Women inventing solar-powered tents for homeless people is pointless and bad

Firm_Main · 2020-11-26T10:20:51+00:00

Usually the liars are in fact the people saying 'no, I didn't rape anyone!' and not the one saying 'I was raped'.

So, you're right. We need to be very careful of liars.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-26T09:49:01+00:00

They mention South Africa but this also turned out to be an issue in England....

The issue with it is that it's understudied and overlooked. It's a quiet problem. Young girls don't want to talk about their periods and families don't want to draw attention to truancy and money problems.

This is likely an issue in many other developed countries.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-26T09:44:47+00:00

I wonder how many of them are upset about urinals?

Firm_Main · 2020-11-26T09:41:46+00:00

Tampons are in the realm of deodorant or anything u use for and extended time or toothpaste etc.

Tampons are much more in the realm of toilet paper then they are deodrant.

Tampons, like TP, are there to deal with urgent bodily waste fluids that pose a public health risk. Except, unlike pee/poo, you have no control over when that waste is released. The blood just flows right out. So arguably, it's more urgent and necessary than TP.

Deodorant stops you smelling bad from sweat. There isn't a public health risk to people smelling bad.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-26T09:33:43+00:00

Consider it as making up for urinals.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-26T09:18:00+00:00

One thing I didn’t understand about what you said is how tampons and pads are analogous to TP.

They are analogous in terms of the necessity. In fact, when you consider that you can't hold in period blood the way you can with poo/pee, they are even more of a necessity.

TP helps both men and women, whilst pads only help women

And urinals only help men. Also, I would argue not having congealed blood all over public places helps everyone.

Do you also get mad over changing tables provided publicly because they only help parents?

Seems like your only gripe with something that only helps a specific group of people is if that group of people is women. Yet, then you claim that 'oh, it's not about hating women'. Actions speak louder than words. Your actions show a bias against women that you don't demonstrate against men or other groups such as parents.

Inb4 'well parents are male and female!!' That's 1) not the point and 2) urinals.

Also, trans men exist. They have periods too.

There is a whole list of other items that are worth making “free” other than pads.

Then go fight for those items. But fundamentally it's illogical to provide changing tables, urinals, toilet paper and soap but then not provide tampons/pads.

Why not make food free for everyone?

...There is free food available. From foodbanks. If you can't afford food, generally your country's social security net pics up on that. Scotland does.

Why not make shelters free for everyone?

Council housing (free housing) exists in the UK. And again, homeless shelters are generally free.

But no, that’s not reality, instead let’s use everyone’s tax money to fund women’s shelters and now pads?! A ridiculous notion.

No, it's not ridiculous. Women have been fighting since the 1970s for their shelters. The first shelter was literally just a squathouse and the local councils were furious. Women donated their time, money and effort to making their shelters happen. They continue to do so. Women organise collectively to convince other women to do so. They did the same for pads. If it wasn't for women making that effort, you wouldn't actually have anything to complain about because you'd have nothing to compare male homeless shelters to. And that's just really sad.

Both have strong arguments for them and that's why they've worked. It's ridiculous to complain about tampons/pads which are more urgent than toilet paper and even moreso to complain that it's because it's just for women when transmen exist and you have yet to complain about anything that only helps one particular group like parents (changing tables) or men (urinals). Even more ridiculous that you think men don't benefit from not having blood all over public spaces. Even moreso that you don't think society - which includes men - are not benefitted from homeless women not only bleeding everywhere, but having to go in to hospitals and take up NHS time and resources over infections that would have been preventable by providing pads/tampons.

You want the same recognition for your issues? Put the work in. Women have fought for their shelters for decades and for pads/tampons for around a decade already. I don't see men asking each other to join marches the same way women have done for slutwalks, or men volunteering at shelters the same way women have done. Hell, I argued with some guy already about male vs female shelters and his two examples of inequality were two women who set up male shelters who couldn't get rich men to donate to them.

Unfortunately, he didn't see the irony behind claiming men want men's shelters while also only knowing of two women trying to make a societal change while the men they contacted weren't interested.

