ianlippert1

i just think that a site dealing with such a caustic issue should publish articles with a certain level of journalistic professionalism if it wants to prevent misunderstandings from the people it is criticizing. This is a good strategy if they want the site to be a positive force in reconciliation of conflicts between men and women. As it stands it seems like they have no problems being a site that attracts angry men of the type that would characterize adria as a "bitch". As for the issue of the firings I think it's pretty sad for both sides. While the guy was acting unprofessionally and Adria was being creepy neither of them deserved to lose their jobs. Part of the reason to work together on these issues is to have visible and available methods of conflict resolution that are fair to all parties and can avoid outcomes like what happened. I feel like this would be a good line of support for the MRM instead of stoking the fires and creating more conflict.

Stef, I do agree that men's anger towards women could likely come from their relationship with their mothers. I also agree that the patriarchy seems like a feminist bogeyman that I don't necessarily agree with. You make some good points that I am taking into consideration. This is something that I have started looking into only for the past few days since listening to your podcasts and research is time consuming and often locked behind the university pay wall. I will email you the journal article my friend sent me and I will try and get further information on feminists views of child abuse.

As for AVfM, regardless of your views of their anti-feminism titles like this avoiceformen.com/feminism/ donglegate-ii-judgybitch-judges-judge-mental-bitch/ do them and their movement no favours (sorry, my iPhone can't display the link properly for some reason. The article is on their frot page though)

My Farrell quote is from the politics of rape chapter in his book the myth of male power which I initially found here for an example of a men's rights group posting healthy articles about the mans responsibility in communicating his desired see this http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/a-letter-to-my-son-about-consent/ I am completely open to being corrected about the accuracy of the dr warren Farrell quote, as I stated above there are several possibilities that would make it an out of context quote. As I don't have access to the book it's difficult to go on anything other than what I can find on the Internet.

I don't forget the children, I think it's a separate issue. Maybe I am not understanding your purpose in collapsing the sample around all abuse. To me it seems like its an effort to minimize male on female abuse but I would be open to a clarification because that view may just be due to my biases. To me abuse of children seems to be gender neutral and not due any parents particular view of gender roles. With the majority of parenting falling on females maybe this is an issue that feminists should take up. I am not sure what the feminists views of this are which is why I think it would be interesting if you had some feminist guests on. I will ask my feminist friend to see if she knows much about the feminist views on this issue. But considering that she was aware of female on male violence I don't see the issue of child abuse as on where the feminists are not knowledgable.

Whatever the intention, it is a comparison, one of several you've made so far. And you keep saying that it's not the point, but keep bringing up more comparisons. /emoticons/emotion-7.gif Probably? /emoticons/emotion-41.gif The video with Dr Farrell is about boys and men, why are we even talking about women? That is another reason I thought your posts were about comparing men's and women's issues. Your very first post in this thread has at least one objection based on a comparison between men and women's lived experiences used as a crticism of the video. yes I have made comparisons between men and women, but you posted the video with a link to a study so I don't see how that's a comparison I made, I was simply commenting on the video you posted. I have made my point several times in regards to male/female abuse. Male on female abuse is due in many cases to the views males have of the roles of females and their relationship towards them. The greater prevalence of male on female violence explains why it is more prominent in discussions of gender relations. Instead of viewing this as an attack by the feminist movement the MRM would likely achieve greater inroads to men's rights if they acknowledged the views of feminists as legitimate and promoted men's responsibilities towards women as much as men's rights. Bringing young boys into the male sample only confuses the issue as it removes the variable of abuser motivation which makes it more difficult to determine the appropriate strategies for reducing individual cases of abuse. Why am I randomly disussing this? The first reason was because when I looked into dr warren farell I found the above quote. Now either it's out of context, he's since retracted that statement, or the statement is not a support of rape culture. No one has addressed that point. Second, a voice for men is an anti-feminist site and shares little in common with a positive men's rights site like the good men project. These are the only men's rights podcasts of stefs that I know of and it seems like a recent trend that could possibly lead FDR to take on the horrible image problems the MRM is currently having. While I agree it's not all justified its pretty easy to understand the view when you consider how much blatant misogyny is attracted to the movement. i hope this clarifys our discussion.

I wasn't commenting on Kevin's video for the sake of comparison, I was simply critiquing the lady's citation of studies that claimed female violence was greater than males. The study she cited, breaks the 5 and 9% totals into physical force, exploitation of an incapacitate state and verbal Abuse, the other variables are split between type of sexual assault and relationship to victim. as for comparing to small children, I would again argue that to reduce abuse it's important to focus on the motivation of the abuser as the goal is not to determine if men or women are more abused but to determine strategies to reduce all abuse. If men abuse and harass women because of their views on gender then a campaign of education could produce great results. Creating a site like avoiceformen.com polarizes the issue and could create more militant feminists while it reinforces mysoginist views. I think it's better to promote positive sites like the good men project that could lead to win win solutions. for abusers of male children I am not sure what it would take to reduce that, but it would probably require more therapeutic solutions or physical removal of the abuser. People that sexually abuse children are probably further beyond help than the average male harasser of females.

