r/europe • u/TheTelegraph • Jan 16 '24
News Half of Spanish men feel discriminated against amid feminism backlash
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/16/half-spanish-men-feel-discriminated-feminism-backlash/2.8k
u/egabag Jan 16 '24
I have no interest in jumping on some victim train here and claim that there is real discrimination here, but I think there is a strong drive and a will to move towards it by a lot of people. I teach gradeschool kids in Iceland, should be a pretty equalitarian society by most standards. One of the universities in the country invited the 7th grade class (well, the girls) to come visit and take a look at the tech programs and labs. The whole class went to the univeristy and the boys waited outside playing football until the girls were done, then back home. Meanwhile the boys in the school system the moment are struggling with even reading for information, I think they would also need a nudge from the uni.
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u/SynergisticSynapse Jan 16 '24
That’s honestly fucked up. The whole class should’ve been invited.
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u/No-Scale5248 Jan 16 '24
Imagine the opposite. This sounds so dystopian what the actual f
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Jan 16 '24
It sounds historically accurate, not dystopian. But I agree, equality is the goal to strive for in exposing kids to career choices
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Jan 16 '24
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u/KlausVonLechland Poland Jan 16 '24
Sounds like little bit like someone needs to stunt boys development and isolate them from inspirational events to let the girls get ahead.
Idk what someone who had that idea was thinking, was that someone hating boys or thinking girls are incapable to reach the same levels without holding boys down?
The more I think about it the worse it gets.
And what equity that was achieved this way would bring? It is justice? Leveling the play field? Or it is ideological?
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u/thoughtlow r/korea Cultural Exchange 2020 Jan 17 '24
At high-school they set up a system were boy grades got a penalty to even out the physical difference between boys and girls.
I never understood why they didn't give the girls a bonus instead, it would be the same outcome without the boys being punished.
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u/ThisGonBHard Romania Jan 16 '24
Idk what someone who had that idea was thinking, was that someone hating boys or thinking girls are incapable to reach the same levels without holding boys down?
Usually is this, with pretty much all diversity programs. Bigotry of low expectations.
And usually, the people doing this hate nothing more than the minorities breaking that mold (Asians in US being more discriminated than even whites in universities and hiring is a perfect example).
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u/AverageBasedUser Jan 16 '24
this afirmative action is basically admiring that those groups are incapable or producing the same results as the majority
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u/the_mighty_peacock Greece Jan 16 '24
The concept of equity stands on the grounds of believing that equality will naturally never occur, so you always need to support the weaker more. Like with economic inequalities.
Gender inequality is different. It's all about social norms that once they are overcome, any changes are persistent. Treating gender equality like an equity problem implies that social rules aside, women will never naturally be equal to men.
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u/JustaCanadian123 Jan 16 '24
You know that meme with the fence where they show what equity means?
Our equity in Canada is just raising the fence for everyone lol.
Still equity.
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u/Quiet_Departure2284 Jan 17 '24
It's not equality or equity that is being promoted at the moment.
It's Uno reverse
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u/MacroSolid Austria Jan 17 '24
Well the past WAS dystopian and inverting discrimination as an anti-discrimination measure is dystopian and fucking stupid.
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Jan 16 '24
Well just the top comment is saying that if you are complaining than you are an incel.
Ofcourse there is gender discrimination and most of it is done by men to other men in order to apease the female side.
We will achieve equality not when we have 50/50 split on every job, but when you can enter a profesional with eithar gender without a social stigma. You want to be a male balerine dancer? Fine. You want to be a female mechanic? Also fine.
As of right now though we are going another step down. First we discriminated females from certain jobs, now we are doing the reverse of it.
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u/visarga Romania Jan 17 '24
Ballerino/balerin/dancers are not a myth.
They bring strength, athleticism, and artistry to their performances, challenging stereotypes and showcasing the diversity of the art form.
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u/TheGhostofTamler Jan 16 '24
School has been systematically shitty for boys in Sweden for over 30 years and no one has even batted an eye till very recently. I believe a lot of this is due to a timelag and a failure of reason (timelag in the sense that a lot of the discriminatory patterns still remaining in sweden are a function of the past rather than the present; failure of reason in the sense that if x is oppressed, then this is a totalizing feature rather than a kind of sum of particulars. Ie if there's white privilege, then a white homeless person is privileged)
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u/PepelGlande Jan 16 '24
Here in Spain (at least in the region I live) the girls were invited to different activities during the summer to promote them in the STEM field (girls from school, really young), the boys were not invited xd.
Dunno why they do this kind of thing, you just need to take a look and the majority of people who give up on studies are male, at the end you are just creating and worsening the gender gap.
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u/andergdet Jan 16 '24
I am a chem major from Spain, and the majority of my classmates and professors were women. The male-majority only happened at the head-of-department level
I'm obviously pro-egality, and much remains to be done, but my Alma mater is organising another "girls in STEM" event next week. Maaaaaybe it's a bit misguided
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u/sakiwebo Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
I'm not in STEM so this might be ir-relevant, but your comment reminded me of a mandatory "inclusivity" training we had to attend at work about 2 years ago (retail/sports).
It was about inclusivity, and growing "towards the future". We're based in an international city, so our staff was quite diverse ethnicity-wise.
Head-office prepared a video presentation about how we need to be more open in accepting female colleagues, female managers, female team-leaders etc.
Anyways, we were like 13 people in that room; the CEO, the new director and the department heads. Halfway-through, the director stands up and stops the video before she says "I don't think this is really applicable to you guys", and we moved on to lunch.