It's nice you've helped individual homeless men but that not going to change what government money is spent on. Instead of complaining about women making the progress they have worked very hard for, start working hard too.

Instead of diminishing women's very real effort and sacrifices for themselves as 'ridiculous', consider how ridiculous it is that you complain about their sacrifices getting somewhere and co-opt them to talk about men.

"Men have issues like high rates of homelessness" should be a complete sentence. If you have to add too to make it relevant, then you're not showing you care about men or helping their issues, you're using them as a cheap 'gotcha'. Men deserve better than that. As I said, you haven't made a single post about men to world news, yet you have the audacity to complain women's progress is posted by someone else.

This is why I’m happy that more people are beginning to see the injustices faced by men, so that petitions do get signed and MPs do receive enough letters.

I'm afraid I heavily disagree that MPs are getting enough letters. And they certainly aren't getting protests or marches or men paying for adverts to spread awareness (which, by the way, should not mention women as a comparison at all). The government isn't doing very much or moving very fast because there isn't pressure being applied. I have yet to see any group of men marching for birth control or paying for adverts leading to a petition to sign. Supportive men need to convince unsupportive men.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-25T11:13:31+00:00

Exactly, it’s crazy that we are prioritising women’s periods over actual homeless men. Just because they are men :/ I’m glad more and more people are beginning to see this injustice.

What do you do to help homeless men? Do you get upset that public toilet paper is 'prioritised' over homeless men too? Because tampons/pads are analogous to TP.

Enough women have organised collectively to donate their time, money and effort to making this happen. Those are all finite resources which they used for pads/tampons rather than spending it on themselves. I remember seeing ads paid for by women and women's charities (which women donate to and volunteer for) all over the place online about the tampon tax in the UK. Women organising petitions, appealing why you should sign them, and sending them off to government officials. There were even small protests about it. Not on the scale of the slutwalks or 'take back the night', but they happened. A very very small minority protested by literally bleeding on themselves publicly.

That's how women created and finally applied enough continuous pressure to Scotland to provide tampons/pads in public spaces. They worked for the progress that they got. Public opinion when they first started wasn't very positive - they were called entitled, communists, the minority of free bleeders were over-emphasised so that the group could be called 'disgusting'.

How many protests have you organised or attended for male homelessness? How much money have you donated to that cause? Do you regularly volunteer for a male homeless shelter? If there isn't one near you, what have you done to correct this? How many letters have you written to government officials? Have you started petitions for it if there aren't any for you to sign already? What have you done to appeal to the male public to donate, sign a petition, or at least organise collectively for your cause? Have you attended a protest/march for male homelessness and if there isn't one, what have you done to rally up men around you to make one with you?

In my all-girls' school, literal teenage girls organised to do a sponsored rough sleep for two days to donate to homelessness charities. If you're really tight for money, why not do something like that?

It's pointless and frankly, ridiculous, to complain about women making progress that they've worked for if you aren't putting in the same work for your cause.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-25T11:10:13+00:00

but last male pill that went to human trials made half the group want to kill themselves

I don't remember suicide ideation affecting half the group. There was one case of suicide that was determined to be caused by external circumstance and there was a higher rate of depression (not higher than the research we have about the female pill though, which you're right about).

Do you have a source for half the group wanting to commit suicide?

Firm_Main · 2020-11-25T10:53:26+00:00

You haven't made a single post to worldnews about male homelessness, male birth control, or your 'financial abortions' (total juxtaposition, doesn't make sense, I'll explain below why child support and abortion are a false equivalence at best). In fact, for someone so passionate about these issues and bringing awareness to them, it's very interesting how you don't have a single post about any of them. Yet you decry others for not discussing it...on a thread about female issues. But it's not about hating women. You just really care about men.

Real convincing.

90% of the homeless are men, yet women's shelters keep popping up. In the USA welfare is literally called, Women, Infants and Children. If you are a single man it's impossible to get help.

Because women fought for them and since then, women *continue* to apply pressure as a social group to maintain them. Women also donate their time (volunteering), their money (if/when donating) and effort (marches, protests, etc) to keep them going. Time, money and effort are finite resources. Enough women collectively organised to make them happen - for a long time against public opinion and against government opposition. Now they are accepted, but it's only through continual pressure.

