"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
DER SPIEGEL: How long can your government resist the Taliban’s attacks without U.S. support?
Ghani: Forever. If I did anything, it was to prepare our forces for this situation. We have already effectively resisted the first wave of attacks in May. But are you writing about that too? We are defensible….
DER SPIEGEL: All that has been built up over 20 years can quickly be shattered. In just one night, for example, the Taliban looted everything they could from institutions, schools and universities in a raid in Kunduz. Has all the reconstruction work by the West, including Germany’s Bundeswehr armed forces, been in vain?
Ghani: I assure you, the women will no longer give up their rights here, nor do they need foreign advisers to represent them. Thirty percent of the administration are women, 58 percent of government officials are young, well-educated people under 40. Our army is a volunteer army. Afghan society has a lively discourse among itself; it makes sovereign decisions. I think this awareness in society is irreversible….
Ghani: I know I am only one bullet away from death. There have been many attempts on my life. But Afghanistan is not South Vietnam, and I did not come here in a coup. I was elected by the people. I’ve never had an American bodyguard or an American tank protecting me. Before I became president, I lived abroad for 28 years, and had a successful career. But I was not happy. No power in the world could persuade me to now get on a plane and leave this country. It is a country I love, and I will die defending...
The claim about being the world's largest producer of pine nuts seems also to be fantasy.
Will the chattering classes be prepared to forego their pine nuts in the cause of female emancipation under the Taliban?
Mr. Jessop, it's be interesting to try and assess the impact of the internet on socialisation.
I finally got around to reading EM Forster's The Machine Stops, and it's fantastically good. The pervasive Machine affecting how people communicate seems rather timely.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient
Except that women do expect to fulfil traditional female roles by marrying someone who earns more than them ("the kind of men that single women likely would marry, if they married... had nearly a 55 percent higher income than what the available men in the U.S. actually make"). Couple that with the fact that women rate 80% of men as being uglier than average (whereas male opinions are 'surprisingly charitable: a woman is as likely to be considered extremely ugly as extremely beautiful, and the majority of women have been rated about “medium.”'), and you have an explanation of why the Gini coefficent of the online dating economy is equivalent to Western Europe for women and South Africa for men.
The last two links are interesting. But given the source of the studies (dating apps/websites) I wonder whether the men and women who use dating apps differ - i.e. do men turn to dating apps due to a lack of success in attracting females while women turn to dating apps in the hope of getting matched up with someone who actually share their interests, rather than hitting on them only for their looks.
Possibly a complete mischaracterisation, but it's not a given that the objective characteristics of men and women on dating apps are the same.
I've never used a dating app, but I did once go speed dating. I would say that the women there covered a fairly representative range of attractiveness, but the men were probably mostly towards the less physically attractive end of the spectrum.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
On a personal level, I have the same broad outlook as you in terms of relationships. However, I just don't buy that INCELs are a bunch of frustrated Phil Mitchell style hardmen.
Your explanatory framework of women becoming more liberal does not adequately explain things like the 'tradwife' phenomenon.
On a personal level I know a lot of men who are single, acceptably woke in their opinions, in their late 30s/40's, very gainfully employed but who simply don't have long term relationships and don't really talk about women in the way that they used to. It is an alarmingly high proportion of my friendship group from university - something like over 50%. There is something going on here which goes far beyond the narrative of an estranged patriarchy.
As I said, I don't think it's the whole story; but it might be an important factor, all combining to form the phenomenon.
Tradwife is an interesting counter-example as well. I'll have to have a think about it.
Appalling mess of Afghanistan. An absolute unmitigated disaster.
Whether or not you believe that it was right to be involved 20 years ago is moot. That doesn't excuse the disgraceful manner in which we have dumped on the people by pulling out at such breakneck speed.
It's a disgrace.
The speed at which we withdrew makes little difference. The actions that could have made things different are:
1) Not going in 2) Staying much longer 3) Doing a better job at reconstructing society over 20 years
1 and 2 come with their own costs and problems. 3 is where we should try and learn, for our next adventure at nation building which will probably come along somewhere as attitudes change again in about another 15-20 years time. We won't have learnt those lessons.
1.
1 every time.
Agreed. The biggest error by far was going in and staying in. Biden's instincts on this were correct all along. The messy chaotic exit is trivial in comparison in terms of lives lost and money wasted. I think he made the right call and will get support for it.
I suspect the Taliban have widespread support in Afghanistan expelling the foreigners and taking back control - hence their rapid victory.
I don't like their treatment of women or the potential for exporting terrorism but it is no worse than the House of Saud who we recognise and supply with arms.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
Much online porn is based on guys treating women like objects to be subjugated. Control, not erotica is what marks out most of it. If this is what they are seeing whilst still virgins, it doesn't augur well for them when these virgins do get a woman into bed....
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
Porn gives men unrealistic expectations of women. Romantic comedies give women unrealistic expectations of men.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
Much online porn is based on guys treating women like objects to be subjugated. Control, not erotica is what marks out most of it. If this is what they are seeing whilst still virgins, it doesn't augur well for them when these virgins do get a woman into bed....
Incels don't get women into bed. That is kind of the point.
And you would be shocked at what is done in the bedroom by some men who are highly successful with women.
Appalling mess of Afghanistan. An absolute unmitigated disaster.
Whether or not you believe that it was right to be involved 20 years ago is moot. That doesn't excuse the disgraceful manner in which we have dumped on the people by pulling out at such breakneck speed.
It's a disgrace.
The speed at which we withdrew makes little difference. The actions that could have made things different are:
1) Not going in 2) Staying much longer 3) Doing a better job at reconstructing society over 20 years
1 and 2 come with their own costs and problems. 3 is where we should try and learn, for our next adventure at nation building which will probably come along somewhere as attitudes change again in about another 15-20 years time. We won't have learnt those lessons.
1.
1 every time.
The problem with not going in was al Qaeda. The US had just suffered a massive attack that cost the lives of thousands of civilians: and that was just the latest in a series of such attacks. al Qaeda and bin Laden were not going to just disappear, and they were not being dealt with. The Taliban were harbouring them, and admitted it.
So: how could we have tackled these evil people *without* going in? Bomb them from the air? Or should we just have sat back and let more and more attacks occur?
(All as I recall, might have misremembered, etc.)
Bin Laden was killed by special operatives in Pakistan. Clear missions like that rather than the open ended "nation building" nonsense we had in Afghanistan. We're not there to make any friends, if the Al-Qaeda camps need firebombing, do that then get out.
Problem being that AQ weren't living in 'camps' vulnerable to fire bombing but in heavily fortified mountain caves that required a ground operation to flush out:
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
Much online porn is based on guys treating women like objects to be subjugated. Control, not erotica is what marks out most of it. If this is what they are seeing whilst still virgins, it doesn't augur well for them when these virgins do get a woman into bed....
Incels don't get women into bed. That is kind of the point.
And you would be shocked at what is done in the bedroom by some men who are highly successful with women.
Oh, I wouldn't be shocked. From Presidents* to professional footballers.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
Isn't the main influence of pornography on the youth of today the expectation (for both sexes) to be as hairless as a sphinx cat ?
I always think Turkey an interesting case, as a bellwether of democracy and religion. It has some of the characteristics of what might be described as a fundamentally religious culture, but also had a dictator and a cult of personality for a hundred years who tried to eradicate or restrict this. On the east side, a society not too far dissimilar from Afghanistan's, and on the west and north-west coasts, a large metropolitan secular population, a proportion of whom are also in fact curiously descended from the very first progenitors of democracy, as muslim-converted greeks from Ionia and the surrounding areas. It's moved broadly with the political-religious trends of the 80's and 90's, of the rest of the Muslim world, but where it goes next will be significant.
Coincidentally I am writing this at a cafe directly underneath the Parthenon. Sipping a decent but not brilliant Cretan white
If I look up from my iPad I can see the chiselled golden pillars of the famous temple, the birthplace of western democracy
Poignant
Hard to imagine a worse advertisement for unfettered democracy than Athens. It lurched from one judicial murder to another on a kind of "The Sun says: String 'em up!" basis. Exactly this happened to Pericles' son https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles_the_Younger before anybody starts giving it large about that bloody funeral oration. Pericles himself was a grade A c--t who paid for the Parthenon out of money extorted out of Athens' "allies" by barefaced imperialism (which is why it's fun to troll the modern Greeks by pointing out that if we return their marbles it's only fair to return a substantial proportion of them to the cities of Western Turkey which paid for them in the first place). In the same year as he made that tedious oration, he got a decree passed which had the remarkable rider that anyone proposing the repeal of the decree (in the same assembly as passed it in the first place) should be put to death - probably still the single most barefaced and cynical abuse of democracy in the history of the institution at least till 2016. And his response to the Spartan invasion of Attica was the utterly insane zero-Lacedaimonian, permanent lockdown policy of evacuating the entire country into the city of Athens, with the inevitable financial ruin, depression and plague that you'd expect. And the final outcome of the war he started, well after his death, was the utter destruction of Athens. A real Boris Johnson of a leader.
Would that be like a strategic oil deterrent? A stroke of genius!
David Wallace Lockhart @BBCDavidWL Have deleted an earlier tweet saying Scot Office minister David Duguid said it was possible Cambo gas could be retrieved, put into barrels, and then never used on #bbcgms - it was OIL he was talking about, not gas. 9:33 am · 16 Aug 2021·Twitter for iPhone
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
Much online porn is based on guys treating women like objects to be subjugated. Control, not erotica is what marks out most of it. If this is what they are seeing whilst still virgins, it doesn't augur well for them when these virgins do get a woman into bed....
True, but the vast majority of guys watch porn like this.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
On a personal level, I have the same broad outlook as you in terms of relationships. However, I just don't buy that INCELs are a bunch of frustrated Phil Mitchell style hardmen.
Your explanatory framework of women becoming more liberal does not adequately explain things like the 'tradwife' phenomenon.
On a personal level I know a lot of men who are single, acceptably woke in their opinions, in their late 30s/40's, very gainfully employed but who simply don't have long term relationships and don't really talk about women in the way that they used to. It is an alarmingly high proportion of my friendship group from university - something like over 50%. There is something going on here which goes far beyond the narrative of an estranged patriarchy.