This is a good example of why you should be skeptical of anyone reporting second hand statistics. The link she gives for the study of female violence against men doesn't say what she claims it says. The journal article she cites actually says that female violence against men is about 5% attempts and 9% completion, when isolated to intercourse it 2.8% for attempts and completions. I don't know if she viewed the mixed results from the study's literature review (which is the viewable part of her link) as evidence, but literature reviews are not meant to prove or bolster a study. A study stands or falls on its empirical evidence and the literature review is there to show where the paper falls in the literature and to suggest further reading for interested readers. there seems to be a lot of "studies say.." Type of argumentation around this issue and if you are going to cite studies you should really try and get your hands on the article and read it and report it in detail. The media has serious issues reporting practically all science and considering the biases most individuals have involving this issue it becomes very easy to read the articles that agree with your opinions. Again I will state that the purpose is not to determine who can claim greater victimization but to determine the roots of harassment and sexual abuse. In the case of male of female harassment there are plenty of "normal" guys that just have negative views of women that can easily be fixed through education and conversation. Other cases of abuse run much deeper and require more work with therapists. i would even argue that it is in the interests of the MRM to support an education campaign towards men about their sexist views of women. If the threat to men's rights is feminism then the best way to reduce that threat is to address the issues that have created the polarized females in the first place. While you could probably never change the minds of the most ardent feminists, many women could be turned moderate by reducing the more belligerent segment of mysoginists that are polarizing the females around the issue.

[*]From http://sacha.ca/fact-sheets/statistics 51% of Canadian women report having experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of sixteen.[/font] Almost 60% of these women were the targets of more than one such incident.(Statistics Canada, The Daily. (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, November 18, 1993.))[/font] It is estimated that one in ten adult men have been sexually assaulted, the majority of perpetrators being heterosexual men. (Isely & Hehrenbech-Shim, 1997; Scarce, 1997.)[/font] Pointing out that women receive a disproportionate amount of the abuse does not mean that I am trying to downplay the suffering of the men who also have suffered from sexual assault. What I am trying to point out is that male sexual assaults on females come from the views that men hold about their relationship to females and their views of what is appropriate behavior. This is an issue of gender relations which is why feminists tend to focus on it, it's the purpose of feminism whereas other forms of abuse would fall under other categories of study. This is done because not all forms of abuse are caused by the same thing and each needs it's own strategy to address the issue. For gender issues much of the harassment comes from the Individuals irrational views of gender roles and therefore can be solved through educating the individuals that might not have been exposed to these ideas. For example, attitudes like this: "60% of Canadian college-aged males indicated they would commit sexual assault if they were certain they would not get caught. (Lenskyj, 1992.)" [/font]show an ingrained attitude of rape culture that is a threat to the men that hold these views as well as the victims that suffer from these views, as seen in the recent Ohio rape case. It's hard not to feel some sympathy for those boys that were caught up in a football culture that led them to believe they were untouchable. Mysogimistic attitudes can be promoted when women are placed in roles where they are viewed as the cause of the percieved removal of a mans rights. A perfect example which was given by the dr warren example I posted above. Believing that someone else pursuing their rights is antagonistic to your rights can actually lead to you taking away their rights as you try to return the relationship to what was previously perceived as a just state of the relationship. When men are required to take any no as a definitive no this is not taking freedom away from the male but holding them accountable in a way that gives freedom to the female. To take one example. While men's rights could be a positive movement for men, there are subgroups within the movement that would use the perception of the loss of their rights to support a state of mysogonistic dominance in gender relations.

And these people would not be in the priviledged position of people who have not been abused. But these people should have an easier time empathizing with female harassment. Which makes it hard for me to understand how a site like FDR can focus so much on the negative aspects of feminism without also appreciating the positive aspects of modern feminism

Also, my example was not meant to prove anything. The point to give an example of priviledge. Priviledge is something that an e experience by anyone that cannot draw on their experience to understand the experience of another person because their experience had protected them from the negative experiences that are experienced by others. For example, someone raised in a healthy family might have a hard time understanding why a victim of child abuse has such a hard time in their social relations as an adult. The victim might be told to "just get over it" as the person in the priviledged position prevents them from empathizing with the circumstances that have created the difficulty for the individual.

The question isn't have you experience harassment once but do you receive it on a regular basis? We could sit here all day and argue anecdotal cases but as this is a statistical issue it's more beneficial to argue with statistical evidence, which I am currently trying to acquire.

