"Feminism is useless in the first world"

So you're using biological differences to defend gender inequality? How does a woman's biological make up predispose her to take on a support role? Or not having leadership skills? And how do you explain the minority of women who do have managerial roles? If they are biologically not suited to those roles, then how could they have possibly gotten them? And I most definitely do not believe that changes in the law will truly make us equal - that's my whole point! People are arguing that we ARE equal because of changes in the law but people's attitudes need to change, not just the law. And the reason why I mentioned CEO's is because it is a top position within a company with an incredibly disproportionate amount of men are in that position so it is very relevant. If women want to date men taller than them that is because they're taught by society to go for big manly guys who will protect them and even those attitudes are slowly changing since many women don't care e.g. Rosie Huntington Whiteley and her partner Jason Statham. There are a lot of male suicides because they are expected to take on a masculine role in society but they cannot. Gender roles are a social construct, not based on biology.

Again, the responses here only go to show how much feminism glosses over any male issues. It's why I say feminism being about equality is BS. Here are stats posted by someone in the other thread. Can any female here HONESTLY tell me that we hear anywhere near as much about these issues as we do about 'the gender pay gap'?

*note - from my own reading these last few days, and my own work experience, I do think the 'gender pay gap' is massively blown out of proportion and I think there are genuine reasons for it (women taking time out of work, often being less ambitious in the workplace on average etc). I personally have never seen women held back in the workplace and know many female senior managers, parnters, directors etc. I've even seen preference for women in the workplace and recently I've read that women up to a certain age (around about the average time of motherhood) actually earn more than men. So if this is the best that feminists have then I really do wonder. Anyway....the stats:


Unsheltered Homeless (2009)
Women – 12,000 – 4%
Men – 240,000 – 96%

Life Expectancy (2006)
Women – 80.8 Years
Men – 75.7 Years

Suicides (2008)
Women – 7,585 - 19%
Men – 28,450 - 81%

Deaths by Homicide (2004)
Women – 3,856 – 20%
Men – 14,717 – 80%

Deaths from Cancer (2004)
Women – 269,819
Men – 290,069

Deaths from HIV/AIDS (2004)
Women – 3,357
Men – 8,756

Federal Funds for Sex Specific Cancer Research
Women – Breast Cancer – $631,000,000 - 40,000 Deaths
Men – Prostate Cancer – $300,000,000 - 33,000 Deaths

Deaths on the Job (2010)
Women – 355 - 7%
Men – 4,192 - 93%

Injuries on the Job (2007)
Women – 36%
Men – 64%

College Enrolment (2009)
Women – 58% - 11,658,000
Men – 42% - 8,770,000

Affirmative Action Education Programs (Gender Specific)
Women – Yes
Men – No

Unemployment Rates (2010)
Women – 8.6% – 6,199,000
Men – 10.5% - 8,626,000

Average Hours Worked Per Week (2010)
Women – 36.1
Men – 40.2

High School Graduation Rates (2005)
Women – 72%
Men – 65%

Incarceration Rates (2009)
Women – 114,979 - 7%
Men – 1,502,490 - 93%

Child Custody Rates
Women – 11,268,000 custodial mothers
Men – 2,907,000 custodial fathers

US Military Deaths From 1950 – 2010
Women – 139 - 0.001%
Men – 100,063 - 99.99%

Federally Funded Battered Shelters
Women – 2,000+ $300,000,000 per year
Men – None – $0

Federally Funded Health Offices and Research 1970 – Present (not including cancer research)
Women Only – Office, Projects and Programs 70+ – Funds – $100,000,000,000
Men Only – None – $0

Forced Selective Service
Women – No
Men – Yes

Drug and Alcohol Addiction and Abuse Rates (2010)
Women – 5.8%
Men – 12.2%

Divorce filings
Women - 85%
Men - 15%

Doctor Degrees(2010)
Women - 51.6%
Men - 48.4%

Master’s Degrees(2010)
Women - 60.3%
Men - 39.7%

Receive Alimony
Women: 97%
Men: 3%?

