Pharyngula links to a documentary on circumcision. I have not actually seen it, so I don’t know if it’s problematic or not, but I figured it would be relevant to some of our commenters’ interests. Anyway, Papa Zed wouldn’t post it if it were seriously problematic.
Adorable poem about trans sex. Seriously. This poem is the CUTEST. I just want to say “d’awwwww” a lot.
Lemony Snicket on Occupy Wall Street. My girlfriend plans on getting a Lemony-Snicket-related tattoo as part of her children’s novel sleeve, just so you know how seriously we take the Series of Unfortunate Events around here. I am somewhat annoyed he got through the entire thing without a reference to the sugar bowl.
LabRat talks about tribalism. Relevant to my series on kyriarchy, and also because LabRat is awesome and sciencey and makes me think about things a lot. We are some fucking weird apes, yo.
Nobby from Manboobz pointed me to Fuck Yeah Menfolk, a very cool feministy Tumblr for all kinds of male-type people. Check ’em out. It covers homophobia, transphobia, gender role enforcement, femmephobia and random pictures of dudes with awesome beards.
A genderqueer person talks about gender as a social construct. Seriously interesting gender theory here! He argues that gender is primarily social and that we can adopt gender norms as a means of communicating our genders to others. Something interesting to read while you await the next post in the long-delayed kyriarchy series. (There is a next post. I promise.)
Halloween is also time for All Hallow’s Read, a great time to give someone a scary book or story to read. I recommend Paul Krugman.
aliarasthedaydreamer
Ami Angelwings
Hershele Ostropoler
Cheradenine
jlandrith
kaija24
2020
noahbrand
Cliff Pervocracy
ozymandias
Shora
sirgabe
figleaf
John Hawkins
No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? 
That circumcison thread was pretty good, except for some of the usual bone-heaeded dogmatic shit so common on that site that I would expect athersits of all people to want avoid. And then there were the puerile cheap shots at MRAS of course.
“you_monster says:
19 October 2011 at 4:08 pm
Hellooooooo…. MRAs who always gripe that we don’t talk about circumcision and try to derail the FGM threads to talk about circumcision instead, and who always manage to do it within the first five comments? Here’s your big chance! Talk away! Let’s discuss the problems and the solutions and the personal anecdotes and everything! Right here!…
Where are you guys?
They are resting from last night’s feces flinging on the Your Name is Tucker thread. And everyone knows they care more about using MGM to silence women than actual MGM itself.”
Right, because it’s always about the women, exspecially when it’s a men’s issue. Asshats.
Great links. I especially liked that Lemony Snicket one, very simple but very to the point. I’ll be looking at the linked sites in more detail for a while.
I am now head over heals in love with fuckyeahmenfolk please, please, please can we add it to the blog role?
I am fully down for adding fuckyeahmenfolk to the blogroll, if for no other reason than I think their use of “menfolk” and the reasoning behind it is fucking AWESOME.
Definitely enjoying Fuck Yeah Menfolk, especially the following quote on rape and rape apologia:
“People are making a false dichotomy out of this. It’s not either believe rape victims or give the accused due process. Believe rape victims insofar as it warrants personal kindness and aid. Believe the accused insofar as it warrants a fair trial and the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven. Saying you don’t want to rush and call someone a rapist doesn’t mean you want to rush and call someone else a liar.”
Thanks for introducing me to this one. 🙂
You know the drill Jim.
Step 1: Bait.
Step 2: Wait for them to bite
Step 3: Flip The Fuck Out.
But I’ll give them points for Esteleth actually acknowledging that there is some nastiness among feminists.
@ Vejuz
“Believe rape victims insofar as it warrants personal kindness and aid. Believe the accused insofar as it warrants a fair trial and the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven.”
How about believing the accused insofar as it warrants personal kindness and aid?
@ Typhon….
The victim NEEDS personal kindness and aid because her body was just used as public property, by someone she deeply trusted. The accused….does not need any special degree of kindness and aid. Accused rapists don’t regularly suffer from PTSD. There aren’t weekly “accusation survival” support groups where people have to relearn everything in their life. I don’t know why you’re making the argument that the accused need the exact same rights and lifestyle that their victims have, when the two groups are totally different.
