BRex21 said:
The S.C.U.M. manifesto has become a valid political statement, in case you are unfamiliar, The society for cutting up men manifesto, was written by a radical feminist who thought men were inferior and should all be executed. The arguments that it is a joke are somewhat overshadowed by the fact that the author did try to kill a couple of em. Speaking out against there modern actions like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7WVCkLUzJ8
I'm probably going to kick myself later for wading into this with you, because I know what your views are on these issues and they're pretty polarized, but I honestly think you need to stop going to the well with Valerie Solanas. She was a sexually abused girl who grew up into a deeply disturbed murderer. I'm not sure why anything she says or writes would be taken as legitimate political or psychological discourse. We don't look to Charles Manson or Ted Bundy as representatives of the male attitude towards women. Or at least, we shouldn't. You can't really argue a position using the most extreme examples you have at hand.
If the S.C.U.M. Manifesto has indeed become a valid political statement ANYWHERE, this is the first I've heard of it, because it's fairly widely regarded as A) satire or B) nonsense. The ONLY thing I can find discussing it online related to Sweden is on this website:
http://www.avoiceformen.com
Which hardly qualifies as a unbiased source. After flipping through it for a few pages it's the male equivalent of Eve Bit First. I mean, I see you've got a crazy Youtube video there, but really? A crazy Youtube video? You can find anecdotal evidence to support almost ANYTHING.
BRex21 said:
The problem is that there are hundreds of studies that peg violence committed by women to men more widespread a problem than violence committed by men to women generally settling on something around a 70/30 split.
There are hundreds of studies to support almost anything. Ask someone on one side of a political divide about their talking points, and they'll reference "hundreds of studies" to support their position. I don't suppose we need to get into a discussion about biased polling data, because lord knows I've gone to statistics when they've served my purposes and ignored them when they don't, so that would make me a huge hypocrite, but "studies", especially unlinked and vaguely referenced studies, don't really tell us much of anything.
What I like about you, and your perspective on things, is you do talk about sexism towards men, and it doesn't get talked about very often, and it is pretty rampant, and it is pretty socially acceptable, and that is a problem. What I DON'T like about your position is how it always seems to manifest itself as minimizing and/or attacking feminism. If there's a gender politics post on The Escapist, I could make money betting that BRex21 is going to be in there, and he's going to be beating the "men are the bigger victims" drum. Maybe this is because you're striving for balance by arguing against what you feel is a culturally biased perspective, so you're coming off as militant. Maybe it's because your avatar is an angry cat in a beret. I don't know. But you
do sometimes come off as an extreme "masculanist".
Do you think it's POSSIBLE that your anger/frustration around this issue has given you a BIT of a confirmation bias?