Sorry if parts of my last post aren't clear, I finished just as I got to the gym and had no time to edit.

Because you explained away my inability to see what you see as privilege because I'm male, and you are male so that seemed to me inconsistent. What makes you so special? Sorry allow me to clarify. I understand that using a term like priviledge makes me come off as some feminist wonk. Terms like priviledge and patriarchy are often bandied about in a way that is meant to shut down conversation. To explain what priviledge means let me use an example. When a young university man hits on a girl he has a hard time understanding when she responds by calling him a creep. It's even more confusing when she flippantly call MEN creeps. The young man asks himself "ok but I was just having a bit of fun" and doesn't understand her over reaction, "I am certainly not a creep, and most my friends aren't creeps, in fact I don't know any men that are legitimately creeps." Now I have to say that I completely agree that hitting on girls is not something a man (as long as he shows restraint in the face of a no) should be vilified for. But the reason he priviledged in that the fact that he is a man protects him from entering into a social relation with other men where he is the object of their desire. Women on the other hand often become the desired object of other men through no fault of their own. While the average single male would for these tables to be turned but what the young univeristy student has to remember that a large majority of men are not part of his demographic. Large portions of the male population have traits (age, looks, bad social skills) that put them out of the running for being the object of desire of that particular woman. But this doesn't stop those men from declaring their desire before taking her feelings into consideration and without considering how his act is going to make her feel. This puts a lot of women in social situations that men simply never have to consider. If you were constantly getting hit on by women you had no interest in it might also get on your nerves, it might make you feel like a sex object first and person second, it might also make you worried about the type woman that could overpower your preferences due to their physical strength. Now I understand that this represents a very stereotypical few of gender relations and that there are lots of guys that completely respect women and there are lots of women that like the attention. So why does this view speak to my experience? Its mainly because I worked as a cashier at Home Depot for five years and saw lots of lewd behavior imposed on women who were just trying to get through a day of work. The amount of harassment was quite eye opening, from customers (many of whom were creepy old guys), to co-workers, to men bursting out in anger against women in a way they would have the balls to do to one of their larger male co-workers. In certain areas of society this behavior is still rampant. And while many women get through life without experiencing this the fact that most men will NEVER face this type of negative social situation put them in a place where they simply can't understand harassment through their life experiences. That's a priviledge.

I have no problem with men discussing men's issues. Child custody, male rape in prison, men that suffer from domestic violence are all important issues. What I have with when MRAs use false arguments of victimization to dismiss the legitimate victimization of women. When I have more time I will address specific cases from your latest podcast but for an immediate example you can look at the example I posted in the previous page, where dr warren erroneously interpreted the results of a study to quite literlly defend rape culture. You don't have to spend a lot of time on avoiceformen.com to see that instead of promoting men's rights issues in a positive way (like the good men project) they have a borderline obsession with attacking feminism and the slights they feel they have accrued from the feminist movement. Stef, when people claimed that Ron Paul was good for the movement you countered with the critique that for every new member drawn in by his rational view of economics/politics we could not count the number of people that left due to his irrational religious beliefs. For every libertarian listener that is attracted to the MRMs message of equal rights for men, how many will be turned off by their hateful views towards the feminist movement. The MRM do themselves no favours in the methods they have chosen to communicate their message and I ask you take a serious look at the material they put forward before associating the FDR brand with their movement.

Why make this conversation about us? What I was discussing is that much of the abuse towards women occurs in settings that older middle class people probably don't spend much time in. Take a look at gamer culture, or university party culture, social media culture, ie the recent Ohio rape case. I am trying to get you to understand that just because sexist behavior is distributed in a non-homogenous way and you live in the part of society that experiences low rates of abuse towards women (this is a privelidged position) does not mean that it is not a serious problem for many people. The extreme feminism that stef and his guest seem so criticized by is not a response towards their demographic. It is a response to parts of our culture where sexism is still rampant. Ultimately the conflict is a result in collectivist beliefs. Some feminists have problem not attributing the characteristics of a minority of males to maledom and some males have a problem of associating the characteristics of some feminists to all feminism. But I think there is a legitimate concern when men feel extreme discrimination from a minority that really has no effect on their lives. I worry that stef has biases that make him find the MRM movement appealing and will take FDR down a path that will hurt the FDR brand by alienating the women that have the most to gain from his peaceful parenting message.

Also, spend some time at http://www.avoiceformen.com/ and you will see a view of the world where every minor transgression against maledom is traced back to the feminist movement.

