FirstNationalBastard: What is a men's center needed for?

Men can't be raped or abused! That's scientific fact!

More importantly, i don't WANT to be around other men. I don't want to talk, or share my feelings, or bond with them.
I want a sandwich.

morgantx: If I went to a Women's Center because I wanted to find a safe space to meet other women and I was a housewife BY CHOICE because I felt like my greatest calling in life is to be a wife and mother, would I be accepted at the Women's Center?

Yes, of course?

The mainstream of feminism is about giving people equality of opportunity. If you could afford to stay at home to raise children (few people in Canadian cities can), good for you.

However, this women's center is at a university and funded by its students, so it might be weird if you didn't attend that university.

doglover: Feminism = Man Hate

How can you be surprised? Did none if you ever read that tripe in college? It's pretty awful.

Don't be silly. Feminism empowered women, gave them a voice, and served as a cause around which women everywhere could rally against injustice towards the fairer sex. It's still needed, as there are still glaring issues affecting women today.

That said, the smug assholes in that video need to shut the f*ck up about the goddamned man center. Let us dudes have a safe space to play Halo and discuss whatever issues may be affecting our lives. The gall of the people in that video astounds me.

jso2897: FirstNationalBastard: What is a men's center needed for?

Men can't be raped or abused! That's scientific fact!

More importantly, i don't WANT to be around other men. I don't want to talk, or share my feelings, or bond with them.
I want a sandwich.

But what about penis jousting? It's cool as long as your testicles don't touch other wise it's homosexual (not that there is anything wrong with that but still the principle stands - not that other kind though; you know the one that tries to put 'pal' in principal. Those you should report to the police.).

WhippingBoy: Go f**k yourself. You have no idea what it's like to be a man.

I think this guy John Scalzi does, actually. AFAIK he's actually a straight, white man.

bobbette: WhippingBoy: Go f**k yourself. You have no idea what it's like to be a man.

I think this guy John Scalzi does, actually. AFAIK he's actually a straight, white man.

He doesn't speak for me; nor was he elected to speak on behalf of straight, white men everywhere. Just saying.

spamdog: Wanna see some feminist shiat that will make you rage?

Really hilarious how this girl disparages men that are like the guys on Big Bang Theory. Guys like that built the farking internet.

One thing that really gives me the shiats is when guys get all white knight when it comes to feminism. I'm sure the feminists can look after themselves. They don't need a man to stand up for them.

Well that's just silly, people putting the ads up know who visits torrent sites and market to them. Also, I don't think I've ever seen a woman purposely excluded from any sort of tech culture. They're normally welcomed with open arms.

Warlordtrooper: I see no problem with this. Why can't men have a men center?

I think probably the issue for people might be that the men in question are demanding $30,000 for the men's center or it's "reverse sexism".

valar_morghulis: bobbette: WhippingBoy: Go f**k yourself. You have no idea what it's like to be a man.

I think this guy John Scalzi does, actually. AFAIK he's actually a straight, white man.

He doesn't speak for me; nor was he elected to speak on behalf of straight, white men everywhere. Just saying.

Can you refute this allegation that he has not, in fact, been elected as a speaker, if not THE speaker, for white heterosexual men? What authority do you stand upon to make this claim?

bobbette: This might be a good place to leave this link: Straight white male: the lowest difficulty setting there is. That's a good way to understand privilege. And why there are usually centers for people who aren't straight, white guys, and why straight, white guys aren't that interested in having centers to cater to them.

Just to use the example of race and privilege here, I never considered starting a group for random white Canadians on campus. My ethnic background puts me on the lowest difficulty setting in Canadian society. I've always been able to be assured that if there are white people problems somewhere, they're going to get recognized.

