SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE 13 - Give a Dog a Bad Name

 Just seen a post where the question was asked "What do men do that is a turn-off?" and the first reply is "Being men". 

I guess the author (a friend who seems otherwise intelligent and insightful) would chide me for not being able to take a joke. Can we imagine the reaction if a man posted the same question about women? I've been seeing this sort of thing a lot recently. Basically men are just always wrong. Nothing about them is good. 

Ok so the rationalisation would be that men have all the power/privilege and should be able to take this sort of thing on the chin, or we have all this confidence/ego - we should be cut down to size, or even - since we're all guilty or complicit in violence and abuse we deserve abuse back. 

The problem with this, as I've been saying over and over, is that men aren't really like that - some are - to be sure, but a very high % of the men I've known in my life have been anxious/insecure, low self-esteem/confidence, on low income and holding down hard manual jobs - plus often somewhat neuro-atypical and introvert, plus not being allowed to talk about their feelings or ask for help. Knowing what it's like to actually be a man (in my 'lived experience') most men don't feel powerful - no matter how much women see us that way. A minority of men are violent criminals, and another minority are wealthy and powerful, but most of us are neither. But I've said all this...

So I'm wondering what effect my friend thinks being told over and over that you're a waste of space has on young men? Her answer I guess would be that they should change to suit women - do as you're told - don't be A Man. Women apparently want men to not be men, or to only be men the way women like. 

Now I've had as much trouble as anyone with traditional masculinity - it's pretty crude and noisy a lot of the time - hard and competitive, and I don't fit in. But is it 'bad' or just different? It can be incredibly irritating for sure, but is it actually wrong? or is it just a different culture? If it does get violent - sure - call the police - but if not? Isn't it just part of the diversity of human behaviour?

Feminism - when I first became a fan - back in the late 70s - was all about equality of rights and opportunities, which I still support totally. Now it seems that feminism is about women picking men up on every tiny thing that displeases them and calling it 'misogyny'. Now it seems to be about contempt for the other sex. I would have thought that women, of all people, would know that that's not a good way to go.  

What are young men supposed to do about this? Just submit and do as they're told? I can't see that happening. People aren't like that - they hate being told what to do. My guess is they'll get angry and rebellious - as women did before them. Most of them i guess will go "Well if you think everything we do is shit, why should we even try to be better? Why should we care about what you think? F'ck you!" So now we have the Manosphere...

I was always hoping that, as women gained more power and wealth (and apart from those two minorities it's pretty close now), we'd be able to communicate and negotiate better - that men and women would be able to work together as equals. Apparently not. It all just makes me incredibly sad...

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE 11 - Mind-Reading and Gas-Lighting

One of the things that saddens me about this generation of progressive activists is their love of outdated stereotypes and crass generalisations. I thought we'd dealt with this sort of thing back in the 80s but no. Now if they know your demographic (young or old, man or woman, black or white) they think they know all about you. The women's rights movement is especially replete with such assumptions. It's practically a rule of feminism that women know what men think, feel and want better than men do. Sadly, as traditional masculinity forbids introspection ('navel gazing'), men often don't really know what's going on in their heads, but any man who takes an interest is as capable as anyone of being psychologically and emotionally literate. Nonetheless women have often opined confidently on what I really think, and how I really feel and what I really want, and when challenged have smiled patronisingly at me. Of course there's no way to prove either way, but it has to be so that nobody knows what your life is like better than you do. Anything else is just gas-lighting.

One basic feminist assumption is that men feel powerful and confident and are always trying to dominate women, and any less-than-ideal behaviour should be interpreted in these terms. 'Manspreading' for example is a man 'taking up space', dominating his surroundings and the people in it. Never mind that it's just more comfortable sitting that way. People who don't have half a pound of mixed giblets dangling between their legs can't be expected to understand this. I used to sit with my legs crossed as a sort of effeminate affectation back in the 80s but it's really not comfortable. Some men can be a bit inconsiderate to be sure - spreading their legs very widely but the idea that they're trying to dominate the room is a bizarre piece of cod-psychology. As usual I'm not saying it never happens, but the idea that it's typical male behaviour is very strange. Honestly - it's just a lot more comfortable to sit that way.