I think online porn and online sexuality do play a huge part in this. There is a de-intimacizing process going on, which I think you can see working through culture. Until the 1990s and the internet era, there was a very important grey area between erotica and pornography, which often mixed up the romantic with the very explicitly sexual. The forces against this have come from left and right, particularly in the US - an excessively prurient and restrictive approach to erotica in mainstream film, for instance, often on grounds of supposed sexism, and which has then hypocritically driven underground a far more brutal porn culture - and pure commercial digital exploitation of the body, with no interest in emotional or imaginative context. In 1970s and 80's pornography people often kissed.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
BiB - But I don't think it is a turnoff to a lot of women. A few years old, but not that out of date:
What’s puzzling is that housework doesn’t seem to be following the same trends as other fronts in the struggle for equality. Over the last half-century, across the developed world, more and more women have gone to work, the gender pay gap has been steadily narrowing, and fathers have spent more and more time with their children. But the “housework gap” largely stopped narrowing in the 1980s. Men, it seems, conceded that they should be doing more than before – but then, having half-heartedly vacuumed the living room and passed a dampened cloth over the dining table, concluded that it was time for a nice sit-down. In Britain in 2016, according to the Office for National Statistics, women did almost 60% more of the unpaid work, on average, than men.
Ultimately, love is not rational. Why don't men do more of the housework? Because they don't have to and they know it. Maybe the incels would do it all (I wouldn't count on it, mind), but when a woman is looking at a man, she isn't wondering whether he'd dutifully do the cleaning.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
Much online porn is based on guys treating women like objects to be subjugated. Control, not erotica is what marks out most of it. If this is what they are seeing whilst still virgins, it doesn't augur well for them when these virgins do get a woman into bed....
True, but the vast majority of guys watch porn like this.
I'm not very au fait with the incel stuff, but a snippet I saw featured a guy who had a strange sense of entitlement, and corresponding confusion and anger when things weren't working out.
But then, I also know men online (not super well, but a bit) who have simply sworn off women. Not in an angry or misogynistic way, just not interested in romantic relationships.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
Porn may be a factor in fuelling misogyny, but presumably not fuelling the glut of unpartnered low-status men. If there are significant numbers of men without partners, presumably there are also a lot of unpartnered women. Are the unpartnered women at the high status end (larger numbers of high status women chasing the same number of high status men)? My theory is that online dating is a significant factor, though I haven't fully worked out how.
Would that be like a strategic oil deterrent? A stroke of genius!
David Wallace Lockhart @BBCDavidWL Have deleted an earlier tweet saying Scot Office minister David Duguid said it was possible Cambo gas could be retrieved, put into barrels, and then never used on #bbcgms - it was OIL he was talking about, not gas. 9:33 am · 16 Aug 2021·Twitter for iPhone
Some gas wells involve oil production as well - given the changeover from gas for generation won't be complete for a while, it might be the case that someone was talking about dual extraction from a field and not using the oil.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
Isn't the main influence of pornography on the youth of today the expectation (for both sexes) to be as hairless as a sphinx cat ?
Kids of today wouldn't know what to do with a growler....
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
BiB - But I don't think it is a turnoff to a lot of women. A few years old, but not that out of date:
What’s puzzling is that housework doesn’t seem to be following the same trends as other fronts in the struggle for equality. Over the last half-century, across the developed world, more and more women have gone to work, the gender pay gap has been steadily narrowing, and fathers have spent more and more time with their children. But the “housework gap” largely stopped narrowing in the 1980s. Men, it seems, conceded that they should be doing more than before – but then, having half-heartedly vacuumed the living room and passed a dampened cloth over the dining table, concluded that it was time for a nice sit-down. In Britain in 2016, according to the Office for National Statistics, women did almost 60% more of the unpaid work, on average, than men.
Ultimately, love is not rational. Why don't men do more of the housework? Because they don't have to and they know it. Maybe the incels would do it all (I wouldn't count on it, mind), but when a woman is looking at a man, she isn't wondering whether he'd dutifully do the cleaning.
Most women are just better at housework than men tbh.*
* Their boyfriend/husband won't do it "the right way"...
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
Much online porn is based on guys treating women like objects to be subjugated. Control, not erotica is what marks out most of it. If this is what they are seeing whilst still virgins, it doesn't augur well for them when these virgins do get a woman into bed....
True, but the vast majority of guys watch porn like this.
We have a new all-time Test record. Dom Sibley's was the 10th duck by an opener in a calendar year for England - the most by any team.
The depressing thing is I wouldn't be that much worse, and I play in my clubs third team in the League's 7th tier. And I was dropped for a game four weeks ago...
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
That's quite an offensive misreading of my point. Both men and women are responding to their own natural drives - I'm not applying value judgements to anyone, unlike you and your determination to make this a morality play.
The point is that the initial causative factor here is not a bunch of loser men who expect supermodels - aside from the post-rationalising internet bravado, these losers would happily have paired up with any woman available as in previous generations. The change now is a growing number of educationally and professionally successful women who will only pair up with men at least as successful as them. Given the most desirable men are, crudely, allocated to the prettiest girls not the cleverest, there are inevitably mismatches, and given women are far more able to look after themselves than men are, many of those successful women choose to go it alone, and the compensating adjustment on the male side of the 'market' happens down at the bottom. None of this is anyone's fault, it's just what's happening as everyone plays out the 'game' in their own best interests.
I'd happily see Porn banned, but it seems a complete red herring to me in this discussion given the men you're blaming never get near a womans bedroom anyway.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
Much online porn is based on guys treating women like objects to be subjugated. Control, not erotica is what marks out most of it. If this is what they are seeing whilst still virgins, it doesn't augur well for them when these virgins do get a woman into bed....
I have never understood this insistence that sex is not really about sex. Like seeing someone eating a Big Mac in under 10 seconds and explaining that of course it really has nothing to do with hunger, he wants to control and subjugate the hamburger. It's as if saying that rapists are motivated by lust is a kind of disguised way of defending them.
The best explanation I can think of is, it's a counter by the more homely type of feminist whose claim that All men are rapists is met with the thoroughly discourteous reply Well you're safe enough, love.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
BiB - But I don't think it is a turnoff to a lot of women. A few years old, but not that out of date:
What’s puzzling is that housework doesn’t seem to be following the same trends as other fronts in the struggle for equality. Over the last half-century, across the developed world, more and more women have gone to work, the gender pay gap has been steadily narrowing, and fathers have spent more and more time with their children. But the “housework gap” largely stopped narrowing in the 1980s. Men, it seems, conceded that they should be doing more than before – but then, having half-heartedly vacuumed the living room and passed a dampened cloth over the dining table, concluded that it was time for a nice sit-down. In Britain in 2016, according to the Office for National Statistics, women did almost 60% more of the unpaid work, on average, than men.
Ultimately, love is not rational. Why don't men do more of the housework? Because they don't have to and they know it. Maybe the incels would do it all (I wouldn't count on it, mind), but when a woman is looking at a man, she isn't wondering whether he'd dutifully do the cleaning.
Most women are just better at housework than men tbh.
That old chestnut! Don't want to do a job? Do it badly.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
Much online porn is based on guys treating women like objects to be subjugated. Control, not erotica is what marks out most of it. If this is what they are seeing whilst still virgins, it doesn't augur well for them when these virgins do get a woman into bed....
True, but the vast majority of guys watch porn like this.
I'm not very au fait with the incel stuff, but a snippet I saw featured a guy who had a strange sense of entitlement, and corresponding confusion and anger when things weren't working out.
But then, I also know men online (not super well, but a bit) who have simply sworn off women. Not in an angry or misogynistic way, just not interested in romantic relationships.
I know quite a few married men where from the outside it looks very much though that it is the wives are supremely dominant. In a number of cases the sort of language the women use towards their partners is verbal abuse. If the genders were reversed then it would cause an outcry. As it is women doing it though and men are the recipients it is not seen as a problem.
Middle aged men though have been trained to not complain and certainly never to do anything back. My personal belief is that there are a large number of middle-aged men who are in abusive relationships (vast majority probably solely verbal) but cannot see a way out. I would not be surprised if they do manage to get out of such a situation that they have no desire to go back!
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
Porn may be a factor in fuelling misogyny, but presumably not fuelling the glut of unpartnered low-status men. If there are significant numbers of men without partners, presumably there are also a lot of unpartnered women. Are the unpartnered women at the high status end (larger numbers of high status women chasing the same number of high status men)? My theory is that online dating is a significant factor, though I haven't fully worked out how.
I'm pretty sure that there are always 'winners' and 'losers' in the how men and women interact (thinking over history and over many different cultures). In the west we have idealised the monogamous heterosexual relationship through the church seemingly for ever, and it works for many/most. Of course there are many who are attracted to same sex or indeed both, but I don't believe its that high (even if evidence suggests its becoming more common). I love living in a society where women are equal with men (albeit imperfectly) and I am married to a successful professional. She currently earns a bit less than me, but it also 6/7 years younger, and I have pretty much always earned my 'age' in K per year, which pretty much fits for her too. Its hard to work out why people turn out the way they do, but I'm pretty sure a loving family with good examples helps.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
On a personal level, I have the same broad outlook as you in terms of relationships. However, I just don't buy that INCELs are a bunch of frustrated Phil Mitchell style hardmen.
Your explanatory framework of women becoming more liberal does not adequately explain things like the 'tradwife' phenomenon.
On a personal level I know a lot of men who are single, acceptably woke in their opinions, in their late 30s/40's, very gainfully employed but who simply don't have long term relationships and don't really talk about women in the way that they used to. It is an alarmingly high proportion of my friendship group from university - something like over 50%. There is something going on here which goes far beyond the narrative of an estranged patriarchy.
I think online porn and online sexuality do play a huge part in this. There is a de-intimacizing process going on, which I think you can see working through culture. Until the 1990s and the internet era, there was a very important grey area between erotica and pornography, which often mixed up the romantic with the very explicitly sexual. The forces against this have come from left and right, particularly in the US - an excessively prurient and restrictive approach to erotica in mainstream film, for instance, often on grounds of supposed sexism, and which has then hypocritically driven underground a far more brutal porn culture - and pure commercial digital exploitation of the body, with no interest in emotional or imaginative context. In 1970s and 80's pornography people often kissed.
I think there's something in that.
We are also inconsistent. Mainstream drama has also become more brutal and aggressive, and people love it.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
Much online porn is based on guys treating women like objects to be subjugated. Control, not erotica is what marks out most of it. If this is what they are seeing whilst still virgins, it doesn't augur well for them when these virgins do get a woman into bed....
True, but the vast majority of guys watch porn like this.
How would you know that?
Something like 80-90% of men watch or have watched p0rn, depending on the survey.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
That's quite an offensive misreading of my point. Both men and women are responding to their own natural drives - I'm not applying value judgements to anyone, unlike you and your determination to make this a morality play.
