Have I been objectively sexist at any point in my essay?

zuesk134 · 2012-04-24T18:14:11+00:00

here is some honest criticism of it-

you dont have many facts. while yes you include statistics (what are you sources on some of these numbers??) they dont prove the points you are trying to make. the paragraph about transportation comes off as very sexist. you assume that the main reason women need to use the transportation after hours is for SHOPPING. you use a stereotype to demean the entire gender right there. then you say that the women are getting their money from their male counterparts! without any facts! what does breast cancer research prove 1-what women use transportation for 2-how they pay for it. but then in the next paragraph you say there is no paygap and women spend more than men. so why would they need men to pay for their transit?

"This is because women have access to both her husband’s money and her own. What’s hers is hers, and what’s his is hers, even in divorce. While men must work hard to earn a living, women can just marry a man and use his money."

you have no facts to back this up.

"Celebrity millionaire Matt Damon married a female bartender. What do you think her disposable income is now, compared to what it once was"

i could counter argue with a famous women that marries a nobody (look at britney spears and kevin federline. she pays him like 80 grand a month in child support and alimony)

"I’ll try and put this into perspective here. In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, All of the 100m male sprint runners were black. Would anyone say the lack of white sprint runners is unfair?"

this doesnt put anything into perspective, mostly it just confuses the reader about your point.

look you have no real facts to back up any of the arguments you are making. all the 'facts' you included dont prove your point, they are just numbers that show in some ways men are disadvantaged. (i say 'facts' because you offer no sources for anything?? not sure how that is okay....)

youre not a bad writer, but your lack of education on topic really shines through. you come across as bitter and uninformed. you will not impress any universities with this essay. the most important part about writing is knowing your target audience.

The_Patriarchy · 2012-04-24T18:30:07+00:00

I just read your essay, and there are some problems:

Poor grammar. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but it really is important.
You don't support some of your important claims very well. For example, you didn't make clear that the wage-gap can be mostly attributed to life-choices. To someone who isn't aware of this, it could seem like you're dismissing the problem without giving it much thought other than "women have the same opportunity".
You paint a VERY stereotyped picture of men and women. On the narrative you're pushing, men are all hard workers who never get thanked for their great contributions to society, and women are just wasting their partner's money on shopping and complaining about bus schedules interfering with their shopping time.
You seem to make the argument that men are inherently superior to women. This is evidenced especially by your example of the black sprinters. This would also likely contribute to the claims of misogyny. The wage gap is complicated as hell, but the one thing you NEVER want to claim is that men are just better at this sort of thing. There are other explanations: men are encouraged to value career at a younger age (so they're more likely to pursue higher-paying careers); men are encouraged to put career above family-time (so they're more likely to work more hours/etc.), women are encouraged to drop out of the workforce when they have a kid (so they're more likely to have a big gap in their employment history), etc. Theses are all defensible assertions, and have the benefit of not looking sexist as fuck.

Ultimately, I think your essay does come off a bit sexist...but I think that's mostly because you're new to this sort of thing and aren't aware of the pitfalls you need to avoid. Overall, I think the dialogue it's apparently opened at your school will be beneficial. You've created controversy, and have raised some important points. Hopefully it will cause just enough cognitive dissonance that more people will begin to question some of the other narratives they've been spoon-fed by feminists.

Given that you're now a target, it might be in your best interests to put together a defense of your essay against claims of it being hate-speech. Schools do have a tendency to overreact to this sort of thing, so be prepared to cover your ass. The following might be of some use to you (keep in mind, the links are all amerocentric, but they provide a good jumping-off point):

http://femintology.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/why-im-an-antifeminist/

http://youtu.be/7ZymFMmpOa0

http://youtu.be/EwogDPh-Sow

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-that-we-end-the-equal-pay-myth/

rightsbot · 2012-04-24T15:46:17+00:00

Post text automatically copied here. (Why?) (Report a problem.)

NiceGuysSTFU · 2012-04-24T17:00:22+00:00

Pastebin won't connect. Can you link it or upload it elsewere? Or just copy/paste here?

2012-04-25T12:40:30+00:00

First, it's just terribly written. Your writing style comes across as incredibly biased and condescending. Sarcasm is a risky thing to use in an academic essay, and you should only attempt it if you're an otherwise impeccable writer. You are not.