'Mansplaining' is another one. Obviously, says feminism, the man is trying to dominate the conversation and tell the woman what to do. Apart from the fact that I've had women 'splaining to me how to my job, how to drive, politics, science and housework, what about the possibility that the man just wants to help? or is just really enthusiastic and wants to share his knowledge? Among neuro-atypicals, telling people all about their latest obsessions is like a love language. It's a gift. An old man tried to help one of my ex girlfriends to parallel park in a small space. She was furious and rude to him, but I'm sure he was just trying to help. I'm terrible at parallel parking and would really love someone to come along and guide me in. When did giving advice become a put-down? When did wanting to tell everybody about some amazing thing you've been reading about become abusive? Certainly people may be boring or inappropriate, or they can come over as arrogant or over-bearing (especially we neuro-diverse types) but we're not attacking you. Why would you think that?

I had this back when I was at Brighton Poly back in the 80s. I was very opinionated. I did ask my friends in the group if they minded me speaking up so much and they didn't seem to mind. Probably they were being polite. One women though literally hated me for it - me loving the sound of my own voice - telling everyone what to think - dominating the group - arrogant entitled man. The truth though was that I'd never spoken up before. As a child and a teenager I'd always kept my thoughts to myself. People talked over me or just ignored me so I gave up trying. This was the first place I'd ever been encouraged to speak up and I guess the dam burst. It was amazing. 

This is the problem - even intelligent insightful women tend assume that men feel dominant and confident. So if a man is holding forth a bit too much or offering unsolicited advice, the woman's response is often to try to cut him down to size - put him in his place. At that point the man may appear hurt or angry and then the woman customarily tells him he has a fragile ego. As far as she's concerned he saw himself as being in the more powerful position - talking down to her, and her response seems impertinent - not respecting his status. But often that's not at all how it is. He may feel anxious or insecure. Maybe he's trying to impress her. He may have low self-esteem. Maybe he's an introvert. Being a man is all about trying to look like you know what you're doing, even when you don't (especially when you don't). He doesn't feel like he's above her - he wants to be on a level with her. So when she 'puts him in his place' what's actually happening is she's putting him back down beneath her. No wonder he's upset. Humiliation is a terrible thing.

Women don't seem to realise the power they have. Feminism has convinced at least some of them that they still have none relative to men. For many men that simple generalisation is just so obviously wrong it's baffling. (One thing men seldom claim to understand is what goes on in women's heads). A lot of the time, men just don't feel powerful in relation to women. We just don't. I certainly never have. 

But what would I know about what goes on in men's heads? I'm just a man.

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE 10 - 'Getting beaten up is part of growing up'

 Maybe you don't know but here in the UK crime stats show that men are just as likely to be attacked as women and twice as likely to be murdered. Women are mostly attacked by people they know in private but very rarely attacked by strangers in public places. Men should be much more afraid than women but we're not because men are brought up to not show fear, where women are brought up to be afraid of all sorts of things and it's considered attractive and sexy. Men are brought up to take risks - women aren't. So the fact that women 'don't feel safe' is based on conditioning - not reality. It's in the culture. And in reality it's a great way to keep women in their place - afraid to go out, afraid of men, afraid of sex - and feminism is endorsing it. 

Some people have tried to make out that the fact that men are mostly attacked by other men somehow makes it ok - like it's consensual or recreational violence ('He got into a fight'), or violence is a normal part of male behaviour so we're all guilty (in reality most crimes are committed by a small minority of re-offenders. Most men are not violent - it's not normal behaviour), or we're 'more evenly matched' (in reality the thugs like violence, they're good at it, they get a lot of practice at it). Or us men are all so very powerful that we could change it if we wanted to - we just don't want to. I'm so powerful - I have SO much influence on how the world works. [sarcasm]

I was attacked a few times as a lad and I'm here to tell you that that's not how it is at all. I was terrified, but there was no point reporting it - it was their word against mine, and it I'd have just been told to learn to stick up for myself. So I just lay there and hoped they'd get bored. 'Getting beaten up is part of growing up' as the song says. I was a soft boy - never been violent in any way and I was attacked by the local hard lads because I was alone and I looked a bit different. I didn't stand a chance. I know two men with brain damage from being kicked in the head. Have a listen to The Special's Concrete Jungle, or The Jam's Down in the Tube Station at Midnight.

