Sendraks wrote:

TMB wrote: A movement that sought equality between the genders would be looking to address the disparity in suicide rates, longevity, incarceration, homelessness, all of which favour women.

Shame none of the MRA groups actually give a shit about these things, other than making ignorant as fuck arguments about them as an excuse to bash women. But, hey ho, this is why it is generally not worth engaging with arguments of this sort. They're coming from a place so far removed from reality or reason, there is nothing to be achieved beyond either banging ones head against the wall in frustration as the same retarded bollocks gets trotted out by unquestioning minds who have drunk too deeply from the MRA Kool-Aid.........or........having a giggle.

I choose.......

I have not mentioned MRA, I am talking about the objectives that drive feminism. If those points raised cannot stand on their own merits then show me why not, if they can, then stop derailing the argument because you don't have a strong position.

TMB wrote:

Doubtdispelled wrote:

TMB wrote:More ad hominem. Why do you imagine that because you are making (and can seemingly only make) ad hominem, I must run off any report you. That sounds very much like a victims approach. The only issue I have with your ad hominem comments is the damage they cause to rational debate. And you are doing it on a forum called rational scepticism, what a joke.

Bollocks. If there was any rational debate to be had with you, then people would have it. Admittedly, some do try valiantly to engage with you in a rational manner, and I applaud their attempts, but it makes not one whit of difference when they point out that you are being incorrect, or irrational, because you just roll right on blathering your bigoted rot all over the place as though repeating your total misapprehensions ad infinitum will have the effect of causing others to suddenly see the error of their ways and start agreeing with you. Why, I think I even attempted such engagement with you myself in the past, but my forehead became too sore from constant contact with my desk.

In fact, I seem to remember ending up asking you whether agreeing with what you were saying might cause a cessation in the production of the walls of text with which we were being presented. Or beaten around the head with, might be more to the point.

I believe I even went so far as to say that yes, you are quite right. About everything.

Yet here we are again.

Then why do you bother responding. Your reply here offers nothing substantive that directly addresses any of my points, your post shows plenty of emotional reaction, lots of metaphor and hyperbole, but nothing whatever about the argument. Its just a rant about how you feel - did you see the tile of the forum where it says 'rational'?

Why do I bother responding? Because I can. And yes, I get an emotional reaction. Some anger at your apparently wilful ignorance, frustration because you seem to have learnt nothing whatsoever in your time here, time where lots of people have put effort and their time into responding to you. It's as though we're in some kind of time machine, one where you keep going back to the beginning, and all those posts, all that effort put in by others to dismantle your misconceptions, have never happened, have never taken place.

And because we have a large 'peanut gallery' of readers who may be influenced by what is posted here.

This, for instance...

TMB wrote:
Feminism is not about achieving equality between men and women, it is about getting a better deal for women, regardless of whether women or men are getting discriminated against. A movement that sought equality between the genders would be looking to address the disparity in suicide rates, longevity, incarceration, homelessness, all of which favour women. Instead these are set aside in lobbying for women to get the same pay as men in sport regardless of women playing to a lower standard.

Why do you suppose that my only response could be ??

Because it is so wrong, so ignorant, so distressingly stupid. And such stupidity is either wilful ignorance, or trolling, considering that all of the points in it have been addressed ad infinitum here on this very forum. Both by me and others who have often displayed an astounding level of patience over the years of your tenure here. Some have a lot more patience than I have, I must add.

I was going to search and find the places, the posts, the threads, where these issues have been discussed at great length, so that you could refresh your memory, but then I thought no, life's too short.

YOU go back through your posts, your threads. YOU find the places where the disparity in suicide rates etc. have been discussed. Go back and read where all your bigoted ideas have been done to death. Because they have.

I'm done now.

TMB wrote:I have not mentioned MRA, I am talking about the objectives that drive feminism.

In a typical, uninformed, MRA fashion.

TMB wrote: If those points raised cannot stand on their own merits then show me why not, if they can, then stop derailing the argument because you don't have a strong position.

Your assertion that "I don't have a strong position" when you're operating from such a deeply biased view of feminism is highly amusing. But hey, as long as you can convince yourself you're winner eh champ?

