[CompiledCode]

So how can I write a bot to fight the sexism in Microsoft's TV ads? You know the ones... where the husband is the bumbling idiot and the wife is the smart capable one who shuts down his plea to play golf on Sundays.

I would love to set that bot loose on all TV shows and ads. So often, a flipped situation would cause outrage of being sexist, whereas if the man is put down, it's "funny."

It really bothers me, especially with the "mancession" still going on (outside of IT) and widespread anti-male laws (in family court and other places).

[rada]

Oh come on. The "mansession" was a temporary phenomenon, largely due to the decline in higher paying jobs that are historically held by men.

Today, men's and women's unemployment rates are roughly the same:

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/06/two-years-of-econo...

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/mancession-to-h...

http://www.nwlc.org/resource/modest-recovery-beginning-women

http://www.thenation.com/article/166468/one-mancession-later...

Generally, I find complaints about mancession more than a little skewed. The victim card only works if you cherry-pick your numbers, narrow them down to exact months, and ignore key metrics such as compensation, benefits, etc.

[rmc]

Yes, ads (etc.) that portray people as bad based on their gender are wrong. However men are still in an advantageous position.

widespread anti-male laws

They are small in number compared to the widespread anti-female laws and customs.

[CompiledCode]

Can you give an example? In almost all states, if the wife gets pregnant by another man, the man is still on the hook for child support for the next 18+ years... even if she divorces him and marries her lover.

I can't think of an equivalent anti-female law with such devastating long-term impact on the woman.

I know this message might be off tangent for the HN board. But if we're discussing anti-female sexist culture and try to erase every incident of women being treated unfairly even in the slightest way, I think it should be allowed to point out that in today's culture, men are also often treated extremely unfairly... and you don't see scores of women jumping to their defense (like the men did in the "Lighten up" thread).

[raganwald]

Your argument says "since (unfair child support laws) then (men treated unfairly) thus not(sexist anti-women culture)"

The problem with your argument is that you are not espousing a widely held belief about child support laws being "unfair to men." Thus, a discussion about your argument is likely to devolve into long exchanges about children's rights and anecdotes about ridiculous edge case judgments on both sides.

Which is fine, but I think it would be two steps removed from what you're trying to establish, namely that the unfair sexism is somehow balanced. If you're going to construct an argument of the form A -> B -> C, I suggest you pick an "A" that is beyond dispute so we can focus on the validity of A -> B and B -> C.

[CompiledCode]

I actually think that "A" is beyond dispute. Your married partner cheats on you, divorces you, marries the biological father of the child, and you are still on the hook for child support? I can't imagine someone NOT thinking with every moral fiber of their being that this is wrong.

Regardless, I think my point is already self-evident in the answers. Which is: we accept without second thought that (A) our society is sexist and women are oppressed and objectified. So A -> B -> C: when a woman claims sexism, we all have to focus on eradicating that sexism immediately (i.e. reign men in). No thought is given to the possibility that the pendulum has possibly already swung too much in the opposite direction, and it is actually the men who are treated unfairly in most cases whenever gender issues come up. Just see e.g. the topic on reddit's front page this morning "I called the cops on my GF after an argument we had got violent, the cops come and arrest ME".

I think any discussion that is about treating both genders equally and fairly that does not take into account current anti-male inequality misses the point. We need to question ALL social conditioning to reach a point where everyone is treated fairly.

[ugh]

Is it really the case that someone has to pay child support for a child that is proven to be not theirs?

I did some superficial googling and found the case of one man who has to pay child support even though a DNA test proved he is not the father, because he missed all the deadlines for challenging the ruling. That seems like an unfortunate edge case to me, not some general pattern one has to be worried about.

I think you might be mistaken about the legal situation, but I’m more than happy to be proven wrong.

[rada]

It depends on your definition of "not theirs". The law doesn't look at biology only. (Same gender parents, adoptive parents, grandparents as primary caregivers, etc).

If you accept a child as your own for several years, the law is likely to look at them as yours regardless of DNA. I think that in the majority of cases, this probably works out for the better.