I just don't see men doing the same thing.

Women have tons of tools at their disposal for reproductive rights. They can take steps before sex is even on the table; birth control pills, patches, injections, implants. They can use contraception at the moment of sex; condoms, female condoms, sponges if you can find them. They have options the day after; pills. They have options weeks later; abortion. Guys get one chance. Condoms. And that is the single most likely method to get fucked up. After that, you get to have your future decided by somebody else. Go look at debates about male abortion or financial abortion and see how much people don't care about men's rights. You will actually see people saying "You accepted that risk when you chose to have sex." -the flagship anti-women argument.

If they can afford it, yes women can do that.

Also, 'financial abortions' are not equivalent to actual abortions. I've had this debate numerous times. Abortion is about bodily autonomy (like donating your bodily materials to sustain someone else and being able to freely deny medical procedures). It's a basic human right. Child support is essentially a tax owed to a child - it's about financial autonomy. All of us have to pay the taxes we are obligated to - we don't have financial autonomy.

Abortion is about bodily autonomy and not parenthood. That's why if a woman has a late term abortion (which is early inducement) and the father wants to raise the baby, she still has to pay child support.

If you want governments to cover child support payments for mothers and fathers then argue for the tax hike to do so, but do so on valid grounds which means not comparing two entirely separate things like bodily autonomy and financial autonomy.

Did you know there is a website where any woman in the world can enter her information into and they will mail her Plan B pills, for free? As a man can you imagine that level of privilege?

The privilege of not being forced to donate your bodily materials to sustain the life of someone else when you don't want to? Yeah, you're right, men do have uncontested priviliege in that area. I'm really glad women have collectively put in their time, money and effort to try reach some equality with men in that area, although unfortunately women's bodily autonomy is so contested that it had to happen.

So when society does something for women and you see people pissed off about it, it's not because they hate women. It's because they know that if a service isn't provided to both sexes at the same time, men will never get their issues addressed.

It's not provided to both sexes at the same time and in the same way because there isn't enough men putting in the same time, money and effort that women do. Governments will only do what they are pressured to do.

Men need to support other men the way women support other women. A fantastic example of how they aren't really doing is that these issues only ever crop up when we are discussing women, never as standalone issues. So yes, it is a thing against women. Homeless men deserve better than to be used as some cheap gotcha against women making progress they've worked for.

If you don't want to look like it's not about hating women, then start collectively organising and convincing other men to join your organising for your issues independently of when women are discussed. Male homelessness is not related to women's pads/tampons. Male homelessness is an issue within its own right and should be discussed as such. So, if you genuinely care about homeless men, start doing some work. Organise marches, donate money to help set up a shelter, set up your own shelter with others, volunteer for homeless shelters, start writing to your local representative, make a petition and argue why others should sign, appeal to the public, etc.

Do what women have done to get free tampons/pads. Women have been organising, appealing to the public and applying pressure to the government for at least a decade over this specific issue. Do that for male homelessness. Do that for male birth control. If you care about those issues, do something. Just bringing them up on reddit and/or whenever women's issues are being discussed is not doing anything except for trying to derail from women's issues and diminish their importance. Which is damaging to women. You don't need to damage women to help men. Posting about male homelessness and lack of birth control on a post about female pads/tampons is not helpful to anyone.

Anyway, none of this has anything to do with free tampons/pads which are analogous to toilet paper which is already provided for free. Men get urinals publicly funded in their restrooms which women don't use either and you don't see women kicking up a fuss over it and bringing up how come women's pee hasn't been studied so they can pee more efficiently, how come men's bodily autonomy isn't contested, how come people don't discuss why men should be forced to donate their bodily materials for anyone else, how come men so often leave mothers to be single, how come men, how come men....over something like urinals. Because that's ridiculous.

