Feminism and the Disposable Male

[TaraJo]

@TaraJo:

Here is some research conducted by a non-feminist group. Very balanced video in my opinion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwogDPh-Sow

It's more balanced than a lot of the stuff you get out there, but it might be a little incomplete. The stats sound like they come from Warren Farrel and his book "The Myth of Male Power." I've heard some concerns about how he does his research and about it being fairly old (I think it's from the 70's or the 80's) but I give him credit in that he's at least attempting to see things from both perspectives. A lot of the more radical feminists just disregard him as a raging misogynist altogether, which is kinda funny because he was on the board of directors for NOW for three consecutive years in a row and he only started to change his view on gender issues after he started seeing some of the anger towards men coming out of his colegues and the damage it caused their personal lives.

But I think there's more to the wage gap, or most issues of sexism, than just that. It's a more complicated puzzle, some of which come from both men's issues and women's issues (which I'm not fond of seperating, anyway, in that most men's issues are just the flip side of a woman's issue and vice versa).

So, yes, the video you provide explain some of the issue. It doesn't really go into male success objectification but it doesn't go into women's side of it, either. Part of why there's a wage gap is simply because women don't generally go for careers in math or science or business. The tide is turning in law with a lot of women becoming lawyers and in medicine (although, with such a broad range there, I wonder if the stats there are being skewed somewhat since nursing is largely inhabited by nurses while doctors make more money). The problem here is also one that is only going to get better over time, so I think it's a little impatient for anyone to say "we need it fixed today!" 40 years of professional experience isn't something that's going to 'fix' itself overnight.

In the end, though, if you don't address both sides to the problem, things aren't going to fix themselves and that's a biggie. For example, you know the old stereotype about women doing all the housework while men have to go out and earn the paycheck while they don't do housework? Well, feminism came in and fought the stereotype that women need to stay home and encouraged women to go out and get jobs or careers of their own. However, they didn't do anything about the stereotype of men not doing housework. The end result is that the stereotype now is closer to women having to work harder because after her career she still has to come home and clean up after the lazy husband.

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I also wanted to add, the religious nature of the US is skewing the stats, too. Look at the religious fundamentalist households out there (and spaghetti monster knows there's a lot of them) and look at how they're made up: the man usually goes out and works a good paying job while the woman stays home and takes care of the kids or she gets a part-time job. They're doing it because that's what the Bible tells them to. Get those same families to disregard the Bible and it would be interesting to see how those gender roles change.