The point is that the initial causative factor here is not a bunch of loser men who expect supermodels - aside from the post-rationalising internet bravado, these losers would happily have paired up with any woman available as in previous generations. The change now is a growing number of educationally and professionally successful women who will only pair up with men at least as successful as them. Given the most desirable men are, crudely, allocated to the prettiest girls not the cleverest, there are inevitably mismatches, and given women are far more able to look after themselves than men are, many of those successful women choose to go it alone, and the compensating adjustment on the male side of the 'market' happens down at the bottom. None of this is anyone's fault, it's just what's happening as everyone plays out the 'game' in their own best interests.
I'd happily see Porn banned, but it seems a complete red herring to me in this discussion given the men you're blaming never get near a womans bedroom anyway.
I would say I think you're overreacting yourself, and should perhaps re-read what you wrote. I don't want a morality play; I'm trying to understand why some men have this problem. I don't see women as being the problem. Or most men, for that matter.
Your last paragraph is wrong IMO. Many (most?) of these men will be watching porn, and the attitude towards women is generally not health. Even if they don't get anywhere near a woman's bedroom, those attitudes will stick. In fact, it'll be worse for them, as they may not have real-life examples to counter it.
Porn is escapism, and the relationships it portrays are a fiction, not reality. The problem occurs when people think that every hitchhiker they meet should be up for sex, or even that they can pick up a beautiful woman on the street and offer her money for sex. Fake landlords, fake taxicabs, casting couches, etc. Then there are the darker sides of porn as well.
The genre I really don't understand is the stepsis/stepbro or stepmum/stepson. All a bit icky.
I blame whoever mentioned incels. Was it @Cyclefree , who when wisely ran off?
On a betting angle (because what more is there to be said on Afghanistan? It's a massive failure) does this have any impact on Biden? Not sure that it does. He looks a bit silly for the things that were said, but it's not his failure - neither he, nor the Democrats, took the US in to Afghanistan. His predecessor had committed to withdrawal and done some interesting deals with the Taliban, it seems. Not a great deal of mud that can be thrown that won't splatter back on the Republicans.
The one thing that could make a difference is if Afghanistan does once again become a terrorist breeding ground and that leads to attacks on US soil. Biden then might get the blame for actually taking the troops out in that case (attack ad: Bush did what was needed and kept us safe for 20 years, Biden threw it all away).
(Disclosure: I'm on Biden for a small amount for 2024 and a few of the more likely Dem outsiders at long odds as trading bets if he looks like he'll stand down)
Speaking as a(n I hope) more-or-less centrist Tory member, my perspective is that HYUFD is on the right wing end of the party in various areas - I wouldn't want policy in those areas being set by people who think like him, but he's just about within the range of reasonable opinions available. In other words, his views are useful to have in arriving at a compromise position that most people can accept, but mostly as an anchoring point. Like how if the fuel warning light on your car goes on then you should probably refill the tank at some point soon.
I envy the SNP, whose entire membership - if the small sample of views expressed on here is representative - consists almost entirely of extremists, thus ensuring the lunacy they come up with can be more easily mistaken for moderacy.
We like to think of it as focus, but I can understand that folk who have never had to budge an imperial power themselves might perceive us to be lunatics. Gandhi was a lunatic once.
Extremists we are not. You’re mixing us up with Irish republicans and the Orange Order.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
Porn may be a factor in fuelling misogyny, but presumably not fuelling the glut of unpartnered low-status men. If there are significant numbers of men without partners, presumably there are also a lot of unpartnered women. Are the unpartnered women at the high status end (larger numbers of high status women chasing the same number of high status men)? My theory is that online dating is a significant factor, though I haven't fully worked out how.
Might they be unpartnered because porn (and other factors) give them totally the wrong idea on how to end their unpartnered status?
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
Much online porn is based on guys treating women like objects to be subjugated. Control, not erotica is what marks out most of it. If this is what they are seeing whilst still virgins, it doesn't augur well for them when these virgins do get a woman into bed....
True, but the vast majority of guys watch porn like this.
How would you know that?
Something like 80-90% of men watch or have watched p0rn, depending on the survey.
"Have watched" is hugely, hugely different from "watch." Sample of 1, I have had the odd mooch around to see what's available (quite a lot seems to be the answer) so I have watched, but I don't watch - not out of virtue or lack of interest, but I find written erotica more stimulating than visual, in the same way as I'd rather read how to change the line on a strimmer than watch a youtube about it.
I have been reading an old history book on the Middle Ages which argues that one reason the Roman Empire fell in the West is that its citizens were unwilling to fight in its defence, they no longer believed that it delivered for them and they had no trust in its leadership.
This sounds painfully reminiscent not just of the situation in Afghanistan today, but I might dare say in Britain too.
We grow ever more cynical about our political leadership. We are discontented with a system that we believe is rigged against us. We are ever more divided against each other. How willing would we be to fight in our collective defence were that to be required?
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
Porn may be a factor in fuelling misogyny, but presumably not fuelling the glut of unpartnered low-status men. If there are significant numbers of men without partners, presumably there are also a lot of unpartnered women. Are the unpartnered women at the high status end (larger numbers of high status women chasing the same number of high status men)? My theory is that online dating is a significant factor, though I haven't fully worked out how.
I'm pretty sure that there are always 'winners' and 'losers' in the how men and women interact (thinking over history and over many different cultures). In the west we have idealised the monogamous heterosexual relationship through the church seemingly for ever, and it works for many/most. Of course there are many who are attracted to same sex or indeed both, but I don't believe its that high (even if evidence suggests its becoming more common). I love living in a society where women are equal with men (albeit imperfectly) and I am married to a successful professional. She currently earns a bit less than me, but it also 6/7 years younger, and I have pretty much always earned my 'age' in K per year, which pretty much fits for her too. Its hard to work out why people turn out the way they do, but I'm pretty sure a loving family with good examples helps.
Women are taking more of the white collar jobs out there and therefore it stands to reason that there are fewer equivalent white collar men. The pool of men is further shrunk by the fact some successful males are gay, and some successful white collar ethnic minority men ten to marry in their own (rather different) culture.
This kinda makes the pool of 'available' men pretty small, actually, unless women adapt and date down. I don't know any that have!
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
Porn may be a factor in fuelling misogyny, but presumably not fuelling the glut of unpartnered low-status men. If there are significant numbers of men without partners, presumably there are also a lot of unpartnered women. Are the unpartnered women at the high status end (larger numbers of high status women chasing the same number of high status men)? My theory is that online dating is a significant factor, though I haven't fully worked out how.
Might they be unpartnered because porn (and other factors) give them totally the wrong idea on how to end their unpartnered status?
There's been a shift in the landscape recently, most of the stuff out there is now "community" - couples with a smartphone and a stand rather than anything professionally produced......
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
Porn may be a factor in fuelling misogyny, but presumably not fuelling the glut of unpartnered low-status men. If there are significant numbers of men without partners, presumably there are also a lot of unpartnered women. Are the unpartnered women at the high status end (larger numbers of high status women chasing the same number of high status men)? My theory is that online dating is a significant factor, though I haven't fully worked out how.
Might they be unpartnered because porn (and other factors) give them totally the wrong idea on how to end their unpartnered status?
There's been a shift in the landscape recently, most of the stuff out there is now "community" - couples with a smartphone and a stand rather than anything professionally produced......
The whole industry basically moved to OnlyFans during the pandemic - and surprisingly found a massive market for people willing to pay for the stuff. The main difference is that it’s now the girls making the big money, rather than the studios.
ALEX Salmond has claimed Scotland could get rid of Trident on “day one” of independence despite previously accepting it would take years.......
The timetable, which is intended to highlight differences with the SNP’s more gradual approach, is at odds with the one Mr Salmond endorsed while in government.
Well he's not wrong. All the Scottish government would have to do is deny access to the MoD vehicles carrying the 'physics package' to Coulport. It would certainly be rash and highly provocative but it would be the end of Trident in Scotland.
Indeed. What would the RN do? Fight their way from Gretna to Coulport, and back again.
Only other option is by sea, and I’d have thought they’d just move the whole shebang pronto to either Falmouth or the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
Porn may be a factor in fuelling misogyny, but presumably not fuelling the glut of unpartnered low-status men. If there are significant numbers of men without partners, presumably there are also a lot of unpartnered women. Are the unpartnered women at the high status end (larger numbers of high status women chasing the same number of high status men)? My theory is that online dating is a significant factor, though I haven't fully worked out how.
Might they be unpartnered because porn (and other factors) give them totally the wrong idea on how to end their unpartnered status?
There's been a shift in the landscape recently, most of the stuff out there is now "community" - couples with a smartphone and a stand rather than anything professionally produced......
The whole industry basically moved to OnlyFans during the pandemic - and surprisingly found a massive market for people willing to pay for the stuff. The main difference is that it’s now the girls making the big money, rather than the studios.
Lol Onlyfans, you can get almost any sort of porn for free but the pretence of a relationship is something that commands big bucks online now. Pornhub is a far more 'honest' website than Onlyfans....
I have been reading an old history book on the Middle Ages which argues that one reason the Roman Empire fell in the West is that its citizens were unwilling to fight in its defence, they no longer believed that it delivered for them and they had no trust in its leadership.
This sounds painfully reminiscent not just of the situation in Afghanistan today, but I might dare say in Britain too.
We grow ever more cynical about our political leadership. We are discontented with a system that we believe is rigged against us. We are ever more divided against each other. How willing would we be to fight in our collective defence were that to be required?
Didn't they also employ quite a few mercenaries who, when push came to shove, just weren't either up for it or up to it.
I always think Turkey an interesting case, as a bellwether of democracy and religion. It has some of the characteristics of what might be described as a fundamentally religious culture, but also had a dictator and a cult of personality for a hundred years who tried to eradicate or restrict this. On the east side, a society not too far dissimilar from Afghanistan's, and on the west and north-west coasts, a large metropolitan secular population, a proportion of whom are also in fact curiously descended from the very first progenitors of democracy, as muslim-converted greeks from Ionia and the surrounding areas. It's moved broadly with the political-religious trends of the 80's and 90's, of the rest of the Muslim world, but where it goes next will be significant.
