If you send the message to your husband–whether explicitly or implicitly–that you don’t need him; that you can manage just fine without him; that he’s more trouble than he’s worth; that he’s expendable…he WILL pick up on it. He will start to think to himself, “well, if I’m not needed, why am I here?” After all, you are a strong, autonomous woman. He will check out, because he has no purpose in your eyes. You’d be surprised just how demoralizing this can be for a man.
For better or worse, a man’s sense of self-worth comes largely from three things: working, being respected, and being needed. You may not be able to do anything about the first, but the second and third are within your control. Trust me…it’s huge.
It always gets me when MRAs bring up the draft as an example of discrimination against men. Yes, it’s true that no woman in America has ever been subject to conscription in times of war; however, being that the most recent draft was in 1973, most likely neither have you. If you get to drag up stuff that happened before you were born, so does everybody else – and I’m pretty sure the ladies are going to win that particular game of misery poker.
BAM.
BAM nothing. This so wildly ignorant and inaccurate it’s almost like parody. The entire argument is misrepresented, and you are clearly know nothing of repercussions it has on males today.
It’s not about what happened then, it’s about what is going on now. A minor clarification on the point however. There draft hasn’t been actively used since then, it’s still here and with us to this day.
The Selective Service System is “The Draft”. It is alive and well. It’s currently sits idle absorbing the names of all men in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 25 inclusive. It can be activated by congress if they see fit. It’s in the MSSA, most recently amended in 2003.
It’s a real thing that hangs over the head of every man in the U.S. But that’s not the entirety of the point.
Legal prosecution for not signing up is rare, there have been about two people charged for not signing up since 1980, and only because they were making a huge public stink about not signing up. So hey, no big deal right? Just don’t register and keep your mouth shut, all clear yeah? Not at all.
Because now we have incentive laws, created to increase the ratio of men complying with the law. What do they do? They make men second class citizens without full rights and privileges until they comply.
Any male in the U.S. who has not registered cannot get federal student loans, scholarships, or grants. They will not be qualified for student work programs or federal employment. No stretching of truth, no ambiguity. Look what it says on the letter you get as proof of registration.
I didn’t get to states yet, but there it is in black and white from the U.S. government, your rights to these things are dependent on registering for the draft. There are laws linking your driver’s license to registering for the SSS(remember that IS the draft) in 44 states and territories. Most you cannot renew your license at 18 without registering, some automatically register you when you renew at 18, and very very few of them have a law requiring a check box to register be included on the form to renew.
But the License thing isn’t the only part. Many states have followed suit and you are barred student loans, grants, scholarships, everything mentioned at the federal level, except now at the state level as well. Hell a couple of states will flat out bar you from even attending a state funded school if you aren’t registered.
You want to go deeper? Ok. What happens if you somehow make it to your 26th birthday without ever registering? Do you now get access? Nope. Not even a little.In fact you are now permanently locked out of all of it, the rest of your life. Which can be a fun thing for immigrants seeking citizenship. If they are over 26, they then have to prove they weren’t trying to become citizens before their 26th birthday. Otherwise permanently barred from citizenship.
The real fun one, actually the saddest in my opinion. Sad because many won’t know, and the only people talking about it usually are MRAs. How this affects transmen. Even though they will likely never qualify to actually go into service as men, once they change their gender to male legally, they are bound by the same laws. They can lose loans, scholarships, be kicked out of schools, even have their license revoked. If they are over 26 they have a hard fight ahead of them, they have to prove they weren’t required to sign up for the SSS.
TL;DR If you are a male in the U.S. and you do not sacrifice ownership of your life to the government, you will be a second class citizen with fewer rights than the men who did, and women who don’t have to. It is real discrimination against men. It is not some far flung thing in the past. It is happening today.
I think the last time I saw OP’s post, I said men get to draw on being the vast majority of violence victims throughout history.
Imagine for a moment that the sexes were reversed.
Imagine there was a law that said when a woman hit 18 she had to submit her name to a database and if she doesn’t she might lose access to certain rights or even be arrested.
Now it hasn’t happened in a long time, but anybody on this database could at any point be called up and required to risk their life for their country. Worst of all, men aren’t held to the same requirements!
Would any of these people who say the draft is nothing to complain about be acting the same way?
Of fucking course not. We know this because suddenly the draft is totally an injustice and worth complaining about anytime the suggestion to apply it equally to men and women is brought up.
Male Affection Wasn’t Taboo Until Modern Days – WTF Fun Fact
but tumblr told me they were all gay.
Do you mean to tell me the internet lied.
Most Europeans could’ve told you this. I’ve never met a more comfortable, personal bubble-less bunch then when I was in Eastern Europe.
We stateside are descended from p u r i t a n s
Frfr. It’s pretty ridiculous considering the whole “aversion to physical affection” thing is pretty uniquely American and people in Europe, Africa, and Asia are all kind of looking at us like “huh?”
I think that’s a big part of why those stimming and “totally satisfying“ type videos are so popular. We are starved for human connection and physical sensations.
I’m not even gonna pin this on puritans. Even Puritans were not that bad, especially since they quickly became a minority and are non-existent now as a denomination, and the US was perfectly happy with physical forms of affection until recently.