That is how things are for men in Canadian society, wherein there are generally fewer disadvantages if you're a guy. It's not so much extra advantages for men as it is additional ground you have to make up, still, if you're a woman, because assumptions and standards and stereotypes about gender work against you in a variety of ways. I don't recall Gordon Campbell's private life and personal appearance being scrutinized as much as Christy Clark's, for example - Christy Clark has come under a number of ridiculous attacks about her dress, and has been questioned about her ability to both parent and be a Premier. We have yet to elect a female Prime Minister, and I don't think we will anytime soon. Just over 75% of Parliament is male. Look at any corporate board, the top industry positions in this country, differences in earnings, the situation for childcare and maternal leave outside Québec. These are just a few examples. There are absolutely issues that predominantly affect men in Canadian society, however. For example, there are more men in prisons, and more homeless men. But these are issues that speak to poverty and race and drug addiction/mental health policy and crime policy more than to gender. That's not to say that there is no need to discuss gender issues as they affect men. I welcome that, and it's my hope th ...

The kitchen is in the other direction.

Gyrfalcon: RoyBatty: If men were to put constraints on the women's center, by defining who is must serve and what groups need to be marginalized, that would probably not go over so well.

But pretty quickly, the women in that ad were ready to put constraints onto the men's center, describing who it must serve, defining men and masculinity, and detailing who it must marginalize.

The women are also ready to explain how the representatives of the men's center weren't "the best men", and didn't have the right credentials.

Amusing.

Yeah, it's almost like women stereotype men, isn't it?

No, that is impossible in today's world. Liberal people are never bigoted, EVER. They NEVER take it to far, NEVER try to restrict other people.

Seriously though, I understand concerns about the environment, but for christssake lets not just assume that it WILL be the worst possible outcome and vote it down.
Push for amendment and/or regulation, don't just lisp and jumble your words into a camera about how it's already ruined.

RoyBatty: I'm not exactly sure that's a real video

I don't think these people are good enough actors. They were convincingly heartfelt to me. Though bumbling like the obviously insecure people that they are, it looked like typical stage fright and not knowing the topic sell enough to sell the concept. The irrationality and the lack of coherency looked too genuine.

In other words, it takes super talent to come off as perfectly retarded, and there were too many retarded people in that video to have all been good actors.

It really looks like the men in the video could use it the most and were worried about masculines beating them up, so they want it voted down. The one shot they have at getting help, they want to deny, because they're afraid it will fail. Talk about genuine insecurity. That's another logic bomb these people seem utterly incapable of doing.

Poe's law maybe, but my bets are on real. If it is fake, those people should say hell with higher education and go act professionally.

valar_morghulis: bobbette: WhippingBoy: Go f**k yourself. You have no idea what it's like to be a man.

I think this guy John Scalzi does, actually. AFAIK he's actually a straight, white man.

He doesn't speak for me; nor was he elected to speak on behalf of straight, white men everywhere. Just saying.

One argument I always liked. Just because men are usually the ones running the government/large companies doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of other men who have no advantages at all and need help.

I like Premier Clark, I'd much rather vote for her than Campbell.

valar_morghulis: He doesn't speak for me; nor was he elected to speak on behalf of straight, white men everywhere. Just saying.

He isn't speaking for you. What he's doing is speaking to you. I'd recommend giving the link a read. I've seen dozens of straight, white guys link it on various corners of the internet in the past couple days.

Maggie_Luna: valar_morghulis: bobbette: WhippingBoy: Go f**k yourself. You have no idea what it's like to be a man.

I think this guy John Scalzi does, actually. AFAIK he's actually a straight, white man.

He doesn't speak for me; nor was he elected to speak on behalf of straight, white men everywhere. Just saying.

Can you refute this allegation that he has not, in fact, been elected as a speaker, if not THE speaker, for white heterosexual men? What authority do you stand upon to make this claim?

I don't recognize his face from my weekly Hegemonic White Man's mixer.

FirstNationalBastard: revrendjim: Not seeing a problem here except I'd rather have an XBOX

If this is a Men's Center, I don't see why we should have to choose...

One room has a PS3, One has an Xbox 360, one has a Wii.