Coincidentally I am writing this at a cafe directly underneath the Parthenon. Sipping a decent but not brilliant Cretan white
If I look up from my iPad I can see the chiselled golden pillars of the famous temple, the birthplace of western democracy
Poignant
Athens the birthplace not only of western democracy but of the Socratic method. @kinbalu was having a bit of a dig yesterday about whether 'logical thinking' was a purely western characteristic. I would argue that 'logical thinking' stems from the philosophy of ancient Athens, and particular Socrates and his successors, in which no question was off limits; in which every statement could be met with 'why?'. This is not a way of looking at the world held everywhere, even in the west, and certainly hasn't always been held in the west. But I would argue that those cultures which are free to ask why (like the west, at its best) are better than those which are not (like Wahabbi Islam).
Well, being annoying in that way certainly got Socrates his jar of hemlock.
When Leon gets back from the Acropolis, I must ask him if he got to see the Assembly on the Pnyx hill.
Midday drinkies seem to be impeding the grand tour somewhat.
You’ll be relieved to hear I made it up and down the Acropolis and am now having a ‘refreshing’ ouzo overlooking the Ancient Agora, which I intend to visit next. Probably.
Why is ouzo delicious and welcoming in Greece. Yet repulsive if drunk anywhere else?
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
Yes, the problem is radical Islam
Blaming Afghanistan on men is like blaming the early Soviet Union on Jews (who comprised so much of the first politburo)
If you think that women are only oppressed or discriminated against by radical Islam, think again.
The issue HERE is primarily radical Islam
I do not deny misogyny is a deeply rooted problem around the world, tho in the west we seem to be sliding into misandry
However broad brush descriptions like yours are not that helpful in situations like this. When it is clear that a radicalized form of Islam is destroying lives and nations just as it has all around this region for decades
It's not even "radical" Islam. Radical Islam is obviously the problem for terrorism, but for misogyny these views are standard for mainstream, your-local-mosque Islam. I challenge anyone on here to find me three Imams worldwide who condemn Mohammed's consummation of marriage with a nine year old. Views on women having to cover their bodies to prevent men from sinning are almost as prevalent. This is the blindness and eggshell walking that stops us actually tackling the issue at its root. Islam, mainstream Islam, has some really bad ideas. It is never going to reform into a modern, pluralistic religion until we actually have out this argument. But if you do that, you are a bigot.
One doesn't have to formally condemn something that happened to not condone its repetition in the modern age under different circumstances. One can just recognise that the past has happened, and the rules now are different.
But if you can accept a nine year old girl should be in an intimate relationship with a 50 year old man in some circumstances and times, doesn't that speak to a pretty clear fundamental view about the role of women? And this wishy, washy "child marriage is ok, even great in some time periods" is also completely exposed to the argument about some future time period or society (i.e. an Islamic state) making it acceptable again. Besides, Islam claims to be the final moral message for eternity.
The only way past this is for Muhammed's marriage to be condemned. And the various Koranic passages saying female POWs can be taken as sex slaves.
No, it doesn't. Religions can - and do - exist indefinitely in a state of cognitive dissonance between what was, and what is. Christianity does not need to condemn the Crusades and the existence of blood libels in order to have functional relationships with other religions in the here and now. The State of Israel is not trying to use Old Testament passages about slavery in order to reinstate it as a punishment for theft.
The problem is not intrinsic to Islam - it's just that so many of the followers are poor and uneducated, and their leaders are hell bent on keeping them that way. Because they know what will happen if they can't - the followers will demand change, and the demands will be ultimately irresistible.
Just a quick (unfashionable) comment on the Crusades. They are used as a Pavlovian and obvious example of the church/Christianity/religion being in the wrong. They seem to me a less good example than some others.
In brief the Crusades were repeated attempts to conquer and control, on behalf of mostly western Christendom, parts of the world which had earlier been conquered and put under the control of others, Islamists in particular (though the history of Jerusalem from about 1500 BCE onwards and continuing gives a generous variety of forces a turn).
In principle I can't see how any party in this egregious totality of medieval wicked nonsense is more or less culpable than any other. What can be conquered by X can be conquered by Y. X can have no complaint against Y, and any third party Z might see them all as equals.
I'm not very au fait with the incel stuff, but a snippet I saw featured a guy who had a strange sense of entitlement, and corresponding confusion and anger when things weren't working out.
But then, I also know men online (not super well, but a bit) who have simply sworn off women. Not in an angry or misogynistic way, just not interested in romantic relationships.
I know quite a few married men where from the outside it looks very much though that it is the wives are supremely dominant. In a number of cases the sort of language the women use towards their partners is verbal abuse. If the genders were reversed then it would cause an outcry. As it is women doing it though and men are the recipients it is not seen as a problem.
Middle aged men though have been trained to not complain and certainly never to do anything back. My personal belief is that there are a large number of middle-aged men who are in abusive relationships (vast majority probably solely verbal) but cannot see a way out. I would not be surprised if they do manage to get out of such a situation that they have no desire to go back!
I absolutely agree with this, and know one example well myself (not me, I hasten to add). The henpecked husband is, and always has been, very real.
It's also why I think saying men are always the culprits of marital abuse (as many do, including some MPs) is utterly wrong-headed.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
On a personal level, I have the same broad outlook as you in terms of relationships. However, I just don't buy that INCELs are a bunch of frustrated Phil Mitchell style hardmen.
Your explanatory framework of women becoming more liberal does not adequately explain things like the 'tradwife' phenomenon.
On a personal level I know a lot of men who are single, acceptably woke in their opinions, in their late 30s/40's, very gainfully employed but who simply don't have long term relationships and don't really talk about women in the way that they used to. It is an alarmingly high proportion of my friendship group from university - something like over 50%. There is something going on here which goes far beyond the narrative of an estranged patriarchy.
I think online porn and online sexuality do play a huge part in this. There is a de-intimacizing process going on, which I think you can see working through culture. Until the 1990s and the internet era, there was a very important grey area between erotica and pornography, which often mixed up the romantic with the very explicitly sexual. The forces against this have come from left and right, particularly in the US - an excessively prurient and restrictive approach to erotica in mainstream film, for instance, often on grounds of supposed sexism, and which has then hypocritically driven underground a far more brutal porn culture - and pure commercial digital exploitation of the body, with no interest in emotional or imaginative context. In 1970s and 80's pornography people often kissed.
I think there's something in that.
We are also inconsistent. Mainstream drama has also become more brutal and aggressive, and people love it.
Why do you think Game of Thrones was so popular?
There's a definite problem, of increasing brutality in mainstream TV and cinema, and increasingly hypocritical shunting away of sex from mainstream TV and film by both puritans and misguided progressives - again, particularly in the US.
However, the problem isn't only confined to the US. The Guardian, for instance, increasingly enjoys policing any appearances of what it thinks are sexist depiction of sexuality on cinema and tv, while the other day it was celebrating that the new wave of british films "that would once have been called video nasties is a great thing". Meanwhile, Channel 4, which once used to broadcast arthouse erotica to young boys under its "red triangle" series, runs far from anything like that nowadays, but is about to launch its own "true crime" channel.
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
That's quite an offensive misreading of my point. Both men and women are responding to their own natural drives - I'm not applying value judgements to anyone, unlike you and your determination to make this a morality play.
The point is that the initial causative factor here is not a bunch of loser men who expect supermodels - aside from the post-rationalising internet bravado, these losers would happily have paired up with any woman available as in previous generations. The change now is a growing number of educationally and professionally successful women who will only pair up with men at least as successful as them. Given the most desirable men are, crudely, allocated to the prettiest girls not the cleverest, there are inevitably mismatches, and given women are far more able to look after themselves than men are, many of those successful women choose to go it alone, and the compensating adjustment on the male side of the 'market' happens down at the bottom. None of this is anyone's fault, it's just what's happening as everyone plays out the 'game' in their own best interests.
I'd happily see Porn banned, but it seems a complete red herring to me in this discussion given the men you're blaming never get near a womans bedroom anyway.
I would say I think you're overreacting yourself, and should perhaps re-read what you wrote. I don't want a morality play; I'm trying to understand why some men have this problem. I don't see women as being the problem. Or most men, for that matter.
Your last paragraph is wrong IMO. Many (most?) of these men will be watching porn, and the attitude towards women is generally not health. Even if they don't get anywhere near a woman's bedroom, those attitudes will stick. In fact, it'll be worse for them, as they may not have real-life examples to counter it.
Porn is escapism, and the relationships it portrays are a fiction, not reality. The problem occurs when people think that every hitchhiker they meet should be up for sex, or even that they can pick up a beautiful woman on the street and offer her money for sex. Fake landlords, fake taxicabs, casting couches, etc. Then there are the darker sides of porn as well.
The genre I really don't understand is the stepsis/stepbro or stepmum/stepson. All a bit icky.
None of my posts have blamed anyone or introduced any concept of fault. You ignored the vast bulk of what I wrote to again try to start a discussion about pornography which seems purient at best, so I'll leave you to it.
As to why some men have this problem, it is blindingly obvious. Supply and demand. Women play the selective role in human mating, so when some women choose not to pair up it creates an imbalance which, absent polygamy, necessarily leads to some men finding themselves in excess supply and of no value in the dating market. Again, before you get excited, no one's fault, just how it is.
I always think Turkey an interesting case, as a bellwether of democracy and religion. It has some of the characteristics of what might be described as a fundamentally religious culture, but also had a dictator and a cult of personality for a hundred years who tried to eradicate or restrict this. On the east side, a society not too far dissimilar from Afghanistan's, and on the west and north-west coasts, a large metropolitan secular population, a proportion of whom are also in fact curiously descended from the very first progenitors of democracy, as muslim-converted greeks from Ionia and the surrounding areas. It's moved broadly with the political-religious trends of the 80's and 90's, of the rest of the Muslim world, but where it goes next will be significant.
Coincidentally I am writing this at a cafe directly underneath the Parthenon. Sipping a decent but not brilliant Cretan white
If I look up from my iPad I can see the chiselled golden pillars of the famous temple, the birthplace of western democracy
Poignant
Athens the birthplace not only of western democracy but of the Socratic method. @kinbalu was having a bit of a dig yesterday about whether 'logical thinking' was a purely western characteristic. I would argue that 'logical thinking' stems from the philosophy of ancient Athens, and particular Socrates and his successors, in which no question was off limits; in which every statement could be met with 'why?'. This is not a way of looking at the world held everywhere, even in the west, and certainly hasn't always been held in the west. But I would argue that those cultures which are free to ask why (like the west, at its best) are better than those which are not (like Wahabbi Islam).
Kinabalu was correcting your fundamental misreading of Kinabalu's point in the exchange he was having with fruity Leon.
Well that was fair enough.