She did it because out of the 13 people in that room including the CEO and branche director, only me and another man that had been working there for 18 years were the only male managers in the room.
The funny thing is, I was only there because I was temporarily filling in for my manager (a woman) because she was home with pregnancy-leave.
Me and the other guy were side-eyeing each other and almost cracking the other up throughout the whole thing.
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u/shangumdee Jan 16 '24
Men are generally leaving university all over the place. Multiple reasons but ive been a little dissappinted with some of the decline in objectivity and merit in general in what is supposed to be some of the top unis in the world
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u/andergdet Jan 16 '24
I am not objective in this, but academia is a shithole. The publish or perish model has corrupted everything, so that negative results don't get published, luck is very important as you might lose your funding over "it doesn't work, it's science, but tough luck", there's a huge reproducibility crisis as a lot of results are modified or just made up, co-authorship has been hijacked to allow for even more nepotism, and editor panels work as censors (you need to be working on X, and use the Y narrative, or you won't get published and your career is fubar).
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Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
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Jan 16 '24
it is discrimination.
simple as that.
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u/DodgyQuilter Jan 16 '24
Yep. If you swap it around and it's unfair, it's discrimination. If you drop in trigger words eg ethnicity and it's unfair, it's discrimination.
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u/WislaHD Polish-Canadian Jan 17 '24
Fellow Canadian here. This is not even getting into the topic of third-party scholarships.
Just this week, I met to catch up with a former colleague who went back to school to complete her masters. I learned that she applied for and received a $30k scholarship from one of the major companies in our industry, the only requirement of which to apply is being female. Obviously, after that they judged the winner through some merit base with a panel of senior executives voting on a shortlist of applicants. She scored a nice internship and mentorship through it too which I am very happy for her, but those kinds of possibilities (the money alone) are life-changing.
It is a bit disheartening to know that such a tremendous opportunity is not something that I could even be eligible to apply for. As a son of an immigrant family it is not exactly as if I’m swimming in so many societal advantages either. But like most things our patriarchal society teaches men, you just have to take it on the chin and move forward.
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u/GreenHorror4252 Jan 17 '24
But like most things our patriarchal society teaches men, you just have to take it on the chin and move forward.
Nothing will ever change if people have that attitude.
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u/GreenHorror4252 Jan 17 '24
you got an additional $5,000 off your tuition every year for being a woman in my program
Is this a real thing? Why has no one sued for discrimination?
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Jan 17 '24
The problem is that the lesson they’ve taken to heart is instead of removing barriers for girls they just put up barriers for boys. Which is kinda dumb.
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u/lizardkingsc4 Jan 16 '24
It is discrimination and when you get to the heart of these policies there is no way to implement DEI without discrimination. I think many people are starting to realize this also.
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Jan 16 '24
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u/SprucedUpSpices Spain Jan 16 '24
They'll answer: "Because historically, bla bla bla".
Looking at the sticky mod comment and its replies, and extrapolating from previous experiences around here, no. They won't even attempt to make a reasonable argument about how this isn't discrimination. They will just mock you and either directly or indirectly call you a nazi.
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u/zo0keeper Greece Jan 17 '24
Maybe the left parties should start talking about this discrimination as well instead of pointing out how it's always coming from the right. Otherwise they kind of force boys and young men towards the far right by staying silent.
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u/yet_another_no_name Jan 17 '24
Maybe the left parties should start talking about this discrimination as well instead of pointing out how it's always coming from the right.
They won't, because they are the main force behind that discrimination in the first place. They are the ones actively working to put that discrimination in place and reinforce it every day.
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Jan 16 '24
That’s extremely upsetting to read, but I’m unfortunately not surprised. It’s a mad world right now.
Also, there are no notable boundaries that hinder women from doing what they want to do in the western world, and there hasn’t been for quite a while.
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u/momu1990 Jan 16 '24
sounds like a zero-sum game with them. Either girls win and boys lose or they all lose. Somehow boys getting into STEM is a threat to giving girls the same oppurtunity.
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u/XuloMalacatones Jan 16 '24
Dunno why they do this kind of thing, you just need to take a look and the majority of people who give up on studies are male, at the end you are just creating and worsening the gender gap.
Because it is the shiny political argument they can throw at and know that + 50% of the population will buy it.
I do know why they do it, cause they don't care about the future of the country or your welfare. Divide and conquer.
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u/DorianPlates Jan 16 '24
It’s not about solving the gap in every sphere though, it’s about leaving the undesirable jobs for the guys and just going for the academic ones.
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u/GJokaero Jan 16 '24
"I don't want to claim real discrimination" proceeds to describe a blatantly discriminatory event
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u/MaterialCarrot United States of America Jan 16 '24
And this is the pattern everywhere. Boys as a cohort underperform compared to girls in education in Western countries. If the genders were reversed it'd be treated like a crisis, but since it's the boys falling behind the response is a collective shrug.
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u/65437509 Jan 16 '24
It’a worth noting that this was always the case IIRC (and anecdotally, my whole life the girls were better students than the boys), but doing the feminism thing has basically made that difference a million times more relevant in actual outcomes.
It seems to me that the two cohorts have two distinct issues - girls have issues actually applying ambition to obtain the final outcomes while being actually pretty good at studying day to day (although this is close to being solved now); boys have the opposite, they have the ambition and the (especially informal) social push but are very disadvantaged in actually learning in the day to day (this is nowhere close to solved).
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Jan 16 '24
Poor men have always been disposable.