[raganwald]

You wrote:

I actually think that "A" is beyond dispute.

But you forget that I said:

you are not espousing a widely held belief about child support laws being "unfair to men." Thus, a discussion about your argument is likely to devolve into long exchanges about children's rights and anecdotes about ridiculous edge case judgments on both sides.

I was careful not to discuss the validity of your belief, but merely to point out that your belief—whether true or false—is not WIDELY HELD. And as you can see, at least one other person disagrees with you, and the resulting exchange is getting further and further away from discussing the original point.

When I use the words “beyond dispute,” I mean that people accept it as true, or a at least such a sufficiently large proportion of people that anyone disputing it is immediately understood to be ignorant or a crank. The Earth revolving around the Sun is beyond dispute. Although I personally believe that the evidence shows that punitive laws around marijuana possession are unhelpful, it isn’t “beyond dispute,” lots of people dispute that opinion every day.

I stand by my assertion that if you say A -> B -> C and you choose an A that is not widely held to be true, you are going to spend a lot of time arguing about A even though your original intention was to try to convince other people of C. It doesn’t matter how certain you are of the truth of A, what matters when trying to convince people is whether they believe it to be true.

If they don’t, you either have to find a forum where people are discussing “A,” and talk about that, or pick another argument that is going to have a high signal-to-noise ration when discussing “C."

[ceol]

> I can't think of an equivalent anti-female law with such devastating long-term impact on the woman.

Child support law in the United States doesn't discriminate. The office that handles child support may, as may the judge (I've heard stories of women given more leeway with payments than men), but both genders are able to be the obligor.

> in today's culture, men are also often treated extremely unfairly...

No, they are not, comparatively. It's not even on the same scale. There may be a handful of instances of men being treated unfairly, but pointing to a commercial where a man is portrayed as bumbling and equating that with the institutionalized sexism women face is ridiculous.

In fact, most of the instances of men being treated unfairly (child support, custody) are actually byproducts of sexism against women. Society places the woman in the role of the caretaker automatically.

[rmc]

I can't think of an equivalent anti-female law with such devastating long-term impact on the woman.

* (In the USA) Have someone stick a thing up your vagina if you want a abortion (some sonogram laws)

* Raped? Some police officers (y'know people who should be prosecuting the people who raped you) think you shouldn't dress like sluts (and hence if you do dress like a slut, you were asking for it, so clearly can't have been raped) ( http://www.excal.on.ca/news/dont-dress-like-a-slut-toronto-c... which spawn the SlutWalk demostrations )

* Want to work in tech? Some tech promotional events will list "Perks: Women".

[agateform]

It seems natural that very little attention is being placed on mans issues.

I think just selectively pointing out gender issues will not prove that the specific gender has it worse. I think instead of always assuming that woman has it worse we should also look at mens issues along with womans issues. This is difficult because humans have a tendency of protecting woman and not worrying much about men. Here is a video about this http://youtu.be/TBzx-SMSwGE and a paper (which I haven't got a chance to read completely) http://adamjones.freeservers.com/globe.htm

I can't find a good list of mans issues but here is a OK list. http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/the-top-10-issues-of...

This list does not contain issues like the rape of man by woman and other man, incarceration issues, man having a much higher death rate in the work place (more man at dangerous jobs), higher suicide rate of man, less men graduating college then woman, crazy rape laws like drink + sex = rape of woman but not man, tricky asking for consent = coercion = rape (at some colleges), draft only applies to man, millions of mostly male veterans committing suicide, male sexual mutilation & forced circumcision, domestic violence against man, legal paternal surrender/financial abortion, man are more likely to be assaulted and mugged then woman (even criminals tend to protect woman, see what happens to rapist in prison), in average man live less time then woman etc...

Note. Criticism of feminism is not necessarily anti-woman or anti-womans rights. I support womans rights like rights to chose.

[bct]

Men's issues are feminist issues, and are best advanced by working with and as feminists.