Second, you make a lot of very stereotypical assertions without any basis. Women only use public transportation for shopping. Women don't have jobs. Women are all dependent on men for money. If you can't back these up with proof, they just hang out there as really misogynist stereotypes.

You also assert that we never hear about important men, which is laughable. Since when do we not hear about Einstein? Since when are history and science and literature classes not filled with the achievements of men? Rightfully so, of course; every president in the US, almost every major political leader, scientist, most classic writers have been men. And we hear about them all the time. There are legitimate things to complain about here; how much we hear about male figures is not one of them.

morton404 · 2012-04-25T08:17:09+00:00

EDIT: The spell checker of my MS Word tells me that 'behaviour' is spelled wrong, and therefore not right, despite that fact that it is correct spelling in my country. Misandry is simply different than what was before, not nonexistent.

First of all:

can you please just inform me from a neutral stand point if you think my essay is objectively sexist?

If you want a neutral opinion, don't come to mensrights. They love to jump on whatever bandwagon demonizes women or feminism (not the same thing, gentlemen!)

Second, for all I know, you completely made up the headlines you reported. Are they real? Do you have a citation? Are "Men arrested for criminal assault?" If so, that sentence is not inherently misandric. It simply says that men were arrested for a criminal assault. Just as women can be. The fact that men commit the vast majority of crime [any forensic researcher would tell you this is true; I could get a citation if you bitch and moan enough] should not be confused with misandry on the part of the media.

Third, I hardly think the good that men do is unheard of. If they are trapped in the shadow of their criminal brethren, it must simply amaze you all that every single President of the United States of America has been a male. How good of them to overcome the damage done by the criminal actions of the few. How amazing it must be that the vast majority of scientists and mathematicians are males, given that the media plagues them so.

Fourth,

These are the real men in our society, doing jobs that are either risky or jobs that women would not like to do.

So are you saying that only real men do risky jobs? What about the men who work behind a desk, or ring through your groceries? Are they lesser men? Also female garbage collectors are not unheard of.

Fifth,

Not to mention the fact that no female soldiers are on the front line, making male casualties in warzones incredibly higher than that of their female counter parts.

As I understand it, women are not permitted to be on the 'front line.' I may be wrong about this. I believe that they were recently granted this.

Sixth,

“Trapped welsh miners: fourth body found in flooded colliery”. “Miners”. When was the last time you saw a woman in coal pits?

Did you actually read this article? Or did you just assume that women are not miners? If you only scanned the headline, what part of it would lead you to believe that all miners are men? Because you assume that all minders are men? If they were indeed all men, you need to cite this and not make an assumption immediately after the "quote." You also need to cite. Furthermore, when was the last time YOU saw coal pit? Did you see the men in there?

Seventh,

What a luxury this is that women are able to worry about getting transport outside of rush hour times, to get to places that clearly aren’t work related. While men are 80% more likely than women to commit suicide, and 90% of homeless people are men, a commission designed for looking at equality is instead focusing on access to transport for tasks like shopping.

You have made an extremely sexist assumption that women who are travelling outside of rush hour are doing it simply for 'shopping.' Could they not also be out for and with their children? Children created with a man (or I suppose adopted). Coming home from a job that does not keep traditional "9-5" hours? Your paper does not say and implies that women who use transit outside of these hours do so for their own selfish reason. Should women only be allowed to travel easily when their business is work related? Shall we keep track of women who move about for reasons that are not their own? Further, the issues of suicide and transportation are not exactly in the same realm. Implying that your government attends to female transportation at the expense of male suicide is completely ludicrous.

Eighth,

Brilliant.

Not a sentence appropriate for a paper. Seems mocking to the reader. Seems stupid considering the sentence that precedes it.

9th

We should also asks ourselves how these women get the money to spent on transport during work hours. Could it be from their male partners using the very transport for a 9-5, 5 day a week high stress job?

Do women not have jobs? Do all women have a man-lover to pay for them? Every single female? You did not consider this premise and is a gross generalization. My girlfriend pays all her own fares and is not dependent on me to pay for her travel. Or what about single women? Do they simply not ride public transit since, according to you, they need money from male partners to afford it?

