because patriarchy is not just concrete power but the assumptions, beliefs, cultural memes and habits and tendencies etc. that patriarchy creates. So hang on... maybe you can tell me why your statistics disprove the original statements, and why they can't both / all be true?

[BurtReynolds]

You sound like you're in a cult.

[harmless]

Oh fuck off. I'm exercising independent thought.

[harmless]

Seriously, I'm out. How do I get out this forum permanently?

[BurtReynolds]

Oh.

[harmless]

You know, independent thought, the kind of thing you're using whenever you're a cunt to people.

[broken iris]

Do you seriously expect every theory to allow for the opinions of its detractors?

Yes. Otherwise it is not a theory, it's called dogma.

Wow, that's pretty fucking strange. When you say 'allow for', do you mean 'acknowledge', 'answer to' or 'bow to'? Because intersectionality does plenty of the first two, none of the third, just like every damn theory.

Of course I meant "acknowledge". You seem hell bent on conflating the words "critique" and "condemn", as if criticism is some form of blasphemy or personal insult. Case in point:

As for the word 'bigot', well, don't be upset when people call you a bigot when you meet their criteria of what a bigot is.

The only things you know about me are that I'm a straight white male able-bodied American and that is enough for you to judge me. How, exactly, is that any different from the prejudice you are raging against?

[malice]

Seriously, I'm out. How do I get out this forum permanently?

make disparaging remarks and name drop?

[doug rr]

nice thread you got here, Malice

[McParadigm]

The argument is that patriarchy is so all-pervasive in culture, it's a demonstrable factor.

So walk me through the logic then. How are these suicides statistics illustrating patriarchy as demonstrable?

I don't need to 'walk you through it'. You could just do some reading on the subject of patriarchy, what people actually mean when they use the term, instead of thinking that every mention of it means 'McParadigm'.

I'm aware of the definition of the word, harm. I'm not taking this as a personal affront, nor am I even necessarily disagreeing with you. I'm primarily interested in the degree to which measured, observed human behavior correlates to different theories, and I'm simply not seeing that here. Where the two don't appear to feed one another, I grow skeptical of the theory.

Thanks for dismissing me like that, though.

This is about how 'pervasive' you do or do not see patriarchy being. You're asking me to demonstrate the ways in which patriarchy is all-pervasive in culture to begin with, right? To answer your question, I would need to do that before even referring to your essay of statistics. Since we don't agree on the initial premise that patriarchy is actually an issue, we can't discuss statistics. Regardless, even if patriarchy had *nothing* explicitly to do with the statistics you've posted, it would not prove the original tweets wrong, because patriarchy is not just concrete power but the assumptions, beliefs, cultural memes and habits and tendencies etc. that patriarchy creates. So hang on... maybe you can tell me why your statistics disprove the original statements, and why they can't both / all be true?

Negative, good sir knight. I'm limiting my question solely to the suicide discussion we were having leading up to this point. You made the claim, or rather repeated the claim implicit to the tweets, that a particular trend in gender differences re:suicide shows patriarchy as a demonstrative factor. I'm inquiring as to how you draw from that information to that conclusion.

[malice]

nice thread you got here, Malice

I aim to please, d rr. wanna talk about female oppression?

[McParadigm]

nice thread you got here, Malice

I aim to please, d rr. wanna talk about female oppression?

You never responded to my widows post, you goddamned liar.

[malice]

nice thread you got here, Malice

I aim to please, d rr. wanna talk about female oppression?

You never responded to my widows post, you goddamned liar.

i was afraid of name dropping and making disparaging remarks.

I keed! lemme respond now. I'm much less irrationally female today, and thus feel much more worthy of posting in the masculism thread. I may or may not also be a lumberjack today...

[McParadigm]

i was afraid of name dropping and making disparaging remarks.

Because everyone is a fuckin' Napoleon, am I right?

[malice]

do we need to revisit the whole men die sooner than women bullshit? men die sooner thus leaving old women to fend for themselves and generally becoming poverty stricken and disenfranchised by the society.

how is that a disadvantage?