@ Jim
It is annoying, rude, and invasive for these MRA trolls to log onto a website with a name like “Womens World News”, click the “women’s health” section, scroll down to an article titled Vaginal Mutilation in Libya, and then say “Hey, you women are being sexist and RUDE, because you’re trying to help African women. Can you drop everything you’re doing, stop trying to help women, and start trying to solve men’s problems for free? Especially STOP talking about African women, and start talking about the jewish/english tradition of male circumcision in North America!” especially when these men could program and design a website called “Mens world news”, with a “men’s health” section, and publish an article titled “Penile mutilation in Australia”.
LAvenger:
It is annoying, rude, and invasive for these MRA trolls to log onto a website with a name like “Womens World News”, click the “women’s health” section, scroll down to an article titled Vaginal Mutilation in Libya, and then say…
I’ll agree that it is indeed rude. Just like its rude to turn around and call them shit slingers for, well basically for whatever reason. Or is this one of those things where its only okay for certain people to do it?
I don’t know why you’re making the argument that the accused need the exact same rights and lifestyle that their victims have, when the two groups are totally different.
Because like the accuser the accused is human too? As far as I’m concerned there may be some overlap in, “Believe rape victims insofar as it warrants personal kindness and aid. Believe the accused insofar as it warrants a fair trial and the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven.” I’m sure most people would agree that the accuser should get a fair trial as a part of “kindness and aid” and I’m thinking (hoping) that most people would agree that there would be some aid as a part of that “fair trial” and I supposed you could say that the “presumption of innocence until proven guilty” could count as a kindness.
Point being I wonder if TB is trying to fair to both sides of the accuser/accused situation.
@LAavenger Is it really that hard not to gender rape victims? “Their” body, someone “they” deeply trusted. You’re still saying the same thing.
Another link: Male binge eaters pretty much not studied— eating disordered are assumed to be female problems.
Ozy: is it wrong/creepy/weird that I would love to see your GF’s tattoos? I hope that doesn’t sound dirty, I just love tattoos, period.
“How about believing the accused insofar as it warrants personal kindness and aid?”
Well, they’re not my words so they don’t 100% reflect my opinion. Sadly, they represent far more sense than either side usually projects in these debates. I was really more focused on the “Saying you don’t want to rush and call someone a rapist doesn’t mean you want to rush and call someone else a liar.” There are ways in which both people can be treated as human beings without endangering victims of rape and without stomping on the human rights of the accused.
“The victim NEEDS personal kindness and aid because her body was just used as public property, by someone she deeply trusted. The accused….does not need any special degree of kindness and aid. Accused rapists don’t regularly suffer from PTSD. There aren’t weekly “accusation survival” support groups where people have to relearn everything in their life. I don’t know why you’re making the argument that the accused need the exact same rights and lifestyle that their victims have, when the two groups are totally different.”
What I find disturbing about your position is that you assume the accused is a rapist without due process of law. Before a trial, both of them are possible victims or possible rapists and before guilt is established both of them have the right to be treated as full human beings with full human rights. What you are essentially arguing is that an accusation is the same as guilt, but in the USA the only body with any right to establish guilt is the justice system, when it is acting with due process of law.
You have to understand that people who abuse the systems set up for their protection is a group which knows every demographic, and that every person in the USA, regardless of their crime or lack of crime, is entitled to due process and a trial.
There is a reason that “innocent until proven guilty” is the standard in the US. It is because Great Britian at the time had a system in which guilt was assumed and innocence had to proved, and that this system lead to widespread abuse.
I hate to get serious, but if we are posting links:
Iraq war veteran’s skull cracked at Oakland Occupy
He’s a man (US Marine) too, and deserves a post here. He is in critical condition.
“I hate to get serious”–meaning I don’t want to break up a conversation, not that it isn’t a serious topic. (I figure I better clarify before someone eviscerates me.)
