ITT: men who can’t ever admit they might be the problem. So many excuses here it’s pathetic.
edit: I love the “not all men” and “not me”. As always, it’s not all men. But it’s enough. And the men here getting so defensive really prove the point. And before anyone gets into it, it’s not really the sex or gender. It’s the societal expectations and allowances that encourage men to engage in abusive shit like we see in the article here. I.e. the patriarchy and those who support it.
But it is an asshole move to show up to an event meant for one group of people when the original issue is how over represented your group is. I’m a developer. The grind sucks. But I would be an asshole to show up to this.
If I was out of job, I would honestly care less about the fact that “my group” is over represented. There is no white male lobby that pays my mortgage. That said, I - as in the actual me - would not go to such event either, but that’s also because I wouldn’t go to any job fair atm since I don’t need a job.
“You care more about the gender than about my material condition.”
Also, the moment I need to let prevail abstract concepts over my material condition (i.e., caring about “my group” being over represented while I am out of a job) is the moment in which the class unity is broken. Me and those women who are out of a job have so much in common that there is no reason for me to consider us part of two separate groups.
That’s the whole point of my argument, I advocate for worker solidarity and I absolutely feel that this attitude is overall harmful for it.
Let me say this: to me this seems the completed detached thought of someone who never faced material difficulties.
I can only think this if I am in a position of privilege where I can choose. I absolutely can’t relate with any of this, I completely agree to disagree.
Do you realize that there are women out of a job too? It’s not just out of good vibes that people bring up issues of representation, they represent the material conditions of people. For you the percentage of women vs men in the workplace might be a meaningless number, but for those women, it’s their chance of a living.
I am just saying that this burden shouldn’t fall on other people in material need. It is simply extremely unfair from my point of view to imagine that a person which happens to be a man, and is in need of a job should just sit quietly and leave space for women, because generally, in the whole field, women are under represented.
Again, this is just some kind of thought process that can only come in my head if I am not risking for my house to be repossessed by the bank, or when I have enough cash to keep paying rent, or I don’t have a family to support. It’s a complete luxurious form of integrity that is completely detached from the real world (the one I live in, at least).
This seems completely peak war between poor people, where we stop challenging the arbitrary scarcity of resources and we want to solve the problem just by creating a hierarchy by which the crumbles should be shared.
I am from a different country, maybe it’s cultural, but this position is completely alienating and unrelatable for me.
You are still not thinking of the women who are also struggling to get jobs, who are poor as well. Women also struggle to pay rent or to feed their families too. You are contrasting women against struggling people as if they couldn’t be in the same position.
So not only women in this field already need to fight an uphill battle against the industry’s predisposition to hire men over women, now they are having to fight over opportunities that had been aimed at them to begin with. Don’t you think they will also face real financial struggles because of this?
It’s not a matter of caring about representation or material needs. It’s an opportunity to provide material needs through representation.
I don’t know where you are from, but I’m not american or european if that’s what you are assuming. Yet there are still women struggling where I live. I assume the same is true all over the world.
Surely, there is a point to be made regarding our need to pressure wealthy people so that more poorer people have means to live. But how does pulling the rug under a poor woman have anything to do with that? That’s not even the same discussion, that’s just changing topics from the ruthlessness being displayed.
And you know what, as a man, if I were in a situation of need as well I wouldn’t look favorably over people who are so intent on tripping whoever is around them to cut in line. Desperation is real for sure, but for that very reason solidarity is important.
Of course I am aware of that. Of course there are women who are in the same situation, or worse. Of course there are black women who are even in a worse place. Of course there are old black women who are in even a worse place. The fact is, there are people who need a job, and once this is the case, I don’t put any responsibility on any of them if they take the spot that could be taken by someone more deserving. This is simply a decision that doesn’t make sense. The responsibility is on those who decide how many jobs exist, to layoff people even with record profits (which coincidentally, are all the sponsors of this fair) and so on.
But how does pulling the rug under a poor woman have anything to do with that? That’s not even the same discussion, that’s just changing topics from the ruthlessness being displayed.