So maybe boys should be advised to run to a grown-up shouting 'daddy' when they're being chased by the local thugs. I can't see that happening. Crimes against men are not taken as seriously as crimes against women - we all know this - 'women and children first'. Boys are told they mustn't hit girls, but other boys - that's ok. The entertainment industry is strewn with the bodies of dead men - it's a laugh - but if you want to make a film that really upsets people - have a female victim. Men are far more likely than women to die young by every means except child-birth. We die at work, by addiction and suicide because we're not allowed to ask for help, by crime and by taking stupid risks trying to prove ourselves. If that were true for women it would be a major plank of the women's rights campaign, but it's just men so it doesn't matter. Everything's worse for women so forget it.

But now a girl dealing with some guy she doesn't fancy trying to chat her up is a campaign issue. We see some big numbers about attacks on women but not how many men were beaten up of knifed or otherwise attacked during that time for comparison. We (and I include myself in that 'we' because until quite recently I was an uncritical women's rights advocate) simply quote how things are bad for women and sort of assume that things are better for men - we don't check - we're only looking at half the story - we don't feel we need to look at the other side because we simply believe everything must be better for men. Seeing that UK murder rate stat was a kind of wake-up call for me. Not everything is better for men. Actually quite a lot of things are worse. All the while I called myself a feminist I had mental lists of 'crappy things that happen to women' but somehow completely ignored all the crappy things that happen to men. Some of these things are much the same for men and women, or comparable, but some major ones are definitely worse for men. I was just in denial, because I wanted to be a good feminist. Now I just call myself an egalitarian and leave it at that.

The other thing we do is unconsciously assume that crimes against women, especially sex crimes, are worse than other violent crimes - even death! Why? Probably partly because men don't show their hurt so we assume it doesn't bother them much, but also because of some traditional sense of chivalry where hurting women is very bad but hurting men just doesn't matter very much. Why? Why do we still believe that? And why is rape worse than, say, being knifed? or kicked in the head? It seems invidious to compare different sorts of trauma but I'm pretty sure most people would submit to sexual assault if threatened with violence. They know which is worse.

I really just want crimes against men to be taken as seriously as crimes against women. That doesn't seem like it should be controversial to me.

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE 9 - "All we want is for men to respect us like they respect each other"

Just got into a big hoo-hah about that American actor who lost it with a journo who asked her to show her legs. I always learn a lot from these exchanges - though not usually what my interlocutors would like me to learn. 

Various points were raised - one is that some bloke yelling from the crowd is giving an order - telling her what to do - as if he has some power over her and she has no choice but to obey. Here was a wealthy actor being told what to do by some poor schmuck trying to make a living. Talk about punching down...

A second one was that she yelled at him "You wouldn't do that to a man", but men make rude comments about each other all the time. If the actor had been known for his physique "Show us your abs" would have been a joke, and if he'd got angry with the journo HE would have been the b@st@rd, not the journo. 

One woman opined that it's different because men kill women. Apart from the fact that men kill men too (and more often) this was a guy trying to get a sexy picture of an actor - not some psycho attacking his wife. She could have just ignored him - which is usually what happens when journalists yell at celebs. The problem here seems to be a double standard. One women said "All we want is for men to respect us like they respect each other" and I had to laugh. I think if women were suddenly treated by men the way men treat each other they'd be horribly disappointed. Women certainly don't respect men, men don't respect each other, and from what I gather, women don't especially respect each other either, and yet men have to respect women? That's not equality - that's special treatment. 

My feeling is that the women's rights campaign has gone from fighting for important issues like equal pay and opportunities and male violence (which we all support) to some general campaign against 'offensive' male behaviour - ie anything that a woman disapproves of, which in some cases seems to mean anything women don't do.

