Tear it apart- please

[boston bean]

You hear this stuff everyday from Mens Rights Advocates. This article puts it all in one place for us women to address... Be sure to read the entire piece... before commenting..

I think it will be fun and valuable for our members to critique this article, and learn how to counter this bologne...

Why the U.S. Economy Is Biased Against Men

You've just landed on Planet Zuto.

The Intergalactic Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (IEEOC) has sent you to determine whether Zuto's economy is fair to its two sexes: vozems and zems. Your boss suggests you'll probably find sexism against the vozems.

But your first discovery is that 60 vozems graduate from college for every 40 zems. You discover clues as to why. Despite the under-representation of zems, many scholarships are set aside for vozems, few for zems. The curriculum accentuates vozems' accomplishments, zems' failings. Student groups are funded to encourage vozems, for example, Future BusinessVozems, far fewer for zems.

You beam your first report back to the IEEOC: Zuto U's appear to be sexist against zems, not vozems.

Next, you examine the Zuto Bureau of Labor Statistics and find that the unemployment rate for vozems is 20% lower than for zems. You are shocked to discover that rather than trying to help zems land work, the government deliberately exacerbates zems' deficit: vozem-owned businesses get special preferences in landing government contracts and taxpayer-backed small-business loans are set aside for vozems.

You beam back your next report to the IEEOC: More signs of sexism against zems. Your boss responds, "But vozems earn 77 zits for every 100 zems earn!"

I don't think our only counter to this is "women earn 77 cents for every 1 dollar men earn", is our only response, do you?

Please continue on reading the entire article.....

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/why-the-us-economy-is-biased-against-men/256023/

[geckosfeet]

1. Of course vozems will be hired over zems. They appear willing to work for less money.

I am not sure how that discriminates against men, but I do see it as a symptom of a cannibalistic economic system that is more than willing to pit labor force groups against each other in a race to the bottom of the pay scale. It does not matter if they are vozems, zems, men, women, Phillipino, Korean, Indian, Pakistani or Chinese. Whoever does the job for less gets the work.

Economics has no alliance with anything but money. That is part of the problem. Until we start seeing economic systems as extensions of social and cultural behavior we will be locked in the cycle of exploiting one another for profit.

[boston bean]

2. Yeah, right. Women are just fine and dandy with working for less money.

[geckosfeet]

3. Whether they are fine or dandy with it or not, that is the reality.

And there are people who will work for less money than women. Not meant as an insult.

There is economic pressure to make a living and bring in a paycheck, even if it means taking less than what you think you should be paid.

[boston bean]

4. The fact is men still make more. Even with everything you just said, they still make more.

It has nothing to do with women being willing to accept less.

Women make less than men, period. That is part of the discussion here. Men aren't victims of women stealing their jobs, for whatever reason.

[geckosfeet]

5. Women do not accept less. They are essentially given a take it or leave it proposition.

There is a subtle difference.

The economic system relies on this type of leverage. It is wrong and needs to change.

I do not agree with the premise of the article - that men are victims of a predatory system more-so than women. I do not believe that men are the victims of predatory female workers.

My point was that the economic system relies on a divide and conquer approach to be able to get people to take jobs for less and less money. Men and women. The economy does not care about sex but will use it to make a profit. Our economic system cannibalizes us. Until we realize that our economic system is a reflection of our social and cultural beliefs, we will be stuck here.

[boston bean]

6. That discounts the true reason for the disparity

Women don't accept less pay, that is what they get. If we all made the same, your theory may be true. Seems as though there is something more at work here.

It's not economic cannibalism.

That infers that women are harming men by "accepting" less pay. When the truth of the matter is men earn more.

This isn't about pitting one group against the other, it's about equality and fairness.

[geckosfeet]

8. Goodness. You are missing my point entirely.

And I tire of trying to get through your hostility and anger.

But here it is again - the economic system is rigged. Until we fix it expect more of the same.

[boston bean]

9. Hostility and anger?

Where do you feel that coming through in my posts. Point it out specifically, please.

I agree, the economic system (or perhaps a better word.... the patriarchy) is rigged. Men earn more than women, if they were making the same or less than women, we might be able to call it economic cannibalism. Strange how difficult it is to change that statistic......

[geckosfeet]

10. Just a vibe. Apologies if I offended.

I think that we are seeing different aspects of the same problem.

When I say economic cannibalism, I mean the economy cannibalizes the workers to reap the greatest profits. I do not intend the phrase to apply to men or women at all. Perhaps women suffer more because are cannibalized by the economy to a greater extent. And I suppose one could say that implies a patriarchal economic system. A patriarchal economic system that eats it's own in order to profit.

