What is a "disposable male"?

[liberlict]

I had never heard of this term before, I heard it just recently when I stumbled on this video. Apparently it has to do with uselessness of masculinity today. I kind of agree with this. Males, historically at least, have been causing wars with other males for no good reason at all. Whenever I'm exposed to gender politics I feel like I've entered another world.

What do you guys think about the points made by this woman?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp8tToFv-bA

[Rosa Partizan]

oh nice, another female MRA agent full of shit. These 16 minutes made my brain bleed so hard that I can hardly write now. Everything she's talking about, EVERYTHING, is a consequence of patriarchy. Chivalry, physical strength, militarism, this is stuff that patriarchy is causing men to want, otherwise they will be no "real" men, they will be "pussies", which btw is telling that the worst thing a man can be is THE ultimative sign of femalehood (yeah I know, transpeople, not all have vaginas, but you know what I mean, so don't get that started pls). The disadvantages females have to face in patriarchy are way higher, be it body politics, objectification, poverty among the elderly, job and work, especially in combination with motherhood, sexual violence, societal double standards...I'd rather be treated as a human than some kind of "princess", because you know, those people you put on a pedestal, you tend to devalue them very quickly once they don't meet your expectations anymore. I'd really abstain from that whole "privilege" of being someone's princess, someone doing anything for me, paying anything, because next step as soon as I disappoint him, I'll be a slut. Feminists don't need or want that, at least the true ones. Someone wanting having everything paid for them (two -ing verbs in a row sound wrong, anyone help out?), having all those "chivalry" privileges is NO feminist, it's really not that hard to get. She wants to blame anyone, she better adresses patriarchy in general.

[Loony Le Fist]

oh nice, another female MRA agent full of shit. These 16 minutes made my brain bleed so hard that I can hardly write now. Everything she's talking about, EVERYTHING, is a consequence of patriarchy. Chivalry, physical strength, militarism, this is stuff that patriarchy is causing men to want, otherwise they will be no "real" men, they will be "pussies", which btw is telling that the worst thing a man can be is THE ultimative sign of femalehood (yeah I know, transpeople, not all have vaginas, but you know what I mean, so don't get that started pls). The disadvantages females have to face in patriarchy are way higher, be it body politics, objectification, poverty among the elderly, job and work, especially in combination with motherhood, sexual violence, societal double standards...I'd rather be treated as a human than some kind of "princess", because you know, those people you put on a pedestal, you tend to devalue them very quickly once they don't meet your expectations anymore. I'd really abstain from that whole "privilege" of being someone's princess, someone doing anything for me, paying anything, because next step as soon as I disappoint him, I'll be a slut. Feminists don't need or want that, at least the true ones. Someone wanting having everything paid for them (two -ing verbs in a row sound wrong, anyone help out?), having all those "chivalry" privileges is NO feminist, it's really not that hard to get. She wants to blame anyone, she better adresses patriarchy in general.

Leave it to Rosa to bring the serious logic up in hea.

Damn girl, I just gotta say you rock. That was an awesome response to this video. There is absolutely no way to top that.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I haven't seen the video, so for the benefit of those us who can't watch it, could someone please summarise the arguments made?

I'm particularly interested in what the author of the video attributes as the cause of the "disposable male" phenomenon.

Like Rosa, if such a thing exists then I would attribute it to patriarchy, or perhaps more precisely, patriarchal gender norms and expectations.

[helot]

Fucking hell she's real fucking reactionary! What the hell was that about it being progressive to bomb Afghanistan 'back into the stone age'? Like somehow the cure for backwardsness is death and destruction? That'll surely help

I haven't seen the video, so for the benefit of those us who can't watch it, could someone please summarise the arguments made?

Basically that men are required to sacrifice themselves and women have preferential treatment and are more valued. She uses 'women and children first' on lifeboats as evidence despite the fact that for the vast majority of maritime history they'd have been told to fuck off while the crew tried to save themselves. She also tries to use the norm that boys/men are supposed to be stoic as further evidence that women are more valued. Then there's the draft etc etc.


