Now, the list - 'Men have lost the battle of the sexes... because the opponent cheats' - is bulleted, general assertions about the inequality of men and women made first, and supporting statistics after.
I'll be matching the statistics with the statements they allegedly prove (all statements from other blog blockquoted), categorizing them into various categories that reflect the general concerns of a group of points, then explain exactly why practically every bullet point on that list is nothing short of absolute rubbish. Despite my obvious misgivings, everything written will, as far as possible, be given a charitable interpretation. In the rare event that the author makes a legitimate point, it will be acknowledged. And in the event that the author makes an argument that has been made a thousand times over and rebutted comprehensively, I will simply link to an instance of that argument, because to rehash it would be an utter waste of everybody's time.
And, because the original list is too long for me to be willing to spend time writing an argument opposing every single one in detail, I have selected the most relevant and significant ones - ones that reflect serious error, and in some cases, ones that may make legitimate claims. There are other claims that I intend to deal with in a follow-up post, but right now here's what there is:
PART I
Stereotyping
1.1 Women remove male role models from their sons' lives, then when their sons behave badly, the women blame "patriarchy."
1.2 Stereotyping girls as inferior to boys in any facet of life is "misogyny"; stereotyping boys as potential batterers and rapists is a public service announcement.
1.3 Boys are told they must never hit a girl, and they are given license to beat the crap out of other boys. Girls are told boys must never hit a girl, and they are given license to beat the crap out of boys.
▲Innocent males are between 1.5 to 2 times more likely than females to be assaulted
1.5 When girls supposedly were behind boys in educational achievement, most men agreed there was a problem with the schools (even though there wasn't); now that it's clear boys really are behind girls in every indicia of educational achievement, women tell us the problem is the boys, the schools are just fine.
1.6 Women say they want men to be less "manly" and more sensitive and caring; those same women refuse to date actual men who are more sensitive and caring because they aren't sufficiently "manly."
(1.7) ▲Responsible young men are charged considerably more for auto insurance than irresponsible young women, simply because they were born male1.2 - Two very different kinds of stereotypes are at work here; the former is a blanket statement about how females are "inferior", while the second involves potentiality. In simpler terms, with the first stereotype one is saying that girls are inferior, while the second means that boys could possibly be 'inferior' in that they are more predisposed to committing acts of sexual violence than girls are. The second "stereotype" is in no way an indictment of innate ability, and does not reflect unequal treatment of girls over boys. Doubtless both such stereotypes should be condemned, but they should not be treated as comparable or equal.
1.3 - The use of the statistic here is laughable - sure, innocent males are far more likely to be the victims of assault, but they are also far more likely to be the perpetrators of such an assault. 65.3% of homicides in the United States are committed by a male offender with a male victim; in comparison, 9.6% are committed by a female offender against a male victim (source). Considering these additional statistics, there is clearly a good reason why boys are socialized to "never hit a girl". (At least I think that's the author's complaint here, that girls can hit boys but boys can't hit girls. If he is complaining about boys being able to hit boys but not girls, there's a sentence addressing that below too.)
Furthermore, the author conflates the "hitting" of girls by boys with the inverse, which fails to account for the obvious discrepancies in physical strength, and therefore the disproportionately greater impact that a boy hitting a girl causes compared to a situation in which the reverse happens. (Of course neither should be encouraged in any circumstance, but I am merely responding to what the author seems to suggest.) What is a problem, however, is that "boys are given license to beat the crap out of other boys", which is what the author should be focusing on - how the myth of machismo enforced by society encourages boys to behave in that manner.
1.5 Two things are extremely problematic about this statement: (1) its odious parellel phrasing designating blame to "women" and open-mindedness to men1 and (2) its decision to completely ignore empirical evidence that the education system has been and is disadvantageous to both girls and boys in different ways (source2: gender stereotyping disadvantages boys in gaining literacy - or "softer" subjects - and girls in science and math). And there definitely is concern about both.
1.6 ...Seriously? I just cannot. How is this even supposed to prove anything, least of all women's supposed "victory" over men, through an instance of alleged hypocrisy? Stereotypes. Are. The. Problem. Gender stereotypes are detrimental to both men and women - men are held to the "manly" stereotype, and women to a host of other equally - if not more - demanding stereotypical images and behaviors.
1.7 (The author simply offers this up as a "statistic" at the end of his post; it appears to be one that doesn't relate specifically to any previous point.) This is not a case of gender inequality, merely a general case of inequality caused by the method insurance agencies use to calculate insurance premiums. In accounting for risk, insurance companies group drivers by gender (as well as many other categories that reflect risk in a statistically significant way) and (putting it simply) average out the risk over the entire group.
It is a fact that, even accounting for the greater number of male drivers and the greater distance driven by male drivers, male drivers are at much greater risk of being involved in a traffic accident (source). As such, "responsible male drivers" are paying higher premiums for auto insurance because of other irresponsible male drivers, which has absolutely nothing to do with irresponsible female drivers - they would drive up premiums overall, but for both men and women. The problem is irresponsible drivers in general, not irresponsible female drivers.
Rape and Sexual Violence
Rape and Sexual Violence
2.1 Rape of women is a national crisis; rape of men in prison is a punchline.
2.2 Women shame young men who would never harm a woman that they must be "part of the solution" to end rape; if men tell young women they must be "part of the solution" to end rape by being careful, that's "victim blaming."
2.3 Men having sex with teen girls are viewed as the lowest form of life, and they are usually sent to prison for many years; women having sex with teen boys are seen as "mixed up" and emotionally immature, and if they receive any prison sentence, it is far lighter than when the genders are reversed.