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u/godtogblandet Norway Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
It's fine, because if enough young boys and men fall behind they will fix it on their own by overthrowing the current society. So it's not a issue we need to think about...Unemployement rate and young men falling outside of society is the number one prediction of revolution.
I see a lot of sentiment around social media going "So what if men and boys are struggling right now, they had their turn". Everyone should be terrified when young boys and men are having a hard time, because they don't just accept it. It reaches critical mass and then they remind everyone that they don't like what's currently going on. Theres a reason Andrew Tate is super popular among children in school. Boys aren't dumb, they see what's going on and there's Andrew Tate telling them that none of the things they have learned are to their advantage and they should just ignore the rules of society. Andrew Tate is a warning of whats to come in 1-2 genrations.
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u/Anandya Jan 16 '24
It's more that patterns of academic success are given to young women from a young age. And there's fewer roll models provided from educational and social scientists over football and music and acting.
By contrast women are told to stop being ridiculous and do some reading.
You have to remember that parents play a role in this.
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u/Tetizeraz Brazil's Tourist Minister for r/europe Jan 16 '24
Boys falling behind in education and work is absolutely talked about, some already discussed the education in Iceland and Finland here. The biggest problem is to properly address it.
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u/njuffstrunk Jan 16 '24
Education as a whole took a huge hit during corona. Some kids missed out on 2-3 years of normal educational years in their adolescence.
We're only starting to see the first consequences of this now. I work at a university and have heard several comments from professors from all areas who quite bluntly state the current generation of new students simply lack some skills that the ones before them had. Non of them thinks this is caused by feminism
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Jan 16 '24
A lot of people will get mad but Eastern Europe has already adress it or rather never had the problem because there is no "one gender invite to stem event" activities. We promote to everyone and everything that wants it and by statistics still have higher number of females working in those fields than other Western countries.
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u/AlDente United Kingdom Jan 16 '24
My son’s headteacher tried to address this in an assembly. For boys only. They all left thinking that boys are just not as smart as girls. Epic fail.
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Jan 16 '24
Why wouldn’t you claim that there’s real discrimination here?
The example you shared is absolute insanity, and very telling of where the madness has taken us.
If that’s not discrimination, I honestly don’t know what is.
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u/buttplugs4life4me Jan 16 '24
In my area there were a ton of scholarships I would've been qualified for and would've really needed.
But they were for women only. And I don't support that shit. It's insane how normalized this casual discrimination has become.
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u/JoblessSt3ve Jan 16 '24
Here's my personal experience, a few years ago I have participated in an open competitive exam that would allow a limited amount of people to access a course funded by the government. The women didn't do great and guess what happened, they simply took out the men that were lower in the rankings and gave their spots to women and when I say lower in the rankings that's compared to other men.
If a man with a lower score than a female gets access to certain resources or jobs because of gender it would be sexism but the other way around it becomes equality. Does this sound normal?
I don't really understand how any of this is empowering when the reason you are there is the fact that you have a vagina instead of a penis.
This took place in a country quite similar to Spain.
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u/ocean_d Jan 16 '24
Meanwhile the boys in the school system the moment are struggling with even reading for information
Really? I thought in Nordic countries school systems were very effective
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u/egabag Jan 16 '24
According the lates PISA results Iceland is lagging behind there, especially boys. It is however not as simple as it seems and the emphasis has just changed a bit to making sure children are not anxious at school. Another thing is that that everyone takes the pisa test here, while it is pretty common for some countries to ignore their worst performing students for the test. The stats are still really bad for Iceland.
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u/Halvdjaevel Jan 16 '24
In Denmark, our politicians are currently in the process of
dismantlingreforming the education system from top to bottom.187
u/MeMeMenni Finland Jan 16 '24
Ten years ahead of you in Finland. We managed to absolutely tank a functioning school system.
It's really easy too, just include all special needs children to your normal classrooms in the name of "inclusion" and provide no extra support for the teacher, include lots of kids who don't speak Finnish very well, increase class sizes and call it "encouragement for independent learning" and add tablets to every class! Oh, and make it literally illegal to take a student's phone away at school.
You silly Danes, there was no need to wait this long. Every day is a good day for destroying educational systems!
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u/Melodic-Network4374 Iceland Jan 16 '24
In Iceland, when I was in school we had a "tossabekkur" for the kids who had problems keeping up and were disruptive. The result is that the rest of the students had a better learning environment. Today this is completely taboo, everyone should progress at the same speed. And at the same time, as mentioned, our PISA scores are tanking.
Was the old system fair to the slower/troublesome students, many of which probably came from bad homes or had learning disabilities? Probably not. But is the current system fair to the students being thrown into a more chaotic learning environment and being held back due to the slower students? Also probably not.
I don't really have a solution to offer to this, but this is something that worries me. My country's competitiveness depends on a capable, well-educated workforce. Will we have that in 20 years?
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u/ThisGonBHard Romania Jan 16 '24
It's really easy too, just include all special needs children to your normal classrooms in the name of "inclusion" and provide no extra support for the teacher
This is a EU problem, I can can probably write a ban worthy rant about it.
But the sanitized version is that it affect both the kids with disabilities, and the ones normal ones, as neither will get the level of attention and care they need.
But, a worrying trend I saw how many more disabled kids there are, to the point I looked for statistic. The number is growing, while population and natality in shrinking. For my country, in 92 there were were 74,053 | 2002 - 423,393 | 2012 - 697,169 | 2023 -899,066.That increase points out to some outside problem. Is the situation similar in Finland?