How is it trying to get a job (paying 600$+!) “pulling the rug” from anybody? This is what I don’t get. Literally, anything you do, you are affecting society in a way that damages someone who has less means than you. You are buying something -> you are marginally increasing the demand and therefore the price.
It’s not like I don’t understand your idea, I simply don’t think it makes any sense to expect such behavior to other people who are also victims of the same system. I have no interest whatsoever in fragmenting the working class creating a hierarchy of who is more victimized, this is a pointless exercises which is reactionary in nature.
if I were in a situation of need as well I wouldn’t look favorably over people who are so intent on tripping whoever is around them to cut in line
So if you apply for a job and someone else has already applied, you leave it? What does ‘cutting the line’ means in this context? We are talking about paying to go to a job fair meant for women, which also probably means that your chance to get recruited are much lower than a woman because companies are nowadays very interested in boosting their diversity metrics. And I think this is the case because for some people the struggle ends there: you get 40% of women in tech, there you go, now you are a good company, thanks Microsoft/Apple/etc… This is why I think that this particular version of feminism is inherently bourgeois and reactionary.
I have no interest whatsoever in fragmenting the working class creating a hierarchy of who is more victimized
This is very lofty talk for someone fully willing to take away opportunities intentionally aimed at someone else who needs it.
Don’t you think snatching that opportunity is going to cause fragmentation? Do you think women or minorities stop having material struggles as long as you don’t think of them as a distinct group? That’s not how it works. If it was, then before feminism, working class women would have equal material conditions to working class men, and that is absolutely not how it went.
And yeah, there are people who are even more disadvantaged, which also results in worse material conditions. The solution is not to stop thinking about it.
For all your talk about working class, what you propose is nothing that helps the working class in a systemic or immediate way, it’s just “looking out for #1” and then pointing fingers at the system if anyone judges you for it. I guess your logic is that if you are working class and you help yourself you are helping the working class? Funny, but that’s not it.
You know exactly what “cutting the line” means here. There are other job fairs and recruitment opportunities where these guys could go to. However less likely they may be to be hired, whoever does is taking away an opportunity that a woman needed. However insincere the companies may be at doing this, however this may not be enough to create a better society where everyone can have a decent life, these women need jobs regardless. You know, material conditions, the thing you were saying was much more important.
I am just saying that this burden shouldn’t fall on other people in material need.
Well, good thing it doesn’t in this case.
The whole point is that everything in this field is already, by default, directed at men. That’s what it’s like in the US. It’s the same with race. And saying we have have equality when we don’t is just ignoring the way these divisions affect historically oppressed groups. Acknowledging systemic hierarchy and division between races and genders in order to fix it doesn’t automatically mean you have to ignore class divisions. They’re far from mutually exclusive. Why would it be impossible to acknowledge both at the same time?
It’s to the point where no one else can have anything without men going “what about me and my problems?” “Well here’s what I think about all these social issues that have never and will never negatively affect me.” As usual, the “not all men” of every comment section of every article about a women-only-something-or-other are just making a great case for women-only-something-or-others.
everything in this field is already, by default, directed at men
This is a very broad statement. Perhaps the population of males that showed up here is not an average male population in tech but the outliers of the statistics (looking at the videos, it seems mostly foreigners)? So I think it’s fairly alienating to go tell them “sorry, fuck off, everything is meant for you already”, when maybe you are out of a job for months and decided to pay 600$ (!!) in the hope of getting one.
saying we have have equality
Who said this?
Why would it be impossible to acknowledge both at the same time?
It’s not impossible, but this happens. A lot of focus on the relatively minor differences between oppressed people creates fragmentation that impedes those people to realize they actually share problems and interests. To make an example, you coming and saying that “everything is meant for men anyway” is alienating to a 45yr old male who has just been fired to be replaced by a 23yr old (maybe, woman). It simply conflicts with the experiences of individuals who - despite potentially being men - face other kind of discrimination and generally struggle. That man has more in common with a woman who is not promoted, compared to the boss of that woman who is sexist, instead, and should not be alienated by gaslighting him with a reality that for him does not exist (I took this example, but the same applies to a black person, a foreigner, someone who didn’t study in a fancy university, someone with a disability, and so on).
