Sexism is not funny, let's stop laughing

Yes, I understand the essay (and disagree with it) my comment however, was not on the essay but on your post.

You replied "Always appropriate:" with a link to the essay in reply to klodolph.

I assume that you were replying to this part of his post:

>If your point is, "Gosh, men have it hard, too." Sure, I'll agree. But, you're laying on the hyperbole a bit thick.

By replying in this way, you were effectively dismissing any disadvantage men have or discrimination they face because they have it easy in life according to John Scalzi (and it is always appropriate to remind people of this). Was this not your reply's intention? If so, what was it?

This is not true, women tend to do better when they do negotiate: "However, when we explicitly mention the possibility that wages are negotiable, this difference disappears, and even tends to reverse"[1].

[1]http://www.nber.org/papers/w18511

I don't think you do understand Scalzi's essay if you can seriously talk about that hyperbolic list as if it's even remotely meaningfully comparable to the systemic level of sexism and racism that I see out there. I'm not saying that I'm a paragon of virtue—far too often, I don't speak up when I see or hear things that bother me and that I know are hurtful. Yet…Scalzi's essay is hard to disagree with, at least in the American context, because it is true at pretty much every level. It doesn't tell you that you can't complain about things, but it certainly says that whatever hurt you have…it could be much much worse than it is.

I was absolutely dismissing your hyperbolic list because of its hyperbole, and I was doing so in part because Scalzi addressed the baseline (which is what's really at discussion here) and the oft-hyperbolic attempts (like yours) to pretend that because "Men Have Problems, Too" that the discussion of the baseline isn't even worthy of being talked about.

But if you really want to have that list dissected, here we go:

1. "You can be called dumb your entire childhood". Suggesting that only boys hear this sort of thing is laughable. In my experience, boys are more likely to be called smart and clever than girls, who are more likely to be considered adorable and pretty. Systemically, girls in America are told that they aren't supposed to be good at math or engineering from about grade four on (boys don't do better in math until about the seventh grade).

There are cultures that consider the education of girls to be a waste of time, money, and effort—and I'm not just referring to the hard-line Taliban. These girls aren't just told that they're dumb, they're told that they're not even worth being told that they're dumb.

2. "it is made clear to you that you are inherently a monster capable of anything, that you have most likely raped someone". This is, of course, pure hyperbole when it's said by those who say it against men, and equally so when a man repeats it as if it were an accepted truth about all men.

Even so, there are far too many men who simply do not understand that not only does "no" mean "no", but only "yes" means "yes" (sex while she's blindingly drunk is not consensual, sorry). 3. "it is funny if your genitals are mutilated because you probably deserved it". I remember a lot of jokes around the Bobbitt case, but I also remember jokes not too longer after the Challenger accident. That case is very difficult because Bobbitt was an abuser (and continued to be with future spouses) and may have raped (he was charged and acquitted) his wife (marriage does not mean automatic consent). She was considered not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed to an institution for a short period of time.

On the other hand, almost all of the campaigners that I know or have encountered against male circumcision are women.

4. "if a woman hits you, you probably deserved it and you should take it like a man". I don't even know what to say to this one, because I've never heard anything like it and don't know any woman who would say it. There's a few men I could imagine saying it, but they're "macho men" in any case. Women are charged with assault.

5. "your life can be ruined by simple accusation by a woman and if she was lying there is no punishment for her". With the first part of your statement, you highlight a legitimate (if rare) problem; with the second part of your statement, you go off the rails. Look at the DSK case: his accuser is facing a civil suit over the loss of face here. If someone lies about a case and is caught doing it and the embarrassment for the prosecutor is high enough, you're going to be facing some music.

6. "if you divorce, your children will automatically go to your wife unless she is a criminal". In most jurisdictions, this is no longer true. Family courts want amicable separations and arrangements where possible (they're substantially cheaper and more stable on the family) but will look at the stability offered by both parents when determining the primary caregiver and the visitation schedule. The cases that I have heard where this tends to be true have judges who make such judgements on fallacious "traditional" (e.g., "a mother's place is in the home" traditional) arguments. This is the same sort of fallacy that spurs on "covenant" marriage law efforts.