Or as we used to say, “I hate to get too heavy”–but I thought that expression might be too old-hippie for this board, where everyone is under 30, except Jim. (HI JIM!)
Anyway, spread the word… if you don’t like my blog, pick another one, or a news source you trust, and spread *that* word… OccupyMARINES has specifically asked that we do so. Thanks.
“Adorable poem about trans sex. Seriously. This poem is the CUTEST. I just want to say “d’awwwww” a lot.”
Love poetry…
@LAvenger
“The victim NEEDS personal kindness and aid because _her_ body was just used as public property, by someone she deeply trusted.”
Her.
“The accused….does not need any special degree of kindness and aid. Accused rapists don’t regularly suffer from PTSD.”
How would you or anyone actually know if the accused regularly suffers from PTSD or not? As a population they haven’t really been studied.
“There aren’t weekly “accusation survival” support groups where people have to relearn everything in their life.”
Maybe there should be considering the kind of damage a false accusation can wreck in someone’s life.
“I don’t know why you’re making the argument that the accused need the exact same rights and lifestyle that their victims have, when the two groups are totally different.”
I actually don’t see them as that different. Based on the few times men have recounted their experiences of being falsely accused I’ve heard about PTSD symptoms, disruption to their sex lives, inability to trust women, dissociative states, shame and self-loathing.
As Danny points out, yeah, men are human too and being falsely accused of being a rapist affects them in negative ways.
As an addendum not completely related to what you pointed out… I wonder about whether or not there’s room to discuss reducing vigilante violence against the presumptively innocent. Is it important to stop men (who haven’t gone to trial or, worse, been proved to be innocent) being beaten, raped and killed by vigilantes(or even socially ostracized) or is that acceptable collateral damage in the ‘war on rape culture’?
Do we want to discuss how saying:
1) Women never lie about rape.
2) Women won’t see justice done in the legal system.
Might increase the rate of vigilante violence against the presumptively innocent because people who care about the presumed victim will want to see ‘justice done?’
Morality becomes complicated when you don’t separate the human race based on gender into ‘people who act’ and ‘people who are acted upon.’
@Vejuz: “People are making a false dichotomy out of this. It’s not either believe rape victims or give the accused due process. Believe rape victims insofar as it warrants personal kindness and aid. Believe the accused insofar as it warrants a fair trial and the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven. Saying you don’t want to rush and call someone a rapist doesn’t mean you want to rush and call someone else a liar.”
I’ve been deemed a rape apologist in the past for holding exactly that stance. There are too many groups out there for whom accusation = guilt and if that’s not the finding of court then a rapist just walked free. Strangely enough the same people in question talked about how great the Innocence Project was when talking about the travesty of justice that befell Troy Davis.
@Daisy Deadhead: “for this board, where everyone is under 30, except Jim. ”
I’m over 30 (OK, I’m 31, but still). =p
@TB: You just saved me from typing a lengthy post, and put it better than I could have at the same time.
I’m 40.
Just to shout out for the “oldsters” on this board. Far as I’m concerned you can all Respect Your Elders.
I meant to say “all the rest of you”. Clearly I don’t mean my fellow “Elders” 🙂
“I’ve been deemed a rape apologist in the past for holding exactly that stance. There are too many groups out there for whom accusation = guilt and if that’s not the finding of court then a rapist just walked free. Strangely enough the same people in question talked about how great the Innocence Project was when talking about the travesty of justice that befell Troy Davis.”
QFT.
By the way, the reason the innocence project hardly ever runs into the “feminist” definition of a False Rape accusation is because by the very nature of their activism they usually won’t. They test old forensics evidence, mostly DNA, they don’t check alibi’s , testimony, or anything else in an alleged victims story. They don’t do “he said, she said” stories. They merely find out whether the newly discovered forensic evidence matches the person who was accused or not. And even in this limited area of activism they do good work but they are hampered by inadequate finances and facilities to handle the vast caseload that exists. We’ve sent a hell of a lot of people to jail on crappy eyewitness testimony, most of which was totally unintentional on the victim’s part, but was facilitated by crappy police photo lineup techniques.