So I am not saying that they are mutually exclusive, I am saying that concretely some arguments, including the overall tone of the article, seem to me to damage class unity to purely focus on gender discrimination.
It’s to the point where no one else can have anything without men going “what about me and my problems?”
Sorry, but I would not like to be mixed up with arguments made by others, nor with those who are arguing a-la Jordan Peterson in this thread. I don’t care of men as a category, I am a supporter of feminism, I just have an idea of feminism as an inherently anti-capitalist and progressive ideology, which is an enabler for class unity. I just don’t see the kind of arguments made by this article (and by some of the commenters) going in this direction. Instead, they seem to me as part of a feminism which is reactionary and part of the system in that it doesn’t challenge it. Getting angry at fellow victims just because they are men seem to me an expression of this.
Nota bene: if the kind of tech-bro with a cushy job would be attending this fair with the intention to waste the time of the recruiters or even to look for a better job, my opinion would be different.
As a woman who used to work in tech, I would like to point out that you are missing some very key details here. The expectations placed on women in tech are much stricter, much more demeaning, and much more harsh than those placed on men. I had an employer while I was a contractor decide not to renew my contract because I “didn’t smile enough” and “wasn’t friendly enough”, and this was not an expectation placed on my male coworkers. The contracting agency I was working through tried to argue in my defense, but the employer was allowed to discontinue my contract at any time for any reason. Unfortunately, the contracting agency didn’t have any other positions open for me, so I was just out of a job.
In just about every tech job I’ve had, it was made explicitly clear to me that behaving and interacting with others in the same manner as my male coworkers was not acceptable. I was hired with the implicit understanding that, in addition to providing my labor and expertise, I was required to present myself as feminine, demure, and almost submissive to any men I worked with, even if I was their supervisor.
Women need more help getting jobs in the tech industry because they are more likely than their male counterparts to lose jobs to sexism, unequal expectations, sexual harassment, and hostile work environments. This job fair was not allowed to officially exclude men, so it would be helpful for male tech workers to acknowledge and understand their inherent advantages and refrain from interfering with opportunities aimed at helping women in the industry.
That’s the part I really don’t get. If you’re cis male looking for a job, do you really think crashing this event is going to reflect favorably on you and that you’d be more likely to land a job? People are going to look at you and think that you have good judgment and won’t be a problem at all? What the heck is the thought process that makes this a good plan?
It is legally discrimination. What part of that isn’t understood? Substitute women for any other group based on height, age, race, religion, or sexual preference and see that your argument doesn’t hold water.
seriously this happens a lot people will go off and say word for word that a whole group of people are evil and bad when its a subset of a group. When called on it they may simply say that its not talking about the group as a whole or “not for you” if they dont genuinely believe the whole group is bad (which is wrong and discriminatory)
The issue is the discrepancy of what you say in relation to what you mean will lead others to believe in what you say but not what you mean and this harms those just trying to survive normally.
The first comment literally wasn’t talking about a whole group of people, they were talking about the men in this thread leaving comments that illustrate the exact reason why this space created by and for women and non-binary people should be about and for the benefit of women and non-binary people.
Being an asshole is not illegal. Obeying the law doesn’t mean you’re a good person.
If these dudes were - as the article quotes describe - pushing, shoving, cutting in line then like I don’t see why you feel you need to identify with these particular dudes.
You can absolutely wait until some guy actually is being unfairly treated before dying on this hill.
Being an asshole is not illegal. Obeying the law doesn’t mean you’re a good person
Oh I very much agree, and I don’t think I have suggested otherwise anywhere?
Also, the pushing, shoving etc. Is a completely different matter compared to what I am interested to discuss. I have a problem believing that any single men has gone there pushing and shoving but I have no problem believing that some did, and that is being an asshole.
Anyway, as I said I can’t care less about this argument, I am interested in the rest of the argument, the part in which it’s not the behavior being criticized but the very fact that they were there, as males.