Do you have any evidence for this. As far as I've seen it has been a very civil discussion both on the boards and the podcasts. The discussion hasn't disintegrated into men against women or vice versa. In fact for the large part it has been loosely egalitarian in outlook. I would say this is also largely true of the MRM, with some exceptions here and there. Personally I do prefer to have a more holistic approach to philosophical questions rather than concentrate on one topic. But that doesn't mean the commentary coming from those that do has no value. You had a point about it just being humour, which for the most part I would agree with you. Most guys find Homer Simpson very funny. But the irony here is that I grew up with a feminism that was constantly complaining about the sexist portrayals of women on TV and magazines etc. They even complained that Shakespeare was sexist because of his portrayal of Orphelia or macbeth. So it's kind of hard to take your point seriously, since I think some women (whether feminist or not) had a point about the way they were portrayed sometimes. It is civil in the sense that no one from the MRM is acting aggressively but it very uncivil when you consider my evidence above of Dr Warren supporting rape culture based on his misunderstanding of the results of a statistical study. It's this whole attempt by the MRM to claim a victim hood equal to or greater than that of women that I find distasteful because it often redirects attention away from the larger problem of abuse directed at women from men. In the latest podcast almost all of the claimed male persecution was traced back to the feminist movement in one way or another. I could get into the details, but basically much of the podcast looked at an institutional analysis of gender relations, ie viewing the relationship between men and women through the biases of the media and the legal system. And while there are some things I agree with when it comes to male legal rights there is an important dimension of gender relations that two priviledged old middle class white guys cannot appreciate, and that is the day to day experience of the average female and the threat of abuse that is constant in many of their lives. And if you cannot understand this due to the fact that your gender allows you to avoid abuse like this then you cannot have a fair appreciation for where the feminist movement is coming from. The U of T protest of some MRM talks was a good example. The question was raised by Stefan's reasonable MRM guest of why these students protestors were so aggressive. The answer is that it's a response to the aggression that is faced by many women and its an aggression that gets directed at the MRM because they attract many blatant mysoginists. To see what I am talking about spend some time at http://manboobz.com/ to see what gender relations often look like from the other side

That last should should be a shouldn't. We shouldn't support this movement.

The problem with this issue is that people are going to suffer from huge selection bias. It irks me every time stef or his men's rights interviewee cite research as of its overwhelmingly in favour of their view when in reality I am sure to feminist researchers the research is just as overwhelming. If stef is going to continue down this line of reasoning I think it would only be fair for him to get a reasonable gender studies guest on to balance the debate. As for role models in the media, the point is that even if there are bad role models for men, no man looks at Homer Simpson and feels shamed for not living up to that ideal. The reason is because its a joke and people understand it to be a joke. When stef an his guests bring up the bad media role models for men that have very few negative effects on men it blows my mind that it is not discussed within the context of the constant bombardment of women of images in the media of Unrealistically thin models. An image that has a huge effect on women's self esteem and often their health. This constant bias in the discussions without context has the effect of dismissing the feminist movement entirely and making everything revolve around the mans point of view. While we should all be for men's rights we should support a movement that shares a lot in common with modern Christians who claim persecution because they have lost their privileged position within society. It's far too easy for dominant groups to view a move to a more egalitarian position as an attack on their group. I am listening to stefs lates men's rights guest and there is a lot I want to discuss and so I might start a new thread.

There was some interesting stuff in this interview but also a lot of claimed male victimization that set off some alarm bells so I did a bit more research on Dr Farell and found this quote: If this doesn't strike you as sexist, I am afraid you might be sexist. First off from the studies abstract (http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/54/5/872/) "We found that 39.3% of the women had engaged in token resistance at least once". At least once does not mean that when a girl says no there is a 40% chance that she means yes. Of the 40% of women who had done it at least once, what percentage of the time did the say no? If they say no and mean no 90% of the time that means that a girl means yes when she says no only 4% of the time. Even without getting into the odds of no meaning yes a woman has every right to say no when she means yes. People have the right to be as confusing as they want to be in their verbal communication towards the opposite sex. When a woman says no it unequivocally means that the man has no right to press on. We should support a zero tolerance position because it is far too easy for men to convince themselves that no means yes when no actually means no. The false positives vastly outweigh the rare case of no meaning yes and taking into account the how heinous an act rape is compared to the easily rectified crime of giving a guy blue balls we should not accept any argue,ents of the style of Dr Farells above. When people protest him and accuse him of supporting rape culture this is the stuff they are referring to. Writings that attempt to equivocate date rape with date fraud and give justification for guys looking for any excuse to cross the line. It disappoints me that stef finds these men's rights activists so appealing and often discusses the victimization of men without putting it into the context of it being a problem that is vastly overwhelmed by that of female victimization. His self identified rant in this show of Homer Simpson as a role model for men completely ignores the far more damaging television role models females are exposed to which actually have a significant effect on the self esteem of women. I can't remember any time when a male felt worthless because they couldn't live up to the standards set by Homer Simpson. I am looking forward to the call in show on Sunday but I bring these issues up for consideration for listeners to think about while listening to the Sunday show.