Primal Desire Versus Rational Love - Dr. Warren Farrell Interviewed on Freedomain Radio

[Stefan Molyneux]

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZSzCPXohtU].

 

Stefan Molyneux, host Freedomain Radio, interviews renowned political expert and gender theorist Dr. Warren Farrell, author of The Myth of Male Power, and many other great books.

 

You can find out more about Dr. Farrell at http://www.warrenfarrell.com

 

Support the Show: http://www.fdrurl.com/donate

 

Freedomain Radio is the largest and most popular philosophy show on the web - http://www.freedomainradio.com

 

[PhilipJ]

I think it's a great interview. There's a bit at 4:05 that perhaps you meant to be edited out?

[Stefan Molyneux]

ah thanks!

[MattK]

Love it! <3  Thanks for this, Warren Farrell is great - definitely gave me food for thought, especially the failure to launch stuff - I can see that in myself.It would be great to have him on again some time, or a Sunday show call-in like you did with Daniel Mackler, that could be a fun format to try.

[Freedomain]

Great suggestion Matt!

[ianlippert1]

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 a man ignoring a woman's verbal 'no' is committing date rape, then a woman who says `no' with her verbal language but 'yes' with her body language is committing date fraud. And a woman who continues to be sexual even after she says 'no' is committing date lying.[/font]

"Do women still do this? Two feminists found the answer is yes. Nearly 40 percent of college women acknowledged they had said "no" to sex even "when they meant yes." In my own work with over 150,000 men and women - about half of whom are single - the answer is also yes. Almost all single women acknowledge they have agreed to go back to a guy's place "just to talk" but were nevertheless responsive to his first kiss. Almost all acknowledge they've recently said something like "That's far enough for now," even as her lips are still kissing and her tongue is still touching his.[/font]

"We have forgotten that before we called this date rape and date fraud, we called it exciting. Somehow, women's romance novels are not titled He Stopped When I Said "No". They are, though, titled Sweet Savage Love, in which the woman rejects the hand of her gentler lover who saves her from the rapist and marries the man who repeatedly and savagely rapes her. It is this "marry the rapist" theme that not only turned Sweet Savage Love into a best-seller but also into one of women's most enduring romance novels. And it is Rhett Butler, carrying the kicking and screaming Scarlett O'Hara to bed, who is a hero to females - not to males - in Gone With the Wind (the best selling romance novel of all time - to women). It is important that a woman's "noes" be respected and her "yeses" be respected. And it is also important when her nonverbal "yeses" (tongues still touching) conflict with those verbal "noes" that the man not be put in jail for choosing the "yes" over the "no."[/font]

 

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.

 

[Blank]

There were a number of things said by Dr. Farrell in that interview that called out loudly for citation. 

The Men's Rights Movement does have a point, in their complaints about the legal regime under which we live, I think. The work of feminism has tilted the scales against men in matters of divorce. But the social climate is much more muddled than MRM's are willing to admit. The "television dad" is a perfect example of this confusion. For every Al Bundy, there is at least one corresponding Cliff Huxtable. 

Fundamentally, though, this is all a surface debate. Someone really needs to be pointing out the presence of the presupposition of relationships as adversarial -- which stems from the existence of the gun in the room. There would be no need for "feminism" or "mens rights", if the state did not exist, and children were raised peacefully.

[Kevin Beal]

 

For every Al Bundy, there is at least one corresponding Cliff Huxtable. 

 

I ultimately agree with what you said Greg, but I think that this statement is not true. That is unless TV has changed pretty dramatically in the past 4 years I stopped watching it. I remember even as a kid thinking that men were being portrayed pretty negatively, before I ever heard about FDR or the MRM. Not that women get it good either on TV, but at least for me anecdotally they got it better than men. I have that bias though and could have just noticed it more with men than with women, or the stupid men and not the good men. At the very least I don't think it's a given what you said. Maybe you could provide a citation

[Blank]

It's very easy to find confirmations of either complaint: "women are misrepresented", or "men are misrepresented". 