It sounds as if the organizers were too quick to take the $650 from attendees and those willing to pay were very eager to pony up the cash in the hope of networking.
I don’t support the actions of men in this article, but all gender roles are toxic, and there are societal expectations of men that are genuinely toxic.
Again, women have gotten the shit end of the stick for muuuuch longer. I don’t want to minimize that. But saying mens rights activists are pathetic?
60% of male suicides report no off behavior from the man before commiting suicide. This suggests it isn’t a mental illness causing the problem, but circumstances in their life cause them to kill themself because they truly see no other solution or way out for the predicament they’re in.
How come men are twice as likely to be homeless than women?
Why isn’t it socially acceptable for men to take on the “care taker roll” like a stay at home dad or a nurse?
I could go on, but I don’t want to make this a rallying cry for men in a thread about a tech conference for women. I get meninsts is like a men’s rights group that was created to troll feminists, but men’s rights and woman’s rights should both just try and be egalitarian
Yeah, that’s feminism, not “men’s rights”. There are non-toxic sections of the Men’s Movement which explicitly recognise that their aims are feminist but they’re almost invisible because they got overrun by toxic men who only wanted to blame all their problems on women and reclaim their right to rape and exploit them.
This article is not perfect but it does make the point well:
Part Four: A List of “Men’s Rights” Issues That Feminism Is Already Working On
Feminists do not want you to lose custody of your children. The assumption that women are naturally better caregivers is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not like commercials in which bumbling dads mess up the laundry and competent wives have to bustle in and fix it. The assumption that women are naturally better housekeepers is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to have to make alimony payments. Alimony is set up to combat the fact that women have been historically expected to prioritize domestic duties over professional goals, thus minimizing their earning potential if their “traditional” marriages end. The assumption that wives should make babies instead of money is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want anyone to get raped in prison. Permissiveness and jokes about prison rape are part of rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want anyone to be falsely accused of rape. False rape accusations discredit rape victims, which reinforces rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to be lonely and we do not hate “nice guys.” The idea that certain people are inherently more valuable than other people because of superficial physical attributes is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to have to pay for dinner. We want the opportunity to achieve financial success on par with men in any field we choose (and are qualified for), and the fact that we currently don’t is part of patriarchy. The idea that men should coddle and provide for women, and/or purchase their affections in romantic contexts, is condescending and damaging and part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to be maimed or killed in industrial accidents, or toil in coal mines while we do cushy secretarial work and various yarn-themed activities. The fact that women have long been shut out of dangerous industrial jobs (by men, by the way) is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to commit suicide. Any pressures and expectations that lower the quality of life of any gender are part of patriarchy. The fact that depression is characterized as an effeminate weakness, making men less likely to seek treatment, is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to be viewed with suspicion when you take your child to the park (men frequently insist that this is a serious issue, so I will take them at their word). The assumption that men are insatiable sexual animals, combined with the idea that it’s unnatural for men to care for children, is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to be drafted and then die in a war while we stay home and iron stuff. The idea that women are too weak to fight or too delicate to function in a military setting is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want women to escape prosecution on legitimate domestic violence charges, nor do we want men to be ridiculed for being raped or abused. The idea that women are naturally gentle and compliant and that victimhood is inherently feminine is part of patriarchy.
Feminists hate patriarchy. We do not hate you.
If you really care about those issues as passionately as you say you do, you should be thanking feminists, because feminism is a social movement actively dedicated to dismantling every single one of them. The fact that you blame feminists—your allies—for problems against which they have been struggling for decades suggests that supporting men isn’t nearly as important to you as resenting women. We care about your problems a lot. Could you try caring about ours?
This list comes across as very self-serving though. It’s basically saying men’s issues are only a problem for Feminism when it can be framed as also impacting women. I read the parent poster as calling for rising above a narrow single gender view of equal rights.
It’s basically saying men’s issues are only a problem for Feminism when it can be framed as also impacting women.
Well yes. Feminism is focused on the specific forms of inequality that women and folk perceived as women face.