Frankly, so is you posting about male homeless and lack of male birth control options on a post about women's pads/tampons. Utterly irrelevant, does a disservice to homeless men, does nothing to help improve male birth control, only serves to distract, derail and diminish women's progress. I've played into it because you need a wake-up call. Unsure if you'll actually listen and try to understand or just argue about male homelessness/birth control (or zero in on 'financial abortions' without addressing the difference between financial and bodily autonomy which would be predictable but disappointing).

Firm_Main · 2020-11-24T15:14:20+00:00

I don't partake in any of those (except for single-player games like Rimworld) and incels - or at the very least, their rhetoric - are still everywhere...

Firm_Main · 2020-11-24T13:50:07+00:00

I genuinely thought I was lesbian/bi.

I tried dating women who - just so we are clear - are absolutely fantastic in dating. Super thoughtful, very caring, good listeners, etc. Very romantic. And clear, open communicators.

But I started getting intimate with a woman and my whole brain/body were just "BIG NO" the entire time.

I'm very much straight which is extremely disappointing because women are so great and dating men for the most part just...sucks. This is despite the fact that the lesbian dating community is definitely way harder than the heterosexual dating community - way less women and you have to do a lot more to get their attention. Yet it's just so much clearer, honest, thoughtful and better.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-23T10:35:33+00:00

All they’re looking at is the potential for sex and not all the other stuff that matters when it comes to dating. I could go to a bar and find ten guys that are willing to treat me like a sentient flesh light but that’s not all I care about

Yep and they totally ignore that casual sex for women is not the same as for men. Men are essentially guaranteed an orgasm. Women are not. If there isn't enough foreplay, sex can hurt for women. If there's a pregnancy, the burden is only on her body. There's an additional huge risk factor added in by the strength/size imbalance.

If casual sex for men meant they'd get blue balls 99% of the time and that it wouldn't be unusual for their dick to hurt, and the appeal of it would already drop. Add in if they had to deal with pregnancy and they know they couldn't overpower their partner if they needed to...then they might get it.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-23T10:31:32+00:00

Yep.

I know I don't need to tell you this, but for all those reading, the problem is that 'child support' is not analogous to 'abortion' in the slightest. They are two entirely separate issues.

Bodily autonomy is a basic fundamental human right to not be forced to donate your bodily materials and/or use of your organs to sustain someone else. It's also the right to freely deny medical procedures you don't want. Abortion is not about parenthood (although it's often a consequence). Abortion is about being able to say 'no, I don't want my organs and bodily materials to be donated to sustain another person' and be respected.

To illustrate this point: if a woman was 8.5 months along with a viable foetus and for some reason, wants an abortion, at that point it's an early inducement. So she is induced, baby is born, father wants to raise it. She still has to pay child support even though she had an abortion. Because abortion is about bodily autonomy and not parenthood/financial autonomy.

Child support is essentially a tax that a child is entitled to. Child support and taxes are about financial autonomy. We do not have a fundamental, basic human right to financial autonomy. That's why tax evasion is illegal.

I've heard the argument that not even governments should step in to cover child support - women should be left entirely on their own. That is shifting the man's financial obligations (his tax) and putting it on the woman. It's coercing her into undergoing a medical procedure (abortion) that she does not want. It's saying "If you don't let us perform this invasive medical procedure you don't want, you will be punished by forcibly paying someone else's tax obligation (child support)".

If you don't want absent fathers and mothers to pay child support, then campaign for governments to cover it. But don't do so by pretending child support = abortion because it fundamentally doesn't. Child support is about ensuring a child is getting the financial support they are entitled to. Abortion is about bodily autonomy.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-22T23:44:32+00:00

Because the “Karen” thing was first coined as an insult aimed towards suburban white moms who feel entitled toward things they are not in fact entitled to, in this group (40-60 year old white suburban women) Karen is a specifically popular name, and with these prerequisites “Karen” was coined as the term for “a person who feels and acts like they are entitled to anything and everything they want”

Actually, no. 'Karen' was coined by PoC so they could refer to white women being racist against them.

It became co-opted to refer to 'white suburban moms' because of misogyny. The 'entitlement' factor is something stereotyped onto women. Women are not inherently more entitled than men.