[rada]

I understand why you would see the particular law you are describing as "anti-male" - however most laws related to children are the way they are because they are not about the welfare of the adults at all.

The law is thinking something along the lines of: children need to be taken care of; the government doesn't have the money; whoever happens to be sitting on the musical chairs the first several years of the child's life, pays. The buck has to stop somewhere.

(On the flip side of the same law, a non-biological father would be awarded custody if they have formed a parental bond with the child).

Some more things to consider before you call the law "anti-male". One, if it were not the custodial parents, it would have to be the even more random taxpayers. Two, non-biological mothers pay too. Three, these laws are flawed for historical reasons, and these same reasons have impoverished women far longer than men.

There are bona fide inequalities, of course. For example, men tend to pay significantly more child support than women. However, given how men make more in general, even that still leaves men better off on average. For example, average income for non-custodial mothers is $15k/year, average income for non-custodial fathers is $40k/year.

[ismarc]

I dislike people using the child-support laws as an example of a law that is completely biased against men. One which is completely absurd, insane and over-the-top favoring women over men is in the rights a man has around the establishment of paternity.

Take the following situation: Married woman gets pregnant. Lists arbitrary non-husband X as the parent. At this point, neither male has any ability to compel a paternity test. The law recognizes the arbitrary person listed on the birth certificate as the father (however, at this point he does not have to pay child support). The only way a paternity test can be compelled is if the male is 'accused' of being the father AND the mother attempts to collect child support. In the given scenario, the husband cannot ever know if the child is his unless it is found to be someone elses (he knows it is not) or he gets a divorce and his previous wife requests child support for the child.

This has nothing to do with the welfare of the child. The woman could even list unknown as the father of the child and then immediately give the child up for adoption, preventing the male from ever being able to be involved in the decision and is permanently removed from the life of the child.

[lambda]

> In almost all states, if the wife gets pregnant by another man, the man is still on the hook for child support for the next 18+ years... even if she divorces him and marries her lover.

This is a complex situation; it's not an anti-male law, but an attempt at a pro-child, and pro-relationship, law. Read this article for a discussion of some of the difficulties: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/magazine/22Paternity-t.htm... . The issue is that when a man has started raising a child, and treating him or her as his own child, he has an obligation to that child. Even if the parents end up divorcing, he has still committed to raising that child. In some cases, he can end his obligation if he also ends his relationship with the child. But in many cases the (non-biological) fathers don't want to do that; they want to have their cake and eat it too, still acting as the father while not being financially obligated to support the child.

Part of the issue is that the law is just outdated. As the article above points out, it is based on the common-law assumption that a child born in wedlock is the husband's unless he's impotent, sterile, or "beyond the four seas" when the child is conceived. Now that we have better methods of determining paternity, we can do a more accurate job, but you still need to take into account the impact on the child and their relationships with their parents if you suddenly declare that the man who raised them is suddenly no longer their father.

And yes, this is pretty off-tangent here. Just because there is a different sort of injustice elsewhere, doesn't mean that an on-topic, relevant injustice is invalid or should be ignored. We are discussing sexist behavior in the workplace among programmers, a relevant topic, which doesn't really have anything to do with paternity laws.

[wpietri]

Are you seriously saying that it's anti-male to expect parents to support their children until the children are adults?

[marvin]

There's no need to dismiss CompiledCode's point. The things he is pointing out are very real problems which affect men as a gender, without regard to the specific person. There is real sex discrimination against men going on, particularly in the US (I'm from Europe).

The best response to sexism isn't to turn the discussion into an antagonistic debate with men vs. women. Both sides have legitimate issues which need to be addressed if we are ever going to have real gender equality.

So my response would be that, yes, these things are all problems. And we need to address them separately, without dismissing any legitimate complaints from either side.

[ceol]

> Both sides have legitimate issues which need to be addressed if we are ever going to have real gender equality.

They do not need to be addressed at the same time as one another. You do not need to bring up sexism against men every single time an article about sexism against women appears on the front page.