However, the root cause of that inequality often creates issues for everyone, not just women. So feminism isn’t “at odds” with mens rights, but rather, addressing the issues that women face will improve issues for men too, because of those shared root causes.
Sexism is inevitably a mirror. Treating girls and women differently inevitably has an impact on boys and men.
If you can think of a legitimate demand to improve life for boys and men which is not also a feminist issue, name it.
If you’re complaining that feminists aren’t backing up Men’s Rights Activists when they call for the right to rape and enserf women, then I can’t help you.
I agree with everything you posted, by why are the egalitarian ideals of feminism strictly a feminism thing and not a men’s rights / men’s movement. Or why not just label it “egalitarian”. Why does the label matter in the first place? If someone’s behavior is a demonstration they’re a hypocrite to feminist/men’s movement/egalitarian ideals, then critique the individual when it happens. Why generalize their behavior to the group as a whole?
Because the assholes got to “men’s rights” “men’s movement” en masse, and you’ll spend your whole life critiquing individuals and find communities full of those individuals when you see those words.
ITT: men who can’t ever admit they might be the problem. So many excuses here it’s pathetic.
edit: I love the “not all men” and “not me”. As always, it’s not all men. But it’s enough. And the men here getting so defensive really prove the point. And before anyone gets into it, it’s not really the sex or gender. It’s the societal expectations and allowances that encourage men to engage in abusive shit like we see in the article here. I.e. the patriarchy and those who support it.
Problem for what?
I exist, I need a job to live, I have job, I try my best not to be an asshole, I fight (and vote) for a better society, for social and civil rights.
Why exactly I - since I am a man I feel included in your statement - should be THE problem?
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If I was out of job, I would honestly care less about the fact that “my group” is over represented. There is no white male lobby that pays my mortgage. That said, I - as in the actual me - would not go to such event either, but that’s also because I wouldn’t go to any job fair atm since I don’t need a job.
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This is pure rhetoric, I can flip the argument:
“You care more about the gender than about my material condition.”
Also, the moment I need to let prevail abstract concepts over my material condition (i.e., caring about “my group” being over represented while I am out of a job) is the moment in which the class unity is broken. Me and those women who are out of a job have so much in common that there is no reason for me to consider us part of two separate groups. That’s the whole point of my argument, I advocate for worker solidarity and I absolutely feel that this attitude is overall harmful for it.
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Let me say this: to me this seems the completed detached thought of someone who never faced material difficulties.
I can only think this if I am in a position of privilege where I can choose. I absolutely can’t relate with any of this, I completely agree to disagree.
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Yes, all of your comments do.
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Do you realize that there are women out of a job too? It’s not just out of good vibes that people bring up issues of representation, they represent the material conditions of people. For you the percentage of women vs men in the workplace might be a meaningless number, but for those women, it’s their chance of a living.
I am just saying that this burden shouldn’t fall on other people in material need. It is simply extremely unfair from my point of view to imagine that a person which happens to be a man, and is in need of a job should just sit quietly and leave space for women, because generally, in the whole field, women are under represented.
Again, this is just some kind of thought process that can only come in my head if I am not risking for my house to be repossessed by the bank, or when I have enough cash to keep paying rent, or I don’t have a family to support. It’s a complete luxurious form of integrity that is completely detached from the real world (the one I live in, at least). This seems completely peak war between poor people, where we stop challenging the arbitrary scarcity of resources and we want to solve the problem just by creating a hierarchy by which the crumbles should be shared.
I am from a different country, maybe it’s cultural, but this position is completely alienating and unrelatable for me.
You are still not thinking of the women who are also struggling to get jobs, who are poor as well. Women also struggle to pay rent or to feed their families too. You are contrasting women against struggling people as if they couldn’t be in the same position.
So not only women in this field already need to fight an uphill battle against the industry’s predisposition to hire men over women, now they are having to fight over opportunities that had been aimed at them to begin with. Don’t you think they will also face real financial struggles because of this?
It’s not a matter of caring about representation or material needs. It’s an opportunity to provide material needs through representation.
I don’t know where you are from, but I’m not american or european if that’s what you are assuming. Yet there are still women struggling where I live. I assume the same is true all over the world.