I'll tell you what. If you can give me a good reason as to why I should waste my time on a discussion which the evidence suggests will amount to little more than pigeon chess, I'll consider giving you the time of day.

Sendraks wrote:pigeon chess

I had to look that up, Sendraks.

But how very apt it is!

You realise you have summed up what I wanted to say, and did in lots of words, in just two?

The frustrating thing is that TMB is operating from a position of absolutes and assumes that anyone who disagrees with him is doing the same. Plus, he's not here to discuss and learn but, win at all costs. And as he's already made his mind up that anyone who disagrees is wrong, it is pigeon chess all the way down.

Are some feminists actually just frothing misandrists with a hugely negative view of men, who want to establish female privilege? Yes, yes they are. I've seen them in action and it is deeply unnerving stuff.

Do they represent the majority of feminists? No
Do they represent feminism? No.
Are the a problem? Yes.

But, it simply isn't possible to have a discussion about that without TMB without him twisting it around into blaming all feminists for the actions and views of a minority and coming back to arguing a distorted caricature of feminism as being fact.

Spinozasgalt wrote:

TMB wrote:I do not understand your point. How is the speed that someone runs, or hits a tennis ball, or does anything that is not directly related to the sex specific body parts, being 'already sexed'?

By way of "an emphasis on typically male athletic attributes, or attributes typically associated with or more common to men" being "built into the sport as it's run". That's one way.

TMB wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:Or, as I suggested, it may be that "merit" and/or "merit as judged" are already sexed: that is, they may already emphasize the attributes more common to, or socially nurtured in, men and thus disadvantage women who compete. If so, then removing the division between men and women is not ridding the sport of sexism. It may, instead, be removing one of the protections against that sexism.

I don't see the value or the equity in this position, because this stance could be applied to any scenario involving men and women and provide grounds for segregating them. If as you say a sport, for example running, is designed to favour male more than female attributes, note that running is something common to many forms of life, and is something humans have been doing before we were human. Running is not some artificial construct human construct that has been done so it fits men better than it fits women.

I'm not sure how this "position" could be applied to any scenario involving men and women. I suggested that segregation in some areas may be working as a protection against some forms of sexism. Particularly those forms that are less visible.

And no, running is not the sport of running.

So you are saying that the way sports are constructed favors men, so when women participate they are at a disadvantage because the activity is designed for men to do these better than women. Do you think the advantages that men have are biologically innate or are they socially constructed? Do you see this as happening outside sport, where there are things that women are innately better at and are also ‘designed’ for women to be better at them, like raising children? If so do you have examples?

While my view is that men are better at most sporting/athletics activity primarily because they are faster, stronger, and probably more motivated and with better motor skill, and let us suppose this is the case, then do you think it makes sense to provide women their own event so they are only judged against the merit of other women? And if so, do you think that a women tennis player, who performs to a lower standard than a man, should get an equal reward?

Clearly segregation into mens and womens events provides protection, but why do you think that this is protection against sexism? By definition segregation on the basis of a persons sex is sexism (or racism etc), and becomes an issue when it is done to favour one sex (or race). For example separate toilet facilities is sexism, but both sexes appear to think its an advantage so there is limited pressure to offer only unisex toilets despite its cost saving.

You say that running is not the sport of running. Since running is inherent in the sport of running, and all sports have been constructed for showcasing of skills in a competitive way in order to identify and celebrate physical excellence, how are you able to separate them? Just because we have constructed the 'sport' element? Running in nature is competitive just as it is on the track, and I do not see how running itself which is the core, can be considered 'constructed' to favour men. Running has arisen from life interacting with physical laws. As it happen men do it faster than women on average, and for all species including human faster is seen as better because it helps survival. If you are going to support your position, you need to give more detail and join the dots.

TMB wrote:[ By definition segregation on the basis of a persons sex is sexism (or racism etc), and becomes an issue when it is done to favour one sex (or race).

Apparently there is only one version of sexism and it is the version which best suits TMBs argument. As opposed to.