I think I just thought it an interesting, though probably rather tangential, point that 'rationalism' is kind of a western (though not exclusively) philosophy rather than necessarily a universal one.
Could be the case, I don't know enough to opine really. I was more thinking of it at the individual level. Is your typical Westerner a more logical thinker than the global average in this regard? And that sounds wrong to me. Any case the cross purposes arose because you were trying to PB at the same time as cooking a roast dinner. So I just hope your Yorkshires weren't ruined. 🙂
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
That's quite an offensive misreading of my point. Both men and women are responding to their own natural drives - I'm not applying value judgements to anyone, unlike you and your determination to make this a morality play.
The point is that the initial causative factor here is not a bunch of loser men who expect supermodels - aside from the post-rationalising internet bravado, these losers would happily have paired up with any woman available as in previous generations. The change now is a growing number of educationally and professionally successful women who will only pair up with men at least as successful as them. Given the most desirable men are, crudely, allocated to the prettiest girls not the cleverest, there are inevitably mismatches, and given women are far more able to look after themselves than men are, many of those successful women choose to go it alone, and the compensating adjustment on the male side of the 'market' happens down at the bottom. None of this is anyone's fault, it's just what's happening as everyone plays out the 'game' in their own best interests.
I'd happily see Porn banned, but it seems a complete red herring to me in this discussion given the men you're blaming never get near a womans bedroom anyway.
I would say I think you're overreacting yourself, and should perhaps re-read what you wrote. I don't want a morality play; I'm trying to understand why some men have this problem. I don't see women as being the problem. Or most men, for that matter.
Your last paragraph is wrong IMO. Many (most?) of these men will be watching porn, and the attitude towards women is generally not health. Even if they don't get anywhere near a woman's bedroom, those attitudes will stick. In fact, it'll be worse for them, as they may not have real-life examples to counter it.
Porn is escapism, and the relationships it portrays are a fiction, not reality. The problem occurs when people think that every hitchhiker they meet should be up for sex, or even that they can pick up a beautiful woman on the street and offer her money for sex. Fake landlords, fake taxicabs, casting couches, etc. Then there are the darker sides of porn as well.
The genre I really don't understand is the stepsis/stepbro or stepmum/stepson. All a bit icky.
None of my posts have blamed anyone or introduced any concept of fault. You ignored the vast bulk of what I wrote to again try to start a discussion about pornography which seems purient at best, so I'll leave you to it.
As to why some men have this problem, it is blindingly obvious. Supply and demand. Women play the selective role in human mating, so when some women choose not to pair up it creates an imbalance which, absent polygamy, necessarily leads to some men finding themselves in excess supply and of no value in the dating market. Again, before you get excited, no one's fault, just how it is.
Again, I refer you to what you wrote; in particular, the bit I quoted back.
I also disagree with the rest of what you wrote above; it seems to be generalising to absurdity.
But I don't think we're going to get anywhere in this conversation ...
I always think Turkey an interesting case, as a bellwether of democracy and religion. It has some of the characteristics of what might be described as a fundamentally religious culture, but also had a dictator and a cult of personality for a hundred years who tried to eradicate or restrict this. On the east side, a society not too far dissimilar from Afghanistan's, and on the west and north-west coasts, a large metropolitan secular population, a proportion of whom are also in fact curiously descended from the very first progenitors of democracy, as muslim-converted greeks from Ionia and the surrounding areas. It's moved broadly with the political-religious trends of the 80's and 90's, of the rest of the Muslim world, but where it goes next will be significant.
Coincidentally I am writing this at a cafe directly underneath the Parthenon. Sipping a decent but not brilliant Cretan white
If I look up from my iPad I can see the chiselled golden pillars of the famous temple, the birthplace of western democracy
Poignant
Athens the birthplace not only of western democracy but of the Socratic method. @kinbalu was having a bit of a dig yesterday about whether 'logical thinking' was a purely western characteristic. I would argue that 'logical thinking' stems from the philosophy of ancient Athens, and particular Socrates and his successors, in which no question was off limits; in which every statement could be met with 'why?'. This is not a way of looking at the world held everywhere, even in the west, and certainly hasn't always been held in the west. But I would argue that those cultures which are free to ask why (like the west, at its best) are better than those which are not (like Wahabbi Islam).
Well, being annoying in that way certainly got Socrates his jar of hemlock.
When Leon gets back from the Acropolis, I must ask him if he got to see the Assembly on the Pnyx hill.
Midday drinkies seem to be impeding the grand tour somewhat.
You’ll be relieved to hear I made it up and down the Acropolis and am now having a ‘refreshing’ ouzo overlooking the Ancient Agora, which I intend to visit next. Probably.
Why is ouzo delicious and welcoming in Greece. Yet repulsive if drunk anywhere else?
Very true, see also Goldwasser, Pastis, Grappa etc. I actually like vodka but not straight, however if I ever get to Russia I'm sure I'd be knocking it back with gay abandon after going a round with the birch twigs.
I have been reading an old history book on the Middle Ages which argues that one reason the Roman Empire fell in the West is that its citizens were unwilling to fight in its defence, they no longer believed that it delivered for them and they had no trust in its leadership.
This sounds painfully reminiscent not just of the situation in Afghanistan today, but I might dare say in Britain too.
We grow ever more cynical about our political leadership. We are discontented with a system that we believe is rigged against us. We are ever more divided against each other. How willing would we be to fight in our collective defence were that to be required?
Didn't they also employ quite a few mercenaries who, when push came to shove, just weren't either up for it or up to it.
What does seem painfully true is that the sorts of Afghans western governments and western media talk to were content for someone else to fight for their freedoms but have proved remarkably unwilling so far to do the same themselves despite having 20 years to build a government and armed forces to defend a society made safe for moderates.
[snip] .. but I find written erotica more stimulating than visual, in the same way as I'd rather read how to change the line on a strimmer than watch a youtube about it.
Speaking as a(n I hope) more-or-less centrist Tory member, my perspective is that HYUFD is on the right wing end of the party in various areas - I wouldn't want policy in those areas being set by people who think like him, but he's just about within the range of reasonable opinions available. In other words, his views are useful to have in arriving at a compromise position that most people can accept, but mostly as an anchoring point. Like how if the fuel warning light on your car goes on then you should probably refill the tank at some point soon.
I envy the SNP, whose entire membership - if the small sample of views expressed on here is representative - consists almost entirely of extremists, thus ensuring the lunacy they come up with can be more easily mistaken for moderacy.
We like to think of it as focus, but I can understand that folk who have never had to budge an imperial power themselves might perceive us to be lunatics. Gandhi was a lunatic once.
Extremists we are not. You’re mixing us up with Irish republicans and the Orange Order.
'Imperial power'? When did India elect MPs at Westminster like Scotland does? When was Gandhi ever a First Minister under British rule like Sturgeon is within the UK?
I always think Turkey an interesting case, as a bellwether of democracy and religion. It has some of the characteristics of what might be described as a fundamentally religious culture, but also had a dictator and a cult of personality for a hundred years who tried to eradicate or restrict this. On the east side, a society not too far dissimilar from Afghanistan's, and on the west and north-west coasts, a large metropolitan secular population, a proportion of whom are also in fact curiously descended from the very first progenitors of democracy, as muslim-converted greeks from Ionia and the surrounding areas. It's moved broadly with the political-religious trends of the 80's and 90's, of the rest of the Muslim world, but where it goes next will be significant.
Coincidentally I am writing this at a cafe directly underneath the Parthenon. Sipping a decent but not brilliant Cretan white
If I look up from my iPad I can see the chiselled golden pillars of the famous temple, the birthplace of western democracy
Poignant
Athens the birthplace not only of western democracy but of the Socratic method. @kinbalu was having a bit of a dig yesterday about whether 'logical thinking' was a purely western characteristic. I would argue that 'logical thinking' stems from the philosophy of ancient Athens, and particular Socrates and his successors, in which no question was off limits; in which every statement could be met with 'why?'. This is not a way of looking at the world held everywhere, even in the west, and certainly hasn't always been held in the west. But I would argue that those cultures which are free to ask why (like the west, at its best) are better than those which are not (like Wahabbi Islam).
Kinabalu was correcting your fundamental misreading of Kinabalu's point in the exchange he was having with fruity Leon.
Well that was fair enough.
I think I just thought it an interesting, though probably rather tangential, point that 'rationalism' is kind of a western (though not exclusively) philosophy rather than necessarily a universal one.
Could be the case, I don't know enough to opine really. I was more thinking of it at the individual level. Is your typical Westerner a more logical thinker than the global average in this regard? And that sounds wrong to me. Any case the cross purposes arose because you were trying to PB at the same time as cooking a roast dinner. So I just hope your Yorkshires weren't ruined. 🙂
One of the reasons I got a little irritated by you, in that argument, is because YOU deliberately or stupidly misread my original opinion - such is your tedious determination to sniff out unwoke attitudes which you can then laboriously denounce, and thereby feel smug
I blame whoever mentioned incels. Was it @Cyclefree , who when wisely ran off?
On a betting angle (because what more is there to be said on Afghanistan? It's a massive failure) does this have any impact on Biden? Not sure that it does. He looks a bit silly for the things that were said, but it's not his failure - neither he, nor the Democrats, took the US in to Afghanistan. His predecessor had committed to withdrawal and done some interesting deals with the Taliban, it seems. Not a great deal of mud that can be thrown that won't splatter back on the Republicans.
The one thing that could make a difference is if Afghanistan does once again become a terrorist breeding ground and that leads to attacks on US soil. Biden then might get the blame for actually taking the troops out in that case (attack ad: Bush did what was needed and kept us safe for 20 years, Biden threw it all away).
(Disclosure: I'm on Biden for a small amount for 2024 and a few of the more likely Dem outsiders at long odds as trading bets if he looks like he'll stand down)
Agree with some of that but your 4th paragraph is going to terrify Democratic strategists every day until polling day now ie the fear of another major terrorist attack on the US on their watch having potentially abandoned Afghanistan to terrorists
"Nothing more clearly indicated what the mullahs thought of women than their early decision to reduce the age of consent to 9. Why do men – especially religious / revolutionary men – feel so threatened by women deciding for themselves what to do with their lives?"
I admire Cyclefree a lot, but here we see woke ideology infiltrating the minds of even solid liberals. The fault for such a disgusting decision is being laid at "men" rather than "Islam" because the former have been tagged as "privileged" and the latter are seen as "oppressed".