DDH, thanks for the link, but I think if I read it I will just get angrier and angrier. This is the kind of citizen that the trash in those audiences at the Republican debates boo. I am quite sure he will never get mentioned on Fox by all those non-combatant parasites there.
Everyone at those protests is a patriot and when this is done they will be veterans. They are combatants – they are braving physical violence for the sake of their nation.
“Or as we used to say, “I hate to get too heavy”–but I thought that expression might be too old-hippie for this board, where everyone is under 30, except Jim. (HI JIM!)”
I’m pretty borderline at 29, and consider myself one of the youngest commenters that also comments on FC.
lols. I’m not under thirty.
Here’s the Marine group daisy mentioned:
http://occupymarines.org/
Speaking of screen names, I am officially changing mine. There are more and more Jims around and today I finally saw the last wing nut using the name that can stand. So from now on I am Ginkgo.
So when it comes to age, I have you all beat. 270 million years yo. I smile at mass extinctions.
Also over 30 here. 🙂
@ LAvenger,
“The victim NEEDS personal kindness and aid because her body was just used as public property, by someone she deeply trusted. The accused….does not need any special degree of kindness and aid.”
Tell it to some of these guys:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7265307.stm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1202080/Vile-lies-woman-jailed-making-ex-boyfriends-life-hell-accusing-rape.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280926/Student-cleared-rape-emerges-second-man-committed-suicide-falsely-accused-woman.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266454/Man-falsely-accused-sex-attack-hangs-police-fail-tell-case-dropped.html
http://www.northantset.co.uk/news/local/corby/father_s_living_hell_over_rape_lie_1_730586
Admittedly, giving the ones who actually killed themselves the good news about how little kindness and aid they needed might be sort of tricky.
“@ Typhon….
The victim NEEDS personal kindness and aid because her body was just used as public property, by someone she deeply trusted. The accused….does not need any special degree of kindness and aid.”
This is hands down the stupidest thing I have ever heard.
EVERYONE NEEDS KINDNESS AND AID. Reach out and act in kindness to EVERYONE YOU MEET regardles of whether they’re a victim or a criminal, whether they’re accusing or accused, or whether they’re male or female. Everyone NEEDS it equally, it’s just sometimes more obvious.
Gotta also put on my science cap here and disagree with that Tumblr a bit:
“What might be a “clitoris” on one man might be a “penis” (or something else) on another without any objective difference in physiology.”
Ummm, no. Language CANNOT work that way. A propeller is not an oar. A gas is not a solid. A proton is not an electron nor is it a neutron. A penis is a penis and a clitoris is a clitoris, they are distinct parts of human anatomy and carry with them very specific definitions. Why is this important?
Because one must have a clitoris to have clitoral cancer, and one must have testicles to have testicular cancer… and “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” — A Man Much Smarter Than Anyone I’ve Ever Met
(Richard Feynman)
@Jim (linking to a comment from the circ article):
I wonder how many of those people actually identify as MRA. There are a lot of anti-circ people that have nothing to do with the MRM.
That aside, I also recall several threads on IIRC feministing about male circumcision that instantly got derailed into being about fgm, and I’ve seen many other similar threads about circ get derailed into fgm, not to mention virtually every (I’m talking 95%+) real-life conversation I’ve ever had about circ that wasn’t with someone who already knew my personal issues with it. And as Jim notes, that person’s comment itself is ironically an example of derailing into fgm. So it’s not like this is a one-way problem.
Moreover, when circ threads get derailed with fgm, it’s usually (not always, but… usually) of a dismissive “circ isn’t important, fgm is the real issue” nature, which is quite sinister (IMO) and triggering. Whereas all the derails I’ve seen of fgm threads into circ have usually been of a, “Goddammit, wtf? Look under your own noses at your own freakin’ culture!” nature. Which, while admittedly annoying and often inappropriate, is not minimizing or dismissive of fgm.