7. "even if she initiated the divorce, you will still have to support her". Once again, I'm not even sure where to go with this one, mostly because it's full of wounded male ignorance.

(1) Where this sexism is entrenched in law (and it depends on the jurisdiction; in Ontario, the law is income-balanced with equal division of property), this is based on the perception of the woman as the stay-at-home mother and homemaker. Income-balanced laws still tend to favour the woman because (2) women generally make less money than men; when my wife divorced her first husband, she could have been liable for a equalization payment to her then-husband because she made more than he did.

Let's be clear, though, that the ignorance in this statement is actively dangerous. It does not matter who initiated the divorce (that's sort of the point behind 'no-fault' divorces). Under your scheme, somene who is leaving an abusive partner would not be eligible for any part of what they gave up. This is a great way to ensure that these people never leave their abusers…and as such are more likely to be seriously injured or killed.

8. "political figures proclaim that women are the true victims of war even though you were the one who lost his legs in battle". I hear this more about kids than about women. I also hear this mostly from people who are, essentially, chickenhawks.

9. "if you want to stay at home and look after your kids, you are lazy, if you want to focus on your career you are an uncaring father (either is okay for a woman)". I'll have to tell the couple of guys that I know who are stay-at-home dads that they're considered lazy. And…I guess you've never heard of women being called "ambitious bitches". Look carefully at what you said here, and then go back and read what has been written about Marissa Mayer and her recent pregnancy. Not only was her suitability as a businessperson called into question because she was pregnant, her suitability as a mom was called into question because she didn't take a long maternity leave. Resolve that conundrum without determining that it's double-standards sexism…and maybe I'll give you this one.

10. "you are portrayed as bumbling idiot on television". That Chrissy Snow on Three's Company was so smart, what about Kelly Bundy! Not all characterizations of men on TV are Peter Griffin or Homer Simpson or Al Bundy. Going back to somewhat before the same period as Three's Company, you have Mike Stivic ("Meathead" played by Rob Reiner). You've got Alex P Keaton (not bumbling, not an idiot, but not like the rest of his family, either).

11. "you are told that you are lucky if a woman gives you the time of day" and "if you approach a woman you can be called a creep, if you don't you are shy". If you act like a creep, you probably are a creep. There is a time, place, and way to approach someone with respect…and acting outside of that realm is creepy. Look at the discussions that female cosplayers have had recently about the (negative) attention that they've gotten by creeps who think that it's okay to take rear shots without permission (and one thing I read recently was interesting, because she was more than happy to give permission for people to photograph her—she made her costume to be seen, after all—but the shots without permission and that completely sexualized her turned her off).

12. "if your wife hires a hitman to kill you, she will be acquitted because you apparently abused her despite no evidence of this". Huh. If you're talking about the Nicole Doucet case, it seems to be an unusual case, but it probably says much more about the RCMP's handling of the case than it does about her ex-husband. He is an unfortunate injured party in this case, but there are plenty of real convictions of women who have hired hitmen (successful or no) to kill their partners. Your knowledge of this case is probably as deep as my knowledge: not very deep at all, and it's a lightning rod case much like the old McDonald's coffee case. By the by, your characterization is typically wrong on one point: she was not acquitted. Her conviction was set aside, and the grounds were based on misconduct. (The laws are also different here in Canada; prosecutors can appeal acquittals.)

13. "you are treated like a creep if you show any interest in being around children" Once again, I'll have to tell all of the male teachers that I know that they are creeps! It's going to be shocking news to them.

I don't know you, but you've somehow picked up a lot of beliefs that are contrafactual or are at best truthy. I treated your list with derision because, frankly, that's all that a hyperbolic list like that actually deserves.

> If your house is on fire you don't stop to mow the lawn. You put the fire off.