The vast majority of men in the West are as disgusted at the thought of relations with nine year olds as women are. But the problem here is that a certain 7th Century Prophet married a six year old and consummated that marriage at nine. The religion he founded holds up this marriage as the most esteemed of all. You will not find an Imam in good standing anywhere in the world that condemns this act. This is true for Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi, Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi thought.
THAT is the problem. Not the fragility of men. And yet we have got ourselves tied up in this simplistic ideology of seeing everything in terms of identity groups with varying scores of "marginalization" that blinds us to the obvious. When what we should be doing is seeing the world in terms of individuals and competing ideas. And ideas are not all equally valid as different people's "my reality". Some ideas are good and make the world better, some ideas are bad and make it worse. Criticism of bad ideas should not be seen as "bigotry" because the bad ideas are held by a "marginalized" group.
I very much do see what the mullahs and the Taliban did as an issue with Islam. But without wishing to derail the thread there are other issues going in the world right now - in this country even - which show that it is not just Muslim men who think that women primarily exist to serve men.
Might I remind you, for instance of the Incel movement?
The incel movement, along with the woke movement and the increasing emphasis on transgender rights, could perhaps be seen as evidence of how much our society has become feminist in outlook. But this comes at a point where other societies become more patriarchial and traditional in outlook: Afghanistan is just one example of this trend.
The question this poses is how stable is such a modern society in the face of external threats. We are mocking the men at Kabul airport for not wanting to fight the taliban but really, who is willing to fight to defend our own society? If men feel alienated and excluded from society, they are less likely to fight to defend it.
The incel movement and transgender rights are not evidence of feminism. Quite the opposite. They are male movements which will harm women. Old wine in new bottles. One believes that men are owed sex by women. The other believes that it knows better than women what womanhood is. Neither are remotely feminist.
And now I must be off.
The answer to the question in my header is no.
Have a nice day all.
The point is that there are lots of men who want nothing more to do with women - how can this be reconciled with the assertion that we live in a patiarchial society?
Transgender rights - this at least partially (but not exclusively) about men wanting the ability to renounce their biological sex and identify as women.
To me this is evidence that society has become more feminist (or feminine) in terms of its dominant values and outlook.
I might be mis-reading you here, but are you saying Incels want nothing to do with women? Surely that's not right. A defining feature of Incels are that they *do* want sexual (and romantic) relationships with women and are angry/bitter at their inability to do so. They aren't an abstinence movement.
I known little about the incel movement - but my understanding is the same as yours - IE men voluntarily withdrawing from interactions with women on the basis that they are experiencing continuous rejection, for which they blame the dominant values of society. My point is that the mere existence of this group is evidence that we are not living in a particularly effective patriarchy. Furthermore, rather than seeing these people as being worthy of sympathy and help, the emerging policy approach seems to be to try and criminalise such expressions as hate speech. None of this is going to solve the problem of division in society, which contributes to the overall decline in coherance and social stability.
There's probably an issue with men joining the Incel 'movement' for a wide variety of reasons. IANAE either, but I do think the patriarchy plays an important role in it.
Many men in this country and raised with a rather (ahem) old-fashioned view of women and relationships. To exaggerate: men have to be Phil Mitchell-style hardmen, telling 'their' women what to do, and expecting dinner on the table when they get home from work or the pub. This is a very patriarchal view, and it is a massive turn-off for large numbers of women.
Vast numbers of women are (rightly IMO) not willing to fulfil traditional female roles in the manner they once expected to. Relationships are often now more partnerships than subservient - and I think too many men, even young ones, want control, not partnerships.
(Some women want control as well: but I think the issue is much more pronounced amongst men, who have lost a power they once had. Good riddance to that power IMO.)
I don't think this is right actually, except at the margins.
I think most simply want a girlfriend and have no clue how to go about it, and largely only get angry and misogynistic when they fail and withdraw, and meet like-minded people online who radicalise them.
There have always been men who have not been able to get girlfriends (and girls who cannot get boyfriends, either, though probably to a lesser extent).
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
In crude, averaged terms, men select for attractiveness whilst women select for ability to provide. Worked fine in the past, but in the new economy it's led to growing numbers of highly educated, well paid women who have a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner and what is available. The trickle down impact is a a growing number of low status men who have no-one to match off against, and whilst the single women at the top of the ladder have their careers to console them, the low status men just have excess testosterone.
I can see that, but you write it in such a way that it's the fault of the women ("a significant mismatch between their expectations for a life partner"). I don't think it's their 'fault' : the men have a significant mismatch in their expectations as well.
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
Porn may be a factor in fuelling misogyny, but presumably not fuelling the glut of unpartnered low-status men. If there are significant numbers of men without partners, presumably there are also a lot of unpartnered women. Are the unpartnered women at the high status end (larger numbers of high status women chasing the same number of high status men)? My theory is that online dating is a significant factor, though I haven't fully worked out how.
Might they be unpartnered because porn (and other factors) give them totally the wrong idea on how to end their unpartnered status?
There's been a shift in the landscape recently, most of the stuff out there is now "community" - couples with a smartphone and a stand rather than anything professionally produced......
The whole industry basically moved to OnlyFans during the pandemic - and surprisingly found a massive market for people willing to pay for the stuff. The main difference is that it’s now the girls making the big money, rather than the studios.
Lol Onlyfans, you can get almost any sort of porn for free but the pretence of a relationship is something that commands big bucks online now. Pornhub is a far more 'honest' website than Onlyfans....
My exwife is on Onlyfans, making decent money, using photos and videos mainly taken by me. We reached an agreement that I wouldn’t claim royalties if she didn’t claim alimony. A thoroughly modern settlement
I have been reading an old history book on the Middle Ages which argues that one reason the Roman Empire fell in the West is that its citizens were unwilling to fight in its defence, they no longer believed that it delivered for them and they had no trust in its leadership.
This sounds painfully reminiscent not just of the situation in Afghanistan today, but I might dare say in Britain too.
We grow ever more cynical about our political leadership. We are discontented with a system that we believe is rigged against us. We are ever more divided against each other. How willing would we be to fight in our collective defence were that to be required?
Didn't they also employ quite a few mercenaries who, when push came to shove, just weren't either up for it or up to it.
Well, yes, but they only employed mercenaries because they were no longer willing to do the fighting themselves. If they'd been willing to fight they wouldn't have been employing unreliable mercenaries.
I always think Turkey an interesting case, as a bellwether of democracy and religion. It has some of the characteristics of what might be described as a fundamentally religious culture, but also had a dictator and a cult of personality for a hundred years who tried to eradicate or restrict this. On the east side, a society not too far dissimilar from Afghanistan's, and on the west and north-west coasts, a large metropolitan secular population, a proportion of whom are also in fact curiously descended from the very first progenitors of democracy, as muslim-converted greeks from Ionia and the surrounding areas. It's moved broadly with the political-religious trends of the 80's and 90's, of the rest of the Muslim world, but where it goes next will be significant.
Coincidentally I am writing this at a cafe directly underneath the Parthenon. Sipping a decent but not brilliant Cretan white
If I look up from my iPad I can see the chiselled golden pillars of the famous temple, the birthplace of western democracy
Poignant
Athens the birthplace not only of western democracy but of the Socratic method. @kinbalu was having a bit of a dig yesterday about whether 'logical thinking' was a purely western characteristic. I would argue that 'logical thinking' stems from the philosophy of ancient Athens, and particular Socrates and his successors, in which no question was off limits; in which every statement could be met with 'why?'. This is not a way of looking at the world held everywhere, even in the west, and certainly hasn't always been held in the west. But I would argue that those cultures which are free to ask why (like the west, at its best) are better than those which are not (like Wahabbi Islam).
Well, being annoying in that way certainly got Socrates his jar of hemlock.
When Leon gets back from the Acropolis, I must ask him if he got to see the Assembly on the Pnyx hill.
Midday drinkies seem to be impeding the grand tour somewhat.
You’ll be relieved to hear I made it up and down the Acropolis and am now having a ‘refreshing’ ouzo overlooking the Ancient Agora, which I intend to visit next. Probably.
Why is ouzo delicious and welcoming in Greece. Yet repulsive if drunk anywhere else?
Can’t stick Ouzo but Tsipouro, Tsikoudia or any variant of it is a joy.
I always think Turkey an interesting case, as a bellwether of democracy and religion. It has some of the characteristics of what might be described as a fundamentally religious culture, but also had a dictator and a cult of personality for a hundred years who tried to eradicate or restrict this. On the east side, a society not too far dissimilar from Afghanistan's, and on the west and north-west coasts, a large metropolitan secular population, a proportion of whom are also in fact curiously descended from the very first progenitors of democracy, as muslim-converted greeks from Ionia and the surrounding areas. It's moved broadly with the political-religious trends of the 80's and 90's, of the rest of the Muslim world, but where it goes next will be significant.
Coincidentally I am writing this at a cafe directly underneath the Parthenon. Sipping a decent but not brilliant Cretan white
If I look up from my iPad I can see the chiselled golden pillars of the famous temple, the birthplace of western democracy
Poignant
Athens the birthplace not only of western democracy but of the Socratic method. @kinbalu was having a bit of a dig yesterday about whether 'logical thinking' was a purely western characteristic. I would argue that 'logical thinking' stems from the philosophy of ancient Athens, and particular Socrates and his successors, in which no question was off limits; in which every statement could be met with 'why?'. This is not a way of looking at the world held everywhere, even in the west, and certainly hasn't always been held in the west. But I would argue that those cultures which are free to ask why (like the west, at its best) are better than those which are not (like Wahabbi Islam).
Well, being annoying in that way certainly got Socrates his jar of hemlock.
When Leon gets back from the Acropolis, I must ask him if he got to see the Assembly on the Pnyx hill.
Midday drinkies seem to be impeding the grand tour somewhat.
You’ll be relieved to hear I made it up and down the Acropolis and am now having a ‘refreshing’ ouzo overlooking the Ancient Agora, which I intend to visit next. Probably.
Why is ouzo delicious and welcoming in Greece. Yet repulsive if drunk anywhere else?
Very true, see also Goldwasser, Pastis, Grappa etc. I actually like vodka but not straight, however if I ever get to Russia I'm sure I'd be knocking it back with gay abandon after going a round with the birch twigs.
You’re making me thirsty. I could go a nice pastis right now.
I have been reading an old history book on the Middle Ages which argues that one reason the Roman Empire fell in the West is that its citizens were unwilling to fight in its defence, they no longer believed that it delivered for them and they had no trust in its leadership.
This sounds painfully reminiscent not just of the situation in Afghanistan today, but I might dare say in Britain too.