Basically, she's claiming any example of men fulfilling their gender role, whether it's stoicism, taking on responsibility or sacrificing themselves in war as proof that women are more valued while ignoring anything that doesn't conform to that such as harassment in the streets, rape apology etc.

I'm particularly interested in what the author of the video attributes as the cause of the "disposable male" phenomenon.

ultimately biology. Apparently having testicles means you're genetically predisposed to putting women and children first.

Like Rosa, if such a thing exists then I would attribute it to patriarchy, or perhaps more precisely, patriarchal gender norms and expectations.

Yup that is exactly what it is it's just it doesn't fit into her narrative of women getting preferential treatment.

[LiaSofia]

As Rosa said in her very accurate post, everything that is cited as evidence of the 'disposable male' theory can be traced back to patriarchy. It tells men that they are only truly male if they conform to a narrow definition of 'masculinity'. Anything outside of that is unacceptable. Feminism is not about promoting the rights of women above the rights of men, it's about fighting patriarchy and its consequences.

I'd like to see how she'd explain, to use just one example, the practice of killing female babies because they are perceived to be less desirable than boys. Or a less extreme example, how it is that males whose families could afford it were given a good education while sending a girl to school was viewed as a waste of time. It is certainly true that men are treated as 'disposable' in wars but so is everyone - including civilian women and children who are written off as 'collateral damage'. That says more about the psychology of war and its role in dehumanization than anything gender-related.

[Redistribute the Rep]

I haven't seen the video, so for the benefit of those us who can't watch it, could someone please summarise the arguments made?

I'm particularly interested in what the author of the video attributes as the cause of the "disposable male" phenomenon.

Like Rosa, if such a thing exists then I would attribute it to patriarchy, or perhaps more precisely, patriarchal gender norms and expectations.

I haven't seen a precise and consistent definition given yet, but i do remember one MRA saying that males are more disposable biologically, and therefore giving women less rights is justified as equal rights would be unfair (huh?). The premise of course is that there only needs to be a few males for a population to survive, which is blatantly false, as the low genetic diversity would be problematic, among other problems. Of course, there is no empirical evidence to back up these claims, they've been made up to justify giving women less rights.

She uses 'women and children first' on lifeboats as evidence despite the fact that for the vast majority of maritime history they'd have been told to fuck off while the crew tried to save themselves.

Indeed, an Uppsala University study of major maritime disasters found that the Titanic was one of the only disasters in which women had a lower death rate than men. It was almost always the opposite. Of course though, being more likely to survive on a sinking boat would not be evidence of a hierarchy anyway. MRAs like to throw out the most useless facts, like once I saw one of them claim men were oppressed because most of the clothes in department stores are for women (you would be able to wear those clothes too if dressing like a woman wasn't degrading).

[helot]

MRAs like to throw out the most useless facts, like once I saw one of them claim men were oppressed because most of the clothes in department stores are for women (you would be able to wear those clothes too if dressing like a woman wasn't degrading).

hahaa really? wtf? that's the dumbest thing i've heard all day.

[consuming negativity]

A disposable male is one that you can throw away along with the condom when he's done. Rather than having to listen to him run his mouth about how great his average sex was, simply toss him in the garbage and snooze in peace.

[Rosa Partizan]

A disposable male is one that you can throw away along with the condom when he's done. Rather than having to listen to him run his mouth about how great his average sex was, simply toss him in the garbage and snooze in peace.

Who would listen to a man anyway

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

A "disposable male", apparently, is one who is sitting in an infantry fighting vehicle, with a ballistic vest and vehicle armour standing between him and hostile forces (if he is even deployed, that is), fed, equipped and trained by the bourgeois state while the "protected" women, the elderly, minorities and youth are being killed and raped by the poor, poor disposable males.

Gotta love male "rights" advocates.

[Redistribute the Rep]

A "disposable male", apparently, is one who is sitting in an infantry fighting vehicle, with a ballistic vest and vehicle armour standing between him and hostile forces (if he is even deployed, that is), fed, equipped and trained by the bourgeois state while the "protected" women, the elderly, minorities and youth are being killed and raped by the poor, poor disposable males.

Gotta love male "rights" advocates.