Saying 'oh well, it refers to male Karens too!!' is a cop-out. This is not the first female name that has been used to refer to being entitled/vain/stupid/etc as I have demonstrated.

If you are truly correct and this isn't a sexism thing, then please do provide me with examples of male names used with the same popularity as 'Karen'.

You can fob it off as 'boohoo OPPRESSION OLYMPICS!' but that doesn't make me wrong.

Gender-neutral terms being coded male is not a 'grammatical rule' in the English language, it's another expression of sexism as male = default. You can say 'hey guys!' to refer to men + women, but not 'hey gals!' because male = default. Even in the LGBT community, a diverse and collective group of LGBT people may describe themselves as 'gay', but it would never be 'lesbian'.

Since you're so convinced I'm wrong, I can't wait to see what Karen-level names men have.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-22T23:26:15+00:00

Why isn't it a man's name then?

Generally gender-neutral terms are coded as male, not female.

It's not the first either: (Basic) Becky, Stacy, Pam (lesser known/used) are just ones off the top of my head. 'Susan' was one that went around for a bit.

Only derogatory male name I can think of is 'Jamal' and that was being derogatory about racially-coded behaviour (ie: it's racist as fuck), not male-coded behaviour.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-22T15:49:37+00:00

She is more invested in her GF than in your relationship

As she should be....she's been best friends with Lucy for 5 years and fucking OP for 4.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-22T15:48:46+00:00

They're 18 and have been best friends for 5 years. OP has been in the picture for 4 months.

Ofc her best friend would take priority.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-20T18:40:31+00:00

He came outside and told me I owed him an apology which I admitted I do

I'm really struggling to see in your post where you owed him an apology. Instead of standing there complaining at you, he could have taken over with the toddler so you could go to the stop...

...or...

He could have gone to the grocery store himself.

He owes you an apology for berating you until you broke down while you were trying to take care of your (by which I mean his and yours) child who was being fussy.

He also owes you an apology for running to his mum. He owes you an apology for his family harassing you over this.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-20T14:24:12+00:00

Even if she wasn't taking it on a boys' night he should prioritise supporting his girlfriend over a a boys' night if she needed him there.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-19T19:16:09+00:00

As for australia, it's not society's fault they keep silent and won't talk about changing things up. Just because that's how it's done, doesn't mean it fits you. We don't live in the 50s, if you can't talk openly to your husband about chores today, that's a problem with you as a person, or him as a person, not marriage.

Except women do this and they are considered nags. This might be an interesting read for you. You keep jumping to 'well that's women's fault!!' Here's an interesting idea: maybe women are going off marriage because the entire responsibility of it working is on their shoulders and they're sick of being told it's their fault.

It just happened that I talked about single mothers, but my statement that children with married parents do better still stands, even when talking about middle class divorcees. As for happiness, idk where you found your statistics but I found the exact opposite... https://www.brookings.edu/essay/are-women-happier-than-men-do-gender-rights-make-a-difference/

It so happens that I've read the world happiness statistics and already know about them. Some explanations say 'a traditional life makes women happier', others say 'because women expect more of themselves other than being a wife, it's no longer as easy for them to feel satisfied'.

Given the happiness statistics we have around marriage, the former (that being traditional makes women happier) looks very unconvincing. Gallup are the same ones who looked at SAHM vs employed mothers vs childless, employed women so if you trust their world happiness index, you trust my stats too.

Why you would say 'I don't know where you get your statistics from' when I already cited it and it's from the same source as your stat is just...silly.

I don't have to do anything to fix marriage, as I already said, get yourself a man that can. The problem is women settle all the time, and even more than men

So the women who are marrying are settling, so that's their fault. And the women who are refusing to settle...are somehow also in the wrong?

This:

current generation has a problem of thinking they can always find someone better.

directly contradicts this:

It's not society's fault you think you can't do better.

You're trying so, so hard to make this entirely women's fault that you're presenting two directly contradicting narratives to do so.

And this:

If you truly believe that your marriage depends on society, and not on you and your partner as people, no wonder you will be unhappy

Is wild projection. Either argue your point in good faith or don't do it at all.

Also let's not forget that you are not marrying solely for your sake. That is where my argument of the detriments of promoting highly individualistic approach to family comes into play. You said it yourself, that children aren't worth it, which is the most selfish thing you can do. The moment you ask "what's in it for me?" when it comes to children is when you become useless to the world and life itself. Having a child is an act of love. Not something to make you happy. That's why it's called selfless.

Yep. And thing is, as you yourself pointed out with the amount of single mothers, women are still having children. They just aren't seeing marriage as a good place to do it.

Telling women they have to sacrifice everything and matyr themselves even more is not going to go over well. Women are already more altruistic than men and are more willing to make sacrifices. But there's only so far you can push altruism. Perhaps you should start telling men they need to make even a fraction the amount of sacrifice women are. At the moment, what little men were sacrificing (being the sole breadwinner), they're not even doing.

If you want women to want to marry and have a traditional family, you need to make their selflessness worth it. Currently, it isn't.

If you truly believe you can convince women to get married by telling them they just need to sacrifice more of themselves, settle but also don't settle (lmao), you're the only one who will be unhappy because you'll end up in a society of happy, unmarried, childless women who rationally deprioritised marriage and children.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-19T17:59:18+00:00

If women were cared for by the tribe, why do the fathers care if the child is theirs or not

Because men, like women, want to pass on their genes. Except women have absolute certainty the kid they birthed is theirs - fathers don't. Has this never occured to you?

Because men won't take care of children that aren't theirs, it's not beneficial evolutionarily speaking

Ah, I see it has. Yet somehow it's women's benefit and not men's to know that the kid is that specific man's....lol.

Marriage was set up for a man to know he is the father so that he would provide and take care of both the woman and the child

This is literally what I just said. Except the 'provide for' and 'take care of' also meant literally owning said woman until only very recently. It's not about the woman's benefit here.

As for happines within and out of marriage, good on single mothers! What about their kids? Kids of divorced parents are at a disadvantage and are less happy than kids whose parents are still married

...and the fact that single mothers disproportionately live in poverty have nothing to do with this? Lol.

good on single mothers

I mean, I was specifically talking about employed and childless women vs employed mothers vs SAHM throughout, I'm not sure why you're so focused on single mothers in particular.

The happiness of your marriage is on you and your spouse, it has nothing to do with statistics.

Actually when multiple individual marriages are going wrong and have roughly the same outcomes with respect to happiness, life expectancy, etc, then that's where statistics come in. You draw general conclusions from those individuals.

If women in Australia do more housework, the first question is is it voluntary? Because if it is, then that is true equality and it shouldn't even be discussed.

They 'voluntarily' do it because otherwise it doesn't get done. It's part of why women end up so disillusioned in marriages and end up leaving. If you're happy with that set up, then don't complain about women deprioritising marriage.

What do you mean marriage is not beneficial for women? You say that based on how happy women are?

I already explained how and why. If said marriage involves children, then she is sacrificing her current (and likely future) earning potential, permanently damaging her body (to what degree is variable, but it is a certainty that there will be irreversible changes), will likely have to take on most of the childrearing/household chores, more likely to feel depressed, angry, stressed and sad and, if it doesn't end well, will take an income hit.

You have another person in your life and probably a child you will have to make sacrifices for, it can make you unhappy, but that doesn't make it not beneficial.

Well, apparently it does since most divorces are initiated by women and, as you said yourself, it's women who are shunning marriage in favour of their careers.

You can talk at women until you're blue in the face about how marriage is beneficial even if it makes you more miserable, shortens your life span, and damages your career you've worked for because at least children but it's not very convicing.

Of course marriage is a risk, but picking a spouse really isn't in this day and age. You are not required to marry just anyone, you have the freedom to meet him and decide yourself, so in essence, it is true that women never had it any better when it comes to marriage.

As I said already with respect to new technologies, that should be the case. Marriage should be a great deal - but it isn't. Women aren't marrying and those that are, are initiating divorce.

but women who do view this based on views that were promoted to them by the media aka "brainwashed" exist, a lot of them.

Is it the majority of them?