Edit - I think it is fair to say that if even a few of these stats favoured men over women, we would never hear the end of it.

You can't go through life taking everything at face value. It does benefit men in many superficial ways e.g. job wise. But under that superficiality, it is also harmful to men e.g. suppressing their emotions which has led to a higher number in male suicides.

Well that's their belief, not mine. I just want equality for a better quality of life and a better future. I don't ignore male problems - I strongly fight for the rights of both sexes. But the problem lies within patriarchy which is bad for both men and women.

so what? are you expecting me to say "oh feminism is useless now, let's abolish it"? what on earth would that do?
so what if there's some progress now?
i mean, it isn't as if all sexism is dead and gone forever...
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/11/receptionist-sent-home-pwc-not-wearing-high-heels-pwc-nicola-thorp
(quite recent news)
besides, what about gay people? trans people? any stats on that?
(besides, aren't your stats pretty old? 2010.....)

Did you not read ON AVERAGE? Obviously those minority are just as good as their male counterparts, as if that's something that's impossible. It's not difficult at all for women to step into male dominated fields, since intelligence isn't impacted much by biology. However, women simply choose to do less rewarding subjects. The same women who scream feminism at the top of their lungs are the ones studying subjects which do not lead to high flying careers. That's perfectly fine, but it's so idiotic to be a hypocrite unaware of your own position.

Rosie Whiteley is shorter than Jason Statham, and it's not like he's a short or small or effeminate guy either. Manual labour is completely male dominated, why aren't you trying to equalize that? Or plumbing, construction, garbage collection, farming or a thousand other fields?

You've not addressed my point you're just talking more irrelevant shite. If the definition is that everything revolves around benefiting men at the expense of women, but it is harmful to men, then the concept is totally incoherent. I'm not addressing any social issues here I'm just saying your concept doesn't work.

You just argued that gender inequality is based on biological differences, are you now disputing your own point? And regarding your point about manual labour, why do you think that is my friend? Women were stereotyped to be unable to carry out manual labour jobs and society has internalised that so that's the reason being it being male dominated.

the social issues that liberal feminist are concerned with include
* sexual harassment
* unequal job opportunities/ pay
* the belief that women should be more likely to get custody reinforcing the belief that its a women job to look after kids
* differential treatment within school that lead to self fulfillment
* the belief that doing something 'like a girl' is an insult
* women being insulted for the clothing is its 'too scantly' whereas men can walk around shirtless in the summer
and so much more

I have addressed you point. The definition you gave did not say "patriarchy benefits all men". It says men hold power over women. Which can be seen as something positive and negative for men.

You just argued that gender inequality is based on biological differences, are you now disputing your own point? And regarding your point about manual labour, why do you think that is my friend? Women were stereotyped to be unable to carry out manual labour jobs and society has internalised that so that's the reason being it being male dominated.

I'm sure you do care and I'm sure you a nice person but I have to disagree that it is as simple as 'the problem lies within patriarchy'. I expect it is hard to understand unless you are a man and all we see in the media is about sexism towards females but I wish more women could know what it is like to be a guy. There is an underlying idea that mens issues are not 'as important' in this society. That is largely down to feminism. Men in the workplace have to constantly think about acting the right way for fear of being 'sexist' while women get away with murder (i gave an example recently of women in my old office having calendars of half naked male celebrities all over their desks - would have had complaints the other way around). On a night out, women can frankly be complete b*tches...after being treated to free entry because they are women (in some places), they will try to use guys for free drinks and tell those who don't match up to their looks standards to 'f off' etc etc. I can tell you thst if the roles were reversed that women would soon get pretty unhappy with the scenarios. But these are just the day to day minor things... the fact that homelessness and suicides are dominated by men are serious things and nowhere near as simple as 'down to patriarchy'. I believe that suicide is high in men partly because society treats them like cr*p...that has actually been worse with modern feminism.

Are you actually kidding me...? Are you a guy or a girl?

Well if that's the case, why do feminists not talk about moving into these fields, yet only try and balance out higher level professions?

Men hold the power, the women do not. Right. So by extension, I have the power. My life issues are caused by the fact that I have the power.