Hey, the Wii is in the closet.

omeganuepsilon: Gyrfalcon: RoyBatty: If men were to put constraints on the women's center, by defining who is must serve and what groups need to be marginalized, that would probably not go over so well.

But pretty quickly, the women in that ad were ready to put constraints onto the men's center, describing who it must serve, defining men and masculinity, and detailing who it must marginalize.

The women are also ready to explain how the representatives of the men's center weren't "the best men", and didn't have the right credentials.

Amusing.

Yeah, it's almost like women stereotype men, isn't it?

No, that is impossible in today's world. Liberal people are never bigoted, EVER. They NEVER take it to far, NEVER try to restrict other people.

Seriously though, I understand concerns about the environment, but for christssake lets not just assume that it WILL be the worst possible outcome and vote it down.
Push for amendment and/or regulation, don't just lisp and jumble your words into a camera about how it's already ruined.

RoyBatty: I'm not exactly sure that's a real video

I don't think these people are good enough actors. They were convincingly heartfelt to me. Though bumbling like the obviously insecure people that they are, it looked like typical stage fright and not knowing the topic sell enough to sell the concept. The irrationality and the lack of coherency looked too genuine.

In other words, it takes super talent to come off as perfectly retarded, and there were too many retarded people in that video to have all been good actors.

It really looks like the men in the video could use it the most and were worried about masculines beating them up, so they want it voted down. The one shot they have at getting help, they want to deny, because they're afraid it will fail. Talk about genuine insecurity. That's another logic bomb these people seem utterly incapable of doing.

Poe's law maybe, but my bets are on real. If it is fake, those people should say hell with higher e ...

Yeah, depressingly enough that video is real. Very real.

change1211: One argument I always liked. Just because men are usually the ones running the government/large companies doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of other men who have no advantages at all and need help.

Dude, you're missing the point.

It's not that there aren't lots of people who are disadvantaged. It's that their comparative disadvantages (like poverty, or race) are things that aren't gender. Gender is one disadvantage they don't have.

Those same disadvantages, like poverty and race, also affect women. But they have an additional hurdle of gender. We've worked to make that hurdle a lot smaller, but it's still there.

valar_morghulis: Maggie_Luna: valar_morghulis: bobbette: WhippingBoy: Go f**k yourself. You have no idea what it's like to be a man.

I think this guy John Scalzi does, actually. AFAIK he's actually a straight, white man.

He doesn't speak for me; nor was he elected to speak on behalf of straight, white men everywhere. Just saying.

Can you refute this allegation that he has not, in fact, been elected as a speaker, if not THE speaker, for white heterosexual men? What authority do you stand upon to make this claim?

I don't recognize his face from my weekly Hegemonic White Man's mixer.

I go to my local branch's. I like the chips. I mean I may be a Hispanic female (in other terms I have read a cis-gendered POC -that's person of color) but slap on a oversized suit, put a dash of white make up on my face, don a fake mustache and I'm accepted into the male fold as easily as one, two, three. What I think fools them is the monocle. Until then people gave me strange looks.

For what it's worth, I went to SFU 10 years ago and there was always a bunch of guys making up an issue about how there should be a men's centre. In fact, I lived with one of them in a shared dorm.

In general, these guys didn't give two craps about men's issues. They only pursued their men's centre pipe dream to piss off the hardcore left-wingers and feminists on campus. Basically, it was a big trolling effort, before anyone really called it trolling.

"We should have a men's centre" wasn't a real concern of theirs. It was just a stupid way for the hardcore right-wingers and anti-feminists on campus to get a rise out of the easily incensed lefties. They were 100% trying to get a men's centre for giggles and ideological points alone. And they would often joke about how their men's centre would just be a fridge stocked with beers and a bunch of videogame machines.

Obviously, this group is now graduated, but this whole "men's centre" gag has been in the SFU culture for a long time. I doubt those in favour of it are any more serious now.

Which is a shame, because a men's centre really focused on men's issues would probably be a good thing.