Demographically, this statistic is drastically skewed towards women who live in rural areas or who are already living near or below the poverty line. Figures post-1990 suggest that about 15-20 percent of women experience a change of economic class due to loss of a spouse, and almost all of those are rural, non-whites, or a combination thereof. Almost literally none of them are in the top 40% economically.

So is this a gender issue, or another class abandonment issue?

it's a gender issue for the women affected. what do those women do in rural america? go work in a coal mine like their now dead husband did?

actually, it's something of a gender issue for the ones who are part of the top economic 40% too - I'd assume (since I have no statistical knowledge, and no desire to go a-hunting on the internetz ) that the women who are not affected negatively by their husband's death are the ones who have either worked against the restrictions on women and maintained their own careers (at a 20% discount from what men make, anyway) - or have been made economically secure through their husbands' and/or inherited wealth due to the social restrictions placed on them through out their lives and women. (I went to college for my Mrs. Degree etc etc)

that doesn't mean I discount the class abandonment issues that exist either - but women who are part of both classes - gender disadvantage and class disadvantage - are still women, and thus extra burdened by society to maintain a standard of living they had when a spouse was part of the economic contribution

I would argue the class is far more influencing than gender when it comes to loss of a spouse, and here's why…

My father was a very wealthy man. Because of this, he had the available resources to invest in a variety of economically sustaining resources. Trust funds, real estate, seven-figure life insurance policies, you name it. He also had a personal accountant whose sole job was centered around him and his business, and protecting his expanding assets.

When he died, all of this went to his wife, as did his business, which had long since developed a self-sustaining highly functioning managerial system and business plan.

I on the other hand, am middle-class. If I can deal with all of the expenses related to parenthood, homeownership, and basic living and still be able to include a little "fun" without adding to my debt, it's been a pretty good year. If I died tomorrow, my wife would be left with a house that's halfway paid off and in need of some maintenance, two aging vehicles that are fully paid off and approaching replacement, and very little other debt. But she would be attempting to maintain all this on just 55% of our previous household income (she makes a little more than I do).

Finally, my brother has spina bifida and some mild cognitive problems related to a shunt issue when he was younger. He and his wife live off of his Social Security, what little he gets as a freelance writer, and her $12 an hour job. They have no assets to speak of, a small but (for their situation) difficult to manage amount of debt, and a child.

Consider the differences in the impacts of the death of a spouse at those three starting points. Now consider how little the story would change in each of those cases if you reversed it and imagined the wife dying instead. There is far more opportunity for wealth management and sustainability, the higher you go up the economic ladder. It is way more influential than your gender

here's my reply, which is too long so I've spoilered it so people who don't care to read it don't get hand cramps from scrolling down...

Spoiler: show

as you may remember, I don’t need to imagine the reverse situation, my mother died leaving my father to fend for himself when I was still essentially a child (13 y/o) – so I suffered the effects of her death economically in ways my older siblings didn't.
unfortunately, I can’t make a point by point comparison – or not much of one, simply because we lived under different circumstances and grew up in different times- which makes a very noticeable difference in what happened in both of our situations.

