Mens Rights Movement

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So, if the patriarchy exists only to benefit itself, as you say, then who set it up in the first place? Did it create itself?

Also, there is nothing silly about claiming that Margaret Thatcher acted for the patriarchy. Politicians are not the real origin of power in Western society (but even they are mostly male if we take them as a group). Power ultimately lies with the richest and those who control the means of production, who are overwhelmingly male. Politicians like Thatcher are the servants of this class. For this reason, it's not unthinkable that some politicians can be female. Pakistan and India have both had female leaders and they are still obviously patriarchal societies.

This.
Although it probably makes me a bad person and a lot of you will get pissed at me for saying this, I did chuckle at the thread title. I thought, "What? Men dominate society, how many more rights do they need?" I guess I don't get it. Yes, gender roles suck but I feel that women have a lot more to fight for as we are at a bigger disadvantage for being born with different parts.

I think in some circles, women certainly have privilege/special social "rights" and I think it would be fair to discuss them. Any time one group of people has special privileges from birthright alone, I think it warrants a discussion at the very least. There's probably less to discuss than what feminists have, but that ought not take away from the validity of these concerns.

These things I've found in several places. Statistics, and several people I know who have been through these situations.
For example, what I said about conscription is how the situation goes. When I turned seventeen, I was sent a letter by the Ministry of Defence, telling me that, despite all conditions, they reserved the right to basically just tell me when they needed me to fight, to be sent out anywhere with any kind of equipment with no opt-out. Physical conditions weren't mentioned in the letter, either. In theory, they could send terminally-ill men in wheelchairs to Afghanistan, but they could require no healthy woman to even play a supportive role. This is one point that feminists have never actively opposed, even though sending them these letters would be no more or less than equality in that field.



There is a woman who is supposed to be able to have conversations with me if that's necessary for my functioning in education (going through test results, supplying information to my parents and myself, informing me of activities). My parents, for the past year, have complained that they have received little to no information about changes in the school's schedule or curriculum that would require a complete overhaul of my personal schedule. For example, only two months away from exams that I've been trained to be scared of for eight years, I have no detailed idea what I'm required to know or to have done. I've spoken to her about both issues. Both times, she went militant and basically ended up denying all responsibility and telling me that I should probably visit a therapist. For things directly related to my functioning, it's exceedingly difficult to talk to her for over a minute.
She has often described herself as a 'real feminist', and acted accordingly. All girls are allowed to call her personally and have her give them a day off for no given reason. When a girl wants to talk to her, she'll allow the conversation to take up to an hour, even if the conversation is about music or holidays, whereas I'm often told to wait for several days even with urgent questions, after which she shifts the blame and insults me in two minutes.

Last year, two out of approximately twelve guys in that group disappeared completely, and several others skipped school regularly.
I also wonder how many taxpayers know girls at my school can get private lessons and private, badly-supervised rooms for exams upon request.

Another example, though more of an example of how role patterns for men are the same despite women's legal advances towards superiority.
In physical education, at one point in recent history, there was a football match. I had slept for only twenty minutes in the 48 hours preceding the match, but I went to the match anyway. I was dizzy and fatigued, so I did not put in such an effort that I'd collapse. A girl who never put in any effort in the past was in the other team, and simply stood on the side of the field, as she had done countless times before. From the people of the third, dynamic team, who were watching, came angry responses. A girl shouted that I was being lazy, while not taking the effort to pronounce my name correctly. When I shouted back at her with a non-serious tone, telling her to shut up, everyone was utterly surprised, even though me and a male classmate had spent the previous twenty minutes threatening and insulting each other loudly with the very same tone, and nobody noticed.