And of course, the hyperbolic response of the women's centre and SFU lefties just make themselves look terrible. And so the game continues.

change1211: I like Premier Clark, I'd much rather vote for her than Campbell.

Oh, and to hell with them both. I am pleased that Clark is going to be out in the next election.

bobbette: morgantx: If I went to a Women's Center because I wanted to find a safe space to meet other women and I was a housewife BY CHOICE because I felt like my greatest calling in life is to be a wife and mother, would I be accepted at the Women's Center?

Yes, of course?

The mainstream of feminism is about giving people equality of opportunity. If you could afford to stay at home to raise children (few people in Canadian cities can), good for you.

However, this women's center is at a university and funded by its students, so it might be weird if you didn't attend that university.

I just kind of meant in general... Would these "tolerant" and "open-minded" feminists accept someone into their little group that didn't fit the "norm" of what an "enlightened woman" should act like? I've never really felt comfortable around a lot of the hardcore feminists, and maybe that's just my personal issue. I've actually encountered some women who've gone so far as to call me a "traitor to my gender".

It irks me that those who often claim to be the most "tolerant" are actually the least tolerant. It's like going to a punk concert in khakis and a polo.

The_Sponge: spamdog: Wanna see some feminist shiat that will make you rage?

Really hilarious how this girl disparages men that are like the guys on Big Bang Theory. Guys like that built the farking internet.


Her take on liquor ads:

Link

/What a buzzkilling biatch.

It seems like she takes something which could be a valid point and then takes it way too far.

bobbette: valar_morghulis: He doesn't speak for me; nor was he elected to speak on behalf of straight, white men everywhere. Just saying.

He isn't speaking for you. What he's doing is speaking to you. I'd recommend giving the link a read. I've seen dozens of straight, white guys link it on various corners of the internet in the past couple days.

Nothing he says stuck me as particularly deep; he framed the ubiquitous "straight white men have it easier" in the context of an MMO. Cleverly written and pandering to nerds, sure.

I respect his opinion, of course; my own life experiences as a straight white man fly in the face of the charmed ("Easy") life he claims we lead. Am I an outlier? Perhaps; perhaps not. Broad brushstrokes annoy me all the same.

spamdog: Wanna see some feminist shiat that will make you rage?

Really hilarious how this girl disparages men that are like the guys on Big Bang Theory. Guys like that built the farking internet.

One thing that really gives me the shiats is when guys get all white knight when it comes to feminism. I'm sure the feminists can look after themselves. They don't need a man to stand up for them.


Audio: I like coding

Not sure everyone will understand why this was a ludicrous statement....

bobbette: change1211: One argument I always liked. Just because men are usually the ones running the government/large companies doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of other men who have no advantages at all and need help.

Dude, you're missing the point.

It's not that there aren't lots of people who are disadvantaged. It's that their comparative disadvantages (like poverty, or race) are things that aren't gender. Gender is one disadvantage they don't have.

Those same disadvantages, like poverty and race, also affect women. But they have an additional hurdle of gender. We've worked to make that hurdle a lot smaller, but it's still there.

I think in some cases the hurdles do exist and in some cases they don't. I was at a party a few weeks ago and was talking to a girl whose aunt was starting out as a helicopter pilot and felt she was having a lot of trouble getting much traction in the industry because of her gender and I can't say I'd be surprised if she was wrong. Aviation in Canada is around 95-97% men.

Also, I still like the BC Liberals. The NDP are useless pricks who always manage to fark up the economy.

RoyBatty: spamdog: Wanna see some feminist shiat that will make you rage?

Really hilarious how this girl disparages men that are like the guys on Big Bang Theory. Guys like that built the farking internet.

One thing that really gives me the shiats is when guys get all white knight when it comes to feminism. I'm sure the feminists can look after themselves. They don't need a man to stand up for them.

[i.imgur.com image 640x383]
Audio: I like coding

Not sure everyone will understand why this was a ludicrous statement....