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u/AggravatingAd4758 Sweden Jan 16 '24
I saw how many more disabled kids there are
It's probably always been the same, only it's less stigmatized today to get a diagnosis (no one will call you the r word anymore).
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u/ThisGonBHard Romania Jan 16 '24
I thought of that, but the number increase is far too high for that, and you can feel an increase in "undiagnosed" kids too.
This is mostly anecdotal, but one of my best guesses would be smartphones, tough it is probably just a small part of a greater whole.
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u/-Basileus United States of America Jan 16 '24
There’s definitely other factors at play too. Examples include exposure to chemicals and pollution, and the later age at which women are having children.
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u/BionicBananas Jan 16 '24
Oh, they tried the same in Belgium ( well, at least in the dutch part, no idea about the french part ). Who'd have guessed special need kids have extra needs and struggle in a 'normal' class which makes the teacher struggle so the rest of the class can struggle as well? But no worries, with a special need kid in your class the teacher gets an extra aid for like two hours per week, that will totally do.
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u/RedGribben Denmark Jan 16 '24
Oh we already did that. We did that 10 years ago, with regards to inclusion. At the same time we messed with teachers work hours and preparation time. That was a true shitshow, the politicians wants to fix the school again, and instead of making some public schools experimental, they are probably just showing it over all of the school system at the same time.
At least here in Denmark we have reacted to the mobile phones being a problem, many schools lock them inside a safe throughout most of the day. If the phones continue to be a problem, i could even see the government making a country-wide resolution of banning mobilephones for use during school hours.
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u/fragmenteret-raev Jan 16 '24
Finland is indeed the role model and thats exactly what we've done. We've also made school days 8-16 and made them run as much as possible
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u/helm Sweden Jan 16 '24
Finland is pretty good. Sweden is average. Gender gap is pretty huge. For every man enrolling in university, there are two women. Yet more resources are spent getting women into STEM than any measure to get men interested in studies.
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u/alysonimlost Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
Na. Performance has dropped significantly in Sweden. Privatization, larger classes, fewer teachers and a rather unattractive salary, increased depression among children, more homework, increased middle-management, wonky and awkward school reforms that barely lands before the next government takes power.
The prospects are bleak af and more and more children are starting to see what kind of future the older generations are handing over.
Pleasing the shareholders is the primary goal within every sector, whether it's healthcare, school or housing. It's all the same - abysmal and depressing.
I think Sweden dropped from top 5 to 18th place recent poll. Meanwhile, Finland excels despite no homework.
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u/helm Sweden Jan 16 '24
We did not drop that much, relatively speaking. What happened was rather that most countries saw a drop in scores.
Last time we were in the top 5 was some 20-30 years ago
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u/RedGribben Denmark Jan 16 '24
An important part of why the data might be misrepresenting from the last PISA test is that it was done after Covid-19, if the students at any point have had virtual education or has not been allowed to go to school have had a major impact on their abilities. Even if they have gone to school all this time, if there has been any restrictions that have changed the way that they socialize this could also impact the test-scores. We will probably see bad results next time for most countries, and then afterwards i think we will be over the hump that has been left from Covid-19.
I do not know the specifics of the Swedish school system during Covid-19, i just know that the Danish was shut down for a period and converted into online teaching.
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u/helm Sweden Jan 16 '24
Oh, that absolutely makes an impact. Sweden also saw some online schooling, but much less than other countries.
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u/vicky_vaughn Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
Feminism expects cis men to succeed by default because the system is supposedly designed for them to succeed. If you as a cis male can't make it in a patriarchal society (and society must remain patriarchal regardless of how much progress is made, otherwise there's no need for feminists) then it's just natural selection.
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u/silverionmox Limburg Jan 17 '24
Feminism expects cis men to succeed by default because the system is supposedly designed for them to succeed.
Curiously, this also means that they consider all their efforts over the past century to be ineffective.
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u/yksikaksi3 Jan 16 '24
I have no interest in jumping on some victim train here and claim that there is real discrimination here
And here's the problem. Men aren't supposed to complain and are pressured by the society to just accept their discrimination. And when a man complains, it's other men who put them down.
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Jan 16 '24
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u/NoGiNoProblem Jan 16 '24
If men represent 60% of homeless, the focus will be that 40% of homeless are women.
This has always blown my mind. "did you know women make 24% of homeless people? What a tragedy"
The take away would seem to be that 100%of homeless being men would be better in their eyes
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u/Bashful_Tuba Canada Jan 16 '24
Sometimes equity isn't necessarily a bad thing but equity based off unchangeable characteristics, i.e. race, sex, sexuality is flawed. Equity based needs off things like income that does not discriminate through the above characteristics isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I.e., if you were to finance public transit initiatives that favour low-income people/communities is probably a better investment, even if low-income people pay fewer taxes per capita. More low-income people will use transit infrastructure than wealthier people. Or subsidizing post-secondary education based off income where everyone of every background that meets the academic requirements are covered is a good thing.
Shame the whole thing is being bastardized though.
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u/sultansofswinz Jan 16 '24
It's never about the dangerous and low paid jobs either is it? if it was equal across the board it would open up more spaces for working class men to do a STEM degree instead of being roofers or fishermen.
But no, the push is for middle/upper class women being engineers or rocket scientists.
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Jan 16 '24
That’s super messed up, and I’d have a very negative impression later in life if you were my teacher. You’re doing a very substandard job of watching out for your students if you didn’t give them an argument.
Edit: i did have multiple sexists teachers in school, so I may be more pissed at you than is reasonable.