Segregation on the basis of a persons sex is done to mitigate discrimination that results from sexism, it only becomes an issue because the removal of discrimination also reduces privilege or advantage that one gender has over another, where the gender losing privilege perceives themselves as being disadvantaged.

Sendraks wrote:

Nicko wrote: If you don't want to give AVfM's site the traffic necessary to find out you are wrong on this, check out something like CAFE.

Shame none of those people are here to speak sensibly about those issues, instead of the women-bashing rot that TMB trots out.

In fact we've never had, to my knowledge, a single MRA ever come to these forums to discuss male suicide rates (an issue close to my heart, given I've nearly been a statistic a few times) without turning on the "wah wah wah women" faucet. So I suppose my view on MRA groups is simply born out from how poorly represented their views are by the misogynists I meet here and elsewhere.

You will need to support your assertion about me 'women bashing' with something less emotional and more objective if you want to be a rational sceptic. I have no issue with women competing in their own events, I just don't agree they should get the same reward for lower merit. I also have no issue that women can use their appearance to make more money than men can, but I do think women should take more responsibility for the power and reward that their looks bring them and instead of blaming men for the issues that arise from valuing yourself on your appearance, they should accept that its competition between women in the looks dept that creates most issues. If women agreed as a unified group to set aside their cosmetic lives it would make the world a better place.

Thommo wrote:The most underprivileged class in Britain right now are poor, white men. This is the fundamental problem with couching things in terms of privilege, it doesn't actually explain anything.

It's not, and never has been the case that "even" privileged classes have problems that need addressing. People have problems that need addressing, "privilege" is simply a way of labeling particular problems.

Men's rights issues have a huge brand problem, in that no moderate, genuine person can afford to be associated with the men's rights brand because otherwise well meaning people are just going to assume they are prejudiced and sexist. All we ever see on these boards are the very worst handful of examples brought up over and over again. In most cases if people behaved in the exact same way towards feminists there'd be a storm of complaint.

An organisation like fathers4justice has its problems, but we never hear about them because people would rather bash the same soft targets, like AVFM, over and over. The divide here is about noisy twats on the internet, not about real activism or real issues. Of course there are twats on the internet who are MRAs, maybe there are even disproportionately many compared to twats on the internet that are feminist activists, but even supposing that is a fact (and asserting it is not the same as showing it, as I hope we're all aware), what exactly is supposed to follow from that fact? Does it have a use beyond dismissing certain people as "undesirables" in threads like this one?

Good points. I think a major issue is that men are never positioned as victims in any sexist sense (even in war death they can be called heroes), whereas women are often positioned as victims, and it provides real power. As you say, no one, not even men, really bother or are vocal about scenarios where men are at a disadvantage. Very different for women.

Doubtdispelled wrote:

TMB wrote:

Doubtdispelled wrote:

TMB wrote:More ad hominem. Why do you imagine that because you are making (and can seemingly only make) ad hominem, I must run off any report you. That sounds very much like a victims approach. The only issue I have with your ad hominem comments is the damage they cause to rational debate. And you are doing it on a forum called rational scepticism, what a joke.

Bollocks. If there was any rational debate to be had with you, then people would have it. Admittedly, some do try valiantly to engage with you in a rational manner, and I applaud their attempts, but it makes not one whit of difference when they point out that you are being incorrect, or irrational, because you just roll right on blathering your bigoted rot all over the place as though repeating your total misapprehensions ad infinitum will have the effect of causing others to suddenly see the error of their ways and start agreeing with you. Why, I think I even attempted such engagement with you myself in the past, but my forehead became too sore from constant contact with my desk.

In fact, I seem to remember ending up asking you whether agreeing with what you were saying might cause a cessation in the production of the walls of text with which we were being presented. Or beaten around the head with, might be more to the point.

I believe I even went so far as to say that yes, you are quite right. About everything.

Yet here we are again.

Then why do you bother responding. Your reply here offers nothing substantive that directly addresses any of my points, your post shows plenty of emotional reaction, lots of metaphor and hyperbole, but nothing whatever about the argument. Its just a rant about how you feel - did you see the tile of the forum where it says 'rational'?