I’ll say the same thing I do on any of these tired rape discussions. Israeli law keeps the names of both the accuser and the accused anonymous in a rape trial. The shield works both ways. I’d like to see that here in the States.
You’d see less false reports because the accuser’s ability to ruin the accused’s name would be less likely. All the people who inflate false-rape-claim statistics would be short some ammo because the “she accused him just to trash him, that’s what they do” (my language is gendered but that’s the language these type of people tend to use) meme would be less convincing than it already is. Wins all around.
Private and hidden trials have no place in a free society.
“Private and hidden trials have no place in a free society.”
Why? There are many trials in our society that have elements of them hidden on national security grounds.
It’s also a matter of basic fairness. Policies exist to protect the identity of the accuser, thereby creating an unfair situation for the presumption of guilt in the public sphere, as only one of the parties is known, which will inherently draw a greater perception of guilt.
Mutual anonymity for serious criminal offenses has a variety of social benefits, too. It allows accusers to bring forth claims with true anonymity, as in the case of rape within a relationship in which their identities can currently be inferred, or in smaller communities.
It’s an elegant solution for a current inequity in our justice system.
Xakudo, the whole FGM versus MGM discussion is classic What About the Wimminz and basically just pedestalizes women and women’s bodies. Chivalrous as shit. And when someone in the US does it, male or female, it is a dishonest ploy to shift the discussion from the matter at hand ion thier own society, to which they are in some degree complicit, to some other topic where they can put on their moral pose.
You get the same invocation to chivlary as some kind of divine right of women right here in this thread with LAvenger’s comment, drive by though it is. Patheitic.
Monkey: She has a tattoo of a teacup on her neck from the Frank Turner song. She doesn’t have any other tats. Yet. 🙂
“Why? There are many trials in our society that have elements of them hidden on national security grounds.”
And each and every one of them is a dangerous threat to a free society. When the process of law is non-transparent, we have a problem. By hiding the name of the accused and the name of the accuser, the process of law is shrouded.
It’s also not a matter of basic fairness. It’s a matter of the Government not revealing the names of people involved in a trial in a well-meaning attempt to protect them from public opinion. In other words: congratulations, your educational system sucks… and your response is to change something else.
@Ginkgo:
“when someone in the US does it, male or female, it is a dishonest ploy to shift the discussion from the matter at hand ion thier own society, to which they are in some degree complicit, to some other topic where they can put on their moral pose.”
Wow! Granted, I’m not from the US and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a circumcised penis (except perhaps in porn), but don’t you guys ever just discuss female genital cutting?
““What might be a “clitoris” on one man might be a “penis” (or something else) on another without any objective difference in physiology.”
Ummm, no. Language CANNOT work that way. A propeller is not an oar. A gas is not a solid. A proton is not an electron nor is it a neutron. A penis is a penis and a clitoris is a clitoris, they are distinct parts of human anatomy and carry with them very specific definitions. Why is this important?”
Wrong.
The clitoris gland and the penis gland are analogous structures, coming from the same tubercule in a fetus. It’s shape and function does not depend, at all, on the presence or absence of a Y chromosome (as shown with CAIS women, who do have a Y chromosome).
The difference between the two structures, at birth, is small, and mainly decided by doctors based on (non-erect) length.
“Because one must have a clitoris to have clitoral cancer, and one must have testicles to have testicular cancer… and “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” — A Man Much Smarter Than Anyone I’ve Ever Met”
Clitoral cancer is probably as rare as penile cancer (1/100,000 in most 1st world countries), as for testicle or ovarian cancer, I’m not certain what would be the aggravating factor (how do they treat it besides removing the offending gonads?), but it’s not that much of a difference. Only the position of the organ gets them presumptively labeled as testes or ovaries (before any test is conducted). CAIS women have testes, undescended. They are often removed to prevent the higher incidence of testicular cancer (when they are known to actually have CAIS – which can be pretty late in life, not at birth unless your family has a documented history of it).
I meant glans above, for both.
@AB:
Yes, we do that too.