Some of my personal motivations:

- It's hard for me to see teachers being fired from public schools while money and effort are being poured into initiatives to get girls interested in physics and engineering.
- Until recently, when a woman accused a man of assault or rape, and the accusation turned out completely false or even strategic, she was never punished.
- I consider it unfair that I can be sent out against my will to die in a war I don't support that was ordered by a government also or predominantly voted for by women.
- A European Commissioner has called for a 'quotum of women' in top business positions. Essentially, this means men who are more qualified are to be refused a position in favour of women who are less qualified.
- In secondary school, something interesting occurred. Calling a gossiping girl a whore was, apparently, worse than beating up a boy and spreading false rumours about another.
- It might be, for the emotional unfairness part, the sex ratio that was prevalent throughout secondary school. There was one girl for every thirteen boys in my final year, meaning they were always given preferential treatment and had more rights in school than us. At one point, there was one girl for every twenty boys in one location, and there were more and better-cleaned toilets for girls. The ratio of facilities is still skewed. Girls have a comfortable dressing room that's usually empty, while guys are forced to dress in a room that doesn't have enough spaces to even allow all of them to sit down while putting on shoes. Mirrors, very small ones, were only added this year after several complaints that girls did have mirrors.
- Additionally, a teacher, who really is in favour of equal rights and was a proper mentor a few years ago, was rather angry. They hire both male and female cleaners at that school. All male cleaners were working very hard, and the teacher in favour of equal rights started ranting about a female cleaner after she had spent twenty minutes making social calls on his room's phone while being paid in full, while a guy who showed up thirty minutes early, was friendly instead of just parading about talking and did not complain about being forced to adhere to an unfair schedule put forward by one of the aforementioned woman's friends. There were no consequences as far as I know of.

I'm against the situation as it is now, and my concern with 'feminists' is that their effort to improve women's rights is not making the situation any better, and that many of their measures turn out to be a comparative loss in rights and increase in responsibilities for men. Although they (because there have been some misunderstandings, politically active feminists) are giving women more legal rights while maintaining a situation of fewer responsibilities, they are not changing anything about role patterns or problems of males, such as being statistically by far the most likely to die or get injured in violent crime, even when sexual crime is taken into consideration. While violence against men is occasionally laughed at, humoured, as I heard in a radio interview about shelters for men who ran from abusive wives that consisted mostly of jokes, the same against women would be met by hostility, threats and lawsuits.
Same with suicide. In general opinion, as far as I have seen, men who commit suicide, while being about four times as likely, are often ridiculed and insulted for being weak.
If I own a large business, and I hire a woman for a high-up position requiring responsibility, because I'm required to hire her by law, I will still be expected to 'protect' her in personal situations.

BOLLOCKS!! ! That's not an example of gender inequality, that's an example of poor sporting performance and conduct. Be careful not to do a Andy Gray & Richard Keys now.

From your description, you have admitted that physically you were not at your best. So in every right that girl as a football spectator had the right to express her view about your on the pitch performance, just like I got that right when I got to home games at Anfield. (Especially on Tuesday when we play the Blues Liverpool are magic. Everton are tragic ) So ok you didn't like what she said, now did that give you the same right to behave in the same way?

Your reaction to the spectator was totally out of order, just like your classmate being out of order with his behaviour to you.

I still get the idea that feminists tend to find such male challenges trivial compared to the challenges women face, though.

^

People naturally think the challenges faced by a group they are not a member of a more trivial than their own. MRAs often do the same regarding the seriousness of rape. Not that this makes it right, of course.

Ok, an example: men suffer heart attacks and tell themselves that they pain will 'just go away' if they ignore it, unless they have a spouse or other family member who harasses them into going to the hospital; women suffer from heart attacks and head to the hospital, but because their presentation is 'atypical' (read: not the same as a man's), they are told that they're hysterical and/or suffering from a panic attack, and they may even be sent home.

In either case, treatment is delayed for hours from onset, during which time much of the damage becomes permanent, meaning that the person's ultimate quality of life and life span are significantly decreased.

Which is worse?
Both are largely influenced by the patirarchy.

Men are at risk for penile cancer (rare and more rare in circumcised men), testicular cancer, and prostate cancer, the latter which is common in older men and easily detected and treated.

There are a few other male specific issues such as erectile dysfunction and penile fractures, certain infections and so on, but there are still far more health issues associated with female reproductive organs. Most doctors who go into gynecology do so because they had an interest in being a surgeon and working in a practice, and gynecology was one of the few specialties that could offer both.