Why do I bother responding? Because I can. And yes, I get an emotional reaction. Some anger at your apparently wilful ignorance, frustration because you seem to have learnt nothing whatsoever in your time here, time where lots of people have put effort and their time into responding to you. It's as though we're in some kind of time machine, one where you keep going back to the beginning, and all those posts, all that effort put in by others to dismantle your misconceptions, have never happened, have never taken place.

And because we have a large 'peanut gallery' of readers who may be influenced by what is posted here.

This, for instance...

TMB wrote:
Feminism is not about achieving equality between men and women, it is about getting a better deal for women, regardless of whether women or men are getting discriminated against. A movement that sought equality between the genders would be looking to address the disparity in suicide rates, longevity, incarceration, homelessness, all of which favour women. Instead these are set aside in lobbying for women to get the same pay as men in sport regardless of women playing to a lower standard.

Why do you suppose that my only response could be ??

Because it is so wrong, so ignorant, so distressingly stupid. And such stupidity is either wilful ignorance, or trolling, considering that all of the points in it have been addressed ad infinitum here on this very forum. Both by me and others who have often displayed an astounding level of patience over the years of your tenure here. Some have a lot more patience than I have, I must add.

I was going to search and find the places, the posts, the threads, where these issues have been discussed at great length, so that you could refresh your memory, but then I thought no, life's too short.

YOU go back through your posts, your threads. YOU find the places where the disparity in suicide rates etc. have been discussed. Go back and read where all your bigoted ideas have been done to death. Because they have.

I'm done now.

The past debates you refer to, and I agree there have been many, in no case was a strong argument ever put up to debunk my position. I don't need to go back though these posts to validate these, and neither do you because you should be able (if you had the arguments) put up a few key logical points with the evidence, but like now these don't exist.
The reason I raise back the same topic is because in the public domain I see the same fallacy come up time and again that women (surfers this time) are getting a raw deal because male surfers (despite being better at what they get paid to do) should get the same reward and status - because if they don't, its sexism against women. This is happening across many sporting codes and the logic to support this is lacking, its just a political rant because women see themselves as victims. Serena Williams, who earns the same purse money as the men for winning the womens singles is not a victim, she is damn lucky she is not getting paid the same as the male 200th seed who would probably beat her.

TMB wrote:...no one, not even men, really bother or are vocal about scenarios where men are at a disadvantage. Very different for women.

That's not really true, in my observation. I was listening to a contribution to Woman's Hour recently, a daily radio programme on the BBC dealing with the sort of thing that the BBC thinks ought to interest women (that perception has changed a lot since it was first broadcast, before most of us were born).

This particular item was about a woman who had been convicted of murdering her husband after a long period of physically abusing him. One of the aspects discussed was why the husband, who was an educated and articulate man (he was a solicitor), evidently felt unable to approach anybody about his situation and seek help. Another aspect that was raised was, predictably, how rare such cases are this way round.

Anyway: it's not ignored.

Sendraks wrote:

TMB wrote:I have not mentioned MRA, I am talking about the objectives that drive feminism.

In a typical, uninformed, MRA fashion.

TMB wrote: If those points raised cannot stand on their own merits then show me why not, if they can, then stop derailing the argument because you don't have a strong position.

Your assertion that "I don't have a strong position" when you're operating from such a deeply biased view of feminism is highly amusing. But hey, as long as you can convince yourself you're winner eh champ?

I'll tell you what. If you can give me a good reason as to why I should waste my time on a discussion which the evidence suggests will amount to little more than pigeon chess, I'll consider giving you the time of day.

You shouldn't waste your time on a discussion, because you don't have a logical proposition or supporting evidence. You should stick to your empty assertions that comfort you that you are getting a word in, and venting your impotent frustration. There are plenty of good solid assertions I have made with plenty of support in this thread and others, if you had an argument you would not hesitate to take me on.

TMB wrote:
You will need to support your assertion about me 'women bashing' with something less emotional and more objective if you want to be a rational sceptic.

My assertion is supported by the content of your posts. That you do not see that, is not my problem and I've already outlined the difficulties of trying to have a reasoned discussion with you on this point.