Now let me get this straight - I don't like blokey behaviour either - I'm not into being laddish, larey, loud and rude, but I don't want to stop other people doing it - as long as they're not violent - that's their culture - especially if they're working class. And I've known some women who were shockingly rude. Do we really want a world without rudeness or the occasional inappropriate behaviour? There'd be no punk or direct action for example, no Tracey Emin or Joan Rivers. Rudeness is surely a valid part of hu-man society. We lefties certainly feel free to be extremely rude to people we disagree with. Maybe it's just that we don't want people being rude to us. Maybe we only want respect for ourselves? We can dish it out, but we can't take it. 

But I suspect it's mainly about sex. There is still this residual feeling that anything sexual is dirty and degrading, especially when it involves women. There was a horror expressed that the actor in question had in any way made a living from her looks, and her legs in particular. I say good for her - I wish I could have made money from showing my legs - there are many worse jobs - but it's not generally an option for men. It seems to have escaped their notice that most Hollywood and TV actors are considered good-looking and/or sexy. Only feminists still seem to think that women are ONLY appreciated for their looks (and that men are only appreciated for their minds?) Or maybe they think that women are too weak and delicate to handle a bit of rudeness. That does seem a bit old-fashioned to me. Are we going back to seeing women as The Weaker Sex? because honestly, that doesn't sound very empowering to me.

Maybe the big issue here is that the women's rights movement seems only to want men to become more like women and sees the other direction as intrinsically bad ("Boys will be boys") I've never liked traditionally masculine behaviour myself but that's just my personal preference. As I said above, I don't want to stop other people doing their thing, as long as they're not dangerous. In any case, the modern progressive's equation of rude and inappropriate behaviour with actual rape and murder is surely way over the top.

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE 8 - The Pay Gap

I still absolutely believe in equal rights and opportunities for women however. I used to believe that the world would be better run by women but now I don't think it would be much different. Women in power behave as badly as men – not because they’re corrupted by the patriarchy but because power corrupts men and women equally. Women are absolutely as capable as men as behaving badly. So I’m not anti-women or anti-feminist. My view is something far more controversial - that men and women just aren’t all that different anymore. 

[I’m talking mostly about the UK. Things are much worse in other parts of the world, and I would absolutely back more women’s rights campaigning there.]

[I will be using the word ‘woman’ throughout in a generic way, responding to many conversations and interactions I’ve had over the years. Obviously it’s #notallwomen so should not be taken personally.]

Things have changed massively in my lifetime but many women don’t seem to have noticed. Compared to my mum when I was a kid in the 60s - what women can do now compared to what she could do then - the difference is immense. She couldn't have had a career, couldn't have owned property, couldn't have divorced, had an abortion, had casual sex, driven a car, been a single mum, run her own business, gone to uni, gone out for the night on her own, sat in a pub and had a pint, worn sexy clothes out, gone through life unmarried, been a lesbian, hitchhiked around the world on her own, been loud and sweary in public, called the police if she was being attacked by her husband, been a prime minister, a journalist, a vicar, a CEO, a soldier, a doctor, a lawyer…

Sadly modern feminists continually move the goalposts in order to prove that things are as bad as ever and keep the faithful riled up. But it’s no longer good enough for women to simply blame men when things go wrong. It’s time for women to take responsibility for their part in the problem. Women can no longer just say “A man made me do it.” 

All over the place I'm being told that everything is still so much worse for women than for men - despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. There seems to be a very strong need to say that men don't suffer in any way that really matters. If you say bad things happen to men you'll get a long list of bad things that happen to women - but the question is not whether bad things happen to women - of course they do - the question is do they happen MORE than to men? If you want equality you need to know both sides of the equation. Generally though the assumption is that men have nothing much to complain about. 

I could write a huge list of bad things that happen to women – I used to be a staunch feminist and I’ve been reading about this most of my life. I take it as read and don’t see the point in rehashing it all here. Now I’m just an egalitarian with a special interest in how men and women interact, and I know we all suffer. The world is not set up for any but a small minority of mostly old white men – and there is no patriarchal trickle-down effect. (Though there is an old-boy network it’s not going to involve anyone I know any time soon.) Violent men also have a kind of power, but most men are not violent. Rape does not benefit all men as I’ve been told - I see no benefit in being distrusted by half the population. Power no longer rests in physical strength but in money and technology. The most powerful men in the world are hardly paragons. Violence is mostly a desperate last resort for people who have no power. Genuinely evil psychopaths are far rarer than the movies suggest.

