From weight loss to fundraising, 'ironic effects' can sabotage our best-laid plans

Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2013-12-13 22:50

Article here. Not a direct MR matter but clearly relevant. A major challenge to MR is getting the word out and getting people, especially men, aware of these issues. This article points out how often the direct approach to any cause is often paradoxically counterproductive to advancing it. If nothing else, it's food for thought, and MRAs may find it useful. Excerpt:

'Awareness campaigns get forgotten by the people who need them most

"Motivated forgetting" is an especially galling species of ironic effect: when a message makes you feel vulnerable – for example, by reminding you of the ways in which your gender or ethnicity places you at a disadvantage – you're more likely to find ways, conscious or otherwise, to forget it, in order to retain a sense of self-control. In a study to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, marketing experts found that students who were reminded of their university's poor performance were less likely to remember an advertisement offering a discount at the campus bookshop. "Consider an advertisement for breast cancer prevention," the researchers write. "If the ad makes … women’s vulnerability to the disease" salient in their minds, they could "feel threatened and exhibit defensive responses, such as decreased ad memory."

In short: if you're trying to change behaviour or beliefs – your own, or other people's – don't assume that the most direct, vigorous or effortful route is necessarily the most effective one. The human mind is much, much more perverse and annoying than that.'

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Matt, I got to wondering...

We need not only make the disinterested men (and women) more aware of MRA, but make feminists calm down and see our side (that latter being far more difficult).

One way to do this is to explain why helping men, helps women, too.

But I get irritated at the thought of that. For I imagine two arguments:
1. Help men (and ease off on faulting us) because it is right.
2. Help men (and ease off on faulting us) because it also helps women.

I suspect a well phrased form of the second argument would gather feminist attention. And this really irks me. But I am getting to wonder if that may be a necessary strategy.

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Submitted by ThomasI on Sun, 2013-12-15 07:52

... only in their case, they were either lying, wrong, or both. A lot of men bought this in the '70s and too late realized they were hornswaggled. But the case that helping men will also see a substantial benefit to women is both an easier case to make and it's true. This is because the general rel'p betw. men and women is different going men --> women as opposed to women --> men. Men and women generally look to one another to bring different things to their relationship. This is not something I, personally, think is always good. For example, man-as-provider is a very limiting and exploitive role for men. The question, as I've said at times, should not be "why do men earn more on aggregate than women," but instead ought to be "why are men expected to subsidize women's lifestyle/reproductive choices at the expense of their time and at greater risk to themselves?" To me, that's the question needing addressing, and if anything needs changing, it's attitudes from both sexes that cast men in this unfairly burdensome role.

Nonetheless, if there is to be a rel'p betw. indiv. men and women that is romantic/domestic, typically at least, both ppl should be expected to contribute financially as equally as they can to it. Now I know, love knows no class. It's entirely possible to fall hopelessly in love w/ someone who unlike yourself was not born into the Rockefeller Trust circle. Or maybe, one of you is just far more employable than the other simply due to education and innate abilities. Well, those aren't typical scenarios, but they can happen. Exceptions do exist. Still, on average, ppl tend to mate in LTRs w/ ppl of their own class and/or earning capacity. To me, in a modern rel'p, you both ought to be pulling your weight financially. If someone is being the at-home parent (assuming there's kids in the mix), well, the breadwinner (dad, nearly all yhe time) should be aware of the risks inherent in that role. Serious risks.

Which brings me to my point. Assuming that the cpl doesn't jointly or separately hold such rad beliefs as me. Let's say the man *wants* to be the breadwinner and is ready to assume the risks. And, let's say mom is on-board being the stay-at-home mom type. So, this is between them. It may not be "advisable" from my POV, but it's really none of my damn bidness, nor anyone else's. It's what they want. Now how can this work out if dad can't get a job? His chance to get a college education in a paying field may have been thwarted years ago by the consequences of being churned through a pro-girl/anti-boy education machine, followed by getting rejected by every coll. he applied to b/c they just didn't like guys. Or maybe, having been $hit on for years in school, his SATs came back predictably low.

Can these two new/aspiring parents live the way they want with dad virtually unemployable? Of course feminists don't care abt dad, but how abt mom? And any kids they have? Maybe mom's more employable, but maybe not. Now what?

I personally know a couple w/ kids wherein mom has a professional degree and license and dad does not; he went to college but did not major in a marketable field. They are religiously-observant ppl and unlike me, hold "traditional views" re gender roles in families. So despite the fact she could earn at least twice what he does, she is a stay-home mom. He makes a decent living these days in IT, but not in one of the higher-end IT jobs. So, they struggle some. It's not too bad, but it's not easy. Now if feminists really cared abt the outcomes for even just the woman/children in this scenario, they'd be in favor of gov't policies making grants for education easy for men to get to make them more employable and increase their earning capacity. But don't hold your breath, gang.

Despite my own desire to see attitudes change around man-as-provider, I hold no illusions. If such are to change, it's a long-term project. Meanwhile, due to the spiking of men wrought by feminism and feminist-inspired anti-male gov't policies, ever-increasing numbers of ppl of both sexes get added to the welfare rolls daily. Didn't used to be like this.

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Submitted by Matt on Sun, 2013-12-15 16:21