We grow ever more cynical about our political leadership. We are discontented with a system that we believe is rigged against us. We are ever more divided against each other. How willing would we be to fight in our collective defence were that to be required?
Didn't they also employ quite a few mercenaries who, when push came to shove, just weren't either up for it or up to it.
What does seem painfully true is that the sorts of Afghans western governments and western media talk to were content for someone else to fight for their freedoms but have proved remarkably unwilling so far to do the same themselves despite having 20 years to build a government and armed forces to defend a society made safe for moderates.
I've posted before, long time ago, about a distant relative, the grandson of a cousin, who is now a fairly senior Army officer. He went off to Helmand seven or eight years ago IIRC, full of high hopes and good intentions. When he came back he really, really didn't want another tour there; pointless, utter waste of time, he told his Royalist, County, Tory-voting Granny, rather to her horror. Fortunately he got posted to another theatre, so only had to do the one trip.
My cousin, his Granny, is dead now, so I don't get any more reports.
I always think Turkey an interesting case, as a bellwether of democracy and religion. It has some of the characteristics of what might be described as a fundamentally religious culture, but also had a dictator and a cult of personality for a hundred years who tried to eradicate or restrict this. On the east side, a society not too far dissimilar from Afghanistan's, and on the west and north-west coasts, a large metropolitan secular population, a proportion of whom are also in fact curiously descended from the very first progenitors of democracy, as muslim-converted greeks from Ionia and the surrounding areas. It's moved broadly with the political-religious trends of the 80's and 90's, of the rest of the Muslim world, but where it goes next will be significant.
Coincidentally I am writing this at a cafe directly underneath the Parthenon. Sipping a decent but not brilliant Cretan white
If I look up from my iPad I can see the chiselled golden pillars of the famous temple, the birthplace of western democracy
Poignant
Athens the birthplace not only of western democracy but of the Socratic method. @kinbalu was having a bit of a dig yesterday about whether 'logical thinking' was a purely western characteristic. I would argue that 'logical thinking' stems from the philosophy of ancient Athens, and particular Socrates and his successors, in which no question was off limits; in which every statement could be met with 'why?'. This is not a way of looking at the world held everywhere, even in the west, and certainly hasn't always been held in the west. But I would argue that those cultures which are free to ask why (like the west, at its best) are better than those which are not (like Wahabbi Islam).
Well, being annoying in that way certainly got Socrates his jar of hemlock.
When Leon gets back from the Acropolis, I must ask him if he got to see the Assembly on the Pnyx hill.
Midday drinkies seem to be impeding the grand tour somewhat.
You’ll be relieved to hear I made it up and down the Acropolis and am now having a ‘refreshing’ ouzo overlooking the Ancient Agora, which I intend to visit next. Probably.
Why is ouzo delicious and welcoming in Greece. Yet repulsive if drunk anywhere else?
Very true, see also Goldwasser, Pastis, Grappa etc. I actually like vodka but not straight, however if I ever get to Russia I'm sure I'd be knocking it back with gay abandon after going a round with the birch twigs.
Yes! I actually invented a new grappa cocktail in Venice, one summer. Grappa and Red Bull. I called it “Grapple”
One night I had so many Grapples I decided I HAD to swim across the Grand Canal and had to be physically restrained by my girlfriend along with some locals
As for vodka, I barely touch it anywhere but in Russia, but during the White Nights in St Petersburg the wife and I went slightly insane after about 13 shots on the trot.
Absolutely yes. And more wildcats. And wolves. And aurochs. Why not.
Bears maybe only in Wales
Wildcats a bit difficult to organise without castrating all the local domestic mogs, which does not go down well with some folk. And we have plenty of Sevco Bears around around Glasgow, so quite right to treat Wales.
I blame whoever mentioned incels. Was it @Cyclefree , who when wisely ran off?
On a betting angle (because what more is there to be said on Afghanistan? It's a massive failure) does this have any impact on Biden? Not sure that it does. He looks a bit silly for the things that were said, but it's not his failure - neither he, nor the Democrats, took the US in to Afghanistan. His predecessor had committed to withdrawal and done some interesting deals with the Taliban, it seems. Not a great deal of mud that can be thrown that won't splatter back on the Republicans.
The one thing that could make a difference is if Afghanistan does once again become a terrorist breeding ground and that leads to attacks on US soil. Biden then might get the blame for actually taking the troops out in that case (attack ad: Bush did what was needed and kept us safe for 20 years, Biden threw it all away).
(Disclosure: I'm on Biden for a small amount for 2024 and a few of the more likely Dem outsiders at long odds as trading bets if he looks like he'll stand down)
It's always hard to judge during the thick of things, but my hunch FWIW is that this will damage Biden. The utter chaos, the humiliation, the crude attempts to blame Trump, and the increasingly ludicrous statements made by US government spokesmen, are a pretty damaging combination.
Some people have said that the fall of Saigon didn't damage Ford, but I don't think that's the same. The US was utterly fed up with Vietnam, with large numbers of casualties and with a generation of young men traumatised by it. Sure, they're fed up with the role in Afghanistan as well, but at a much lower level. They probably thought it was time to leave and no great harm would come from doing so; just a quiet end to a completed mission. The reality is going to be something of a shock.
Absolutely yes. And more wildcats. And wolves. And aurochs. Why not.
Bears maybe only in Wales
Wildcats a bit difficult to organise without castrating all the local domestic mogs, which does not go down well with some folk. And we have plenty of Sevco Bears around around Glasgow, so quite right to treat Wales.
Have a nice time in the agora.
Yes, interbreeding is a problem. But surely we can find a wildcat species sufficiently different from domestic cats that they can’t hybridise?
Failing that, SNOW LEOPARDS
Why not? Let’s be imaginative. Dwarf rhino on Dartmoor
Absolutely yes. And more wildcats. And wolves. And aurochs. Why not.
Bears maybe only in Wales
Wildcats a bit difficult to organise without castrating all the local domestic mogs, which does not go down well with some folk. And we have plenty of Sevco Bears around around Glasgow, so quite right to treat Wales.
Have a nice time in the agora.
I’m doing the Pnyx tomorrow tho there are rumours it might be shut because fire risk….
I blame whoever mentioned incels. Was it @Cyclefree , who when wisely ran off?
On a betting angle (because what more is there to be said on Afghanistan? It's a massive failure) does this have any impact on Biden? Not sure that it does. He looks a bit silly for the things that were said, but it's not his failure - neither he, nor the Democrats, took the US in to Afghanistan. His predecessor had committed to withdrawal and done some interesting deals with the Taliban, it seems. Not a great deal of mud that can be thrown that won't splatter back on the Republicans.
The one thing that could make a difference is if Afghanistan does once again become a terrorist breeding ground and that leads to attacks on US soil. Biden then might get the blame for actually taking the troops out in that case (attack ad: Bush did what was needed and kept us safe for 20 years, Biden threw it all away).
(Disclosure: I'm on Biden for a small amount for 2024 and a few of the more likely Dem outsiders at long odds as trading bets if he looks like he'll stand down)
It's always hard to judge during the thick of things, but my hunch FWIW is that this will damage Biden. The utter chaos, the humiliation, the crude attempts to blame Trump, and the increasingly ludicrous statements made by US government spokesmen, are a pretty damaging combination.
Some people have said that the fall of Saigon didn't damage Ford, but I don't think that's the same. The US was utterly fed up with Vietnam, with large numbers of casualties and with a generation of young men traumatised by it. Sure, they're fed up with the role in Afghanistan as well, but at a much lower level. They probably thought it was time to leave and no great harm would come from doing so; just a quiet end to a completed mission. The reality is going to be something of a shock.
But would it have hurt Biden as much as the other option which was Trump continually saying he would have left now as American soldiers arrived back injured / killed.
I don't think Biden had any decent options, just 2 really bad ones...
I always think Turkey an interesting case, as a bellwether of democracy and religion. It has some of the characteristics of what might be described as a fundamentally religious culture, but also had a dictator and a cult of personality for a hundred years who tried to eradicate or restrict this. On the east side, a society not too far dissimilar from Afghanistan's, and on the west and north-west coasts, a large metropolitan secular population, a proportion of whom are also in fact curiously descended from the very first progenitors of democracy, as muslim-converted greeks from Ionia and the surrounding areas. It's moved broadly with the political-religious trends of the 80's and 90's, of the rest of the Muslim world, but where it goes next will be significant.
Coincidentally I am writing this at a cafe directly underneath the Parthenon. Sipping a decent but not brilliant Cretan white
If I look up from my iPad I can see the chiselled golden pillars of the famous temple, the birthplace of western democracy
Poignant
Athens the birthplace not only of western democracy but of the Socratic method. @kinbalu was having a bit of a dig yesterday about whether 'logical thinking' was a purely western characteristic. I would argue that 'logical thinking' stems from the philosophy of ancient Athens, and particular Socrates and his successors, in which no question was off limits; in which every statement could be met with 'why?'. This is not a way of looking at the world held everywhere, even in the west, and certainly hasn't always been held in the west. But I would argue that those cultures which are free to ask why (like the west, at its best) are better than those which are not (like Wahabbi Islam).
Well, being annoying in that way certainly got Socrates his jar of hemlock.
When Leon gets back from the Acropolis, I must ask him if he got to see the Assembly on the Pnyx hill.
Midday drinkies seem to be impeding the grand tour somewhat.
You’ll be relieved to hear I made it up and down the Acropolis and am now having a ‘refreshing’ ouzo overlooking the Ancient Agora, which I intend to visit next. Probably.
Why is ouzo delicious and welcoming in Greece. Yet repulsive if drunk anywhere else?
Very true, see also Goldwasser, Pastis, Grappa etc. I actually like vodka but not straight, however if I ever get to Russia I'm sure I'd be knocking it back with gay abandon after going a round with the birch twigs.
Yes! I actually invented a new grappa cocktail in Venice, one summer. Grappa and Red Bull. I called it “Grapple”
One night I had so many Grapples I decided I HAD to swim across the Grand Canal and had to be physically restrained by my girlfriend along with some locals
As for vodka, I barely touch it anywhere but in Russia, but during the White Nights in St Petersburg the wife and I went slightly insane after about 13 shots on the trot.
'Remember that time we stormed the Winter Palace?'
Comments
The question is why they cannot get girlfriends. And my argument would be that, in part, it is their expectations that are incorrect. Pornography might play a part in it (in that it sets frankly unrealistic expectations of relationships), as might the Internet reinforcing views. However I do think the changing roles as the patriarchy weakens is an issue.