The fact though is that most people have no power to speak of at all. Most people are poor, working class, and minimally educated. The fact that so many people seem to think that you can tell who has the power in a relationship simply by knowing their sex (or age, or race) strikes me as hopelessly simplistic. Life is so much more complicated than that. As I've said many times before, there are too many old white men in top jobs (we all know this) and that skews the income distributions and creates the pay gap. At the moment in the UK it stands at about 9% I believe, however, that does not mean that men typically get 9% more than women. As usual it’s more complicated than that. In the UK, for people on lower incomes and for the under 40s the pay gap is very small, and among school leavers girls are doing better than boys. There are more women living in poverty but because they’re mostly single mums they usually get some sort of accommodation and benefits. The truly destitute and homeless are mostly men. Although there still aren’t as many women in those few top jobs, by far the most significant inequality now is not between men and women but between those old white guys and the rest of us, and that gap is widening. 

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE 7 - Lidl Man

There is a question here about whether men are entitled to have a view on women’s rights, or whether or view can even be relevant.

I believe anyone can have an opinion on anything. This is not ‘telling women what to do’ – believe me - I don’t have the power to tell anyone what to do. Further, I have views on all sorts of things that don’t directly affect me – on Palestine for example – but surely for feminism to work it should affect men, and if you are affected, you have a right to express a view. But in any case, if women talk about what it’s like to be a man, then surely men know more than women? And surely that information is useful? If the women’s rights campaign is based on outdated, faulty or simplistic ideas about men then it can’t possibly work as well as it should, and I want it to work as well as possible.

But, more importantly, women can’t expect to simply impose their view on men, any more than men can simply impose their view on women. Nobody is entitled to impose their view of the world on anyone else, and nobody should be expected to unquestioningly accept anyone else’s opinion. If you want people to change you have to persuade them – negotiate, compromise. This seems to be something modern ‘woke’ progressives have forgotten. They seem to think if they get angry people will do as they’re told, and if they don’t they’re fascists. I have genuinely had these sorts of conversations. I ask them “When was the last time you changed your mind because someone shouted at you or called you names?” They tell me that it makes them feel better but that’s just self-indulgent. If you’re not trying to change people’s minds you’re not trying to make things better – you’re just having a tantrum.

It’s been depressing to see how much women really don’t want to hear the other side of the debate – even when the conversation is explicitly about what men think or feel or want. Women don’t know what men really feel, think and want, anything like as much as they think they do, and they really don’t like to ask. (Men of course don’t pretend to know what women really feel, think, and want.) It is remarkable how often women have told me I’m thinking something that I know very well I’m not, and then tell me I’m lying if I say so. Somehow women really believe they know what’s going on in my head better than I do. If a man did that to a woman it would be called ‘gaslighting’.

As a result women have some very strange ideas about what it means to be a man. They say they’re tired of hearing from men, but we very rarely talk about how life is for us – how we feel, our problems. There is a vast body of women's literature - fact and fiction - detailing every possible experience of life as a woman - childhood, parenthood, work, education, relationships, sex, beauty, medicine and crime - tales of ordinary women coping with their everyday lives, but the men's literature is about super heroes and gangsters, cowboys and soldiers. Learned works by are academics, politicians, priests and writers – not your average man in the street. If not it's outsiders - criminals, soldiers, immigrants, gays and celebrities. The rest of us - the ordinary man in Lidl - are invisible. We keep it to ourselves. We bottle it up or get pissed and make a joke of it, or if things get too much we go nuts and scare every-one. There seems to be this imaginary ‘Man’ in the feminist mind – a well-paid executive in a suit – a boss basically - or maybe menacing no-neck BREXIT man – nothing at all like most of us ordinary blokes. 