It's a nice analogy. Please identify the fire, and tell me how to put it out. Your criticism is that I am behaving suboptimally if my goal is to fix discrimination, and the clearest way to demonstrate this is to explain how I can behave more optimally.

> The problem with low-hanging fruit is that they give you a false sense of accomplishment. In optimising code, the easy 1% fix doesn't mean anything if there is a slow function taking 60% of the call times.

Please, figure out a way to identify the 60% function here, and identify how to solve it. If such an optimization exists, I'll go for it. Explain in further detail (1) what it is that we should fix and (2) how we should fix it. Otherwise, the low hanging fruit is what I'll go for because (1) we know it's a problem and (2) we know how to improve it.

> Very plausible? That is as far fetched idea as any I've ever heard. At the very least, citation needed.

There was a recent discussion about how much evidence you need in order to convince people that sexism is a real problem that we need to solve. But "citation needed" in this case very easily turns into "citation provided", if you would bother to go to Wikipedia or Google rather than dismiss claims offhand.

1. "exposure to seemingly innocuous sexually suggestive ads can lead to disturbing antifemale sentiments" http://www.psu.edu/dept/medialab/researchpage/newabstracts/o...

2. "women whose male partners objectified them scored lower than those whose partners didn't gaze at their bodies" http://www.livescience.com/11649-ogling-men-subtracts-women-...

If you'd like to read the studies and point out flaws in methodology, or provide studies that refute these claims, feel free to do so. I hope you consider these studies sufficiently relevant for the discussion, I don't want to have to track down the study which most closely replicates the conditions described in the article.

> If I showed a picture of Simon Peyton Jones would that equally imply "programmers in the audience have to be as smart as him else you are losers"? If I show Marc Zuckenberg or some other successful enterpreneur does that mean "Less than 1 billion net worth is for suckers"? Would anyone even think of it that way?

I think men have an enormous problem when they internalize the comparison of themselves against more successful men portrayed in media, and this can definitely have harmful consequences. There are plenty of stories about men who become unemployed during an economic downturn but don't tell the family. Every day the men would drive out to a parking lot, wait for ten hours, and return home, living off savings. They thought that the prospect of being unemployed was emasculating. They felt that being laid off is a personal failure — even in a recession, even if the company is going bankrupt for reasons beyond their control.

I think this would happen less if we reassured men that they do not become worthless creatures just because they are temporarily unemployed, that they have value as a human being beyond their careers. I think there aren't nearly enough men in media (movies, advertising, etc.) portrayed as valuable members of society through avenues other than what the traditional measures of success dictate.

For further reading, I recommend "Stiffed" by Faludi and "The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love" by hooks. I've been looking for a good book about men written by men, but I have not yet found one that incorporates the most basic lessons learned by the feminist movement. It's like the difference between Kant and Aristotle: Aristotle was a genius but his work is mostly irrelevant today, of course he wasn't well-read by modern standards since hardly anything had been written yet. Most men writing about male sexual politics haven't read enough from the past dozen or so decades of female sexual politics, and it shows in their sophomoric arguments.

> >Sexism is not a simple problem and you do not help anything by imagining what it would by like if a woman put sexy pictures of a man on a powerpoint slide. Fact is, men are not generally worried about getting raped.

> Where's the equality then? Or is having different arbitrary demands for each gender acceptable?

If I were really after just "equality", and I were a dictator, I could just order my secret police to rape men until the numbers match up for the two genders. I'd not like to get into a deeper discussion about "equality" but suffice it to say our resources are (as you stated) limited, and the problems for men and women are different, so we have no business e.g. allocating the same level of funding to men-only DV shelters because they are simply not needed as much. Also suffice it to say I think objectifying men is wrong too; but it is not as much of a problem (based on empirical evidence that suggests that it is not as much of a problem).

I was trying to say how the most people in the western world disagree with sexism. I know there are people all over the world who agree with and disagree with sexism.