I'm not saying I have a definitive answer, but here's a quick list of shows I can think of, from the early 1980's through the early 2000's, we might look at (amongst the more "realistic" shows).

For positive male (and father) roles:

 

• Dear John    (middle-class man, college prof, divorced, childless, learns to make his way in the world again as a single man, after wife evacuates)
• Diff'rent Strokes  (wealthy man, widowed, adopts two black orphans out of the goodness of his heart)
• Family Ties (middle-class man, psychologist, stay-at-home Dad; happily married well-meaning liberal mom; republican son)
• Full House (Two normal middle-class men, widowed and divorced, raising three girls)
• Growing Pains (The Kirk Cameron show)
• The Cosby Show (doctor, upper-middle-class, happily married)
• Webster (middle-class white family raising an adopted black orphan)
• Mad About You (upper middle-class liberal male, equally footed with upper-middle-class liberal female partner)

Here are some that are a bit more ambiguous:

 

• Silver Spoons (divorced man, wealthy, raising his son on his own, son is more mature than father)
• Bosom Buddies (two guys cross-dressing in order to get into an all-woman apartment building)
• Cheers (the male characters ran the gamut from normal to insane) 
• CHiPs (positively portrayed, but let's face it, they were California Cops)
• Family Matters (which was really more about lampooning CHICAGO, than it was lampooning men)
• Mr. Belvedere (where the main character was schizophrenically empathetic, and a jerk)
• My Two Dads (we're not sure which one of us is the father, but we'll make it work??)
• Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air (who needs a description of this show?)
• Friends (every character in this show had issues, but let's not forget that there was a Phoebe as well as a Joey).
• Punky Brewster (father walked out, mother abandoned, but foster dad is wealthy photographer)

And of course, their are the more female-positive (male-negative) shows:

 

• Murphy Brown (single, upper-middle-class, professional woman)
• The Golden Girls (Two words: Estelle Getty)
• The Facts Of Life (A house full of girls raised by a governess)
• Cagney & Lacey (cop show)
• Everybody Loves Raymond (husband is like a grown-up boy. Wife is constantly rolling her eyes. However, mom is a battle-axe)
• Frasier (two angry effete assholes, living in downtown Seattle with their beer guzzling aged father)
• Home Improvement (Husband is a baffoon, wife rolls her eyes alot)
• Perfect Strangers (this show was just one step above Mork & Mindy, so it hardly counts)

 

And, shows completely negative to both genders:

 

• Rosanne (Both husband and wife are baffoons, but: one daughter will only confide in the father)
• The Simpsons (A cartoon baffoon who likes junk food and choking his son alot)
• Married With Children (Unhappily married, both husband and wife are baffoons in their own right)
• Seinfeld (every character was an asshole, really)
• The Jeffersons (just about everyone on that show was obnoxiously painful to watch)

 

It's entirely possible that after roughly 1998, everything went to hell in a handbasket. I haven't watched any prime-time general-audience commercial television since roughly then. I couldn't name you any show after about 2003 (except for 7th Heaven and Touched By A Prie-- er, I mean, Angel), without googling "TV Shows after 2000". So I suppose since thencaricatures of men could have become pervasive. I didn't bother going back before the 1980's, because I think the social climate did shift significantly after that. So, a couple of significant mentions were left out:

 

• Welcome Back Kotter [in rerun through the 80's] (middle class man, high school teacher, childless, happily married)
• The Brady Bunch [in rerun through the 80's] (upper-middle class divorcee re-married, architect, good father) 

 

But then, I'd also have to include All In The Family (angry drunk white man) and Good Times (angry drunk black man). But, there was also Family (wealthy independent work-from-home lawyer; stay-at-home mom) and Eight Is Enough (work-from-home newspaper columnist; stay-at-home mom) to balance those out. 