TMB wrote:I have no issue with women competing in their own events, I just don't agree they should get the same reward for lower merit.

For someone adopting the pretence of not "women bashing" you do not choose your words carefully or at all.

Your position of "lower merit" is, in spite of your reliance on performance metrics, both subjective and prejudiced. The "merits" of sporting events are not readily quantifiable and factor in such things as "entertainment" which is really what they are all about. Ultimately the punters decide what is most "entertaining" and that is what commands the cash value.

At a very superficial level, yes it doesn't look fair that some women's events like Tennis, the competitors are getting paid more per set than male competitors are. Indeed in the work place, you'd pro-rata the pay of the person working for less time and no one would think anything of it. After all, a person in a conventional job has outputs which can be readily determined and reasonable assumptions made about what they can deliver in less time compared to colleague who works more hours. Of course, this is still a rough measure, because we all know people who work shorter hours and still churn out a full weeks work in comparison to their colleagues. They don't get paid anymore though, unless they're on commission.

However, sporting events and all forms of "entertainment" suffer from less quantifiable metrics for what people deem to be entertaining. The only measures you've got is how much people are willing to pay to see (or sponsor) a given form of entertainment and that in turn influences the prize money given out.

Is there a reliable metric which says the sets of tennis men play is more entertaining than the fewer sets that women play? Would tennis be more or less entertaining if men played less sets?

A happy medium might be that men played 4 sets and women played 4 sets. That would at least look "fair" on paper, although I imagine some would still argue that men work "harder" in their sets, trotting out metrics about ball velocities and what not. So you'll never get to a point where everyone is content that the equal prize monies are "fair."

Ultimately the "merit" of the competitors is whatever the prize money says their merit is, which is tied to whatever the punters will pay to see that "merit" and the sponsors will stump up for that "merit."

Don't like that? Don't be part of that system. Which is basically just capitalist principle of people paying whatever they think something is worth.

Sendraks wrote:

Nicko wrote: If you don't want to give AVfM's site the traffic necessary to find out you are wrong on this, check out something like CAFE.

Shame none of those people are here to speak sensibly about those issues, instead of the women-bashing rot that TMB trots out.

In fact we've never had, to my knowledge, a single MRA ever come to these forums to discuss male suicide rates (an issue close to my heart, given I've nearly been a statistic a few times) without turning on the "wah wah wah women" faucet. So I suppose my view on MRA groups is simply born out from how poorly represented their views are by the misogynists I meet here and elsewhere.

I don't know what you mean by the "wah wah women faucet". Is that located on the same countertop as feminism's "wah wah men faucet"?

TMB wrote: if you had an argument you would not hesitate to take me on.

Yeah, you're really not following what I am saying here at all.

Not that I'm surprised.

Nicko wrote:
I don't know what you mean by the "wah wah women faucet". Is that located on the same countertop as misandrist's "wah wah men faucet"?

F.I.F.Y

Basically though, its the same faucet. Each tap controls the flow of "men's tears" or "women's tears."

I generally think it is best to go to a different sink.

TMB wrote:The past debates you refer to, and I agree there have been many, in no case was a strong argument ever put up to debunk my position. I don't need to go back though these posts to validate these, and neither do you because you should be able (if you had the arguments) put up a few key logical points with the evidence, but like now these don't exist.
The reason I raise back the same topic is because in the public domain I see the same fallacy come up time and again that women (surfers this time) are getting a raw deal because male surfers (despite being better at what they get paid to do) should get the same reward and status - because if they don't, its sexism against women. This is happening across many sporting codes and the logic to support this is lacking, its just a political rant because women see themselves as victims. Serena Williams, who earns the same purse money as the men for winning the womens singles is not a victim, she is damn lucky she is not getting paid the same as the male 200th seed who would probably beat her.

But you've had the explanation for that in this very thread.

It's largely determined by the market. People want women's sport. Especially women who like to play sport. Disabled people also want sport. People also want boxers who don't weigh 17 stone to be able to participate.

People will pay a lot of money to see Serena Williams play. Ladies finals day at Wimbledon regularly sells out 15,000 seats, with her match being watched by not just a full stadium of spectators but watched by millions worldwide. Given the amount of revenue she generates there's no "default" to assume she should be paid the same as the 200th best man in the world who can do none of these things.

