In yesterday’s article, I responded to yet another post, this time about click bait and censorship.
Context: previous discussion I initiated with the community.
Do women have the power?
(on gender inequality) He comments,
Why do I say that women have power? Because I experience it. I understand the influence they have over me. And the biggest misogynists here on Steemit, and the Internet in general, do too, hence their disparagement and attempts at shaming.
It also can be argued that most people have other influencing people in their life. I myself can admit that I have had influence/power over people and men in my life (sexually or otherwise). However, that hasn’t gotten me ahead in society, or made my female experience any easier.
It hasn’t made me more powerful--
I’m undermined, over-sexualized, harassed, and mistreated, because I’m a woman.
Women are, in fact, the "reason men do everything", and this gives them extraordinary power. That power just isn't always obvious. It's not the testosterone-fueled, grandiose pseudo-power that people usually associate with men. It's far more subtle and nuanced, but no less effective. In fact, it's more effective in many ways.
This is another claim that doesn’t make sense when applied to reality.
When I think “women are the reason men do everything,” I question that logic. It doesn’t account for any gay men, nor does it give men in general the credit of being capable of any rational, non-sexually motivated thought. It’s exclusive to straight people, and more specifically: straight men. An argument that is too reductive, hardly applies to modern society, and is therefore not valid.
The way he is applying “Evolutionary Psychology” to his theory that women have "sexual power" is sounding more like a Machiavellian conspiracy, to me.
Men don't, in fact, control the money in the world. Here are a few easily-verifiable statistics that I think will shock both you and
and many others:
Women own or control more than three-quarters of the nation's financial wealth. Look it up! Women make more than 95 percent of all household purchasing decisions. Again, just look it up!
The key words here are own or control. That statistic does not mean, nor imply, that women have made a majority of the world’s wealth. It is irrefutably false to say that women have more power because they do more financing than men.
If women are more powerful, why is it so much more difficult for us to be more powerful? In even the most basic scenarios, like making more money, having a successful career, etc-- it just doesn’t make sense.
Let’s apply this logic to today:
Did Hillary Clinton get elected because of her “sexual power”? No matter what you think of her, I’m pretty sure you’re going to agree with my argument. Hell no was she elected because she’s sexy--she’s just as butt ugly as Trump. Yet right now, she’s a pretty “powerful” woman, wouldn’t you agree?
Below are quotes of “statistics”
Please note these statistics are for the U.S. only, and do not include other countries, as I don’t believe that is what the author is referring to.
Also note, that just because I am showing these statistics, does not mean that I belittle or do not care about men's issues as well. These statistics are to back my conclusions.
Today, significantly more women than men now graduate from college each year, and the trend is accelerating.
According to TIME -2015: “Last year, 29.9% of men had a bachelor’s degree, while 30.2% of women did, the bureau reports. A decade prior, in 2005, 28.5% of men had bachelor’s degree, while only 26% of women did.” This is also verified by a cencus of the same year
These are recent statistics that don’t compare to the past 200,000 years. Women’s education is something to be applauded, and despite the progress, many women outside of the U.S. still don’t have access to it.
The unemployment rate for men has averaged two to three full percentage points higher than for women over the last decade.
While this is true, that doesn’t account for unequal pay. Here is a .PDF on women’s earnings according to the United States Department of Labor. It states that women make 78¢ for every dollar a man earns. If women being in power was the reason men were unemployed, why don’t they make the same amount of money?
Women physically assault men at rates nearly equal to the reverse.
A statement that is undeniably false. I am unsure where he got that information. Here is arrest data from the FBI, that states:
Males constituted 98.0% of those arrested for forcible rape.
Males constituted 79.7% of those arrested for offenses against family and children.
Males constituted 77.8% of those arrested for aggravated assault.
Men are actually raped more often than women (when prison rapes are counted, as they should be).
Again, refer to the previous table.
Also note that nearly 3 in 10 women (29%) and 1 in 10 men (10%) in the US have experienced rape, physical violence and/or stalking by a partner and report a related impact on their functioning. According to a National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey.
The list of counterfactual claims goes on, but I won’t bore readers with the rest.
The closing arguement
Lastly, he says:
People don't waste time attacking that which is not a threat. Men attack women not because women are weak and vulnerable, but because they are almost mystically powerful.
This is why I think these claims are borderline Freudian.
Freud himself said, “anatomy is destiny,”
This ideology is only good for justifying male misbehavior.
Imagine this: you’re a teenager having sex, and your parents walk into your room. You stop. That alone should is enough evidence that men have control over their sexuality.
People don’t just get raped because of their aggressors “over-arousal” or “sexual power.” Gratification is only one of the many causes of sexual violence. Other explanations ([according to Wikipedia] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_sexual_violence)) are socioeconomics, anger, power, sadism, psychopathy, ethical standards, laws, or attitudes toward the victims.
“Some feminists assert that male domination of women in socio-political and economic domains is the ultimate cause of most rapes, and consider male-female rape to be a crime of power that has little or nothing to do with sex itself.”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy- Feminist Perspectives on Rape