And yet we see normal blokes all the time - in the supermarket, at the pub, at work - sad, weedy, anxious, old, depressed, short, awkward, fat, shy or ugly people and we don't seem to realise that THAT is what ordinary men look like. We see our own insecurities and mistakes and embarrassments and yet we still think Men are cool and confident. These men we see in real life must surely be a mistake. They're not Men. They must be some sort of freakish losers. But no - that's us - that's what ordinary men are like. We just don't recognise them. It's a weird sort of cognitive dissonance. Men who are any-thing but powerful still insist that Men have all the power. Men who can barely make a living tell us 'it's a man's world'. I find this very strange. 

The problem is that most men are NOT more powerful than women any more, and many of us are in serious trouble (suicide and homelessness are much higher in men) so this dynamic has become a problem. Women are putting men down when they're already down. Women are punching down when they think they're punching up. In less 'educated' (ie poor) communities this can lead to an angry backlash and polarisation."

The problem might be that the modern progressive movement are middle-class college kids and many of the poor working class are older, male and white. They’re rude and noisy and won’t do as they’re told. Modern progressives talk down to them and then are horrified when they vote conservative. I don’t condone it, but I’m not surprised. 

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE 6 - Men are more likely to die young than women by every means except childbirth

A while back, a friend online told me what he thought the difference is. “Ok, men suffer” he said, “but not because they are men.” 

Me being me of course, I didn't take his word for it - I checked. The first fact that changed my view is that men get murdered twice as often as women. This seems like quite a big deal. When there's such a huge disparity it's hard to argue that it's not somehow 'because they're men'. Further - men are as likely to be the victims of male violence as women, usually by strangers in public (women mostly by men they know in private) and yet somehow because it's male-on-male violence it doesn't really count. "He got into a fight" they say, as if it’s somehow consensual violence, but that's not how it is. I think there's an assumption that men are all more or less equally able to handle themselves but I suspect people who believe that have been watching too much TV – too many bar-fights and superheroes. I was a soft sensitive lad. I’d never been in a fight with anyone, so when I was attacked (as we all were at one time or another) my reac-tion was to just take it because if I fought back or tried to escape things would have undoubtedly got worse. I didn’t report it for exactly the same reason women don’t re-port it – because it was their word against mine and I didn’t want reprisals.

I see no reason to believe that violence against men is somehow less serious than violence against women. There is no reason to assume that men are less traumatised by violence than women, even if we don’t talk about it as much. I believe all attacks against anyone should be taken equally seriously. That doesn’t seem very controversial to me. Women however seem to want sex crimes and domestic violence to be taken more seriously than any other sort of crime, presumably because they are the crimes that mostly affect women. For some women it seems sexual assault still is a fate worse than death.

Near the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine there was a story of a woman raped in front of her children by Russian soldiers. This was undoubtedly terrible but the fact that the child’s father was shot outside, presumably for protecting his family, was hardly mentioned. The fact that she will be there to help her children recover from their terrible experience and he won’t doesn’t seem to count.

Then I discovered that men are just generally more likely to die young than women by every means except childbirth. (All this is from ONS data). If any of these facts were true of women they'd be major planks of the women's rights campaign, but as it's men it doesn't seem to matter that much. Men traditionally get the dangerous jobs (heavy industry, building, heavy machinery, and of course, going to war), so accidents at work are a major contributor. Then young men feel they have to prove themselves by taking stupid risks (drinking too much, driving too fast, extreme sports), is another. Then men not being allowed to talk about their problems or ask for help leads to ‘self-medication’ (addiction), ‘self-harm’ (suicide), crime, homelessness and the rest. Basically, masculinity is a huge problem for men, and the cultural conditioning is every bit as powerful as for women. Women complain about the portrayal of female victims in crime drama, while men are tortured, beaten and killed in vast numbers in the movies without apparently upsetting anyone at all. We all grow up believing men’s deaths don’t mean anything very much.

One reason women don’t want to hear this is because they also think men should be tough and manly and not make a fuss. Men who are hurt and sensitive have ‘fragile egos’. It’s a strange confluence of feminism and toxic masculinity. Women also think that men talking about their issues somehow takes away from the women’s cause – as if it's a zero-sum-game. So it’s essential to only talk about women’s issues – any dissent is seen as anti-women, anti-feminist, and possibly misogynist. Any other point of view is mansplaining or hijacking the conversation.