Because Wordpress is a stunningly simple CMS that requires a very small amount of PHP knowledge?

morgantx: I've never really felt comfortable around a lot of the hardcore feminists, and maybe that's just my personal issue. I've actually encountered some women who've gone so far as to call me a "traitor to my gender".

Feminism has a couple hundred years of history and a really, really wide variety of thought and opinion.

The vast majority of feminists would be a-ok with your personal choices.

There are some terrible people who call themselves "radical feminists" and really are not working to empower women in any way, and I very strongly suspect whoever criticized you would probably fall in that category. These aren't "hardcore feminists", they're just extremely reactionary and negative about women's choices and they don't realize that Andrea Dworkin was seriously mentally disturbed. Also, they hate trans people! Radical feminists are assholes, not feminists.

I'm in my 40's, wife, kids, career, mortgage et al, and I can assure you, men do a need a place where they can get together and talk about the massive expectations that are placed upon as as we enter college and throughout our adult lives. So the hell what if there are douche bags that attend from time to time and act up in a mens center, they probably need more help than the the men who are mainstream and easy going. If they want to sit around and play PS3 w/o the critical eye of women on them, I wouldn't blame them.

Anyway, pretty surprised to see this level of detraction , especially up in Canada. Itt sounds like folks just don't want the money going towards something that supports men exclusively. As if only Women need special help??? What the hell kind of self projected pity is this?

bobbette: morgantx: I've never really felt comfortable around a lot of the hardcore feminists, and maybe that's just my personal issue. I've actually encountered some women who've gone so far as to call me a "traitor to my gender".

Feminism has a couple hundred years of history and a really, really wide variety of thought and opinion.

The vast majority of feminists would be a-ok with your personal choices.

There are some terrible people who call themselves "radical feminists" and really are not working to empower women in any way, and I very strongly suspect whoever criticized you would probably fall in that category. These aren't "hardcore feminists", they're just extremely reactionary and negative about women's choices and they don't realize that Andrea Dworkin was seriously mentally disturbed. Also, they hate trans people! Radical feminists are assholes, not feminists.

Meh, radicals are usually assholes, no matter what their cause is.

valar_morghulis: I respect his opinion, of course; my own life experiences as a straight white man fly in the face of the charmed ("Easy") life he claims we lead.

Nobody is claiming you lead a charmed and easy life. However, straight white guys are generally not faced with extra disadvantages on top of your existing situation because of your race, gender and sexual orientation. If you were in your existing situation and you were also, for example, a gay Arab Muslim, you'd have to deal with extra f*ckery in society. Don't believe me? Talk to some gay Arab Muslims some time and compare notes.

Botkin of the Yard: I did not realize until just now how lucky I was to get through four years of college without hearing some idiot lecture me on the evils of "hegemonic patriarchy" or the need for things to be "trans-inclusive" or whatever it was the fat chick said.

Wait, I mean Differently Weighted Woman. Sorry.

No, she was "fat" as defined by society. Of course I was a "fat" guy my first 2 years of college. I faced just as much a stigma by the opposite gender. Of course then I grew an inch taller, and (somehow eating crappy, high calorie food) thinned out a bit.

I think it was the stress of the evil matriarchy refusing to pay attention to a guy that they thought was a fat, nerdy, loser. I then became a cute, nerdy, only kinda loser guy that was "dateable" in their hypocritical eyes.

bobbette: Christy Clark has come under a number of ridiculous attacks about her dress, and has been questioned about her ability to both parent and be a Premier.

You do realize those kinds of attacks come from other women, right?

bobbette: Attacking feminists as if gender equality is a farking zero-sum game, though, is pointless, childish and divisive.

The problem with this video, though, is that this is exactly the sort of attack these folks are engaged in - just directed at the notion of a men's center. And it comes off just as childish and divisive here. Once I read the update that they are not actually asking for a thirty grand grant (provided that's true), then that really confirms that there's no solid reason to be so opposed to a men's support center.

Especially when the reasons given appear to boil down to "we project that it might turn out in a manner that fits our stereotypes about how men behave", and I thought I heard some mumbling to the effect of "and they haven't run their proposal past US yet."