It might be different in Europe or England. I'm familiar with shows like "Keeping Up Appearances", and "Are You Being Served", because of PBS here in the states, and the male roles in those shows were pretty mysandric in nature. 

This could go on and on. But as far as I can tell, just from this cursory scan, it seems to me the impression that men are given overwhelmingly short-shrift (uniformly treated as unsympathetic throw-aways and miscreants) in television is pure confirmation-bias.

 

[Alan C.]

Greg, that was a pretty good analysis.

Having grown up during the 70s and 80s, I also recall shows trending largely from wholesome to dysfunctional.

I even used to enjoy watching the black and white sitcoms from the 60s on Nick at Night. I think that many of them are still shown on TV Land.

I was recently encouraged to watch Arrested Development on Netflix by a co-worker and an acquaintance who said that it was among their favorite shows. I had no idea what the show was about. I watched the first 6 episodes and didn't find it enjoyable at all.

[Kevin Beal]

 

This could go on and on. But as far as I can tell, just from this cursory scan, it seems to me the impression that men are given overwhelmingly short-shrift (uniformly treated as unsympathetic throw-aways and miscreants) in television is pure confirmation-bias. 

 

You make a good point. I'm not sure how to quantify it exactly and I could definitely be doing the confirmation bias thing. Maybe I'm drawn to shows that portray men poorly, but I definitely have noticed it happening as compared to women in the same shows.

I mean I could name off some shows that have misandric elements and I am not familiar with most of the shows you mentioned, but I'll buy that it could be confirmation bias.

[ianlippert1]

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. 

[ianlippert1]

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

[PatrickC]

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.

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's very easy to find confirmations of either complaint: "women are misrepresented", or "men are misrepresented".

Thanks Greg, this was great food for thought. My first thought (bias or otherwise) was that many British portrayals of men were generally misandric. However, there were also notably times when women were dreadfully portrayed as inane bimbos or fiery old dragons.Which on hindsight displayed a kind of rampant repression that was very prevalent in Britain at those times.So like you might be suggesting, more an effect of the family rather than gender roles per se.

This may have been different in the US as I do recall a number of those shows you mentioned which often had some great male and female characters. I do think there has been a more recent trend in making women appear more clever, strong and resourceful than men and for those women to actively humiliate their male counterpart.

[ianlippert1]

 

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.

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

[ianlippert1]

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. 

[Kevin Beal]

 

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.

So Ian; can I call you Ian? How did you figure all this out? I'm assuming you are male.

I find it confusing that I could not see something so obvious, that would seem to me to only require basic empathy and the eyes to see, ... to see. I've talked to lots of women and I never got the impression that they lived in fear of men's abuses, or if I did it was very rare.

I come from a very poor family and area and did see a bit of violence growing up, and I've known people who lived in fear of abuse (almost all children), so I would think that I could recognize it if it were there.

How could you explain my blindness of this very serious problem? I've heard this kind of thing before that white males have a privilege that makes them blind to seeing the truth of women's issues and racial issues and I'm inclined to believe that I'm not blind (at least not that blind).

Does that sound like a reasonable criticism?

[ianlippert1]

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. 

[Stefan Molyneux]

I think it's kind of a false dichotomy to say that if two men talk about men's issues, this somehow takes away from women's issues.

If that's not true, then there's no harm focusing on men's issues – if it is true, then since feminism has not been talking about men's issues very much over the past few decades, I think your beef would be more with feminism than with people talking about men's issues.

I also don't think that it's true that women as a whole will be alienated by men talking about their thoughts and feelings.

[PatrickC]

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 problem with relegating a class of people, in this case white, male and middle class to a lack of knowledge about another class (women). Is that if this is true then it would figure that feminists would also lack the knowledge to know about mens issues correctly. Since I know you are familiar with UPB you've got to recognise the philosophical problem with that approach. Not to mention the difficulty that most anarchists would have with people being judged by their collective class.