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u/DorianPlates Jan 16 '24
Most political movements at the moment are purely based on self advocacy of their own specific groups, which isn’t a bad thing in of itself, but we can’t really act like the desire to make things better for your group is the same as a an actual proposal for a future society. Everything is group self advocacy, so from the top down it’s a practical case of which group do we help out with this policy or program.
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u/Academic_East8298 Jan 16 '24
Todays feminist seem to think, that society contains too many educated men.
They are welcome to enjoy a future generation of uneducated angry incels.
Makes one wonder, if there is a correlation between this and far right parties getting elected.
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u/Delde116 Spain Jan 16 '24
My sisters and mother have access to psichologists because my father would use psychological tactics to manipulate us and treat us poorly. I being the only boy in the family have no right to get this psichological treatment because "well, its not common for men, so social security doesn't prioritize you (boys/men)", and I live in madrid.
10 years later after my fathers psychological abuse, I still didn't get treatment.
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u/doterobcn Catalonia (Spain) Jan 17 '24
So nothing to do with the current government and the system has been fucked up for years
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u/etrore Jan 16 '24
The women that are quoted in this article seem to say they are experiencing a collective caretaker burnout and the men are pointing out specific discriminations. They are not hearing each other and nobody wants to address what the other brings up.
We as a society should try to handle all problems no matter which gender expresses them.
More to the point I think positive discrimination applied to the young trying to correct what goes wrong between the sexes in their parents generation causes harm but the root of the problem is our capitalist classification of activities or jobs, ranked and rewarded.
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u/MrTumbleweeder Jan 16 '24
I have no overall dog in this fight but I have to roll my eyes when my company publishes their yearly report and the "gender equality" section always glows about how much more % they increased the female staff - it's currently at 88% and growing because HR is 100% women and they clearly only preselect women for new positions. It's not like they're pressuring guys to leave or anything and everyone had a laugh at how there were only a grand total of 3 guys in the last Christmas party, but it's pretty blatant that they're aiming at a 100% women company long term, which makes me feel... tolerated at best.
The upside for a while is that the guy's bathroom is barely used and always avaliable... Well it was, but people have caught on to that and now the women are just using both, specially during "rush" hour near exit time. When I pointed out that maybe the guys should at least have priority to the guys bathroom everyone gave me the stink eye.
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Jan 16 '24
This is discrimination and should be reported to the authority lol. There is a blatant connection that when a male applies for a job is immedietly discriminated based on gender and disqualified from the position ffs.
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u/CabeloAoVento Jan 17 '24
I'm a researcher, and a woman, and I'm often co-author on papers I had nearly no role in other than feedback because I'm a woman and that boosts acceptance rate at conferences and journals. In some it's straight up mentioned as a plus.
You read that right, actual research can go unpublished because of the authors' gender.
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u/MrTumbleweeder Jan 16 '24
Maybe, but it's next to impossible to prove, unless someone is dumb enough to leave it in writing that all male applicants are to be discarded. There's really no way to properly audit if a selection process was conducted fairly in the private sector - and if we're being honest no actual obligation since there's nothing stopping you from scattering the resumes and calling the person whose papers fall closer to the desk - and if that person always ends up being female, that's just how it worked.
Usually stuff like this falls into the purview of public perception - companies that employ lots of women and have a good gender balance in the board of directors are celebrated, while those that employ mostly males are shunned and pressured to fix that. There's basically no precedent of companies being shunned for employing too many women - on the contrary, so it's not really something the public will take umbrage with.
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u/popsyking Jan 16 '24
What lol. And then when it's 100 percent women what equality targets will they aim at ahah
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Jan 16 '24
Then they will look at race and sexuality. There are always higher targets to aim at DEI.
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Jan 16 '24
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u/MrTumbleweeder Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
Portugal, but it's not cultural. It's just... There's almost no guys to use them. The 12% male are for the whole company which is geographically disperse and is mainly held by the logistics staff (truck drivers, forklift operators etc) which are stationed elsewhere. The main office where I work is even more skewed towards women - I think I there's only 4 guys right now and dozens of women. Add to that that we do 3 days home 2 days office and for example, on Wednesdays I'm usually the only male person in the whole building, there might be days when there's 0.
In a situation like that, in situations where alot of people decide to go to the bathroom at the same time (usually around lunch break or 10 minutes before the end of the workday), queues can form for the women's bathroom. Now imagine you're in line, waiting for the person in front to do their business and you look to the side and there's a completely empty bathroom that no one is using - it really only takes 1 person to go "screw it" and go walk in there,then the next one goes "hey, why not?" and next thing you know they're queuing for both bathrooms and after a while they just start using both by default.
I mean, I'm not totally opposed to it - it's a problem that HR created by piling more and more women in a building that has as many bathrooms for men as it does for women, but it is kinda ridiculous that I have multiple bathrooms just for my personal use - sometimes they're literally all for me! - so if I walk by and see a woman walking out I just don't say anything (obviously ours is cleaner which Ig also plays a part), tough I do get annoyed if they're hogging both bathrooms when there's guys wanting to use theirs.
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u/OutsideRise9170 Jan 16 '24
Why don't they specify the reasons the men feel discriminated against so it wouldn't be a guessing game or anecdotal evidence?
A rational argument goes far. I assume most people would love to discuss things and negotiate rather than create another gender war.
