Men's Liberation: An Overview and Discussion.

[Primal]

Well... And here I thought I was being civil by explaining my concern with social justice work (as applicable to the statement I asked about) while acknowledging its many reasonable endeavors.  I use the word "reasonable" to describe my view of it as something I don't personally buy into, but still recognize as having logical ideals.  The person who thinks their personal views are the only reasonable ones available is an ideologue, and therefore damn near useless in any discourse on the subject.  Simultaneously, its equally as useless to engage in such discourse without your own viewpoint to inject into the marketplace of ideas.  Hence, people will have disagreements, but that doesn't necessarily mean they need to therefore bash the other person's ideals as being bat-shit crazy.

This may indeed be my fault.  I assumed the thread was for discussion on the topic.  Maybe it's just a pulpit for you to express your ideas, which you're perfectly entitled to do if that's what you like.

[Caehlim]

EDIT: I learned social justice warrior is a pejorative term.  Hence my strike-throughs and substitution with "advocate".

I think this term gives a much clearer idea of what you were wanting to express without it being likely to inadvertently cause offense.

[Primal]

I think this term gives a much clearer idea of what you were wanting to express without it being likely to inadvertently cause offense.

Yeah, thanks for the input :)  I've seen lots of people refer to themselves as a social justice warrior proudly.  I've also seen other people use the word as if it was a pejorative term, but sometimes they're just saying it that way because its pejorative to them (i.e. "Oh, you're a conservative/liberal, huh?").  So I wasn't really sure, which is why I put in the note and gave preemptive apology just to be sure.

[Valthazar]

Just a quick thought - not meaning to derail this thread.  But I think "social justice warrior" is simply using a poor choice of words to describe those individuals who crusade for social justice, without a balanced perspective of other factors (economic and legislative).  For example, those who signed petitions and tried to campaign for Congress to send troops to Uganda for the KONY 2012 initiative without properly researching the current state of affairs in Uganda, or the financial implications of this decision.  I think some of these individuals can be accurately described as "social justice warriors."

[Blythe]

Just a quick thought - not meaning to derail this thread.  But I think "social justice warrior" is simply using a poor choice of words to describe those individuals who crusade for social justice, without a balanced perspective of other factors (economic and legislative). 

The actual phrase "social justice warrior" is not a poor choice of words. The phrase is an internet meme used to refer to people who blog about social justice that turned into a pejorative term akin to the backhanded "white knight" phrase. The term, when tossed about at someone talking about civil rights/social justice/equality, is often used online to be synonymous with being self-righteous, over-zealous, annoying, or stupid.

This is why it can be viewed as offensive. Was not sure if people were familiar with the term as a meme or not.

Edit: I personally don't really like the term. Then again, I don't use it. I usually use "advocate" or something like that. The meme term was created to be a slur and is often used against social justice advocates who are not overzealous, not self-righteous, etc. At least, this is how I heard of the SJW term, as a meme. If there is another origin for the specific three word phrase, someone let me know? >_>

[Steampunkette]

It started out in 2009 in a memorial of a MOGAI activist. It was a way to describe someone who accomplished a lot, fighting on the front lines of social justice who had died.

It was pretty quickly co-opted as a way to insult activists and advocates.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights/memory-social-justice-warrior-lgbt-rights-champion-carolyn-wagner

In particular it's used by groups that tout "Logical Discourse" against emotional arguments spoken out of experience.

[Blythe]

I had no idea about the much better origin regarding the MOGAI activist--I have only been exposed to the co-opted offensive term.  Thank you for explaining that, Steampunkette.

[Valthazar]

This is why it can be viewed as offensive. Was not sure if people were familiar with the term as a meme or not.

I was not familiar with the meme, thanks for clarifying.

[Ephiral]

Just wanted to add: The reason you've seen people use it proudly is that there's a "reclaiming" movement surrounding it, as people point out - rightly, IMO - that saying someone is for a just society and willing to fight to bring it about isn't exactly an insult. And if you use it as one, that says a lot more about you than the person you label.

[Oniya]

Just wanted to add that I hadn't even seen the term 'SJW' until these recent threads.  I had to Google the TLA.

[AndyZ]

Dang, how did I not get on this earlier?  I would have had so much to say...

[Beorning]

Then say it! 

[AndyZ]

I could, I just dislike doing so when the person who originally said something can no longer post.

For example, the problems with education are inherent not so much to gender.  It's much more a symptom of the one-size-fits-all approach so inherent to so much of our society.

I also disagree with attempting to separate the two into two threads, not only due to the OP's confirmation of the lack of such a natural binary divide but because of the inextricable link between the two.  That said, I'm going to use the stereotypical terms because they're impossible to avoid in a conversation like this.

Back in the day, and I don't know which wave of feminism it was, used to be well-known for things like not wanting doors opened for them, insisting on splitting the check, and so on.  That has gone away, such that men are often still expected to open doors, get the entire check, and so on.

We have two cultures fighting for dominance, one in which women are dainty ladies and one in which women are equal to men.  People who strongly push for the concepts of one often find themselves slipping into patterns of the other.

For example, back in the day, a woman was completely dependent on a man.  If the woman ended up pregnant, she would be effectively helpless without child support payments.  The woman had no choice as to whether she would become pregnant, which has changed today where abortion is legal.  We maintain the concept that the woman can decide not to have a child, or even give it up for adoption, but we can still force a man into child support payments if he doesn't want a child.

Female stereotypes are vehemently stamped out, but male stereotypes are still perpetuated.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale

Any of the solutions I might offer, though, would be inextricably linked to feminism.

For example, one friend of mine lamented many years ago how women generally don't get as good of a partner as they deserve.  I forget the exact wording, but it was basically about if you grade everyone on a scale of 1 to 10, men would generally be lower on average.  You might end up with a 6 male getting an 8 female on average, for random numbers.

I have no idea if it's true or not, but it's very common to attempt to ask out someone higher than yourself.  I'm probably not "worthy" of Kate Upton but I'd still want to take the shot at asking her if I could, and since men generally do the asking out much more, they reach higher.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-dont-women-propose-to-men/

I think the question for this one would be: how can we encourage girls to be the ones who ask out and to propose?  Once we get to ~50% of women asking and proposing, those kinds of issues will be over.

Other issues arise when we have expectations of men that we don't have of women:

Noting Duke’s finding that a rape occurs when a panel concludes based on 50.01 percent probability that a student had reached an incapacitating level of intoxication that rendered the student unable to give consent to sex, McLeod’s lawyer asked Wasiolek what happened if both students were drunk. In that case, presumably, “they have raped each other and are subject to expulsion.” Not so, stated Wasiolek: “Assuming it is a male and female, it is the responsibility in the case of the male to gain consent before proceeding with sex.” How this policy can be reconciled with Title IX must remain a mystery.

This is not a belief isolated to Duke University, but they came up recently because they're being sued so the name is fresh in my mind.

I don't honestly know whether feminists have latched onto cases like this and decried the concept that they're just delicate flowers that require special protections that men don't need.  However, I've seen things like this:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/should-women-get-paid-menstrual-leave-days/370789/

Many of the women that I've discussed this with say that, unless you have some kind of serious medical condition, there's some real insult to the idea that they have to be pampered and can't handle the job because they're PMSing.  As someone with medical issues of my own, it's not difficult to relate.

Granted that being agendered probably gives me a very different perspective from a cismale, so I could be very wrong on some of this stuff.