my parent both came from poor upbringings – both depression era babies, both First Generation Americans, they worked their way through college, both of them, (nearly unheard of in 1940’s America) on scholarships and working, and the GI Bill, and financial help from their own families whenever they could.
they both graduated from college, and my father, upon getting married and starting a family went on to law school. my mom got a Masters in education but only after all six children had been born and raised (other than me, I was born but not done being raised yet, whatever).
So both smart and hard working people at any rate, pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps and ready to contribute to the society.
my father was the sole source of income for the household after the children came along, but as a real estate lawyer in 1960s and 1970s America did well enough for all the children – or all five older children to be sent to college as well.
all five of my older siblings went to very good universities – meaning they were expensive even in the 70s. my parents financed much of it, and grants and school loans handled the rest (so none of them ended up with unmanageable school debt for at least those initial degrees- although I suspect there was quite a bit of debt incurred for the secondary degrees they obtained on their own- still, because my father did well, the prospects of going for additional degrees were good for those older members of my family).
enter my mother’s illness, and accompanying medical costs, and the crash of the real estate market in the late 70s, and poof! no more money.
this put huge restrictions on where I might be able to go to school, and was ultimately responsible for my leaving the school I attended without a college degree – but I digress.
the real points I want to make in telling you this has to do with the tremendous impact gender prejudices of the 50s, 60s and 70s had on my mom, and as a result, on the family (and more so on me because I was so young compared to the other kids) when she finally died. To clarify – not emotional impact- though there was plenty of that, but financial impact.
my mother was extremely intelligent; terribly logical and had a tremendous sense of compassion and ethics as well - her goals in life included becoming a clinical psychologist, and none that included getting married and raising six kids.
she’d have made a damn good clinical psychologist or anything else at all as far as I can determine, but she didn’t.
she raised kids. for 25 years that was her job and it was the majority of her life it turned out. she understood that was what society expected from her (as well as her Catholicism, which does influence what her role in society was supposed to be according to her gender).
she did the majority of the child rearing- she did a good job of it as my father will attest, and he holds no illusions about his role at the time in the family – it was to make money. he did that very well for a long time.
so my first question is do you believe, as I do, that her gender was what denied her the opportunity to go on to having a successful career or her economic class – as you posit?
see, both parents of mine worked to elevate themselves from the societal classes they were born into, and both went from childhoods of what was essentially poverty, to living and raising kids in an upper middle class environment.
class didn’t play as much of a role as gender in hindering my mother’s ability to pursue a fulfilling career. but as I noted earlier, the time was different and the world was different.
in all likelihood, BOTH CLASS AND GENDER should have been inhibiters to her but she overcame the class barrier just as successfully as my father did – and they were more clearly defined class barriers back then too. so both had the ‘moxie’ to do what had to be done to move from being children of peasant immigrants to upper middle class members, and good for them, right?
except for the very real fact that had my mother been a man, or had my mother lived in a society where women were openly allowed and encouraged to pursue careers they could benefit from as well as PROVIDE benefit to the society from, she’d have been a world famous clinical psychologist that solved the problems in society caused by a poor educational system that doesn’t know how to deal with emotional and developmental issues of special needs children.
instead she was ‘only’ a good wife and mother that died at the age of 50, intellectually wasted (in my opinion) and only able to contribute to the betterment of society through the children she raised – and we all see how Mary turned out so maybe she didn’t do so well on that count either…

after all that – I don’t really disagree with anything you have to say, mc p. I think you’re absolutely right about class being just as restricting as gender, and often times women of the top 40% benefit in ways their counterparts in the lower 60% never would.
I think because of the way our society has evolved, with a definite male advantage, women of higher economic standing do better than men upon the death of a spouse – but not because of societal inflicted restrictions on men, but because the society has believed and acted on the idea that men are the economic power holders, so upon their death, the women who married them don’t suffer as much
but everything is a balance in the world – even the injustices. where you are hindered someone else is not and vice versa- I get that. I assume you get that too.
I fear I’ve wandered a bit off topic here, but there’s a point somewhere that correlates to your story and I can only hope some of that rings true to you.

-your pal in Ani DiFranco appreciation,

marymalice

(apparently that song was about Alanis Morrisette, did you know that? I didn’t until a man told me about it, hah - isn't it ironic? don't you think?)

[McParadigm]

as you may remember, I don’t need to imagine the reverse situation, my mother died leaving my father to fend for himself when I was still essentially a child (13 y/o) – so I suffered the effects of her death economically in ways my older siblings didn't.

I do remember, and was trying to gently suggest my interest in you adding your experience to the list of my own, with my phrasing there. Sexy, idn't it?

unfortunately, I can’t make a point by point comparison – or not much of one, simply because we lived under different circumstances and grew up in different times- which makes a very noticeable difference in what happened in both of our situations.