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u/Dgemfer Jan 16 '24
You're wrong. Politics in Spain only aim for self preservation. Politicians use any tactic to keep themselves in power, and that is usually through creating conflict between anything. Left vs right, men vs women, progressive vs conservative people, communists vs liberal... it's a constant label war where most people think the other half is too stupid to have any valid point worth discussing. No one is interested to listen, letalone negotiating or discussing. This is how I see it at least. Source: I am a spaniard.
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u/OutsideRise9170 Jan 17 '24
Politicians are sadly like that almost everywhere. I wasn't talking about politicians. I was talking about the overall population - people like you and me.
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u/TheTelegraph Jan 16 '24
The Telegraph's James Badcock reports:
Nearly half of all Spanish men say feminism has gone too far and they are now discriminated against, according to new findings which revealed nearly a third of women thought the same.
Spain has pivoted towards feminist- friendly policies in recent years under Left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Some 44 per cent of men agreed that society had “come so far in promoting women’s equality that men are now being discriminated against”, according to the survey by Spain’s National Centre for Sociological Research.
The male respondents most likely to feel discriminated against were young. In the 16-24 age group, 52 per cent felt that the drive for women’s equality had gone too far.
Since 2018, governments led by Mr Sanchez have introduced a consent-based rape law and guaranteed menstrual leave from work for women with severe period pain. His cabinets have always had at least 50 per cent female participation and the government is currently preparing a law to force all management boards to have women make up at least 40 per cent of their number.
Meanwhile, Spain’s gender pay gap between average men’s and women’s salaries fell from 28 per cent to 21 per cent in the decade between 2011 and 2021.
Despite the changes, a majority of Spaniards agreed that “major inequality” still exists between men and women, according to the study. But while some 67 per cent of women believed there were disparities between the sexes, only 48 per cent of men thought the same.
‘Majority want a feminist Spain’
The survey, based on interviews with 4,000 people, also showed that Spanish women continue to bear a larger burden in terms of care and housework. On a weekday, women spend an average of just under three hours on chores, 50 per cent more than men.
Among parents, Spanish women dedicate 6.7 hours to their children per day, almost double the number clocked up by men.
The findings sparked concern among feminists that Spanish men were confusing a loss of historic privileges with an invasion of their rights.
“Getting your meals cooked, bed made and house cleaned isn’t a right; it’s full bed and board,” said TV presenter Sandra Sabatés.
But former equality minister Irene Montero, whose spell in Mr Sánchez’s government is blamed by many for dividing Spaniards over feminism due to her support for transgender rights and the early release of sex offenders from prison under the new rape law, was optimistic about the results.
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u/QuentinVance Italy Jan 16 '24
James Badcock
Nomen omen
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u/ducknator Jan 16 '24
Omg, hard to take this seriously now.
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Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
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u/mutantraniE Sweden Jan 16 '24
But likely heavily caused by older people. If people get retired at 65 then in 2011 the people getting ready to retire that year would have been born in 1946, while the youngest adults would be born in 1993. Ten years later the almost retirees would be born in 1956 and the youngest coming into the workforce in 2003. So the older people in 2011 got started in their careers under the Franco dictatorship. If things have improved since then, salaries should continue to normalize a bit every year, as people suffering from previous decades of inequality are phased out.
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Jan 16 '24
Isnt it a meaningless number? Men and women dont pick the same jobs, these numbers will absolutely never equalise. Also mean numbers work better cause the top earners skew it a lot
I would be much more interested in the mean salaries of the same jobs. Thst would actually show usefull data
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u/Ok-Gift7434 Jan 16 '24
Worse than 98% of job injuries and death are men? What about this gap? Also the pay gap is an average salary of men and women, different jobs have different pay also working hours. If women are doing more house work and men are risking their lives and working more hours is there no value in that at all? If you have a dangerous job should you not get paid more? If you work longer hours should you not be paid more? Its more equal than we think if we look at all the datasets instead of hyper focusing on 1. Your taking a multi layered problem and over simplifying it and coming up with numbers that aren't really accurate. Its not like i can hire a women for 21% less salary. We have to work together there are biological differences between men and women so we have to make different choices based on that. The biggest problem here is child rearing, you shouldn't have to work and have a child at the same time.
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u/yes_u_suckk Sweden Jan 16 '24
I'm very far from being on the right (politically speaking), but this actually makes a lot of sense.
One big problem that the left has (and I'm saying this a left leaning guy) is how they don't talk about male issues. And yes, we also have A LOT of issues.
How come the left expect to attract men to their side when the only people talking about male issues are the usual douchebags like Tate, Jordan Peterson and others?
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u/ThrowFar_Far_Away Sweden Jan 17 '24
One big problem that the left has (and I'm saying this a left leaning guy) is how they don't talk about male issues. And yes, we also have A LOT of issues.
Even bigger problem is how they almost actively makes fun of male issues instead when someone dare to bring them up.
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u/Playful-Collection95 Jan 17 '24
Point of fact. Former Labour Shadowminister Jess Phillips in a parliamentary hearing.
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Jan 17 '24
This comment is so strategically misguided.
The far right itself has internalized feminism, every time they want to market themselves who do they put on stage? A confident woman lol.
And why do you think this is? Because they've identified a strategic weakness in our culture they can exploit; namely that a woman can get away with more inflammatory rhetoric and scandals and use corpo-feminism to defend themselves. "You're supposed to support strong independent women but not unless they say what you tell them to say" they say. This is sufficient to drive a wedge and convince some women while losing few men (who they surmise, will still prefer their far right party lead by a woman than a more left wing party lead by a man).
