Women are treated differently by society for the same reason as children / mentally handicapped

[Liberal_in_LA]

says Dilbert creator

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/25/scott-adam-sexist-mens-rights/


Mar 25th 2011 By: Laura Hudson

'Dilbert' Creator Scott Adams Compares Women Asking for Equal Pay to Children Demanding Candy

------------------

Mostly, though, I haven't really paid attention to you at all, at least until today, when the internet discovered a post where Dilbert creator Scott Adams gave us all a piece of his mind in a post (since deleted) about men's rights, and the fact that he thinks men suffer a level of social injustice equal to women.

After all, women might get paid less than men in our society, but men die earlier, teen boys have to pay higher car insurance, and sometimes women want men to open doors for them, so it all comes out in the wash, right? I'm not making those examples up, either; those are his examples.

And then there's this:

The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It's just easier this way for everyone. You don't argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn't eat candy for dinner. You don't punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don't argue when a women tells you she's only making 80 cents to your dollar. It's the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles. -Scott Adams

Wow. Just wow. To recap: He's comparing women asking for equal pay to the selfishness and unreasonableness of children asking for candy, or mentally handicapped people lashing out violently. He's saying that women's concern for pay equity is a petty desire levied by an irrational group of people, and he's also suggesting a very specific strategy for the men in the audience: Remember not to care.:wow:

[2gabby]

1. and so it goes

I bet he thinks he's pretty brave for speaking up too.

[Rage for Order]

2. I have a feeling his opinion is not going to be very popular here

:popcorn:

:rofl:

[darkstar3]

3. He's an MRA. They're popular here.

[PassingFair]

4. Okay....what's an "MRA"?

:shrug:

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[darkstar3]

21. Since there will be other people who ask this question and now won't see the answer.

MRA stands for Male Rights Activist.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

24. Since I haven't had my head torn off in a while,

interestingly enough, you can reply to a deleted sub-thread

I work with two men who got completely fucked by the child support system in California both of whom were stuck paying child support for children their ex-wives were completely estranged from. One of them lost in court despite the evidence the ex-wife was completely estranged from their son who was living independently after her boyfriend threw him out and the other couldn't get that far because his ex kept getting continuance after continuance until she got thrown in prison in Nevada, all the while their daughter had been living with him.

When the California legislature passed a law affording some pretty reasonable protections to men wronged by the system Gray Davis vetoed it after intense lobbying.

My partner for many years was a lawyer who took pro bono family law cases for low-income fathers, usually fighting for custody. The bullshit her clients had to go through with the great state of California astonished me. Her personal motivation for taking fathers rights cases was her own experiences with how her junkie mother gamed the system to terrorize her father.

[JustAnotherGen]

5. Not surprised

He's pretty much well known for being a misogynist.

[Shandris]

6. That's just a poor piece all around.

Neither author did themselves any credit, to be frank. Scott Adams' blog notes are pretty well addressed...well, in a sort-of overall fashion. The individual critiquing is pretty shifty though. Two in particular stand out: "It imposes not only a sense that injustice exists in the world, but also that we are helpless to address it." The problem with that, of course, is that injustice DOES exist, and doesn't need imposition for it to be valid. She seems to be applying the Just World bias here, and then complaining that it doesn't exist.

The other is her view of men. To quote, "I'm gonna come out and rep for the boys here, because I think that this caricature of men as henpecked, apathetic, and disinterested in life is just as bullsh*t as the caricature he creates of women. I also think there are problems and societal expectations that are unique to men -- like prison sentencing, parental rights, and narrow societal definitions of masculinity -- that are real issues worth talking about, but he manages to trivialize those as well."

I know when I'm at a gathering of young men, the topics of conversation have precisely zero to do with, say, prison sentencing, parental rights, and the definition of masculinity. No, they have to do with showing who can care the LEAST about any common topic. The very definition of apathy.

Poor initial writing (by Adams), poor response, equal amounts of presupposition and false dichotomies, toss in a few obvious biases...this piece isn't worth reading, let alone commenting on.

[seabeyond]

7. people say it is a joke. and repeat it stridently as fact. never argue with a woman

i have always been pissed with that. the men laugh and laugh.... oh so funny. as if they give the woman the power, but really it is a whole hell of a lot of winkin going on.

condescending.

and right along with the nag bullshit and ball and chain bullshit. it does effect how we think and see.

[Shandris]

10. Power is not given.

It is taken. If you're waiting to be given power, or ever think you have been given power, you're wrong. I ~think~ you know that, from what all of yours I've read over the years, but I did want to take exception to its use there. :)

The 'nag' and 'ball and chain' seems to be a generational thing, at least to me. I don't hear so much of that anymore. Or, I suppose its' possible I've just become inured to it. But where does it stem from? It stems from women caring about things that most men simply don't care about. Or, I suppose one would say 'things that men are apathetic about'.