The time differences, I think, have a tremendous impact.

she understood that was what society expected from her (as well as her Catholicism, which does influence what her role in society was supposed to be according to her gender).

Now that you mention that, it's amazing to me that religion hasn't come up more in this thread. My gerd. My wife's sister married a Cathaholic, and he is batshit bananas about gender. Somehow, this very intelligent former agnostic woman has totally given herself over to that. During her fourth pregnancy, she had a vascular scare which resulted in the doctor warning her that future pregnancies could be fatal. The response? Too damn bad, bucko. Sex is for babies, and women are for sex I guess. He (not she, he) just announced the SIXTH conception on Facebook with the following (appropriate) panache: "Good news everyone! My seed has found fertile ground in my wife's loins!"

That shit is word for word.

From Facebook.

So I wonder what affect the shrinking presence of religion in each subsequent generation is having on equality efforts...if either influences the other, or if they happen to be moving in tandem.

so my first question is do you believe, as I do, that her gender was what denied her the opportunity to go on to having a successful career or her economic class – as you posit? .....in all likelihood, BOTH CLASS AND GENDER should have been inhibiters to her but she overcame the class barrier just as successfully as my father did – and they were more clearly defined class barriers back then too. so both had the ‘moxie’ to do what had to be done to move from being children of peasant immigrants to upper middle class members, and good for them, right?

I'm not sure about the "more clearly defined class barriers back then" line, as my understanding is that economic upward mobility has been more and more difficult as the years pass, but I don't think that that negates what you're saying here, which is...

had my mother been a man, or had my mother lived in a society where women were openly allowed and encouraged to pursue careers they could benefit from as well as PROVIDE benefit to the society from, she’d have been a world famous clinical psychologist that solved the problems in society caused by a poor educational system that doesn’t know how to deal with emotional and developmental issues of special needs children. instead she was ‘only’ a good wife and mother that died at the age of 50, intellectually wasted (in my opinion)

Any death that young is a waste, and I would never argue that traditional gender roles were not ultimately suppressive of talent.

Conversely, if we COULD be the kind of family where there is a stay at home parent who does not work, we immediately and without hesitation would be....and that parent (by unanimous consent) would be me. If I could do anything in the world, it would be that, and my wife would be the first to tell you that I'm the more patient, nurturing, and more active parent of the two of us. Compounding decades ago, it might have been more feasible (even normal) for us to be a one-parent-stays-home unit, but it would have been...let's say complicating...for the man to be the one to stay home, or for the woman to be expected to be the primary earner.

after all that – I don’t really disagree with anything you have to say, mc p. I think you’re absolutely right about class being just as restricting as gender, and often times women of the top 40% benefit in ways their counterparts in the lower 60% never would.

To be fair, the point I was making was that economic status is MORE restricting than gender when it comes to the economics of spousal death, but I'll take a median line compromise.

but everything is a balance in the world – even the injustices. where you are hindered someone else is not and vice versa- I get that. I assume you get that too.
I fear I’ve wandered a bit off topic here, but there’s a point somewhere that correlates to your story and I can only hope some of that rings true to you.

Well, the important thing is that we not allow the gayses to marriage and do our ample best to prevent anybody from documenting all these incoming Latinos, lest we be forced to add the squalid living conditions and disparate educational opportunities their menial labor rewards them with to affect our national statistics. We can at least unite in these efforts, right?

-your pal in Ani DiFranco appreciation

You're goddamn right.

(apparently that song was about Alanis Morrisette, did you know that? I didn’t until a man told me about it, hah - isn't it ironic? don't you think?)

I don't believe it. People have made that claim about everyone from Suzanne Vega to Prince to Eddie Vedder to Sarah Mchlaughlahan. Ani's never said a word. And I've been watching that mouth, so I know.

[BurtReynolds]

I've always wondered who that song was about. For some reason I was thinking Vedder. I dont know why. Either way, Ani is a vicious racist I hear.