They support a Men's Centre as long it serves as a conduit for feminists, gender warriors and the like.

spamdog: Wanna see some feminist shiat that will make you rage?


I love the comments that are basically, "Adds on torrent sites? I use AdBlock because I'm a geek."

Actually, I think it would be an interesting experiment to have scantily clad men either at some convention booth or in the ads just to see what the response is. Of course I'm pretty sure the response is going to be pretty much the same. Instead of "Whaa, scantily clad women makes me feel objectified" it's going to be "Appealing to me based on sex with scantily clad guys makes me feel objectified."

evil saltine: bobbette: Christy Clark has come under a number of ridiculous attacks about her dress, and has been questioned about her ability to both parent and be a Premier.

You do realize those kinds of attacks come from other women, right?

Actually, no. I'm referring to specific attacks. The comments about her cleavage were from a male NDP MLA, the questions about her parenting were from (male) radio host Bill Good.

However, women absolutely do reinforce sexist attitudes. That does not make those attitudes any less sexist. I'm not sure what your point is there.

bobbette: It's not that there aren't lots of people who are disadvantaged. It's that their comparative disadvantages (like poverty, or race) are things that aren't gender. Gender is one disadvantage they don't have.

A straight white male, as an individual, can experience any number of tandem problems that any woman will, aside from actually getting pregnant. Yes, even rape. And drugs, and hazing, and peer pressure, and discrimination based on many facets of whatever their background is. Financial woes? check. Dating problems? Check. Abuse? Check.

Pretending otherwise paints you as nothing but a very ignorant liberal bigot.

A woman's center's purpose is to help individuals with their problems. That's it. It creates a place where individual women can go to seek help. It caters to them specifically, because, by and large, both genders are more comfortable with people that they can identify with, be it who's lending aid, or the kinship of people having the same problems.

It's no different than a general tendency for guys to observe the piss test of other guys, and females to observe females, or any other patient care facility where gender is an issue. It's all about the needs of the individual. Individual men do not have this kind of service in most places.

It's not a case of who needs it more, it's a case of everyone could do with help, no one group of people is in greater need of aid than any other given group, when it comes to a multi-faceted aid-support situation. life throws a hundred types of crap at everyone.

change1211: Because Wordpress is a stunningly simple CMS that requires a very small amount of PHP knowledge?

Yeah so her geek cred as coder just kind of died on the vine. She could be an amazingly great geek gamer, geek anything, but she probably should not have made the coder claim, or else show us some C++, Python, an arduino, anything but a Wordpress logo showing she has a blog.

Whatever the feminists can have their center and watch precious all they want. I never did get that movie, I understand it's a violent tale of a fat girls struggle with weight loss but come on, let the guys have our man cave

ArmagedDan: bobbette: Attacking feminists as if gender equality is a farking zero-sum game, though, is pointless, childish and divisive.

The problem with this video, though, is that this is exactly the sort of attack these folks are engaged in - just directed at the notion of a men's center. And it comes off just as childish and divisive here. Once I read the update that they are not actually asking for a thirty grand grant (provided that's true), then that really confirms that there's no solid reason to be so opposed to a men's support center.

Especially when the reasons given appear to boil down to "we project that it might turn out in a manner that fits our stereotypes about how men behave", and I thought I heard some mumbling to the effect of "and they haven't run their proposal past US yet."

You appear to be misreading my posts. Nowhere in them am I defending the video.

I also really have to question how many feminists who talk about "white male privilege" have any degree of contact with men at all.

We don't all beat our wives or girlfriends and lynch minorities.

And yeah I'm glad you all liked the video. It was doing the rounds a while back.

bobbette: Actually, no. I'm referring to specific attacks. The comments about her cleavage were from a male NDP MLA, the questions about her parenting were from (male) radio host Bill Good.

If a man wore something as revealing in Parliament, you wouldn't expect people to comment about it?