Half of the population are women, there's a huge market for women's sport - and rightly so, it is not to the benefit of society or women to be excluded from sport which is a huge benefit to health both mental and physical.

Yes, there are some people who whine that equal pay is always appropriate, but so what? There are idiots who whine about anything and everything, there's simply no need to make the same thread raising the same questions and eliciting the same explanations (no it's not necessarily sexism - the act of holding one gender to be superior to another - to separate sport by sex) every 6 months. You could make a thread about some other idiots saying something stupid instead if you wanted, instead of making a lengthy post dripping with needless sarcasm about an issue on which you already know everyone's view and have made your own feelings clear. We could have discussed Novak Djokovic's own stance on the matter when it came up recently even. It would have been more fruitful than a lengthy sarcastic spiel about a sport that few posters here have any knowledge of at all.

There is a spectrum of reasonable opinion about women's pay in sport, Djokovic's view strikes me as reasonable, even if I disagree (and the reaction he got was interesting and questionable at best in places) and so does the view that in mixed competitions where revenue streams are not separated the money should be split half and half. But women's tennis isn't always played in the same venues as men's and consequently they get paid less each year. What is unreasonable though is constantly feigning ignorance about, and bringing up the suggestion that having men's and women's sportspeople compete separately is sexist and unfair. The reasons for the divide are simple, obvious and do not work to exclude anyone from sport or sporting careers.

TMB wrote:You shouldn't waste your time on a discussion, because you don't have a logical proposition or supporting evidence. You should stick to your empty assertions that comfort you that you are getting a word in, and venting your impotent frustration. There are plenty of good solid assertions I have made with plenty of support in this thread and others, if you had an argument you would not hesitate to take me on.

Take you on at what?

The way you've approached this second run at a topic you've raised before hardly encourages people to engage with you seriously. Stop presenting these kinds of stories as "gotcha" moments and actually discuss them.

There's no one here who actually thinks that the gendered disparity of financial rewards is some kind of huge injustice, and quite a few who agree that it's a bit silly to be arguing for equal rewards - in this case, at least - on the basis of "inequality".

The interesting aspects of this topic are all in the nuances. And no one's going to discuss those nuances as long as you look like you're trying to start a fight.

Ultimately this all comes down to the lack of checks and balances in capitalism in terms of what people are willing to pay for, against sometimes wholly subjective ideas about what something is "worth". i.e. the labor of blacks is worth less than that of white people (because they're lazy) or the labour of women is worth less because they get pregnant (because society has historically placed a low value on housekeeping and raising children).

Which is why all sorts of laws have been created to have those sort of checks and balances against discrimination. Even then, they only mitigate against the worst excesses of capitalism rather than eliminate completely. Plenty of employers will try to pay the minimum wage, because they value their profits more than their labourers.

Sendraks wrote:Ultimately this all comes down to the lack of checks and balances in capitalism in terms of what people are willing to pay for, against sometimes wholly subjective ideas about what something is "worth". i.e. the labor of blacks is worth less than that of white people (because they're lazy) or the labour of women is worth less because they get pregnant (because society has historically placed a low value on housekeeping and raising children).

Which is why all sorts of laws have been created to have those sort of checks and balances against discrimination. Even then, they only mitigate against the worst excesses of capitalism rather than eliminate completely. Plenty of employers will try to pay the minimum wage, because they value their profits more than their labourers.

That's an interesting perspective. I'm not sure I entirely agree, but there is certainly a disparity between "real value" and the financial rewards under capitalism.

I'm not sure that says much about capitalism though, since non-capitalist attempts to describe value (e.g. Labour theory of value) have generally failed even more spectacularly.

Are Labour market problems down to the market being too "free" or "capitalist", or are they down to the market being too "restricted" or "socialist"? Or perhaps the problem is to do with information and social constraints on movement of labour that have lie off that axis altogether?

I suppose I probably lean towards the latter explanation, but I'm not sure any one answer will really satisfy me. But then I'm not an idealist, I'm a pragmatist.