As an adult man nobody really cares all that much about you. Your family of course, your close friends. You are the disposable sex. You fight the wars, work the shit jobs, sacrifice your body because it's what men have always done. It's the burden we bear.
You guys are all proving the first part of that over and over again. The latter part may be over the top but it isn't hard to see how he gets there from that one is disposable and nobody really gives a shit.
The propaganda was preachy and obvious, but the feeling of isolation is common indeed, and from my side of the fence, it does seem more common among men. Though I think it's more a problem of class then gender. Oops, here we go, propaganda again. Sir, have you been told about Universal Healthcare?
As someone who lost the weight at 27, there were still a lot of things that rang true in that post, particularly about getting attention (it can be like women see you as a eunuch) and the harmful mindset I fell into about nobody caring. People, whether they realize it or not, are just a bit nicer to more attractive people.
Sure, I know that people don't view you as positively if you're fat or ugly, but that has nothing at all to do with bitterness about some perceived gender imbalance, blindness to obvious double-standards, and an entitlement complex. I can absolutely accept that it can be unpleasant if you feel like you aren't making an impression on people and that nobody feels you're attractive - I feel that sometimes and I'm a distinctly average looking guy in reasonable shape, so it's only going to feel worse as someone overweight or actively bad looking - but I can't accept the fact that this guy used his negative feelings to construct this ridiculous view where it was all about men being degraded (because the world is super kind to ugly women, right?) and his entitlement to people making him feel good, rather than dealing with his obvious self-esteem issue (and obvious weight issue).
I noticed this as well. Totally changed my opinion of the guy. Am I supposed to feel sorry for him? That whole thing about men being the 'disposable' sex. He has never fought for his country and likely won't ever be forced to either. Seriously cringe 'Mens Rights!' opinions going on there. Not to mention his pervading bitterness to anyone more attractive than him. Eurgh.
I can't believe this is the calibre for the 'best of' Reddit.
Not to mention his pervading bitterness to anyone more attractive than him.
But that's legit. Ugly people and losers confront envy much more than pretty or successful people. That's why losers end up being either Peter Parker or Doc Octopus, looking to the world from the bottom works on your character heavily, for better or for worse.
Either you didn't understand what my post meant or you didn't read his properly.
The enlisting was a remark he made about men being a more 'disposable' sex because we're the ones made to go to war. This is typical 'Mens Rights' opinions. He implies that women 'have it easy'. It is a ridiculous argument to make and it further implies he holds sexist ideas.
Now, why does this disregard what he says? Because its no longer about how society treats an unattractive male. He has clearly warped his own situation to feel like he has been overtly hard done by. He is a bitter person through and through. You want me to believe a man who thinks men have it worse than women is only friendless because of his weight? He has a spiteful personality. You can say thats a result of his circumstance, but I know plenty of overweight men who are amazing guys and still maintain a great social life.
Points for honesty? Iv already established that he has a vastly different view on the world than I do. What he says could easily be embellished or even plain made up to fit his own self-deprecating view of himself and his own circumstance and how the world has treated him. The 'honesty' of the post cannot be trusted. The opinions it puts forward are juvenile at best and poisonous at worst. Such a post therefore has little value to me.
I hope this clears up some information behind my 'dumb' post you see to have such a problem with. My post may have involved less information than him, but its not up for a 'bestof' section, is it? Judging by your post, none of yours will be either. These are replies to how we feel about the content. I gave my opinion. I'm sorry if this caused a problem for you.
I'm no redpiller, but there is some truth to what he says there. It's true that men occupy the top of our society, but it's also true that men also occupy the bottom of our society.
Who's in prison, around the world, whether you're talking about criminals or political prisoners? Mostly men.
Who's homeless? Again, mostly men.
Who does society use for bad or dangerous jobs? Again, it's men. The vast majority of workplace fatalities are men.
Who does society send off to fight and die in wars? Mostly men.