Surely, there is a point to be made regarding our need to pressure wealthy people so that more poorer people have means to live. But how does pulling the rug under a poor woman have anything to do with that? That’s not even the same discussion, that’s just changing topics from the ruthlessness being displayed.
And you know what, as a man, if I were in a situation of need as well I wouldn’t look favorably over people who are so intent on tripping whoever is around them to cut in line. Desperation is real for sure, but for that very reason solidarity is important.
Of course I am aware of that. Of course there are women who are in the same situation, or worse. Of course there are black women who are even in a worse place. Of course there are old black women who are in even a worse place. The fact is, there are people who need a job, and once this is the case, I don’t put any responsibility on any of them if they take the spot that could be taken by someone more deserving. This is simply a decision that doesn’t make sense. The responsibility is on those who decide how many jobs exist, to layoff people even with record profits (which coincidentally, are all the sponsors of this fair) and so on.
How is it trying to get a job (paying 600$+!) “pulling the rug” from anybody? This is what I don’t get. Literally, anything you do, you are affecting society in a way that damages someone who has less means than you. You are buying something -> you are marginally increasing the demand and therefore the price.
It’s not like I don’t understand your idea, I simply don’t think it makes any sense to expect such behavior to other people who are also victims of the same system. I have no interest whatsoever in fragmenting the working class creating a hierarchy of who is more victimized, this is a pointless exercises which is reactionary in nature.
So if you apply for a job and someone else has already applied, you leave it? What does ‘cutting the line’ means in this context? We are talking about paying to go to a job fair meant for women, which also probably means that your chance to get recruited are much lower than a woman because companies are nowadays very interested in boosting their diversity metrics. And I think this is the case because for some people the struggle ends there: you get 40% of women in tech, there you go, now you are a good company, thanks Microsoft/Apple/etc… This is why I think that this particular version of feminism is inherently bourgeois and reactionary.
This is very lofty talk for someone fully willing to take away opportunities intentionally aimed at someone else who needs it.
Don’t you think snatching that opportunity is going to cause fragmentation? Do you think women or minorities stop having material struggles as long as you don’t think of them as a distinct group? That’s not how it works. If it was, then before feminism, working class women would have equal material conditions to working class men, and that is absolutely not how it went.
And yeah, there are people who are even more disadvantaged, which also results in worse material conditions. The solution is not to stop thinking about it.
For all your talk about working class, what you propose is nothing that helps the working class in a systemic or immediate way, it’s just “looking out for #1” and then pointing fingers at the system if anyone judges you for it. I guess your logic is that if you are working class and you help yourself you are helping the working class? Funny, but that’s not it.
You know exactly what “cutting the line” means here. There are other job fairs and recruitment opportunities where these guys could go to. However less likely they may be to be hired, whoever does is taking away an opportunity that a woman needed. However insincere the companies may be at doing this, however this may not be enough to create a better society where everyone can have a decent life, these women need jobs regardless. You know, material conditions, the thing you were saying was much more important.
Well, good thing it doesn’t in this case.
The whole point is that everything in this field is already, by default, directed at men. That’s what it’s like in the US. It’s the same with race. And saying we have have equality when we don’t is just ignoring the way these divisions affect historically oppressed groups. Acknowledging systemic hierarchy and division between races and genders in order to fix it doesn’t automatically mean you have to ignore class divisions. They’re far from mutually exclusive. Why would it be impossible to acknowledge both at the same time?
It’s to the point where no one else can have anything without men going “what about me and my problems?” “Well here’s what I think about all these social issues that have never and will never negatively affect me.” As usual, the “not all men” of every comment section of every article about a women-only-something-or-other are just making a great case for women-only-something-or-others.
This is a very broad statement. Perhaps the population of males that showed up here is not an average male population in tech but the outliers of the statistics (looking at the videos, it seems mostly foreigners)? So I think it’s fairly alienating to go tell them “sorry, fuck off, everything is meant for you already”, when maybe you are out of a job for months and decided to pay 600$ (!!) in the hope of getting one.