[Kevin Beal]

 

Why make this conversation about us?

 

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? 

[ianlippert1]

 

I think it's kind of a false dichotomy to say that if two men talk about men's issues, this somehow takes away from women's issues.

If that's not true, then there's no harm focusing on men's issues – if it is true, then since feminism has not been talking about men's issues very much over the past few decades, I think your beef would be more with feminism than with people talking about men's issues.

I also don't think that it's true that women as a whole will be alienated by men talking about their thoughts and feelings.

 

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. 

 

[ianlippert1]

 

 

Why make this conversation about us?

 

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. 

[ianlippert1]

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. 

[PatrickC]

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.

Since you are discussing anecdotal evidence and not philosophy I think you are discussing the issues experienced by beautiful women. I can tell you I experienced quite a lot of harassment from gay men in my youth. I'm not a particularly strapping chap either and some of these guys were built like houses. However, other than the odd occasion my 'no' was entirely respected and I learnt how to gently let these fellas down each time it occurred. I totally get how some women feel around this area. But for the most part it is generally beauty that attracts this attention, not gender. Having spent some time with hot women, most of them have developed a method for dealing with unwanted attention. And it works exceedingly well for them for the most part.

As to other forms of harassment such as female cashiers being yelled at as opposed to their larger male counterparts. I've seen women screaming at male shop attendants in a disproportionate manner as well. It's also quite well known that young men in their teens (and I recall this myself) that are often harassed by older boys or men. I still bare the scar on my upper lip thanks to some thug who felt he could punch me outside a cinema when I was 15 for no other reason than I was talking to a girl who had rebuffed him. So it's still unclear to me that this reflects any kind of overt rampant misogyny. This is just harassment from humans who think they have some power over another human whether male or female. Whilst no one on this forum would dismiss the feelings of a woman that was being harassed Suggesting this is just an experience that women face or understand even would be a stretch too far I think. Men are very often victims of harassment, often for different reasons, but no less victims of it.

[Kevin Beal]

Just to add to what Xelent said, I've also received unwanted attention from the ladies, have been harrassed and recieved a similar scar for similar reasons. So I didn't find this definition of privilege to be particularly compelling. I'm sure I am privileged in some ways, just not in that way.

That's my experience.

[ianlippert1]

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. 

[Kevin Beal]

During much of my life at school I was regularly harrassed. So were a lot of other boys.

I'm not convinced it is a statistical issue, but I'm open to hearing some.

[Stefan Molyneux]

Well, fairly reliable statistics indicate that one in six boys is sexually abused, I think that would certainly count as harassment, no?

http://www.jimhopper.com/male-ab/

[PatrickC]

 

During much of my life at school I was regularly harrassed. So were a lot of other boys.

I'm not convinced it is a statistical issue, but I'm open to hearing some.

 

Agreed.. This was very much my experience as well

Ian I gave you one example that happened to me, but I can count many more that happened to me and other men. Of course I learnt how to navigate the risks more successfully as I got older, which I know was true of women too.

However, statistically men between the ages of 16 - 24 are the most likely to be the victim of a violent assault, by up to 4 times more compared to women of the same age group. 8.4% compared to 2.1% for 2011 in Britain.

Personally I prefer to try and salvage this debate philosophically, rather than statistically. Since if the claims are true we can decide on those claims and their consistency. If I'm wrong or experiencing some kind of confirmation bias then I would like to try and find out.

[ianlippert1]

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. 

[ianlippert1]

 

Well, fairly reliable statistics indicate that one in six boys is sexually abused, I think that would certainly count as harassment, no?

http://www.jimhopper.com/male-ab/

 

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

[ianlippert1]

 

[*]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. 

 

[Kevin Beal]

This video seemed relevant and well argued.

[ianlippert1]

 

This video seemed relevant and well argued.

 

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.