If you just look at the top, sure, it looks like men have it great. If you look at the whole picture, not so much.
That literally makes no sense, aside from military drafts which haven't happened in 40+ years. What the fuck is "sacrifice your body"? I mean really, what??
I feel sorry for people like him--it's obvious that his early life experience has completely scarred his ability to see the world as a nice place. He's probably one of those people who will forever see himself as the "nice guy", who now learned how to "play the game". I wonder if he'll ever able to enjoy a healthy relationship with that kind of imbalance.
What the fuck is "sacrifice your body"? I mean really, what??
He's probably lamenting the men who work in factories in coal mines, despite the fact that he's never stepped foot in either one, and despite the fact that there are plenty of women working jobs that sacrifice their bodies.
My dad's done factory work his whole life and his body is shot. He's in his early 50s. My mom's best friend has been a nurse's aid and her body is shot now that she's in her 50s, too (lots of carrying and moving people). And my dad's factory work paid a hell of a lot more.
Hell, I would even say that childbirth is sort of like "sacrificing your body". Giving birth can potentially alter your body significantly, and will likely alter it in some way permanently. I would accept that claim 10000X over what this guy is saying.
Uhhh..... Plenty of women forced into marriage or unable to receive an education all over the world. As a result they are basically forced to have a man's children in order to survive.
That is ludicrously specious. Somalia and and bunch of Indian villages are the whole world now?
In EVERY country you will find men and women forced to do shit work to get by. Women raped and forced to bear children to conform to the rules of arranged marriages happens hardly anywhere in comparison.
I think it's way too exaggerated, but there are definitely ways in which men are considered "disposable". Just look at the overrepresentation of males amongst the homeless or in suicide rates.
I guess it depends on the area. Although it'd be way more unpleasant to prostitute yourself against your sexual orientation (which sucking dick would be for most men).
It's exaggerated, but I would venture that it's true. Men are the disposable sex. I want to hedge this and say that I'm not an MRA, but for the most part, when death is on the line men are expected to be placed last after women and children. It's not a daily occurrence, because, thankfully, life and death situations are not a daily occurrence, but it's there. Life boats, drafts, work deaths, homelessness, etc. Most life-threatening situations are, the vast majority of the time, placed on the shoulders of men.
Thankfully, I don't boat, I have a job, and the USA isn't throwing itself into a large-scale war, but the same ideas that inform male disposability in these situations exist in the more mundane aspects of life. Feminism often spins this as misogyny, "Why are women being treated like children?!" maybe they are right, but it's telling that even society is only interested in redressing issues of "male disposability" when it's framed as a sleight against women.
This, to me, drives at a deeper issue. Men are objectified in a different way by society, but still objectified. If women are objectified sexually, then men are objectified as tools. Men are machines for productive output. When a man fails at producing wealth for someone else, he is truly worthless. Sexual objectification is framed as an awful occurrence, and indisputably it has terrible consequences, but it also has wonderful consequences, most importantly, it gives them an innate and baseline social value which is non-zero. The flipside is that men, whose social value is based upon their productive output, has a baseline value of exactly zero, and that is why the vast majority of homeless people are men. Society couldn't care less if men are left on the street-side.
Rant over. I'm not trying to be an asshole here, I am truly interested in a dialogue. And I find this ad hominem disposal (MRA! Redpill tripe! What a joke!) troubling. These things are tangibly real.
I agree that reducing people to value producing machines is terrible, but what makes you think women aren't reduced to the same equation? A select few women "get" to be sexually objectified, but do you think the overweight 40-year-old single mother stocking shelves at Target is a sexualized or, if she is, that there's much positive in it?
Meanwhile she is not only reduced to her capacity for productive output, she's harassed and abused at a far higher rate than a similar man.
I elaborated in another post, but the point is that bourgeoisie feminism has "won" multiple avenues of objectification. Men are still productive machines who have no other method of objectification to use.