Who said this?
It’s not impossible, but this happens. A lot of focus on the relatively minor differences between oppressed people creates fragmentation that impedes those people to realize they actually share problems and interests. To make an example, you coming and saying that “everything is meant for men anyway” is alienating to a 45yr old male who has just been fired to be replaced by a 23yr old (maybe, woman). It simply conflicts with the experiences of individuals who - despite potentially being men - face other kind of discrimination and generally struggle. That man has more in common with a woman who is not promoted, compared to the boss of that woman who is sexist, instead, and should not be alienated by gaslighting him with a reality that for him does not exist (I took this example, but the same applies to a black person, a foreigner, someone who didn’t study in a fancy university, someone with a disability, and so on). So I am not saying that they are mutually exclusive, I am saying that concretely some arguments, including the overall tone of the article, seem to me to damage class unity to purely focus on gender discrimination.
Sorry, but I would not like to be mixed up with arguments made by others, nor with those who are arguing a-la Jordan Peterson in this thread. I don’t care of men as a category, I am a supporter of feminism, I just have an idea of feminism as an inherently anti-capitalist and progressive ideology, which is an enabler for class unity. I just don’t see the kind of arguments made by this article (and by some of the commenters) going in this direction. Instead, they seem to me as part of a feminism which is reactionary and part of the system in that it doesn’t challenge it. Getting angry at fellow victims just because they are men seem to me an expression of this.
Nota bene: if the kind of tech-bro with a cushy job would be attending this fair with the intention to waste the time of the recruiters or even to look for a better job, my opinion would be different.
As a woman who used to work in tech, I would like to point out that you are missing some very key details here. The expectations placed on women in tech are much stricter, much more demeaning, and much more harsh than those placed on men. I had an employer while I was a contractor decide not to renew my contract because I “didn’t smile enough” and “wasn’t friendly enough”, and this was not an expectation placed on my male coworkers. The contracting agency I was working through tried to argue in my defense, but the employer was allowed to discontinue my contract at any time for any reason. Unfortunately, the contracting agency didn’t have any other positions open for me, so I was just out of a job.
In just about every tech job I’ve had, it was made explicitly clear to me that behaving and interacting with others in the same manner as my male coworkers was not acceptable. I was hired with the implicit understanding that, in addition to providing my labor and expertise, I was required to present myself as feminine, demure, and almost submissive to any men I worked with, even if I was their supervisor.
Women need more help getting jobs in the tech industry because they are more likely than their male counterparts to lose jobs to sexism, unequal expectations, sexual harassment, and hostile work environments. This job fair was not allowed to officially exclude men, so it would be helpful for male tech workers to acknowledge and understand their inherent advantages and refrain from interfering with opportunities aimed at helping women in the industry.
That’s the part I really don’t get. If you’re cis male looking for a job, do you really think crashing this event is going to reflect favorably on you and that you’d be more likely to land a job? People are going to look at you and think that you have good judgment and won’t be a problem at all? What the heck is the thought process that makes this a good plan?
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It is legally discrimination. What part of that isn’t understood? Substitute women for any other group based on height, age, race, religion, or sexual preference and see that your argument doesn’t hold water.
seriously this happens a lot people will go off and say word for word that a whole group of people are evil and bad when its a subset of a group. When called on it they may simply say that its not talking about the group as a whole or “not for you” if they dont genuinely believe the whole group is bad (which is wrong and discriminatory)
The issue is the discrepancy of what you say in relation to what you mean will lead others to believe in what you say but not what you mean and this harms those just trying to survive normally.
The first comment literally wasn’t talking about a whole group of people, they were talking about the men in this thread leaving comments that illustrate the exact reason why this space created by and for women and non-binary people should be about and for the benefit of women and non-binary people.
It also didn’t explain why, nor made the distinction you are making. So yeah, it was a blanket statement to karma farm on Lemmy…
Being an asshole is not illegal. Obeying the law doesn’t mean you’re a good person.
If these dudes were - as the article quotes describe - pushing, shoving, cutting in line then like I don’t see why you feel you need to identify with these particular dudes.