[seabeyond]

17. gosh....

i love your post. that is the absurdity of it. the condescending part of it.... no, power is not given. yet, that is the implication of that "funny". why i have bristled all the times i have heard. the reality, is it is dismissive of women

the ball and chain... draggin down the isle..... all about perpetuation the woman "making" the man marry. which allows them to again, not be responsible or even a participant in it. dismissive

[Shandris]

22. I had suspected that was what you were driving at, about the 'power' part.

Although, I must confess -- and again, this may be just a generational thing, that tends to be where I first consider differences in perception to lie -- that I haven't heard the 'ball and chain' in reference to marriage before, but rather as a 'limiter' on things that a man can do. So from my perspective, men complain about the 'ball and chain' from a perspective of 'she doesnt let me do every single thing I want to'. To me, that's a GOOD thing, and if they can laugh about it rather than get abusive over it...I guess I won't complain too much. OTOH, in reference to marriage, yeah that would be pretty damn infuriating, and you're definitely right on the money about how the very terminology of 'making' the man do something does absolve him of responsibility or choice (in his own mind). I wouldn't find that amusing either.

[seabeyond]

23. ya. i dont like the whine. cant do what you did when single. hey....

i can't either. i want that acknowledgment, too

also

i have never wanted or asked for anothers power. dont take mine, i will leave yours to you, even in marriage. especially in marriage. i have never dragged anyone, anywhere. do it cause you want, or dont do it. that easy.

so, though your perspective is interesting, and thanks cause havent looked at it that way, even still.... i will still snort, lol.

on eidt: i do think your view is MUCH healthier, and often, which i didnt see like i do. meh

[GKirk]

8. Did he include a little...

did he include a little smiley face at the end of that?

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. no. Other articles say that he eventually reposted the comments

[Taverner]

12. And he kept digging....

Certainly Adams should know the first rule about holes...

[Johonny]

19. I believe based on things he's written before

if people misunderstand what he says. He A) enjoys that B) will write something to further offend them C) he enjoys tweaking people. With that in mind, he apparently doesn't mind digging holes. He has the South Park mentality when it comes to digging holes.

[marions ghost]

13. what an idiot

I'm not even going to refute his "arguments"

Chalk it up to dementia.

[Johonny]

14. I guess you can read it two ways

That people don't argue that women are paid less because it is the accepted norm. Not arguing is thus the path of least resistance. Thus it is not that most people(men) are evil as they are lazy and simply accept cultural norms without question. Society treats women somewhere around children and the mentally handicap. In that sense it isn't offensive at all. As it doesn't advocate for it as seems to sarcastically describe the world as is.

Or you can read it as women should be treated this way. They are like children and mentally handicap. Don't argue for their worth because they are children and thus not worth the time.

That link slams people for their lack of reading comprehension. But I think the sarcastic nature of the post and the lack of actual humor leads to an easy misreading of the passage. I honestly can't tell which way was the intended way to read it. I assume the first, only because of the high level of sarcasm from the writer, but hey it's hard to tell. Sometimes when a lot of people aren't getting what you are saying, it is you the communicator that is to blame.

[marions ghost]

16. IF it's sarcasm

one has to be careful putting out something that most people will take literally, because then it makes the writer part of the problem.

Doesn't seem sarcastic.

[Starry Messenger]

15. What a dick.

MRAs are pathetic.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[PassingFair]

20. I deconstruct it this way. Adams is going to find out that he HAD lots of female readers and BUYERS.

Who will now NOT buy those mugs and calendars
with their 80 cents.

Your example of "female teachers having sex with male
students isn't a crime" fails, because that is a MALE
viewpoint, not a female viewpoint (in general).

Point of View.

His is NOT mine.

[lumberjack_jeff]

28. The link I provided wasn't posted by a man. n/t

[Liquorice]

26. You're looking at it from a male-centric perspective. There are plenty of

ways in which men are treated differently than women in our society. For instance, a man who sleeps around is cool, but a woman who does it is a slut. If a grown man buys a frivolous muscle car to race it with his buddies on the weekends, we say boys will be boys... When a man doesn't contribute to the housework and leaves his dirty underwear on the floor, his wife is liable to say he is like having another child to clean up after. And most people will think that's kind of cute. Does that mean men are seen as quasi-adults?

[lumberjack_jeff]

27. Of course I am.

But the treatment of a man who fails to do the dishes is a far different is qualitatively different from the male and female bank robbers/drug dealers/burglars described as "the bank robber and his companion/accomplice"

Women are institutionally treated as not entirely adult.

[Liquorice]

29. If the woman was the mastermind of the crime, the man would be seen

as the accomplice, but men do most of the crime and are much more likely to mastermind a bank robbery. That's why you see the woman as an accomplice so often in those situaitons. Those are just the facts.

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. We assume that to be the case until proven differently.

That benefit of the doubt is why Shawna Forde was free to kill Raul and Brisenia Flores.

Her track record of violence and lies would have put any man behind bars long before she killed the Flores family. As it is, the only reason she was convicted "as ringleader" is because a third victim survived by playing dead.

[Liquorice]

31. You can always find an exception, but men commit most of the

violent crime. You are not suggesting that women are really the perpetrator of most violent crime, are you? That would be a laughable claim. A woman is raped every 2 minutes in this country. And they're not being raped by other women. The most likely suspect in the murder of a woman is a man, and the most likely suspect in the murder of a man? Also a man. It's just the way it is.

In a family in which both the woman and man work full-time, statistically the woman will do 80% of the child care, the vast majority of the housework, AND will get paid less at her full-time job.
Women shoulder the heavier burden within the nuclear family. Given these facts, it would be very easy for me to argue that it isn't women seen as the quasi-adults in society, but men. I don't, however, believe that either adult males or adult females are seen as children in our society.

[Pithlet]

32. Oh please. Like what happened to Shawna Forde never happens to men.

That is crap.

[fishwax]

25. ugh

:puke: