Urban v's the Commentariat

[ViolentPanda]

If you can see how capitalism exploits the biology of women in as many ways as it does, but wherever it similarly exploits the biology of men you think it appropriate to resituate that exploitation into being a privilege over women, you are a useful fucking idiot for the enemy.

Dying as a coal miner as male privilege. For fuck's sake. Fuck off.

"Wherever"? get over yourself!
As I said further up the thread, sometimes other social and cultural factors are involved. In this case, those social and cultural factors militate against women in supposedly "inappropriate" workplaces - women are effectively diverted (if at all) into other work, often the traditional role of child-rearer and all-round carer. For me, that very obviously makes men around Soma relatively-privileged over women. Yes, it's a shitty "privilege", and yes, it'd be better if it didn't exist, but it does, and it fuels the sort of reactive and reactionary assumptions about gender roles that are already well-established, as much here as in Turkey.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You need a holiday in Tralfamadore.

Avoid Billy, though. He's a bit of a bore once he starts recounting his war stories.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Out of interest, has anyone knowingly met an MRA? I'm certainly not denying they exist or are a problem - they clearly do and are - it's just I've only ever seen them on the internet and in newspaper articles about fathers 4 justice. Maybe I have met them and they've just been sensible enough to hide their principled stand against misandry from me?

I have, but not for over 20 years (then again, I don't get out anywhere near as much as I did back then), and that was a small group that used to "protest" outside of any event in south London that had even a vague whiff of feminism to it (even outside Lambeth Council meetings, back when Linda Bellos was at lambeth in the late '80s). elves "men for change" or something similarly nondescript.
I knew one of them because he'd been a year above me at secondary school. I wasn't surprised that he was anti-feminist, and believed that women were privileged over men, mostly because while charming and personable, he'd been the vainest, most self-centred person in a school of 900 males, so reacting against anything that removed him from the centre of attention seemed to me to be natural behaviour for him. I got talking and bought him a pint, and it was the same old same old - his wife had stolen his kids from him, and poisoned their minds (nothing to do with his own behaviour, obviously!) - and it was part of a feminist conspiracy, not the fact that he was a donkey's rectum.
Nowadays I think it's a little less permissible to voice such sentiments aloud, but that doesn't stop people from holding them.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Out of interest, has anyone knowingly met an MRA?

Yes. The father of an ex. Became obsessed with the family courts after a marriage broke up. Then followed the oft tread path from feeling hard done by, to "fathers rights" to more generalised misogyny. I didn't know him before the transformation but I'm told he wasn't a reactionary at all beforehand.

 

[Ole]

Two generations of my father's side of the family worked in the pits east of Rotherham. I'm well aware of how dangerous mining is.
If the social structure is such that only a sector of the population is able to take the opportunity to put food on the family table, then work is, de facto, a "privilege".
Guess what, Nortbert? Privilege is relative.



Only if you're enough of a twat to think that "privilege" means something it doesn't, Einstein.

That is a very simple-minded point of view.

This latest tragedy in Turkey demonstrates how duplicitous this rhetoric of 'well it's shit but at least you can earn a living' actually can be. You can't earn a living when your job literally kills you.

Do you draw no line whatsoever? Surely you must. How poor do the working conditions, and how high does the risk of death have to be in a workplace before work is not a 'privilege'?

 

[el-ahrairah]

sometimes oppressions intersect.

it is possible that, depending on how you look at things, the right to work is both a privilege and an oppression.

all wage-slavery is oppression. not being allowed to earn a living is also an oppression.

these situations can exist at the same time because of context and should not pose a mental problem, surely?

 

[Red Cat]

There's an issue around meaning here isn't there? I think for most people, their associations with the word privilege are wealth, the kind of wealth enjoyed by the upper middle class, and all the advantages of that. Which is somewhat different to the way in which privilege is being used to describe the relative advantages of being a man in a sexist society. Using it with the second meaning and it being seen or heard with the associations of the first is going to cause some pissedoffness.

 

[Pickman's model]

That is a very simple-minded point of view.

This latest tragedy in Turkey demonstrates how duplicitous this rhetoric of 'well it's shit but at least you can earn a living' actually can be. You can't earn a living when your job literally kills you.

Do you draw no line whatsoever? Surely you must. How poor do the working conditions, and how high does the risk of death have to be in a workplace before work is not a 'privilege'?

work is not a privilege. it is a life sentence of hard labour.

 

[Pickman's model]

Avoid Billy, though. He's a bit of a bore once he starts recounting his war stories.

used to know a man who, within five minutes, would turn a conversation from any imaginable topic to german weapons of the second world war.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That is a very simple-minded point of view.

It's a simplistic point of view - you can't generalise and not be simplistic - but I disagree that it's "simple-minded".

This latest tragedy in Turkey demonstrates how duplicitous this rhetoric of 'well it's shit but at least you can earn a living' actually can be. You can't earn a living when your job literally kills you.

Thing is, for most of our history, not earning a living has been a very effective method of killing off the working class. If your choice is Hobson's Choice, then you get your head down, and get on with it, and here, post- The Factories Acts, that meant adult male labour in the mines and iron and steel mills, and adult labour in the textile mills, regardless of the danger. Better a modicum of food on the table, however dangerous earning it was, than the alternatives.

Do you draw no line whatsoever? Surely you must. How poor do the working conditions, and how high does the risk of death have to be in a workplace before work is not a 'privilege'?

Yet again you're missing the context I've used "privilege" in. I don't mean that work should be seen as a privilege, I mean that gender roles have historically privileged males over females, and that one of the arenas this has historically played out in is with regard to access to work - access to the ability to look after you and yours, even if you have to sell your labour to do so.
What sort of line can be drawn between "not too risky to do, in order to feed your family", and "too risky to do", when there's no other "safety net" but the workhouse, where the mortality rates were generally higher than the local non-workhouse population?

 

[DaveCinzano]

used to know a man who, within five minutes, would turn a conversation from any imaginable topic to german weapons of the second world war.

Why did you remain in touch, then? Was it some kind of Panzerfaustian pact?

 

[Pickman's model]

Why did you remain in touch, then? Was it some kind of Panzerfaustian pact?

he was a regular in a pub i used to drink in

 

[Ole]

It's a simplistic point of view - you can't generalise and not be simplistic - but I disagree that it's "simple-minded".


Thing is, for most of our history, not earning a living has been a very effective method of killing off the working class. If your choice is Hobson's Choice, then you get your head down, and get on with it, and here, post- The Factories Acts, that meant adult male labour in the mines and iron and steel mills, and adult labour in the textile mills, regardless of the danger. Better a modicum of food on the table, however dangerous earning it was, than the alternatives.



Yet again you're missing the context I've used "privilege" in. I don't mean that work should be seen as a privilege, I mean that gender roles have historically privileged males over females, and that one of the arenas this has historically played out in is with regard to access to work - access to the ability to look after you and yours, even if you have to sell your labour to do so.
What sort of line can be drawn between "not too risky to do, in order to feed your family", and "too risky to do", when there's no other "safety net" but the workhouse, where the mortality rates were generally higher than the local non-workhouse population?

I know you're generalising and obviously there is a degree of truth to the idea. My point is that I believe one instance in which your generalisation of 'greater access to work = greater privilege' fails to hold true is when you are talking about these miners, because of the state of their rights and working conditions. I also believe the massive loss of life attests to that.

I just choose to draw the line there. I think there comes a point where the conditions placed on the opportunity to earn some money are so ruthless and harsh that it is no privilege at all to have it. I mean, what if the fatality rate in coal-mining there shot up massively, by say 200%? 300%? Surely even you would agree, at some point? If it is Hobson's choice, they must take it, and massive numbers will die, to be replaced by even more desperate people. It isn't reasonable to describe being coerced into doing something and seriously risk death doing it, as a privilege.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I know you're generalising and obviously there is a degree of truth to the idea. My point is that I believe one instance in which your generalisation of 'greater access to work = greater privilege' fails to hold true is when you are talking about these miners, because of the state of their rights and working conditions. I also believe the massive loss of life attests to that.

I just choose to draw the line there. I think there comes a point where the conditions placed on the opportunity to earn some money are so ruthless and harsh that it is no privilege at all to have it. I mean, what if the fatality rate in coal-mining there shot up massively, by say 200%? 300%? Surely even you would agree, at some point? If it is Hobson's choice, they must take it, and massive numbers will die, to be replaced by even more desperate people. It isn't reasonable to describe being coerced into doing something and seriously risk death doing it, as a privilege.

And yet, when one uses the same "economic conscription" argument to discuss why members of the working class join the army, allowing themselves to be coerced into doing something and seriously risk death by doing it, a lot of people won't accept it.

The privilege is relative to the availability of work. If the only work is coal mining, and the only people allowed to do that work are men, then what is taking place, if not the privileging of one sex over another - men being supposedly better able to do mining than women? Sure, those men are also being "privileged" with the greater likelihood of dying, but constructing your argument around the danger inherent to any profession misses out on what gets constructed around the attitudes around "mens' work" - all those sundries that get added with regard to "male as breadwinner".

 

[Lo Siento.]

There's an issue around meaning here isn't there? I think for most people, their associations with the word privilege are wealth, the kind of wealth enjoyed by the upper middle class, and all the advantages of that. Which is somewhat different to the way in which privilege is being used to describe the relative advantages of being a man in a sexist society. Using it with the second meaning and it being seen or heard with the associations of the first is going to cause some pissedoffness.

It's pretty unfortunate vocabulary, isn't it?
If you were going to design a word specifically for the purposes of setting different groups of people at each other's throats then "privilege" would be it...

 

[two sheds]

I'm quite enjoying http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6124&sid=9044ee33cfab017e5629337b6f8cc58a which predictably started going rapidly downhill and at the moment has earned the OP a week's ban.

 

[Ole]

And yet, when one uses the same "economic conscription" argument to discuss why members of the working class join the army, allowing themselves to be coerced into doing something and seriously risk death by doing it, a lot of people won't accept it.

The privilege is relative to the availability of work. If the only work is coal mining, and the only people allowed to do that work are men, then what is taking place, if not the privileging of one sex over another - men being supposedly better able to do mining than women? Sure, those men are also being "privileged" with the greater likelihood of dying, but constructing your argument around the danger inherent to any profession misses out on what gets constructed around the attitudes around "mens' work" - all those sundries that get added with regard to "male as breadwinner".

It's not reasonable to analogise a miner with a soldier is it? There are serious moral questions involved with that occupation, e.g. signing yourself up as an agent to murder who you're told to.

Regardless, the level of coercion is also an important moral consideration. It's one thing going into an occupation because you can't stand the dole, and another being effectively completely coerced because your son needs medical treatment every month to stay alive (a story I read about one of the dead miners in Soma) and that's the only game in town. Whether it's the mines or the army.

Taking the dangers of an occupation into consideration of how privileged being in it is, doesn't have the implication of ignoring the issue of sexist attitudes about what men's work and women's work is. Not taking the dangers into consideration at all on the other hand simply ignores the realities facing those workers, and any assessment of their 'relative privilege' without considering those issues is likely to be very flawed as I believe yours is.

There's an issue around meaning here isn't there? I think for most people, their associations with the word privilege are wealth, the kind of wealth enjoyed by the upper middle class, and all the advantages of that. Which is somewhat different to the way in which privilege is being used to describe the relative advantages of being a man in a sexist society. Using it with the second meaning and it being seen or heard with the associations of the first is going to cause some pissedoffness.

That equivocal effect may play subconsciously, but I believe even without it, its use can just be an obscenity in some contexts.

 

[rekil]

Penny pours forth on behalf of the part Murdoch-owned anti-Bolivarian Vice Magazine http://www.vice.com/read/what-is-this-europe-that-you-keep-talking-about

This is the 2nd worst bit - Top Gear scripted by Scott Templeton. On another day she might've seen fit to "nerd out" at the atomium, comics museum or Marx stuff, or maybe wheedle a couple of made up quotes out of members of the large immigrant population.

Brussels is dull. It smells of bland, deep-fried things and traffic. The people are quietly friendly. The staple foods are claggy and soporific: beer and french fries and chocolate and more beer. Its short, stocky buildings resemble every medium-size European city that hasn’t been flattened by bombs at any point in the last century, with the interesting bits shaved off, and its most popular tourist attraction is a small statue of a little boy pissing into a fountain. Brussels is very, very dull.

 

[Balbi]

This is the 2nd worst bit - Top Gear scripted by Scott Templeton. On another day she might've seen fit to "nerd out" at the atomium, comics museum or Marx stuff, or maybe wheedle a couple of made up quotes out of members of the large immigrant population.

Brussels is the only city I visited where you could sort of sense the racial tension and see the stark divide between the white Belgians and the non-white Belgians. It's also a city where being British has, until now, associated you instantly with the BNP (as they're cuuuuunnnts). Luckily, we've got UKIP now

 

[The Pale King]

"Smooth jazz wafts over the Place du Luxembourg. The sun is shining, the drinks are cheap, and the soundscape is peppered with polite conversation from the little cafés around the square. Here, mass unemployment, the collapse of public health, and incipient street fascism are abstract issues—things to discuss over beer and waffles."

Aren't they always 'abstract issues to discuss over beer and waffles' for the intrepid Penny though?

Whatever journalism is, this aint it.

 

[DaveCinzano]

I'm starting to think that LP is actually some kind of Stewart Home-type ‘artist’.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

What sort of shithead complains about cheap beer, chips, chocolate and waffles? Brussels is only dull if you hang around in the EU quarter.

 

[DotCommunist]

jazz should always be described as wafty though

 

[tufty79]

Out of interest, has anyone knowingly met an MRA? I'm certainly not denying they exist or are a problem - they clearly do and are - it's just I've only ever seen them on the internet and in newspaper articles about fathers 4 justice. Maybe I have met them and they've just been sensible enough to hide their principled stand against misandry from me?

I used to know this one
http://jezebel.com/tag/the-hatred-of-women

triggeralert.blogspot.com

lovely.

 

[benedict]

http://digital-deadly-sins.theguardian.com/#/Grid

Bragg in his 'mancave'

 

[rekil]

I'm starting to think that LP is actually some kind of Stewart Home-type ‘artist’.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm starting to think that LP is actually some kind of Stewart Home-type ‘artist’.

As in "one-off-the-wrist artist"?

 

[ViolentPanda]

What sort of shithead complains about cheap beer, chips, chocolate and waffles? Brussels is only dull if you hang around in the EU quarter.

And she forgot that it's not "French fries", it's "frites", and that theyre at their best accompanied by mussels and mayonnaise

 

[DotCommunist]

View attachment 55247

always the weakest series of Wire for me.

 

[rekil]

always the weakest series of Wire for me.

That's the general consensus isn't it. I just finished watching all of it.