▲A woman who commits the same crime as a man will receive, on average, only a fraction of the sentence
2.4 When a woman accuses a man of rape and he denies it, there are conflicting claims of criminality, yet only one is arrested; only one's name is reported in the news for the world to titillate to his humiliation; only one is likely to be imprisoned if he's convicted; and only one will have the accusation trail him like a ghost for the rest of his life even if it is false. Can you guess his gender?
2.1 This is granted. Neither the rape of men or women should be taken lightly or joked about. Minor quibble: the rape of women and the rape of men in prison are clearly very different things, and other societal attitudes may be at work here besides any gender inequality the author attempts to show - it may simply reflect societal attitudes about incarcerated criminals. Not an admirable attitude, but nonetheless one not connected with gender in the way the author would like.
2.2 Blaming a rape victim for his or her rape is ludicrous; the rebuttals to the following arguments, made a thousand times, show why:
2.3 This, fortunately or unfortunately, is a side-effect of yet more gender stereotypes: men as rational, (rightfully) dominant, stronger; women as emotional, fickle, weaker beings that should be protected or given allowances.
2.4 When a woman accuses a man of rape and he denies it, there are conflicting claims of criminality, yet only one's sexual history is scrutinized to see if she was "loose" or a "slut", or anything that could possibly mean consent was "implicitly" given; only one's clothing choices and behavior is questioned to see if she was "asking for it"; only one is told what she should not have done to prevent being raped; only one is made to recount the horrific ordeal over and over so everyone can "properly judge" all these things for themselves. Can you guess her gender?
Just Bizarre
▲Males between 20 and 24 have a seven times greater rate of suicide than their female counterparts, and overall, men commit suicide at rates three to four times greater than women;
▲Government funding for breast cancer research outpaces funding for prostate cancer research by nearly two to one even though prostate cancer and breast cancer have roughly the same caseload;
▲Death among young men due to testicular cancer in the 15-34 age group outpaces the number of deaths from breast cancer among women in the same age group, but good luck trying to remember the last time a commercial entity raised awareness about testicular cancer;
▲Victims of war -- both combatants and, yes, non-combatants -- are more likely to be male;
This seems to me the most bizarre collection of statistics, with no more than a nebulous idea of what they're supposed to prove. Men have a lower life expectancy than women? More men die of the most fatal diseases? The prostate vs. breast cancer one is intelligible enough, though, so it will be the focus for this group. While it is true that breast cancer receives more govenment funding than breast cancer - indeed by "two to one"- they do not have the same number of deaths (source). The onset of breast cancer is also far earlier in life; breast cancer funding is therefore typically more effective in reducing mortality:
We could argue back and forth about if it makes sense to spend more to reduce mortality among the young than among the elderly. On the one hand, one could argue that doing so implicitly suggests that elderly lives are worth less than younger lives, which (I assume) isn’t something anyone wants to claim; on the other hand, if the purpose of medical research is to extend life, then it’s utilitarian to put more resources into fighting diseases that strike younger ages (since we’ll get more additional years of life per dollar expended).
But no matter which side of that debate you come down on, it’s a debate about age, not sex. Given the real differences in mortality and age of onset, it’s a stretch to claim that the differences in federal funding for breast cancer and prostate cancer research is a sign of some government bias against men.
(source)
Now about suicide: here. Read.
The last point about more male combatants being killed during war is clearly simply reflective of the greater number of male combatants in total. It's not rocket science. Now, the claim about non-combatants is the one that's interesting. I could not find any significant statistics to this effect; most war casualties were categorized as military/civilian, not by gender. But it depends, of course, on what the author means by "victims". It is possible that more male non-combatants died, but the effect of war is far more complex than just fatalities (see: genocidal rape). In this instance, however, I find it bizarre that the author finds this evidence that females have "won". That statistic is a sad statement about war, not about gender inequality.
a few short notes
(or, anticipating objections)
(1) Yes, a lot of the sources I cite contain feminist material or material written from a feminist "point of view". Right now no doubt some people are going "circularity!!!!11" or "theory-ladenness!!!!1" and intend to demand empirical evidence and statistics from a very reliable source to back up every one of my statements. The thing is, the kind of arguments the author has chosen to make depend largely on social statements and general "observations", and not statistics; where statistics make a significant contribution to the rebuttal of his argument, I use them, and where they do not, they are not used.
Should you wish to debate the objectivity of or degree of scientific validity feminism has, I will have you note that the naturalistic approach to social science is not a suitable approach to studying and understanding the social world. (And here every single science/social science essay I have ever written for KI comes back to haunt me.) Sure, feminism isn't falsifiable, feminism is "subjective", feminism is a "point of view". Your positivist worldview can't handle it. It needs statistics. Well, I'm sorry if that's the case.
(2) Accidental strawmen: the downside of not having a coherent argument to work with - only a bulleted list of assertions mixed with statistics and observations - is that there was no context from which I could interpret the author's main point properly. Some bullets seemed to prove nothing at all; others were just odd, for the lack of a better word.
footnotes
1 "When girls supposedly were behind boys in educational achievement, most men agreed there was a problem with the schools (even though there wasn't); now that it's clear boys really are behind girls in every indicia of educational achievement, women tell us the problem is the boys, the schools are just fine." Red: making the prior claim far less "certain" than the latter claim, even though both are well-documented, and the former has a far greater impact than the latter. This is in a footnote because the author's language, while reflective of his clearly prejudiced attitude, does not mean that his argument is detracted from in its validity.
2 Honestly, I don't think the argument about Wikipedia is worth having. It's a good summary and is much easier to read than other sources. And it's (mostly) legit.
