#35

We’re not all complete lost causes though. I’ve definitely had my moments in the dim and distant past. A lot of it stemmed from 1) the people I surrounded myself with 2) my own inadequacies.

Yes I am saying that one day these men if very very lucky could be as enlightened as me. A cheery thought.

#36

That’s the thing, there’s a lot of very fragile and quite pathetic little egos out there.

I guess as well, society trains men to externalise their feelings rather than deal with them. The traditional method is: Feel shit about yourself? Get drunk and punch a stranger. Hit your wife. Hit your kids.

I guess a modern version is, now that society has actually started to think of domestic violence as an actual crime rather than a “private matter” is:
Feel shit about yourself? Invite a girl out for a drink. Following tips you found on the internet, make subtle remarks that imply you think she’s unpleasantly fat/not good enough in some other/play with your phone constantly whilst trying to imply that much hotter women are constantly chasing after you, and see her face slowly drop. Hopefully she’ll still sleep with you.

Weird how society still frames the “womaniser” as some kind of heroic stylish bachelor about town, like George Clooney or James Bond, but the actual ones you meet in real life are mostly people who have serious intimicay problems and are completely unable to sustain any sort of close relationship with another human.

1 Like
#37

Another one:

The article is about a radio host who had an on-air persona of being super-progressive and constantly pushed how he was such a feminist, but then turned out to be a total creep off-air. The story about him isn’t that important though, it’s the comments that are the thing really worth reading here, about social dynamics.

#38

And another good quote I found:

all women are forced.jpeg698×229 27.9 KB

(If the picture doesn’t work, text says: All women are forced to live under an arbitrary and unfair system which sorts us into the categories of “Fuckable” and “Worthless”. The solution to this is NOT to expand the definition of “Fuckable”.")

#39

Whoa easy, I’m not that pathetic

#40

Someone who behaves like that these days is a hell of a lot more pathetic than say 20 years ago or whenever you’re talking about though, seeing as there is way more awareness that it’s unacceptable now.

#41

This is good, all about why idiot male journos think female interview subjects want to fuck them

#43

all the deleted comments make me think some dudes were seriously losing it over this piece.

1 Like
#44

“Holsinger and some colleagues were recently discussing how often the wives of male academics do significant work for which they are rarely given proper credit. … Ridiculous numbers of men, it seems, still didn’t know how to type throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, or at least performed a kind of deliberate secretarial incompetence when it came to the basic mechanics of writing and transcription. … In many cases, these long-suffering wives were not even afforded the courtesy of their own names.”

#45

"They are necessary, though. All of these things, perhaps small in isolation, are basically social glue. At its most basic level, all of this emotional labour is saying to another human being “you matter. I will take my time to show you that you matter.” And maintaining that glue is something that devolves mainly onto women, 24 hours a day.

It feels like most men are taught (ex- or implicitly) to do emotional work only when it gets them
something they want"

A good primer on emotional labour:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0UUYL6kaNeBTDBRbkJkeUtabEk

#46

Second quote I meant to add to that:

"The thing about “but I don’t care about cards” is that they kind of don’t care about this stuff, and as a result they don’t have very many real, strong relationships. This really is a patriarchy-hurts-men-too situation, because reciprocal emotional labor is necessary for real intimacy, and life without intimacy sucks for most people. I don’t particularly care about actually sending cards, but the basic emotional labor of listening empathetically, attending to other people’s needs, keeping in touch, etc.? That stuff is really important. It’s unfair that women have to do most of it, but it also stunts and hurts men when they don’t do it.

#50

I was down the road from Appenzell (the place that held out until the 70s to give women the vote) in February. Vorlarlberg, the part of Austria that’s just on the border where I’ve been for work a few times now is basically the same culturally, except they have to comply with Austrian laws which are generally more progressive.

It’s a weird part of the world that very much still works on the assumption you have a housewife at home. Like restaurants will only open for lunch from 12-1pm, supermarkets are barely open at the weekends.

Appenzell only let women have the vote after the men had a referendum to allow them to. There are plenty of places in Switzerland where to become a citizen, the people in your village have to get together without you and have a vote on whether they want to give you a passport or not. Direct democracy, but also extreme small-town values.

#51

Edit: there were no public hospitals in Vorarlberg that perform abortions as of 2012, and I don’t think anything has changed there in the last 5 years (the only English info I could find was this Christian anti-abortion website)

https://www.hli.org/2011/08/austrian-health-ministers-abortion-proposal-is-social-suicide/

#52

Sorry, Appenzell Inner Rhoden held out until 1991

#55

I was going to post this article anyway today, but it also ties in to the same thing of women being assumed to be liars, too emotional, irrational etc, needing to have their words backed up by a man to be believed.

http://www.tor.com/2017/04/13/the-peril-of-being-disbelieved-horror-and-the-intuition-of-women/

#56

Another Brexit issue. Turns out you can’t get an abortion or the morning after pill over the counter in Gibraltar, and women currently go to Spain for those services. If the border closes or becomes less easy to cross they’ll be stuck.

#59

Margaret Atwood looks back on the Handmaid’s Tale as the new tv show comes out.

#60

The Red Pill turns out to have been created by a Republican Party politician. Disturbing that they’re not just the sidelined parents’ basement dwellers they’re often portrayed as.

http://politicaldig.com/gop-lawmaker-just-got-outed-as-the-founder-of-popular-pro-rape-group/

#61

this is all v confusing

#62

Hey all,
in NI currently abortions are illegal, as you may know. The most mainstream parties don’t want to extend the 1967 Act, but want abortions for cases of Fatal Foetal abnormalities and in cases of sexual crimes. This is clearly unsatisfactory, but how would one legislate for this? Would it be something like:

Just really confusing.