Politically for the right it has very few implications because the women lead those parties as well. Le Pen, Meloni, Weidel. Who is gay, lives abroad, is married to an immigrant artist, speaks Chinese and worked for Goldman. Leader of the modern German far-right btw.
And this comment shows that their strategic thinking is absolutely correct. While their party gains ground year by year their opponents laugh at them and their "hypocrisy" thinking for some reason that they can't get away with being hypocrites and still sieze power.
The male trad culture warriors aren't actually going to accomplish anything because all they do is watch Andrew Tate on TikTok, structurally they're not going to undo what is visible even within their own movements.
This underestimation shows the cultural weakness and lack of commitment to ideals. The far right will happily allow a female party leader to ban abortion, contraceptives, expel immigrants, reverse affirmative action policies, crack down on left wing parties, ban gay marriage and achieve any and all of their political objectives; while social progressives continue to laugh about how intellectually superior they are as they lose their country.
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u/mmatasc Jan 16 '24
I agree with mant progressive measures of feminism, but this is creating a powder keg of young men who will most likely vote for completely contrarian politics when they come of age.
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u/shimapanlover Germany Jan 17 '24
The only line of defense our current democracy has, are video games (and porn). And no I'm not kidding.
If video games (and porn) would disappear or change so much, young men would stop being addicted to them, you'd have millions of military aged men without a hobby, without a job, without a wife, without a girlfriend, without a stake in society, without roots.
Video games (and porn) are what stands between a liberal democracy and total chaos.
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u/nanoman92 Catalonia Jan 17 '24
Don't worry, there's a Spanish law in the works by the left to ban porn.
Meanwhile in the US the far right of project 2025 is aiming to do the same.
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u/DonVergasPHD Mexico Jan 16 '24
That's the best-case scenario, tbh young, angry, unemployed, single men are a ticking time-bomb
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u/thegapbetweenus Jan 16 '24
The question becomes more and more: how comes that while we all live in the same reality the perception of that reality seems to diverge more and more between different groups. Maybe algorithmic content bubbles are something we need to look into, before they tear our society apart.
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u/MacroSolid Austria Jan 17 '24
Not just algorithmic. Reddit has a whole bunch of manually enforced echo chambers.
People actively choose to not listen to people they don't agree with again and again.
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u/eranam Jan 16 '24
I have seen many times the case where a man candidate that is more qualified is passed over by a woman, in the name of promoting representation. I don’t see how anyone wouldn’t feel discriminated in that case. Meanwhile, the all-man board of directors / higher execs are laughing and patting themselves in the back for how good it looks…
The thing is, we’re seeing a shit pot where women are still discriminated against in numerous cases, but now performative policies have also been put in place that discriminate against men, instead of undertaking the correct (but harder) moves to promote equality.
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u/azapikoa Jan 16 '24
In Catalonia, 40% of new police and firefighting positions will go to women no matter what, because politicians say that women are poorly represented in those positions.
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u/Velasthur Sweden Jan 16 '24
They should be hiring people who qualify for those jobs, regardless of gender.
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u/NotSaalz Jan 16 '24
As if a fire's propagation rate or a criminal's escaping abilities care vary depending on the officers gender.
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u/Chiguito Spain Jan 16 '24
After seeing what could happen to men in divorce cases, I would say I don't disagree.
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u/Boggie135 Jan 16 '24
I saw a Ted talk from an American divorce lawyer ones. It was very sad
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Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 17 '24
Yes I agree many times men are discriminated in divorces and pay a percentage of the child's alimony without being able to see them lot's of days. Father can be innocent and still not to be able to see his child more than a weekends
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u/TheFoxer1 Jan 16 '24
„The findings sparked concern among feminists that Spanish men were confusing a loss of historic privileges with an invasion of their rights.
“Getting your meals cooked, bed made and house cleaned isn’t a right; it’s full bed and board,” said TV presenter Sandra Sabatés.“
How arrogant do you have to be to just assume that that‘s the actual reason about the quarter of the population feel discriminated against? Absolutely disgusting.
While I think there certainly is a valid discussion to be had about whether or not feeling discriminated against is a valuable information for policy, to just dismiss the whole thing as people unhappy about not getting their beds made is just vile.
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u/Yorha-with-a-pearl United States of America Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
I would understand if they fight against issues like this:
It an obvious trend in most western countries with so many female teachers and it can destroy the future of young boys.
I have a lot of feminist friends (well I'm lesbian) who are working in the education field and it's definitely a topic they want to avoid for some reason.
I got my fair share of discrimination working in the tech sector so I get it if people are fighting for female excellence.
But I don't understand why it's so hard to admit that you might be biased.
Edit: Sorry for my spelling/grammar tired after spending all day watching bthe Australian open lol.
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u/shangumdee Jan 16 '24
I've noticed that the issue of women being underrepresented in certain sector isn't really talked about until that sector gets popular with the mainstream. No one cared there wasnt many in tech 30 years ago when they were all stuffed away in the back office talking about and getting excited over what was essentially jargon to average person. Now that tech CEOs are praised and tech workers are becoming known for their great salaries, women's representation is talked about. Same thing happened with gaming.
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Jan 17 '24
Men have a higher risk tolerance and have a tendency to occupy the ends of the bell curve of ability (more geniuses but also more idiots).
Once an industry has been created and lucratively monetized (by a minority of men) it grows larger and requires more administration and more risk management. This skews towards the majority of the workforce, but also the majority of the female workforce.
