Ah, Dilbert. For so long, you've dragged there on the comics page, always ready to shoot the gun-culture inanity of office with your characters with humor and topped
engineers besieged
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Generally, however, I have not really paid attention to you at all, at least until today, when the Internet has found a position where the creator of Dilbert Scott Adams has given us all a piece of his
spirit in a post (since deleted) on the rights of men, and the fact he thinks that men suffer one level of social injustice equal for women.
After all, women are paid
vibrams five fingers less than men in our society, but men die sooner, more young boys have to pay car insurance, and sometimes women want men to open doors
for them it is all in the wash, right? I do not do these examples up, either: they are its examples.
And then there's this:
The reality is that women are treated differently by society for the same reason that children and the mentally ill are treated differently. It's easier this
way for everyone. We do not argue with a four year old why he should not eat candy for dinner. You do not punch a guy with mental disabilities, even if you punch
first time. And you do
Beats by dr. dre Featured Products not discuss when a woman tells you she is only making 80 cents for every dollar. This is the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.
-Scott Adams
Wow. Just wow. Reminder: This is comparing women demanding equal pay for selfishness and unreason of children asking for candy, or mentally disabled
lashing out. He said the case for women's pay equity is a petty desire perceived by a group of irrational people, and it also suggests a very specific strategy
for men in the audience: Do not forget to care.
If the text block above you remember Dave Sim at all, because this rhetoric is exactly the same thing in terms of Sim infantilizing women and throwing them as
essentially emotional and irrational beings that men can not handle that by ignoring most of the time, or sighing bitterly while increasing the volume of their sports game.
Women, amirite? To his credit, he recognizes that this is essentially a comparison to mad, but then not to his credit, he is anyway. (Note: Saying something and then
. Saying you do not say it does not magically recant) He continues:
I realize that I could take some heat for women amalgam, children and the mentally handicapped in the same group. So I want to be perfectly clear. I'm not saying women are
similar to the other group. I say the best strategy for a man to treat each group is eerily similar. If he's smart, he takes the path of least resistance most
time, which involves considering the emotional realities of others. A man digging in a good fight on a few issues that matter to him, and for which he has a certain
chance to win. It is a strategy that men are particularly suited for that, on average, we really do not care about 90% of what is happening around us.
I'll go out and represent for the boys, because I think the caricature of the henpecked men, apathetic, disinterested in life is bullsh * t just as the cartoon
he created women. I also think there are issues and societal expectations that are unique to men - sentencing to prison, as, parental rights, and the narrow definitions of society
of masculinity - are the real issues worth talking about, but he managed to trivialize this.
I find this wildly offensive, not only because such descriptions do not even vaguely resemble the vast majority of people I know and care about the other sex, but also
because contact with men and women through the prism of fatigue, insulting stereotypes diminishes us all. And worse, it reinforces the idea that this is how men and women
should be. Since then, he paints us as listless and peevish, respectively, I think we can all agree that these are not roles between the sexes should be encouraged.
Adams then did something that is really interesting rhetoric. It is aimed at men - and really, it only treat men all the time - and told them that
despite the many injustices they suffer, they just suck.
It creates two lists of things - things that are unfair to men and things that are unfair to women - equal states, specifically says men cowboy up on their
problems. But what he is really doing is creating a false sense of equivalence, and putting women on the hook to stop being "p * ssies" about their so-called equivalent
injustices.
Except that these things look like men to get served after women in restaurants on the fact that women are paid less for the same work as men. And first, I did not
know the suffering that injustice was a pissing contest, again, there are legitimate issues facing men and society. Second, these two lists of things at once may be unfair,
but they have virtually no connection to each other.
I suppose you could do with anything, right? Here, try it yourself. You can create your own Mad Lib Scott Adams:
[Group of People 1] suffer [Injustice 1]. [Group of People 2] suffer [Injustice 2]. These are forms quite equal and comparable injustice, and because life is unfair, we
must simply accept them! Suck it, ssies * p!
The problem is that "life is not fair" is not really a justification, it's just a more didactic throw your hands and saying "what can you do?" It requires not only a
sense of injustice that exists in the world, but also that we are powerless to remedy it - the feeling that we can not win and therefore should not try.
And while there are moments
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impose this kind of resignation - that the general outlook on life is that much time, there are many things you can do, especially on social injustices. And the only
time change happens is when people are willing to care, and willing to work towards solutions and fight for something better, rather than simply accept the status quo.
This view of the world makes us all a disservice, not only because it describes the men and women as such grotesque caricatures, but because it insists that the faintest, most
limiting version of men and women, and the world is both who we are and, worse still, we can never be.
UPDATE: Scott Adams (or someone posting under his name, but at this stage it seems reasonable to think that it is he) has responded to the backlash against his position by
showing on a feminist site and tell the players where they are simply too emotional to understand what he said, and have no reading comprehension
skills of its regular readers - those who originally asked to support the rights of men, remember? These speakers, however, are "far enough along the bell curve
to rational thought, and relatively free of emotional bias. "I swear to God.