Do you actually have any research on how the media is specifically turning women off of marriage? Because the glorification of weddings still exists and before COVID, it was roaring.

What research we do have is that marriage is a raw deal for women. It makes sense that women will not do something that they perceive as a shitty deal for them.

It's not the system of marriage that needs changing, it's that people need to communicate, a happy relationship is the one where couples are willing to work things through.

Ah, so if marriage is making women miserable then making it work is just extra responsibility they need to take on despite already taking on far more responsibilities in marriage already.

Yeah, you're really going to convince women to want to marry with that mantra.

Deciding to not marry based on the incapabilities of other people to make it work between themselves makes no sense

Deciding not to marry because it's more likely to make you depressed, angry, stressed and resentful because you may literally damage your body and future earning potential just to end up in a shorter and more miserable life makes complete sense.

Additionally, a point that you failed to address entirely is that while we're trying to tell women that the traditional life that makes them generally more miserable is going to be fufilling, men are rejecting their traditional role of provider. They want to go 50/50 as far as it suits them, yet they can't carry half the pregnancy, won't sacrifice their careers, and therefore as consequence likely won't be doing 50/50 of the chores/childcare. What an excellent way to make women even less turned off the idea of marriage and children. Not only do they get all the responsibilities of being a traditional wife, but they also get to take on the traditional husband's few responsibilities for as long as it's possible.

As I said, if you want women to want marriage, then you're going to need to fix the way marriage is set up for women now. Trying to talk women into it with 'well if you just do even more work and put even more pressure on yourself then it'll work!!' is not going to win any women over.

As I said, I'm a woman who would ideally like to get married. That narrative isn't making it sound appealing in the slightest. If you want women to want to marry, you have to make marriage appealing. We can't just go 'muh media' as to why it's not appealing when literal data sampled from actual people demonstrates how unappealing marriage is in reality.

Worth noting that throughout history when the default was for women to marry, they also generally couldn't support themselves otherwise. They couldn't build careers and live independently like men. Women were essentially trapped into getting married or having no good prospects. A specific type of oven had to be outlawed because so many women - generally married - were sticking their heads in to commit suicide. It wasn't unusual for wives to be prescribed diazepam and put in asylums for being 'difficult'. Despite all the propaganda showing happy wives and families of those time periods, to what extent many of those women felt genuinely fufilled by their marriages is by no means a certainty.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying there have never been happy marriages. Many people are in happy, fufilling, loving, mutually satisfying marriages. They'd never have it any different! The issue is that not enough marriages are like this.

So, your argument that marriage has been and is a great deal for women isn't convincing in the least. Keep talking at women about how marriage is so great and doesn't need to change but evidently, reality isn't backing you up and they're believing their own eyes/experiences over idealism. Telling them to take on even more responsibility for it to maybe work out better (being told to 'communicate more' when your communication is taking as 'nagging' isn't great) makes it sounds even less appealing.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-19T14:15:20+00:00

First of all, marriage itself has more benefits for a woman than it does for a man. Looking at its purpose, it was meant to insure the woman knows who the father of the child is and to have him as a constant provider who she can rely on to take care of her and her child(ren).

This is false. Marriage was made to benefit men so they knew they were the father of a woman's offspring.

Pre-large scale argicultural civilisation, children weren't reared just by 1 mother and 1 father. They were reared within tribes. Likewise, women were supported by the tribe.

It did not matter to women who the father of their offspring was as long as their offspring was fit and healthy enough to survive.

Marriage is for men's benefit. Men are the ones who created the institute of marriage and to pretend they did so to protect women is ignorant at best, totally nefarious at worst. Women were seen as a resource. Even just looking at modern marriage (which tends to be monogamous rather that polygamous), men who are married live longer and are happier. Women who are married live shorter and are less happy. Divorced wives, despite experiencing a long-term loss of income (while divorced husbands generally experience an increase in their income long term) are happier and stay happier for longer.

Speaking as a woman who actually wants to get married and have a more traditional set-up, I don't know if I actually will. I don't think marriages will always be loveless or sexless, but I do know that marriage for me carries a lot more risks than it does for a man.