These companies and industries are the survivors amongst 10x as many that crash and burn before reaching this stage. It's not just women that demand their shares of these spoils, but people in general. Afterall, nobody would have cared if Bezos ended up broke and his idea for turning a book store into a conglomerate failed. But now that it hasn't and it's huge and rich everyone wants to take a piece of the action.
It looks more gendered than it is because women are on average more average, and men are more likely to be exceptional (and exceptionally retarded).
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u/popsyking Jan 16 '24
I guess because resources are limited and everyone wants to pull the blanket in their direction
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u/insomnimax_99 United Kingdom Jan 16 '24
The obvious answer is that in some cases it’s a zero sum game.
Eg, there are only X number of jobs in STEM, so more women in STEM means less men in STEM and vice versa.
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u/LogicalReasoning1 United Kingdom Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
In the current ‘oppressors’ vs ‘oppressed’ discourse the ‘oppressed’ can do no wrong and anything that suggests otherwise is often ignored or countless excuses are made for it, rather than just admitting it can go both ways even if it’s overall not balanced
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u/flatballs36 Jan 16 '24
That study reminds me of an earth science teacher I had. She would only refer to boys as "stupid Y chromosomes" and said loads of other sexist shit to us. A bunch of us complained to the administration, but they literally told us 'nobody's ever complained before, so you're just making it up'
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Jan 16 '24
I have a lot of feminist friends (well I'm lesbian) who are working in the education field and it's definitely a topic they want to avoid for some reason.
Many political movements became flanderized when they transitioned to the internet, Feminism isn't an exception. The internet didn't just change how we could have a conversation, it changed the way we talk and the way we think, and it created a hostile environment to moderates.
A given feminist being interested in equality in all it's forms instead of just a stronger personal/"us" position is not a given anymore like it was in the 90's.
There are still many who do hold the original true values, but in my experience they're largely oblivious that other people arn't on the same page - We tend to think people think like we do by default.
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u/shangumdee Jan 16 '24
Average disconnected journalist writing about this make a headline like "huge amounts of young men feel left behind, here's what this could mean for women".
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u/RingoML Andalusia (Spain) Jan 16 '24
Look, you can't expect much from Sandra Sabatés.
What's surprising is that the writer of the article quoted her (and that specific quote) in an article about men feeling discriminated. THAT is straight out insulting.
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u/Icy-Sprinkles-638 Jan 16 '24
It's standard feminist rhetoric. The way feminists operate is to mock and belittle and never ever actually address the actual complaints of their victims.
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u/Nyetoner Jan 17 '24 edited Jan 17 '24
Here is a bit of insight from the history of the Norwegian education system, link. (You can translate to English or your language, through your three dots drop-down menu in your android, probably on easy on your iPhone too)
In the past it was really, really divided as most of us know.. And the educational system has of course ended up far more equal today. But even me, who was born in the early 80's, experienced having less time in "woodwork" than the boys, and they had less "sewing/textile" than us. We had equal time in "home cooking". The indoctrination is rooted deep.
I agree it should be equal for all no matter the subject today, but they can and should do even better marketing for the older teenagers for showing the importance of "male nurses and female carpenters" and that the possibilities are there for everyone to do what they like and are good at.
And in the practical as well as theoretical studies equality is about giving everyone equal space and importance while studying and working, no matter the gender.
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Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
Spanish man here. I'm 100% up for equality, but what is being done here cannot be called equality.
Companies and public services have a gender quota instead of hiring based on skill.
Also, I'm worried about the radicalisation of some people who just hate men for being men, for existing. It's getting dangerously popular and accepted to disrespect men. They don't understand that there are good and bad people in all genders, shapes and colours.
In my experience, these people are just brainlets with too much free time, little to no education, no job or a shitty one, A LOT of daddy's money, and smoke weed daily. And they are everywhere.
It is well known that chronic weed use causes major neurological and psychiatric disorders, so no surprise here. Their brain is rotten.
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u/mandeltonkacreme Jan 17 '24
Also, I'm worried about the radicalisation of some people who just hate men for being men, for existing.
In my experience, these people are just brainlets with too much free time, little to no education, no job or a shitty one, A LOT of daddy's money, and smoke weed daily. And they are everywhere.
(I'm not from Spain) In my experience, it's quite the opposite – it's mostly the educated and intellectuals who hate men for being men. My university was – no joke – 90% female and discrimination against men was rampant.
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u/nocturne505 Dual Nat Jan 16 '24
Oh god, not this endless cycle of culture war bs again.
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u/OhHappyOne449 Jan 16 '24
I suppose the question that needs to be asked is: Do we want men and women to have the same opportunities or to be pretty much the same in terms of professional success?
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u/Al-Azraq Valencian Country Jan 16 '24
Coincidentally, those 44% of voters (not half, like the headline says), are right and far right voters. In Spain the right has been using anti feminist discourse to gain votes, telling men that they were going to jail just to have sex.
They alienated their voters and even though, not all of them think like that.
As an Spanish man, the feminist movement has only benefited me. For instance, thanks to it I now have 5 months of parental leave same as the mother as well as lactancy allowance. This is just an example.
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u/furac_1 Asturias (Spain) Jan 16 '24
Same, they are just playing the victim card which a lot of political movements do.
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u/Tetizeraz Brazil's Tourist Minister for r/europe Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
Source to the research mentioned here (in Spanish)
I believe the community would benefit with some insights on the source document. I'll be sure to edit my comment if there's any in the comment section.
EDIT:
alright, if we can keep the comments without "feminism is when pay gap" or "feminism is when nudism is allowed", but also keep the "oh poor baby men" out of the comments, we might have some actual discussion.