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'The Second Sexism' - discrimination against males
Submitted by anthony on Sun, 2012-05-27 21:27
Article here. Excerpt:
'All these examples seem like strong evidence for Benatar’s thesis. Others he advances are more contentious, however. He finds it hypocritical that people get “very exercised” about female circumcision, but the decision to circumcise baby boys, often without anaesthetic, is uncontroversial. It was pointed out at Monday’s seminar that the two are virtually incomparable in terms of pain, scale and long-term effects, but Benatar says he addresses this argument in more detail in his book.
He also points to the fact that more boys drop out of school and fail to graduate than girls as evidence of some discriminatory elements in the education system. Again, this point is likely dealt with in fuller detail in his book, but a whole platter of statistics would seem to counter the idea that boys are disadvantaged within education – not least the fact that, according to a World Bank study from last year, 66% of the world’s illiterate adults are women. The same study found that “in many countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, girls are still much less likely than boys to attend, much less complete, basic education”.
British feminist Julie Bindel was also uncompromising in her response, labelling the notion “total and utter bullshit. There are areas where men are paying the price that male supremacy gives them – there’s absolutely no doubt about that… The reality is that the public domain belongs entirely to men and the disadvantages they face are just the price they pay. It’s tough cheese.”'
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"Taken on average – a
"Taken on average – a viewpoint which Benatar seems curiously allergic to – the fact still remains that women produce 66% of the world’s work in exchange for 10% of its income, and own only 1% of the world’s property. Call me a “partisan feminist” – Benatar’s term for feminists only concerned with women’s rights, not equal rights – but it’s hard to see a whole heap of generalised male disadvantage in those figures."
LOL. Those figures sound completely made up. I'd like to know how they were obtained. With such a condescending, unsympathetic tone, I'm not surprised this was written by a woman.
Only 1% of the world's property?
This sounds completely misleading. Are they talking about percentage ownership of the world's land area? Does this include Antarctica and the Sahara Desert, the former being owned by nobody and the latter very sparsely populated? Many other areas are sparsely populated too. I'm not sure what percentage of the world's land area is owned by men either.
Here is a map of world population density, in which you can see large areas that are uninhabited or sparsely populated. Yeah, women own 0% of Antarctica and 0.00003% of the Sahara Desert, etc. (I made that last statistic up as feminists seem to do!).
http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/117210/530wm/C0053281-World_population_density_in_2000-SPL.jpg
And I don't know where the "66% of the world's work for 10% of the income" came from. Does it take into account the type of work men do and how strenuous/dangerous it is compared to what women do? Or how the income is actually distributed and spent and who actually makes the purchasing decisions?
What a load of nonsense, as xtrnl has pointed out.
Are we speaking nationally or world-wide?
I can believe that world-wide (considering third world countries and all), women are less educated and have different opportunities compared to men, but they are also subject to biological differences which then influence social differences. They likely get pregnant at a young age and take care of kids while men take high risks to provide for the family, defend against war, etc.
I don't see it as oppression of woman, but rather a biological necessary way to live in poor countries where resources are limited. Both genders have little choice.
I'm not exactly sure what is meant by the quote or even if it is even relevant: " ...women produce 66% of the world’s work in exchange for 10% of its income..."
I believe it might be referring to women's labor is often unpaid, such as taking care of the family, and chores for the family's survival. If so, it is irrelevant/misleading as not getting paid does not mean not valued, and they would be using their spouse's labor/income for survival.
In poor countries, where parents must sacrifice to give their children an education, it makes sense not to spend as much effort on educating girls, if they are going to spend the majority of their time pregnant and taking care of kids. However, educating a son might give him a chance for a low risk occupation and better able to provide for his family.
In modern countries like the USA, we have no excuse for educating one gender over another and clearly boys are not being educated and are getting discriminated against in other ways as well.
I don't like the way Benetar's opposition seem to be bringing in world-wide statistics which include non-modern societies while I believe Benatar's concerns about men and boys are focused on modern societies.
Smells like BS!
I couldn't help but wonder how she came up with the 66% figure, then last night it dawned on me. In her mind, all men work and don't help around the house at all, and all women work the same amount and do all of the domestic chores as well. That's why, she thinks women do twice as much work as men. It's a ridiculous, and ludicrous generalization she makes for the sake of trivializing the men's movement.
There are many couples where the man works, and the woman takes care of the home. There are some where they both work and split the housework. In couples where both the man and woman work, it is not uncommon for the man to work longer hours, or a more physically demanding job, and as a result, do less housework. But the contribution by each person in both of these scenarios usually evens out. That's why I call bullshit on the 66% figure.
As Kris pointed out, the 10% figure is derived from the fact that much labor done by women is domestic, and it is a necessity to have gender roles in third world countries, for the sake of survival.