Dv

ValleyGal said:

Right...this is not a discussion on the ethics of it all. It's a self-made social thing like that one reporter does on "What Would You Do?" He has things like this all the time and no one throws a hissy over his ethics.

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Anyway, it's not about the ethics or about "research." It's about the social response to men versus woman-initiated dv. Imo, if the issue is not going to be dealt with right away, it will escalate to the point where the social pendulum swings where it's socially acceptable for a woman to beat a man - like it used to be socially acceptable for men to beat their wives (this is where the "rule of thumb" began - a man could beat his wife as long as the weapon was no wider than the width of his thumb - or so the saying goes, at least). It already goes on...let's not let it get any worse or more socially acceptable.

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Men—I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too.
Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence as a child as much as my mother’s.

I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less “macho”—in fact in the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49; eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease. I’ve seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality either.

We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence

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then we need to own up to our own women treating men like dirt. We need to be outraged that feminists would lower themselves to the same standard we accused men of being for millennia.

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On how gender roles hurt boys

We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage.

We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak—a hard man.

In secondary school, a boy and a girl go out, both of them teenagers with meager pocket money. Yet the boy is expected to pay the bills, always, to prove his masculinity. (And we wonder why boys are more likely to steal money from their parents.)

What if both boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity and money? What if their attitude was not "the boy has to pay," but rather, "whoever has more should pay." Of course, because of their historical advantage, it is mostly men who will have more today. But if we start raising children differently, then in fifty years, in a hundred years, boys will no longer have the pressure of proving their masculinity by material means.

But by far the worst thing we do to males—by making them feel they have to be hard—is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is.

And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males.~Excerpt from WE SHOULD ALL BE FEMINISTS by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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ValleyGal said:

MK, I never bothered to read your thread; however, what you brought from that thread to this one has little to nothing to do with dv and the difference of reaction against which gender initiates it.

Clearly this thread was yet another pointless attempt to address the downside of feminism. And yes, I am a feminist.

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EZoolander said:

Well, I've always argued that for as much as many women seem to envy the role men have had throughout history (and the seeming "freedom" it comes with) - that men are far more rigidly defined than women are socially.

For example - I know my path. I'm gonna work until I reach retirement age. I've known that path since I was a child - and there really are no other options. Sure - I may have a degree of choice in what career I choose - but the path itself is set. From the time I graduate school to the point where I'm marginally old and feeble - I'm going to get up around 6:30 am, get ready, go to work and come home around 6pm.

I'll have some degree of time for my wife and kids - and I'd better do what I can to fit it all in within those 3-4 hours per day before the cycle begins again.

Career? Ehhh - it's alright - but for the most part career is simply finding the thing that you are best at that will pay you the most money, that you find the least offensive to do over the long haul. I'm a software developer. It ain't like I'm sitting there every day in some form of rapturous joy over what I do. It pays well, I enjoy it enough, and there you have it. But it is what it is.

My dad was an attorney - same thing with him. His path was set - and there was no shifting from it.

A woman has far more options. She can decide she wants to work - and everybody cheers her on. She can change her mind and decide not to work - and people cheer her on (it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind - ya know?) If life tells her that she's not fulfilled in that aspect - she can juggle part time work with part time parenting...and everybody cheers her on. It's all about finding fulfillment - ya know?

Man decides work "just isn't his thing" - and how's that reacted to? lol

So, I've never quite understood the envy thing. Sure - women had certain options barred from them - and I think that was a horrible thing. But - pretending like they were being kept from the promised land of workplace nirvana/bliss - that's always just struck me as funny. Most of work life is just drudgery - and they're welcome to it. lol

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