[seabeyond]

11. i saw this in a jon stewart video two nights ago

having jason do an interview showing men speaking for women. the women seeing the video were pissed.... the men are saying, no, you dont get it, it is the showing a wrong. women got it. women live it. and women were pissed. the men just saw a wrong, shown in a funny, laughable manner. the women didnt.

i think when as a group, you are the ones being shat upon, it is a little more personal.

[boston bean]

12. Not offended, but you had the wrong vibes.

I guess I would need a bit more focus on the ones who aren't being cannibalized. If companies were really into cannibalizing everyone, wouldn't all wages be low. Not one group with higher wages?

It's possible that a low wage for women also keeps wages lower or slowing increases.

Violet pointed out below many reasons. There is truly a discrimination against women. I guess that realization is what I was looking for in your responses. We are not all in the same group and some aren't being cannibalized.

[geckosfeet]

23. Not arguing that the discrimination is there. And blatant.

The group I work with is probably 60 to 70% women. I know a lot of them should be making more than I am. I don't pry into their affairs but I just wonder if the ratio is that high BECAUSE they are getting 20% less for comparable work.

The economic system IS driving wages lower - or at least keeping wages stagnated, while ceo pay skyrockets. But even women ceo's are paid less than men ceo's.

[Violet_Crumble]

7. Exactly right. That's how it is over here as well...

Some of the reasons for women making less money is because not all that many women are there in fields which have been higher paying and dominated by men, and many women have breaks in their working lives when having children that sometimes means when they return to the workforce they're in lower paying jobs than they were before, and their superannuation (I don't know what Americans call it when people's employers contribute money to employees retirement funds) doesn't accumulate properly, and so many women are forced to work longer than they'd like to, earn less money as they do so, and then retire on a pittance...

[iverglas]

13. you two really got off on the wrong feet!

geckosfeet is right -- there are cheap labour pools, and one of them, historically, is women.

Why they exist is the question. Immigrants are an example: today, their disability may be status, and they are vulnerable to exploitation if they don't have it. Historically, they often had poor skills in the majority language, etc.

Women's disabilities often relate to childrearing responsibilities. Women cannot make themselves available for employment that comes with various demands: overtime, travelling, infexible schedules, etc.

Perceived/ascribed characteristics also have a negative effect on other members of the group: immigrants with status and excellent English, women with no childcare responsibilities. Stereotyping and discrimination abound.

This is actually a fascinating subject that I don't think anyone has come up with a really good explanation for. In a "free market", being a woman or being an immigrant would not affect a person's attractiveness to an employer, or ability to find work at wages equal to, say, a native-born man's. If economics has no alliance with anything but money, why do workers' personal characteristics come into their wage equations, and why do these cheap labour pools exist?

There is a real difference in the case of women, though. The fact that any woman may leave a job at a moment's notice to devote herself to childrearing, after the employer has invested in her, or make demands on the employer associated with childrearing that a man doesn't make, certainly has long influenced women's attractiveness to employers.

Yes, women (and other low-status / stereotyped workers) are willing to accept lower wages, to at least some extent because they are discriminated against in higher-wage positions and occupations. So yes, they accept lower wages because they are offered lower wages.

Why, is the question: why do, say, native-born white men in the US not have to take part in this race to the bottom to the same extent in order to get work?

I'm really just mumbling here, but I'm hoping that what seems to me like maybe an unfortunate misunderstanding can be overcome -- or even, if there is real disagreement, it can be investigated in perhaps a more evidence-based way.

[boston bean]

14. I thought we were having a conversation. Gecko thought I was angry and hostile. I don't think he

feels that way any longer..... all's well.

[laconicsax]

15. I'd give my take on what's actually going on...

but I don't feel like having a post hidden for "reverse sexism."

[boston bean]

16. Well, I would have like to read it.

too bad you felt a jury would hide.

[laconicsax]

20. I can give an incomplete summary that should be fine.

"Beating them at their own game"

Being so brief a summary, it omits a lot, but is close enough and is applicable to other areas where MRAs (the SPLC's newest hate group) love to claim discrimination.

[iverglas]

21. a link to the Southern Poverty Law Center (edited)

should be entirely appropriate at DU!

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/myths-of-the-manosphere-lying-about-women

(claims vs. facts)


edit -- google splc "men's rights" to find a whooole lot more.