I don't think men's health is compromised by the fact that there are not "Men's Hospitals" however there certainly could be more of a focus on men's mental health in society. Part of the problem with that though is men are often hesitant to seek treatment for mental health issues.

I would say yes, but I'm not really sure this is even about gender roles. Gender roles may be the way it is most commonly expressed, but isn't BOTH sides arguments here that people are repeatedly walking over their individual rights as human beings? One of which is, the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of sex or gender?

I'm not saying the current power construct is not making that easy to happen, but it is necessary to advocate against men, or advocate against women, or advocate against gender roles when what it really boils down to is actually a human rights issue?

Andrology as a medical specialism has only been around since 1969. Now as a woman how would you feel if gynaecology just only became a medical specialism in the 1960s?

Here is another fact for you, my local andrology clinic is in the Liverpool Women's Hospital!!
That's like visiting a gynaecology in a masonic lodge!! !

Yes there needs to be more done for men's health, about men's mental health hesitanion is just one factor.
I was reading this report before from MIND about male mental health Delivering male: effective practice in male mental health

I think that the very existence of gender-norm expectations negatively affects everyone, especially given the simplicity of only having two categories. I think that throughout history men and women have exercised power in different ways and that the situation has never been as simple as one gender having all the cards as it were. This is further complicated when you take into consideration the motivations of men and women who--to look more respectible in conforming to gender norms--try to portray themselves according to a set ideal. I think gender equality is important (actually, I'd rather not have gender roles and at all and just let people form their own identities) but I think that both genders have been players in the game of social power.

If you feel a Men's Hospital would significantly improve the lives of men then you should approach the national counsel (I'm imagining that's what you have) about it. I'm just very skeptical that they will feel there is a need.

As I said, female reproductive organs are significantly more high maintenance. They require more outpatient and inpatient surgical procedures, and this can prove to be a drain on resources for smaller general purpose hospitals. Women's hospitals also tend to issues encountered during the course of pregnancy and neonatal care.

It's more expansive because women encounter more health problems due to their sexual organs....I don't know why you would view that inequality as negative for you.

I don't think that things are really "set up" in that way. I'd prefer to take the stance of a soft conspiracy theorist: it works out in the powerful people's interest, and so it survives without there needing to be an explicit conspiracy.

Who is it for? It's for the "dominants", as you said yourself. The power elite. The people who are perfectly happy for men to die in wars, because they themselves don't have to go to war! The people who are perfectly happy for women to be loyal housewives, because they themselves have maids for that sort of thing! Everyone knows their place. That's just how they like it. Do you think that a powerful man feels solidarity with a working-class man, since they are both men and want to retain their dominance over women? Of course not. It's all a ruse.

EDIT: Here's something to think about: how many times, in the "bad old days" before feminism, was a woman the absolute ruler of a country, with the divinely-mandated power to do whatever she wanted? Was there ever a backlash from the patriarchy about this? Why or why not?

I'm very sceptical about the idea of having "sorority like" healthcare centres, as there is an air of gynocentric double standards when it comes to the support of improving men's health.

If you're referring to the limited shared resources & finances of healthcare centres as cost units, then high cost & maintenance functions only take resources & funding from other areas. So financial speaking, are Women's hospitals cost effective?
Statistically speaking, what is the gender of ratio healthcare funding? I'll take a guess that women get more funding on healthcare then men.

So how many prostate cancer patents have to lose out on care to fund one cervical cancer patent?

I'm gonna put my doctor hat on for this.

There is no question in my mind that dedicated facilities for women's health are amply justified on medical grounds. Ovulation and menstruation can, in abnormal presentations, create clinically significant, ongoing challenges to daily living. The use of oral contraceptives can require careful medical oversight. Pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum care are a medical specialty all on their own.

Women face unique cancer risks arising in the cervix, the uterus, the ovaries and the breast. While there are certainly analogs for men (prostate, penile, testicular and breast cancers), their detection is generally easier--and even when it is invasive (such as a DRE) it is far less invasive than corresponding examinations for women.

That is not to say that men don't face unique medical issues--of course we do. But, by and large, the medical system is better equipped to cope with men's health issues.