Now I am confused.

Men hold the power, the women do not. Right. So by extension, I have the power. My life issues are caused by the fact that I have the power.

Now I am confused.

You've really been brainwashed. "Eradicating" female oppression also serves to eradicate male oppression. Patriarchy is not just bad for females, it's also bad for males hence why there is a higher rate of male suicide because men are taught to contain their emotions. I don't just care about women, I care about both genders and believe "eradicating" patriarchy is beneficial to both.

Sorry..did you actually just say 'so what?'. Would you be saying that if a close male relative or a future son of yours had commited suicide or something similar? I asked specific questions in that post which you didn't answer. Do we hear anywhere near as much about these issues as we do about the f*cking gender pay gap (of which in my 12 year working life I have never personally seen any evidence of!).

Yes. Patriarchy means male power over women and it is an umbrella covering many different situations which branch from patriarchy such as gender role expectations which can also be harmful to men e.g. women are seen as weak and vulnerable compared to men so therefore judges are more lenient on them and more harsh on males they perceive to be more aggressive.

It is going a bit far to call people brainwashed and to then promote your own belief as though established fact which it is not.

You are following a hypothesis in a fairly rote fashion showing little independent thought to reinforce it. I would suggest that you actually give your own hypothesis more thought. On face value it might make some sense but then the number of things that make sense on face value is infinite. The number of things that are true is extremely finite.

The thing is that picking out one problem that effects men more and saying the solution is to be more like women advocates a kind of effeminate of men ignoring all other attributes. If the cure for one single problem is for men to not be men then I would say you might have a cure worse than the disease. It is also a fallacy to assume that a cure is related to the cause.

No one is really entirely sure of the causes for increased suicides among men or what benefit that is the cost of (likely has a biological component). The "patriarchal" or rather man culture because you've actually linked too things inappropriately even if it is part of the cause itself has many arguable benefits. Many men consider taking control over their emotions to be a good thing except that's only the half of it. The other half is that men are held to be tough and resilient which is also another good thing. These things are good as a form of tough love that makes men better. There is the old saying, what doesn't kill you can only make you stronger. Eliminating such systems may weaken men as a whole.

On a side note I deal with many complex systems where the cure has little to do with the cause. Systems can be very complex and there is an old type game that never gained much popularity because of the frustration is induces. These things can drive you mad if you dare to try to look beyond the surface.This kind of game is based on hidden interaction and rules. A simple version is the binary grid and rules for each node for flipping adjacent nodes that you have to determine. A common one is similar to the game go in that the rule it that flipping one node flips all its neighbours but that is a primitive version where you are told the rule (or it it too obvious) and the pattern you need to make. The harder branch of these games are were you must figure out the rule. The simplest version of the game where you have to figure out the logical rule is in Space Eangers 2. You also see various versions in a lot of RPGs albeit it kept simple usually. My favourite is shown in the TV series StarGate (sadly it is not shown in detail) based on a grid of analogue tiles. Each tile has an underlying rules that could be based on anything about the current state of tiles and complex text on them that will presumable give hints on interaction and rules (almost like the code written out as a story, analogy, etc). Each one will have its own set of logic and conditions. Imagine that you never spoke the alien language on the tiles. In that case the only way to figure it out is to push tiles and to see what happens. It can be incredible complex or even impossible to fully understand the underlying rules and what is critical is that they may not be based on one all embracing underlying principle. The rules can be seemingly arbitrary with a search space that would take billions of years to traverse.So you can push down one tile and that might cause another tile mutually to descend. Lets say you pushed down the man culture tile. The consequence of this is not going to be merely that one suicide tile will go down. You'll see half the grid fluctuate to take on a new form. There may never be one optimal arrangement but you may have arrangements that on the whole are radically different yet roughly equal overall. That variation will represent variation of people within a society and some would consider it a loss to insist that they can only be one variation in the name of equality. This may or may not be useful to you but I find it a convenient way to visualise the problem.

I'm not going to lie to you, I stopped reading after the second paragraph because I think you've gone off on quite a tangent. But thank you for taking the time to reply.