Women want more than they used to be able to get. Some men cannot handle that. It won't be the whole story, but IMV it is a factor
No, I don't think so either.....
I finally got around to reading EM Forster's The Machine Stops, and it's fantastically good. The pervasive Machine affecting how people communicate seems rather timely.
Possibly a complete mischaracterisation, but it's not a given that the objective characteristics of men and women on dating apps are the same.
I've never used a dating app, but I did once go speed dating. I would say that the women there covered a fairly representative range of attractiveness, but the men were probably mostly towards the less physically attractive end of the spectrum.
Tradwife is an interesting counter-example as well. I'll have to have a think about it.
I suspect the Taliban have widespread support in Afghanistan expelling the foreigners and taking back control - hence their rapid victory.
I don't like their treatment of women or the potential for exporting terrorism but it is no worse than the House of Saud who we recognise and supply with arms.
https://twitter.com/ForwomenScot/status/1426889101752537091?s=20
Whilst I am not particularly anti-porn, I do think porn is a factor in this as well.
And you would be shocked at what is done in the bedroom by some men who are highly successful with women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tora_Bora
* and I was thinking JFK rather than Trump...
before anybody starts giving it large about that bloody funeral oration. Pericles himself was a grade A c--t who paid for the Parthenon out of money extorted out of Athens' "allies" by barefaced imperialism (which is why it's fun to troll the modern Greeks by pointing out that if we return their marbles it's only fair to return a substantial proportion of them to the cities of Western Turkey which paid for them in the first place). In the same year as he made that tedious oration, he got a decree passed which had the remarkable rider that anyone proposing the repeal of the decree (in the same assembly as passed it in the first place) should be put to death - probably still the single most barefaced and cynical abuse of democracy in the history of the institution at least till 2016. And his response to the Spartan invasion of Attica was the utterly insane zero-Lacedaimonian, permanent lockdown policy of evacuating the entire country into the city of Athens, with the inevitable financial ruin, depression and plague that you'd expect. And the final outcome of the war he started, well after his death, was the utter destruction of Athens. A real Boris Johnson of a leader.
All in wikipedia, in case you think I exaggerate.
David Wallace Lockhart
@BBCDavidWL
Have deleted an earlier tweet saying Scot Office minister David Duguid said it was possible Cambo gas could be retrieved, put into barrels, and then never used on #bbcgms - it was OIL he was talking about, not gas.
9:33 am · 16 Aug 2021·Twitter for iPhone
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/feb/17/dirty-secret-why-housework-gender-gap
What’s puzzling is that housework doesn’t seem to be following the same trends as other fronts in the struggle for equality. Over the last half-century, across the developed world, more and more women have gone to work, the gender pay gap has been steadily narrowing, and fathers have spent more and more time with their children. But the “housework gap” largely stopped narrowing in the 1980s. Men, it seems, conceded that they should be doing more than before – but then, having half-heartedly vacuumed the living room and passed a dampened cloth over the dining table, concluded that it was time for a nice sit-down. In Britain in 2016, according to the Office for National Statistics, women did almost 60% more of the unpaid work, on average, than men.
Ultimately, love is not rational. Why don't men do more of the housework? Because they don't have to and they know it. Maybe the incels would do it all (I wouldn't count on it, mind), but when a woman is looking at a man, she isn't wondering whether he'd dutifully do the cleaning.
I'm not very au fait with the incel stuff, but a snippet I saw featured a guy who had a strange sense of entitlement, and corresponding confusion and anger when things weren't working out.
But then, I also know men online (not super well, but a bit) who have simply sworn off women. Not in an angry or misogynistic way, just not interested in romantic relationships.
If there are significant numbers of men without partners, presumably there are also a lot of unpartnered women. Are the unpartnered women at the high status end (larger numbers of high status women chasing the same number of high status men)?
My theory is that online dating is a significant factor, though I haven't fully worked out how.
* Their boyfriend/husband won't do it "the right way"...
Some men may have multiple women (knowingly or not) in relationships at once, while other men have none.
The point is that the initial causative factor here is not a bunch of loser men who expect supermodels - aside from the post-rationalising internet bravado, these losers would happily have paired up with any woman available as in previous generations. The change now is a growing number of educationally and professionally successful women who will only pair up with men at least as successful as them. Given the most desirable men are, crudely, allocated to the prettiest girls not the cleverest, there are inevitably mismatches, and given women are far more able to look after themselves than men are, many of those successful women choose to go it alone, and the compensating adjustment on the male side of the 'market' happens down at the bottom. None of this is anyone's fault, it's just what's happening as everyone plays out the 'game' in their own best interests.
I'd happily see Porn banned, but it seems a complete red herring to me in this discussion given the men you're blaming never get near a womans bedroom anyway.
The best explanation I can think of is, it's a counter by the more homely type of feminist whose claim that All men are rapists is met with the thoroughly discourteous reply Well you're safe enough, love.
Middle aged men though have been trained to not complain and certainly never to do anything back. My personal belief is that there are a large number of middle-aged men who are in abusive relationships (vast majority probably solely verbal) but cannot see a way out. I would not be surprised if they do manage to get out of such a situation that they have no desire to go back!
Its hard to work out why people turn out the way they do, but I'm pretty sure a loving family with good examples helps.
We are also inconsistent. Mainstream drama has also become more brutal and aggressive, and people love it.
Why do you think Game of Thrones was so popular?
Your last paragraph is wrong IMO. Many (most?) of these men will be watching porn, and the attitude towards women is generally not health. Even if they don't get anywhere near a woman's bedroom, those attitudes will stick. In fact, it'll be worse for them, as they may not have real-life examples to counter it.
Porn is escapism, and the relationships it portrays are a fiction, not reality. The problem occurs when people think that every hitchhiker they meet should be up for sex, or even that they can pick up a beautiful woman on the street and offer her money for sex. Fake landlords, fake taxicabs, casting couches, etc. Then there are the darker sides of porn as well.
The genre I really don't understand is the stepsis/stepbro or stepmum/stepson. All a bit icky.
I blame whoever mentioned incels. Was it @Cyclefree , who when wisely ran off?
On a betting angle (because what more is there to be said on Afghanistan? It's a massive failure) does this have any impact on Biden? Not sure that it does. He looks a bit silly for the things that were said, but it's not his failure - neither he, nor the Democrats, took the US in to Afghanistan. His predecessor had committed to withdrawal and done some interesting deals with the Taliban, it seems. Not a great deal of mud that can be thrown that won't splatter back on the Republicans.
The one thing that could make a difference is if Afghanistan does once again become a terrorist breeding ground and that leads to attacks on US soil. Biden then might get the blame for actually taking the troops out in that case (attack ad: Bush did what was needed and kept us safe for 20 years, Biden threw it all away).
(Disclosure: I'm on Biden for a small amount for 2024 and a few of the more likely Dem outsiders at long odds as trading bets if he looks like he'll stand down)
Extremists we are not. You’re mixing us up with Irish republicans and the Orange Order.
Then realise just how much worse it actually was. That pair of ducks can quack off for the next match.
This sounds painfully reminiscent not just of the situation in Afghanistan today, but I might dare say in Britain too.
We grow ever more cynical about our political leadership. We are discontented with a system that we believe is rigged against us. We are ever more divided against each other. How willing would we be to fight in our collective defence were that to be required?
This kinda makes the pool of 'available' men pretty small, actually, unless women adapt and date down. I don't know any that have!
Only other option is by sea, and I’d have thought they’d just move the whole shebang pronto to either Falmouth or the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia.
Wonder what the new government will do. Actually, it would be in their interests to allow cricket to continue.
Why is ouzo delicious and welcoming in Greece. Yet repulsive if drunk anywhere else?
In brief the Crusades were repeated attempts to conquer and control, on behalf of mostly western Christendom, parts of the world which had earlier been conquered and put under the control of others, Islamists in particular (though the history of Jerusalem from about 1500 BCE onwards and continuing gives a generous variety of forces a turn).
In principle I can't see how any party in this egregious totality of medieval wicked nonsense is more or less culpable than any other. What can be conquered by X can be conquered by Y. X can have no complaint against Y, and any third party Z might see them all as equals.
It's also why I think saying men are always the culprits of marital abuse (as many do, including some MPs) is utterly wrong-headed.
However, the problem isn't only confined to the US. The Guardian, for instance, increasingly enjoys policing any appearances of what it thinks are sexist depiction of sexuality on cinema and tv, while the other day it was celebrating that the new wave of british films "that would once have been called video nasties is a great thing". Meanwhile, Channel 4, which once used to broadcast arthouse erotica to young boys under its "red triangle" series, runs far from anything like that nowadays, but is about to launch its own "true crime" channel.
As to why some men have this problem, it is blindingly obvious. Supply and demand. Women play the selective role in human mating, so when some women choose not to pair up it creates an imbalance which, absent polygamy, necessarily leads to some men finding themselves in excess supply and of no value in the dating market. Again, before you get excited, no one's fault, just how it is.
I also disagree with the rest of what you wrote above; it seems to be generalising to absurdity.
But I don't think we're going to get anywhere in this conversation ...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/16/rewilding-should-we-bring-the-lynx-back-to-britain-aoe
Yes.
Don’t believe me? Go back and find it
Bears maybe only in Wales
Agree, ouzo only in Greece.
Grappa. Never again.
Fortunately he got posted to another theatre, so only had to do the one trip.
My cousin, his Granny, is dead now, so I don't get any more reports.
One night I had so many Grapples I decided I HAD to swim across the Grand Canal and had to be physically restrained by my girlfriend along with some locals
As for vodka, I barely touch it anywhere but in Russia, but during the White Nights in St Petersburg the wife and I went slightly insane after about 13 shots on the trot.
Have a nice time in the agora.
Some people have said that the fall of Saigon didn't damage Ford, but I don't think that's the same. The US was utterly fed up with Vietnam, with large numbers of casualties and with a generation of young men traumatised by it. Sure, they're fed up with the role in Afghanistan as well, but at a much lower level. They probably thought it was time to leave and no great harm would come from doing so; just a quiet end to a completed mission. The reality is going to be something of a shock.
"Ironically, Biden’s withdrawal policy is virtually indistinguishable from Donald Trump’s, which was well underway when he left office."
"Now our departure will imperil us all. This is a strategic lesson, which, I fear, we will learn at great cost."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/16/joe-bidens-bungled-afghan-exit-calamity-america-west/
Failing that, SNOW LEOPARDS
Why not? Let’s be imaginative. Dwarf rhino on Dartmoor
I don't think Biden had any decent options, just 2 really bad ones...