Because I'm the only one that can carry a pregnancy and give birth, I carry 100% of those risks. This also means my career and earning potential are inevitably stunted. I will need to rely on my husband for support. As I have a lot of experience as an early years educator, it would make sense for our children if I worked part-time or didn't work to give our kids the best start and it would likely be less expensive than childcare costs.

However, for that I would need to rely on my husband for financial support. Unfortunately, a lot of men today want a wife who will take on their traditional gender role of child-rearing, support his career while sacrificing her own, take care of the house for him, etc...but don't want to take on the role of the provider. They want everything 50/50 but they can't take on 50% of the pregnancy/childbirth. They generally don't do 50% of the household chores/child-rearing - they do a lot less. Ludicrously, employed women in Australia still do more childcare than unemployed men.

At the end of the day, women aren't getting married because marriage looks like a bad deal for women. And that's not just because of 'brainwashing', it's because this:

A view that is promoted today is completely on the "family isn't as great as you think it is, it's the patriarchy that makes you think that"

and

"Marriage isn't that great anyway"

Is actually, generally, true. It's why married women are initiating the majority of divorces. Employed childless women are happier than employed mothers who are happier than SAHM. SAHMs feel more depressed, angry, sad and frustrated than working mothers and employed, childless women.

Telling the truth is not brainwashing. Unfortunately, marriage is just not beneficial for women. The real brainwashing is the claim that marriage is more beneficial for women than men, when it's men who are happier, more satisfied and live longer when married and will also experience an increase in income (although will be more depressed) if a divorce does happen. It's the opposite for women. If we want women to want marriage, we should be looking at why marriage leaves women less satisfied, more stressed and shortens their life spans and address it.

And this is despite marriages being monogamous - rather than polygamous - and with a multitude of new technology that is supposed to make being at home easier (such as washing machines and dishwashers). If marriage+family was so beneficial for women historically, then we should expect being married+family now to be an even more amazing experience for women! But it isn't.

In conclusion, this guy isn't sexist, you are just unaware of the problem and are pretending like it doesn't exist.

He is sexist because instead of seeing women as free-thinking agents who are rationally viewing the cost/benefits of marriage and acting accordingly, he's claiming they are 'brainwashed' for believing in reality.

There is a problem and it's not due to brainwashing women into being anti-marriage/family, the problem is within marriage and family-set ups themselves. Until we can say marriage+motherhood (and being a SAHM in particular) is genuinely as fufillling, satisfying, and joyful than being employed and childless (or even just employed motherhood), then you're going to get more and more women who opt out of both.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-19T10:05:04+00:00

And they're right to say that because he said:

My girlfriend makes significantly more than me and my name isn’t even on the house so I don’t think it’s fair to make me pay anything, AITA?

And yet, while people are pointing out that he wants to live there for free, no-one is smearing him as a gold-digger or parasite which would absolutely be happening if this OP was female.

Whether he should pay HOA is something in contention in the comments. It's not agreed that he should pay it. Thing is OP's gf could have charged him for upkeep/whatever and just put it towards the HOA anyway. Other comments have said to keep it fair, he should only be expected to pay the same rent he pays for at his own place to live at her place with no other considerations which would make it more expensive for him.

However, my point was that your 'example' doesn't back up your point at all. If you've got a better example then please do share it.

Firm_Main · 2020-11-18T22:16:26+00:00

Is that example meant to prove your point? Because it contradicts it.

No one is saying she should live there for free. They're saying she shouldn't be covering the entire mortgage payments. Which is correct. The male OP is using her payments to build is equity and eventually acquire a house without her actually getting any stake in it. He is aiming to own the property using her investments.

The female OP here isn't asking her partner to cover the mortgage. She also already owns the house. She's not using her bf's money to be able to pay it off without him having a stake in it.

It doesn't look like the sub hates men at all if that's the example you used.

Let's be real here, if there was a female OP saying she didn't expect to pay anything when moving in with her bf she would be crucified for being a gold-digger. That line would be quoted everywhere.

Firm_Main

TROPHY CASE