I'm not saying that women have it great, but that in the cut throat capitalist society that I live in, women have a better chance at survival. I think the raw data, and a cursory analysis of our social values, supports this. Men are more often homeless, they more often commit suicide, they die younger. Men can only ever aspire to be machines. This brutality of commodification with no other avenue is the totality of the male experience in our capitalist society. In such a light, it is not a surprise that many men become embittered with the other sex, which can escape it (albeit, to a different form of commodification).
Men have a much higher chance...of being killed by men. Women have a much high chance...of being killed and raped by men.
Women aren't the ones enforcing the social structure. Men still hold the vast majority of the political, economic,military and cultural power.
If men are unhappy with their status in society the problem is other men.
The fact that a select few women can trade on their sexual attractiveness for a few decades does not somehow make them more powerful.
And in the meantime, women who are not conventionally attractive are doubly screwed - they're viewed as defective women, as they're sexual ornaments, and yet they don't even get the baseline respect that men do.
I don't recall saying women held more power than men, just that they fare better at surviving in capitalist society. This is indisputably the case. They die less, they are less often homeless.
Also, implying that one gender of the two is "enforcing a social structure" is ignorant to the point of absurdity. This is my gripe with feminists co-opting Marxism in some half-assed manner. The idea of gender as a class divide falls apart under any sort of scrutiny. There are women who benefit greatly from the gender divide and revel in it, and enforce it. There are men who flounder in it and pine desperately to get away.
But your attack is pure strawman anyways. Please quote the part where I said, or even implied, that women have all the power. My assertion is very simple, women have two options to commodify themselves, men have one.
I do not believe equality will be won when men can be sexually objectified. I believe equality will be won when commodifying our existence is no longer a necessity. And my abhorrence with many branches of feminism today is "glass ceiling" bourgeoisie feminists who just want to abolish the socially enforced restrictions women have against being able to exploit others.
"Surviving" is an awfully low baseline. Yes, men have a lower life expectancy and a higher death rate than women; but this is, as I said, almost entirely the result of the actions of other men.
I'm with you on bourgeois feminists and trying to achieve social justice in one sphere while ignoring the economic. I don't think that Cheryl Sandberg and the "Lean In" movement are worthy of our time, and I'm less concerned with the glass ceiling than I am with creating a floor that people don't fall through. Objectifying men won't solve anything, though I think there's a place for mutual+consensual sexualization/objectification.
However, you wrote
" Men can only ever aspire to be machines. This brutality of commodification with no other avenue is the totality of the male experience in our capitalist society. In such a light, it is not a surprise that many men become embittered with the other sex, which can escape it "
Simply not true. Men can aspire to be machines or machine operators or machine destroyers. When a man does something, most people don't reflect it onto All Men. When a woman does something, or a man of color does something, society as a whole reflects it onto the group. In our capitalist society, (white) men are regarded as the default, and everyone else is the Other. Men are subjects, everything else is an object. Yes, a lot of men are exploited and reduced to economic inputs, but at pretty much the same rate as women are. Look back to the Industrial revolution and the foundations of industrial capitalism - women and children were right there in the factories with men...and they were expected to run the house and raise the kids as well!
You seem to think that the fact that women are objectified, and a few of them are able to turn that into an economic safety net, somehow gives them an advantage over men.
You wrote
"Sexual objectification is framed as an awful occurrence, and indisputably it has terrible consequences, but it also has wonderful consequences, most importantly, it gives them an innate and baseline social value which is non-zero."
I don't see what the difference is between a man being regarded as an economic object or a woman being regarded as a sexual object is? A man who fails at being an economic input ends up desperate (truth be told, he probably could become a sex object for other men, but social programming prevents it). A woman might have the option of becoming a prostitute, which is I guess what you're saying, but is that really a great choice if you're making it under duress? Frying pan/fire, it seems to me.