You can absolutely wait until some guy actually is being unfairly treated before dying on this hill.
Oh I very much agree, and I don’t think I have suggested otherwise anywhere?
Also, the pushing, shoving etc. Is a completely different matter compared to what I am interested to discuss. I have a problem believing that any single men has gone there pushing and shoving but I have no problem believing that some did, and that is being an asshole.
Anyway, as I said I can’t care less about this argument, I am interested in the rest of the argument, the part in which it’s not the behavior being criticized but the very fact that they were there, as males.
Can you expound on that statement?
It sounds as if the organizers were too quick to take the $650 from attendees and those willing to pay were very eager to pony up the cash in the hope of networking.
The attendees should be able to tell that they would be intruding even if the organization didn’t bother to check that. Both were in the wrong.
How would they separate those intruding and those who the event was made for? Seems like a hard issue to solve
There’s nothing more pathetic the a Mens Rights Activist. Shame to see so many of them here.
I don’t support the actions of men in this article, but all gender roles are toxic, and there are societal expectations of men that are genuinely toxic.
Again, women have gotten the shit end of the stick for muuuuch longer. I don’t want to minimize that. But saying mens rights activists are pathetic?
60% of male suicides report no off behavior from the man before commiting suicide. This suggests it isn’t a mental illness causing the problem, but circumstances in their life cause them to kill themself because they truly see no other solution or way out for the predicament they’re in.
How come men are twice as likely to be homeless than women?
Why isn’t it socially acceptable for men to take on the “care taker roll” like a stay at home dad or a nurse?
I could go on, but I don’t want to make this a rallying cry for men in a thread about a tech conference for women. I get meninsts is like a men’s rights group that was created to troll feminists, but men’s rights and woman’s rights should both just try and be egalitarian
Yeah, that’s feminism, not “men’s rights”. There are non-toxic sections of the Men’s Movement which explicitly recognise that their aims are feminist but they’re almost invisible because they got overrun by toxic men who only wanted to blame all their problems on women and reclaim their right to rape and exploit them.
This article is not perfect but it does make the point well:
This list comes across as very self-serving though. It’s basically saying men’s issues are only a problem for Feminism when it can be framed as also impacting women. I read the parent poster as calling for rising above a narrow single gender view of equal rights.
Well yes. Feminism is focused on the specific forms of inequality that women and folk perceived as women face.
However, the root cause of that inequality often creates issues for everyone, not just women. So feminism isn’t “at odds” with mens rights, but rather, addressing the issues that women face will improve issues for men too, because of those shared root causes.
Sexism is inevitably a mirror. Treating girls and women differently inevitably has an impact on boys and men.
If you can think of a legitimate demand to improve life for boys and men which is not also a feminist issue, name it.
If you’re complaining that feminists aren’t backing up Men’s Rights Activists when they call for the right to rape and enserf women, then I can’t help you.
I agree with everything you posted, by why are the egalitarian ideals of feminism strictly a feminism thing and not a men’s rights / men’s movement. Or why not just label it “egalitarian”. Why does the label matter in the first place? If someone’s behavior is a demonstration they’re a hypocrite to feminist/men’s movement/egalitarian ideals, then critique the individual when it happens. Why generalize their behavior to the group as a whole?
Because the assholes got to “men’s rights” “men’s movement” en masse, and you’ll spend your whole life critiquing individuals and find communities full of those individuals when you see those words.
Because it is structural.
Amazing the way everything can be twisted to be all men’s fault.
Get a fucking grip.
I’m not the one claiming all problems are due to the patriarchy.
Oh honey, you’re not the patriarchy. Just one of its useful idiots.
Great Parks and Rec episode
It’s abusive to checks notes apply for a job?
It’s abusive to invade women’s spaces as a man looking to take advantage. Stay out.
Oh look, you’re all up in this thread a day late posting his horrid takes.
The organization says it welcomes men’s allyship and participation though
Well, it seems to be considered abusive to have a men’s space at all, and if there is one, women are downright encouraged to invade it.
The horrid tale is hating men for trying to get a job.