10th

The fact men die on average six years younger than women...

It is no fault of anyone that men die six years earlier. Men often engage in riskier behaviour that may lead to death. Furthermore, this is 'death' statistic is an average statistic. Young men die more often than young women, simply because these are the people most involved in crime and risky behaviors. Feel free to dispute, though I feel that the claim that men engage in more dangerous behaviors (often involving death) is extremely obvious to anyone who can research.

11th,

This imaginary ‘glass ceiling’ women have trapped themselves under

Ah. Women are to blame for their own problems. Let alone that men have been in control of the economy since the Industrial Revolution.

12th,

First let’s look at the facts

NARY A CITATION TO BEEN SEEN, LAD

Also,

While men have men earn more than women

English please. Otherwise, this sentence implies that men ensure that men earn more than women. A point contrary to the one you are trying to make.

If I was a teacher, I would fail this paper. You do not provide a single citation, and you claim 'facts' that have no references. You claim directionality between two events, without considering other explanations. You twist the words of "others" (in quotations since you fail to cite any evidence at all, let alone people who share your opinion). You often present opinion as fact. If you make controversial claims, you have to cite evidence for your position. Your conclusion is crap! A good conclusion to a paper, (especially one as socially charged as yours) should be more than two sentences .Finally, the grammar in your paper is atrocious, and your organization of the paper gives me a migraine.

While I certainly believe that men get the short end of the stick in some areas, this paper does very little to advance men's rights. More importantly, your paper is terrible.

Edit: grammars

Edit 2: Race and Gender are not the same thing.

jw510 · 2012-04-24T17:32:46+00:00

Of course it is not sexist, it is misandric to call it sexist just because it defends men. We all need to speaking up in these situations. Be sure to update us if anything interesting happens.

sme52 · 2012-04-24T18:16:52+00:00

I applaud you on introducing discussion on misandry into your school. Your essay is not misogynistic just because it addresses men's issues but some of your analogies and discussions could be interpreted as misogynist.

Of course not, all it is, is that black sprinters on a world class level are faster than white sprinters on a world class level.

This analogy makes it seem like Men perform better at their job compare to women. This isn't true, the real cause of more men in upper level management is that men put more emphasis on their careers. A man is expected to take care of his family by earning more money, a woman is expected to put more emphasis on her children. So a woman will forgo trying to get a promotion in order to spend more time on family matters.

Fire MEN died trying to save lives, not Fire Women, not Fire Fighters, Fire Men risked their lives in order to save others.

This sentence I think puts to much emphasis on it being Firemen not firewomen. Their are many firewomen in the world risking their lives, this is just an example of an article that is using the politically correct term. Firefighter, police officer, flight attendant... I am fine with these terms instead of the old terms because they are gender neutral. Gender neutrality, as well as gender blindness, needs to be achieved in order to have equality. I agree that society shouldn't be enacting laws to favor one sex over the other but to me MRM is about gender equality and gender blindness in laws and societal expectations.

Don't hide from the accusations of misogyny, understand where their comments are coming from and work on approaching Men's Issues in a way that is cannot be interpreted as misogynistic.

altmehere · 2012-04-24T17:37:03+00:00

I've read over it, and don't believe it is objectively sexist.

However, I would expect that you'll take a lot of flak over it. Even mere suggestion of many of the topics might cause one to be labeled a misogynist because there is a strong, subjective and emotional attachment.

Unfortunately, objectivity rarely matters when the word "misogyny" is introduced. If I were you, I would be careful. While their need to lash out rather than ignore your essay shows that you have the upper hand in your argument, that doesn't matter if others take action to enforce their interpretation.

2012-04-25T03:39:50+00:00

Listen to these people, I've read all the comments and they provide sound advice. Could you perhaps give us an update when something interesting happens?

Title	Have I been objectively sexist at any point in my essay?
Author	tartanarmi04
Upvotes	2
Comments	34
Date	April 24, 2012 3:44 PM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/sq340/have_i_been_objectively_sexist_at_any_point_in_my/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/have-i-been-objectively-sexist-at-any-point-in-my.1023295 https://theredarchive.com/post/1023295

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