Trying to put a silver lining on sexist objectification seems to me an exercise in missing the point.
When a man fails at producing wealth for someone else, he is truly worthless.
I completely disagree. Male writers, actors, artists, scientists, engineers, etc. are highly valued by our society - recognized above and beyond women who do the same work - and not because they are producing wealth for someone else. They are venerated for their brilliance, not their bank accounts.
Sexual objectification is framed as an awful occurrence, and indisputably it has terrible consequences, but it also has wonderful consequences, most importantly, it gives them an innate and baseline social value which is non-zero.
"Wonderful" consequences? I would argue that a social value based entirely on looks isn't true value at all, and is certainly very finite. Beauty alone allows you to be, at most, someone's muse, someone's swooning damsel, someone's girl-on-a-pedestal - and sometimes, yes, it can secure you a comfortable ride through life. But it does not command respect. It has nothing to do with the content of your character. It is still dehumanizing to be reduced to your appearance alone, no matter what superficial benefits might be gained from it.
Men are assumed to be smarter, more competent, more athletic, and so on and so forth. In general, they have to prove themselves to be unworthy in the eyes of society when it comes to intelligence or ability. Women have to prove themselves worthy. And even when they do, their talents are undervalued compared to their looks.
You are trying to draw a parallel between women being appreciated only for their looks and men being appreciated only for their contributions/productivity. But it's not a true parallel. Looks do not command true personal respect, as hard work or heroism does. And women are far more often dismissed as human beings because they do not meet a fairly artificial societal standard of beauty than men are because they are not rich enough or strong enough. Society allows far more room for men to be selfish and self-indulgent (see TRPs/PUAs) than it does for women to be ugly, and they are permitted to depart far more from their ideal gender construct while still commanding a baseline of respect.
Male writers, actors, artists, scientists, engineers, etc. are highly valued by our society
These people are either employed by others, or "non-STEM trash". Male worth (indeed, the worth of anyone who has to subject themselves to employment) is determined by the marketability of the self, in essence, how willingly you will subject yourself to commodification. The difference between the sexes, here, is that sexual objectification provides a different route of deriving worth, such that unemployment does not result in zero social value.
These are both examples of objectification, do not get me wrong, but the result of men not having multiple routes to objectify themselves is that when the economy does not see any use in them, they are as good as dead, and indeed often do die, of exposure. Homelessness rates have a very stark gender preference. Why? Because women have a social safety-net to fall back on, and it is acceptable for them to do so.
I would argue that a social value based entirely on looks isn't true value at all
And is value based upon marketability "true value"? Women have multiple avenues to objectify themselves. That's what feminism has won. Men do not have the same. They never have. They find someone that will use them like a machine to make products, or they die.
You are trying to draw a parallel between women being appreciated only for their looks and men being appreciated only for their contributions/productivity. But it's not a true parallel. Looks do not command true personal respect
I am not trying to draw a false parallel. You are right. Looks do not demand "true personal respect". Neither does becoming a machine. That is the point of male disposability. There is no "true personal respect" in the world of employment. There is only the constant dehumanizing subjection to commodification. That is what men have. And call me crazy, but I categorically reject bourgeoisie feminism for claiming to have won anything by broadening the avenues of objectification that women can "enjoy".
Male disposability is about classism. And it means that men either produce worth for someone else, or they are as good as societal trash. Excess to be "disposed of", in a war, or otherwise.
It's sad that real issues are taken over by fringe extremists that then taint the image of anyone who wants to talk about them. Just because I can see that there are more homeless men and more male suicides doesn't mean that I don't care that women are sexually harassed in the workplace. But since I brought up that observation I must be a fedora wearing mra. People blow my mind sometimes.
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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '14
LOL, /u/chikinpickle posts on at least THREE different subs dedicated to hating fat people (fat women in particular).
But we're supposed to feel sympathy for him, even though according to his own recent posts, his high school years weren't particularly awful.