I really want to look into this more, but this touch starvation thing really is a very recent phenomena, as in, half-a-century or so recent. Instead of blaming a long dead denomination that is not even that terrible concerning sex as people think, we gotta look closely at ourselves and close previous generations that raised us and our parents.
What if the whole Sexual Liberation is why we all became so afraid of touching each other?
Because we’re so ingrained into seeing everything as inherently sexual we stopped being close to each other and giving physical affection because it was deemed on par with a sexual advance?
May perhaps have something to do with why we’re all so fucking neurotic.
So a tiny story: on Black Friday a few weeks ago I went to Gamestop to buy my brother a game for Christmas, and I noticed this older man was watching me like a hawk. He was loitering around the front of the store without really buying anything, and every time I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye he was looking at me. I went to look at the PS4 games, and he was looking at something right behind me. I checked out the Nintendo games, and he was looking at them too. I was the only woman in the store, by the way.
By the time I got in line to pay he was loitering at the front of the store again, and I just had that feeling that he was going to try and take the game I just bought, or steal my purse, as soon as I left the store. OR, he was going to try and follow me home. And I know I don’t have to explain that terror to any woman reading this, but all I could think was that I’m in this Gamestop alone with at least twenty other men and something is about to happen. I’m beginning to freak out, to the point where I’ve just pulled my pepper spray out of my purse and into the pocket of my coat.
So there I am, next in line to pay, and there is this GIGANTIC dudebro right behind me, and I say gigantic as a 6 foot tall woman. He says, “Ma’am? Don’t be offended, but would it be alright if I walked you to your car?” and I was like “Are you serious?” and he was like “There are some weird guys in here right now. Have you noticed that guy watching you?” and then I showed the dudebro the pepper spray in my pocket and he was like “Right on. Would you still let me walk you to your car?” and I said yes.
So I paid, and waited while HE paid, and he walked me to my car. And just as I was getting in, the weird guy who’d been loitering came out of the store, saw me and my dudebro, and turned around and walked away in the opposite direction.
In short: men who recognize that women are unsafe in dark alleys, college campuses, grocery stores, gas stations and retail stores and do something about it are the kind of quality men that this world needs more of.
I remember posting somewhere once in a thread about why girls aren’t exploited in animation anymore where some guy said, “all the disney girls are drawn to be generally attractive, but I don’t think there are any eye-candy men… or are there? Are there any Disney men that lots of girls like?” and I mentioned Roger. Tons of girls replied agreeing with me and the original guy was like “wait, Roger? from 101 Dalmatians? What’s attractive about him, he’s tall and lanky and has a big nose, he isn’t muscley at all! Wouldn’t you all prefer Gaston or something? Or do you girls think his big nose is indicative of something else?” and I was like “no, you idiot, he’s a silly, goofy guy who likes animals and can play a bunch of instruments, that’s why he’s attractive. What’s the matter with you? Gaston, seriously?”
This is why we need more girls in animation. And more guys like Roger apparently.
This is why I laugh my ass of whenever dudes talk about how men are “objectified” by the media too. Because 9 times out of 10, what men think is “women objectifying men” are characters like Gaston.
And Gaston is NOT a woman-driven fantasy. Gaston is a male wish fulfillment fantasy. Gaston is not what women want, he is what men want to be. He is hyper-masculinity to an extreme degree, dripping with sexism and testosterone. The fact that men think that Gaston is what women want says an awful lot about those men.
While I don’t want to generalize, female fans tend to prefer a very different kind of male hero. We like the Rogers, the Milos, the Hercules. Genuinely kind, often awkward men who are sometimes vulnerable and respectful to women.
Yes, this is a generalization. I own up to that. But I think it’s important to remember that there is often VERY big difference between what MEN want to be and what women WANT in our media.
Reblogging this again because fucking this. And hell, even the muscley dudes (see: Khal Drogo, Hercules, Thor, Captain America) are loved, not because they are muscley, but because they are sweet and loving and adorable. We love Thor because his mispronounces “Hubble” as “Hooble,” not because of what he can do with a hammer.
Reblogging for the awesome comments.
I’m just here to say I love the animation of Roger so fucking much. look how fucking smooth and graceful and agile he is. 2d animation is amazing and i just want to hug it
All of this.
Okay, listen, to return briefly to the idea of Gaston: Beauty and the Beast is actually the first animated Disney screen play written by a woman. Linda Woolverton, the screenwriter, got a lot of attention for creating a self-proclaimed feminist heroine in 1991, but she also had a *lot* to say about Gaston. She didn’t stumble into that villain by mistake. She crafted him based on her own experiences with men and even her ex-boyfriends, and said: “To Gaston, Belle wasn’t a person; she was a possession. And I think it’s great for little boys to see that Beauty doesn’t choose him. Not only can they look at Gaston as an example of how not to treat women, but they can hopefully be taught by the Beast, a macho guy who is comfortable with his feelings and gentleness. He could teach a lot of men, in fact, about sensitivity.“
Not only is Gaston not a woman’s fantasy, he’s literally a woman’s horror story.
(While I tried to include the most helpful resources I could here (i.e., resources that lend themselves to one-on-one communication, individual reading, etc.), there are plenty of other great resources, including regional resources, listed in these links. Some of the resources are specific to men and others aren’t, but they are all helpful for male survivors.)
**Male Survivor (regional, international, and online resources)
Wide Spread Interests 