It's my understanding that at many points in history wealth was a requirement to fight, as they would sometimes have to buy their own equipment. Are wealthy people "disposable"? I wonder if the Jews in Tsarist Russia or the homosexuals felt 'protected' by being excluded from the army.

[helot]

It's my understanding that at many points in history wealth was a requirement to fight, as they would sometimes have to buy their own equipment. Are wealthy people "disposable"?

Lol i'm just imagining some Athenian citizen a few thousand years ago saying to their slave "you're lucky you're not as disposable as me"

[bcbm]

It's my understanding that at many points in history wealth was a requirement to fight, as they would sometimes have to buy their own equipment. Are wealthy people "disposable"? I wonder if the Jews in Tsarist Russia or the homosexuals felt 'protected' by being excluded from the army.

if you could afford you own kit you got bumped up to a higher class in the military force. if not, you got to be light infantry cannon fodder, not skip out on fighting. historically this was the role of the poor and desperate, not exemption.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

if rejecting what she describes makes me a 'disposable male', first thing I'm doing tomorrow is getting BIC tattooed on my arse.

[Queen Mab]

What is a "disposable male"?

A working-class man.

[Blake's Baby]

It's my understanding that at many points in history wealth was a requirement to fight, as they would sometimes have to buy their own equipment. Are wealthy people "disposable"? I wonder if the Jews in Tsarist Russia or the homosexuals felt 'protected' by being excluded from the army.

Massive Jewish immigration into Britain from Eastern Europe in the mid-1800s was in part prompted by a new law which meant that Jews were preferentially drafted into the Russian army (at around 3 times the rate of non-Jews to begin with). Previously they were heavily taxed instead, to make up for their exemption.

[Luís Henrique]

Someone wanting having everything paid for them (two -ing verbs in a row sound wrong, anyone help out?)

"Wanting to have".

I am sorry, the knight in armour within me cannot see a damsel in distress without immediately jumping to rescue...

Luís Henrique

PS. Here we can see how a primitive language such as English distorts the reasoning abilities of its speakers. Using gerundives for obviously infinitive functions reflects the inability of Anthropopithecus anglophonus to correctly grasp the subtleties of time that seem natural for speakers of civilised languages such as Portuguese or German, thus making them unable to properly understand History and historicity. [/anti-Sapir-Whorfian sarcasm]

[Red Economist]

disposable man; an accusation levied against feminists by men most probably projecting their own tendency to treat women as sexually disposable to express social dominance,whilst concealing their own sexual impotence and frustration caused by compulsive marriage and patriarchy.

As a man, I think there is a point in the idea of a 'crisis of masculinity' or the 'uselessness' of masculinity as the OP put it, but not in the conservative sense that patriarchy is man's natural place and that 'equality' threatens this. our current conception of masculinity is inseparable from patriarchy. The emotionally 'strong' male who represses his emotions so they then get sublimated into abusing other men and women through patriarchal and political power is still the 'accepted' way to behave, and men are still awkward about being open about how they feel and expressing their emotions.
With the advent of the sexual revolution, the role of men in society has been challenged (but not substantially changed as the glass ceiling and everyday sexism demonstrates). How do men recognize the equality of women beyond simply a legal abstraction or an authoritarian prohibition on sexism? what the hell does this equality mean in day-to-day interaction?
The value of political correctness is in restoring the natural pre-disposition to equality, not simply covering up the abuses of existing power structures by a liberal "tolerance". Patriarchy must be abolished and the only way that can happen is if we abolish marriage as a legal relation based on property rather than spontaneous sexual feeling. It is not enough to hide patriarchy behind empty phrases and the awkward politeness of appeasing feminists by ineffectual 'liberal' political correctness, rather than giving women the respect they deserve, and that men can have self-respect without expecting them to be assholes to everyone else. the work of the sexual revolution in giving men a mentally healthy, sexually satisfying role in society which is equal to women has still really to be attempted, and it's something of a failing that this battle is being fought by conservatives to restore patriarchy rather than radicals to push further for new forms of masculinity and a better definition of equality.

[Rosa Partizan]

Luis, I didn't understand a single word. Was is something like "Rosa, you're stupid"?