[ugh]

I’m honestly curious, what are your reasons for writing this comment? It seems off-topic.

[rmc]

When a child who has all the toys is told they have to share, some children will throw a hissy fit. This is an apt metaphore for a "men's rights" movement which rares it's head when people talking about giving women as much power as men.

[franticpedantic]

Men are as likely to be raped, but their (prison) rapes are considered funny in our society, whereas female rapes are considered a grave crime. Men are generally considered more disposable in dangerous situations ("let the women and children go"). Stereotypes and gender roles regarding men are much more rigid, and challenging them has much less cultural buy-in than challenging gender roles with women. Men are much more likely to be assaulted. I told my very feminist sister a story about a guy who punched the guy his girlfriend was cheating on him with. At first she misheard me and thought he punched the girl, which was considered horrible. When I clarified that it was the guy, she immediately made a comment that it was less serious. She has internalized the sexism that it's much less serious to assault a male.

I could go on and on, but you're so brainwashed by the feminist agenda that you have internalized it and don't even see the blatant sexism in our society. It's so ironic that so many feminists/liberals are so guilty of what they accuse others of - being unaware of their own prejudices.

[rmc]

Yes you're right. These are all terrible things. It's terrible that rape of men is used as jokes, or even by police as threat to encourage people to confess.

There are a lot of strict gender roles for men, men are laughed at if they want to wear a dress, but a woman can wear a trousers without any problem. Being the receptive sexual partner is viewed as OK for women, but shameful or wrong for men. It's not fair and it's not right.

There are a lot of issues at play. There are a lot of things wrong with gender, and there's people who've been fighting for gender equality for a long time. We're all on the same side here.

[roguecoder]

The primary people fighting prison rape is feminists (and both prison rape and rape of drunk girls are treated as jokes in our culture). The primary people fighting stereotypes and gender roles, supporting stay-at-home fathers, supporting the importance of gender-flexibility for men, are feminists. The primary people fighting men's violence directed at each other are feminists. Feminists fought the draft and continue to protest wars around the world.

Your examples are feminist. You are a feminist, whether you choose to use the label or not. The only question is whether you realize this is a loose-loose situation and support other feminists as well as those focusing on your issues.

[agateform]

I agree with everything you said but the liberals part... I think we should be careful to assume that all liberals are feminists. This can turn off the liberals that have noticed the misandry in feminism and are trying to learn more.

[franticpedantic]

Men are as likely to be raped, but their (prison) rapes are considered funny in our society, whereas female rapes are considered a grave crime. Men are generally considered more disposable in dangerous situations ("let the women and children go"). Stereotypes and gender roles regarding men are much more rigid, and challenging them has much less cultural buy-in than challenging gender roles with women. Men are much more likely to be assaulted. I told my very feminist sister a story about a guy who punched another guy that his girlfriend was cheating on him with. At first she misheard me and thought he punched the girl, which was considered horrible. When I clarified that it was the guy he hit, she immediately made a comment that indicating that it was less serious. She has internalized the sexism that it's much less serious to assault a male.

I could go on and on, but you're so brainwashed by a movement that has overall very good intentions (empower women in a society that disempowers them) that you have internalized it and don't even see the blatant sexism on the other side of the coin. Even this piece contains so many generalizations about men, geeks, tech workplaces that are blatantly unfair.

It's so ironic that so many feminists/liberals are so guilty of what they accuse others of - being unaware of their own prejudices.

[hythloday]

What's your source for the first claim? I've never heard it before - Wikipedia cites[0] a 2006 investigation that found 2,205 allegations, 262 of which were substantiated. The FBI collected[1] 92,455 allegations of forcible rape - i.e. excluding other kinds of rape - in the same year - even if just 1% of those were proved, that's still nearly an order of magnitude disparity.

(Please don't take my comment as dismissing your other points - sexism hurts men and women. I'm just curious about that specific claim.)

  [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_rape_in_the_United_States
  [1] http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/offenses/violent_crime/forcible_rape.html