A pretty good summation:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/a-war-on-women

Ball’s suicide brought attention to an underworld of misogynists, woman-haters whose fury goes well beyond criticism of the family court system, domestic violence laws, and false rape accusations. There are literally hundreds of websites, blogs and forums devoted to attacking virtually all women (or, at least, Westernized ones) — the so-called “manosphere,” which now also includes a tribute page for Tom Ball (“He Died For Our Children”). While some of them voice legitimate and sometimes disturbing complaints about the treatment of men, what is most remarkable is the misogynistic tone that pervades so many. Women are routinely maligned as sluts, gold-diggers, temptresses and worse; overly sympathetic men are dubbed “manginas”; and police and other officials are called their armed enablers. Even Ball — who did not directly blame his ex-wife for his troubles, but instead depicted her and their three children as co-victims of the authorities — vilified “man-hating feminists” as evil destroyers of all that is good.

This kind of woman-hatred is increasingly visible in most Western societies, and it tends to be allied with other anti-modern emotions — opposition to same-sex marriage, to non-Christian immigration, to women in the workplace, and even, in some cases, to the advancement of African Americans. Just a few weeks after Ball’s death, while scorch marks were still visible on the sidewalk in Keene, N.H., that was made clear once more by a Norwegian named Anders Behring Breivik.

On July 22, Breivik slaughtered 77 of his countrymen, most of them teenagers, in Oslo and at a summer camp on the island of Utøya, because he thought they or their parents were the kinds of “politically correct” liberals who were enabling Muslim immigration. But Breivik was almost as voluble on the subjects of feminism, the family, and fathers’ rights as he was on Islam. “The most direct threat to the family is ‘divorce on demand,’” he wrote in the manifesto he posted just before he began his deadly spree. “The system must be reformed so that the father will be awarded custody rights by default.”

The manosphere lit up. Said one approving poster at The Spearhead, an online men’s rights magazine for the “defense of ourselves, our families and our fellow men”: “What could be more ‘an eye for an eye’ than to kill the children of those who were so willing to destroy men’s families and destroy the homeland of men?”

Wowsers. I didn't know that about Breivik (it puts him right up there with Marc Lépine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_L%C3%A9pine when it comes to woman-hating mass murderers). And I actually wasn't aware these "men's rights" types were quite that virulent.

This really does call for forthright discussion, here at DU.

[laconicsax]

22. I've had an OP rattling around in my head for a little while.

There are lots of ways that it would be important to discuss MRAs being a hate group, and I'm just not sure about the ideal way to present the topic for discussion and where to do it.

[hlthe2b]

17. I'm interested in your POV as well...

This is an area that disturbs me so much that I can honestly say I have not really dissected the issue sufficiently to form my own opinion on the historical "whys"....

[seabeyond]

18. BB, there is so much in this article. i have tried finding mra perspective

Last edited Fri Apr 20, 2012, 11:25 AM - Edit history (1)

and find it very hard to address. they take the top surface of an issue and put out as a fact and reality and ignore all the tentacles, very real issues that they themselves create and dont own.

take the dumbing down of men in commercials and sitcoms, doofuses. men are creating these sitcoms. many men cheer it on. in our home, since the kids were little (having two boys), i never allowed this to be fed to my boys without addressing what media was doing. men like the idea of the forever idea that they cannot clean. why? cause then it gives them an excuse and gives it to the women. men like the idea that they are nothing but beer drinking, sports watching slobs. and these men especially like the promotion from the beginning of time they are directed and guided in life by their dick and women are only placed on this planet to service them. because it allows them dominance and control. we see it on du, continually promoted as who they are.

it is these conditioning's of gender, with our boys or our girls, that we are conditioning them to be, that is not their authentic to self. and what i often am addressing.

on the other hand, they present an article saying "occasionally" discriminate against women in advancements/promotions. there is nothing occasional about it. it is a network. all us that went to college understand how networking works and the inherent disadvantage to women and rise on the corporate ladder.

when reading about women wanting to be more involved with children. well hey, another societal conditioning. as we have seen, if circumstances are such where the man has the opportunity, he is right there. BUT... per the SAHM thread, this is where iverglas is right on. we talk about what the SAHM brings to the family fiscally. this would be it. when there is one person in the home (and has significantly been the woman) it allows the partner to put all those hours in and have advancements/promotions/raises at the detriment of all employees that have outside life. so, the SAHM really is helping the continuation of the unlevel playing field of male advancement.

i have read these articles from mra. they are very challenging in so many ways. what i consistently note is they do NOT take responsibility for their own feeding of all this.

but then, i can say the same about women.

[iverglas]

19. in a nutshell:

and find it very hard to address. they take the top surface of an issue and put out as a fact and reality and ignore all the tentacles, very real issues that they themselves create and dont own.

And in particular, all the talk about "choices" made by women and men, and especially women, as if the choices were made in a vacuum.