But, unfortunately, most of the times I’ve seen female genital cutting brought up in real life has been in response to circ discussions, in which case it has a very “shift the topic away” kind of vibe. Like if you bring up sexism in your own culture and people respond with “Hey, it’s not important, it’s not like we stone women to death for being raped! So no biggie.” It’s that kind of thing. And it pisses me off twofold: it’s dismissing circumcision as a real and important issue, and it’s exploiting the topic of female genital cutting (also a real and important issue) to deflect and make people feel better, not as an issue to actually be addressed.
And, unfortunately, repeatedly encountering that starts to make one suspicious of people’s motives when they talk about female genital cutting.
But it sucks, because these issues are not at all at odds with each other. Asshole people just make them seem like they are. But they are both extremely important issues. Genital integrity is genital integrity, and we should be fighting for it for everyone.
@Schala:
Homologous does not equal equivalent.
For example, the innervation of the glans clitoris and glans penis are quite dissimilar, both in number and types of nerve-endings. The same is true, for example, of the foreskin vs the clitoral hood. So there are indeed distinct differences between the clitoris and the penis. Although there are important structural similarities as well.
@Xakudo:
“Yes, we do that too.
But, unfortunately, most of the times I’ve seen female genital cutting brought up in real life has been in response to circ discussions, in which case it has a very “shift the topic away” kind of vibe.”
Hmm, I’ve only experienced it the other way around (or alternatively, people who’ve brought up FGC as an argument for why circumcision is wrong). Even in Denmark, where extremely few people circumcise, a debate about Somali immigrants travelling back to their home country to get their daughters genitals cut was taken over by men complaining about circumcision.
On a more uplifting note, the doctors involved in the debate said one of the best tools to stop FGC was paternal involvement. The mothers had been used to the practice (and were probably more prone to wanting to see their own experience as something positive), but when the fathers were shown videos of what actually went on, many of them started to refuse to let their own children go through it.
“Wow! Granted, I’m not from the US and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a circumcised penis (except perhaps in porn), but don’t you guys ever just discuss female genital cutting?”
Well what is there to say beyond it’s gross violation of human rights, it’s unacceptable anywhere and illegal in this country and don’t come peddling excuses about your culture or religion? It should be grounds for loss of parental rights. And that’s all been said. What’s to discuss? It’s like talking about the sun coming up in the east. In the US. And remember, this country is stupidly susceptible to special pleading when it comes to religion, unlike the plain common sense approach you seem to have in Denmark when it comes to people’s completely unaccpetable religious sensitivites to some cartoons.
There is still be a debate on the issue here in the US – there is no valid opposition to outlawing the practice, but that doesn’t stop the debate. That’s all.
“Homologous does not equal equivalent.
For example, the innervation of the glans clitoris and glans penis are quite dissimilar, both in number and types of nerve-endings. The same is true, for example, of the foreskin vs the clitoral hood. So there are indeed distinct differences between the clitoris and the penis. Although there are important structural similarities as well.”
This is something that happens due to testosterone, not a genetic difference. Both of the possible results of the fetal genital tubercule are there, in every single fetus. Mullerian and Wolfian structures develop mostly depending on a few things, which can’t be generalize to essentialize any characteristic.
@Ginkgo:
“Well what is there to say beyond it’s gross violation of human rights, it’s unacceptable anywhere and illegal in this country and don’t come peddling excuses about your culture or religion? It should be grounds for loss of parental rights. And that’s all been said.”
I’m talking more about how to handle it, especially if parents travel to a place where they can get it done. It’s a bit of a sensitive subject, because taking action against a family from a culture likely to perform it could be seen as racial profiling. On the other hand, waiting until it’s done and then add insult to injury by removing the child will be seen as irresponsible. There’s also medical dilemmas like what to do with a woman who’s been cut up for childbirth and now wants the doctor to sew her back shut. That kind of debate.
I see. I don’t see much about it these days but there was alot of discussion a year ago in the US blogosphere and media, as I recall. The question of giving girls asylum for fear of FGM seems settled at last. People are getting past the hyper-sensitivity to cultural sensitivities, and if we can change opinion here on circumcision, the issue where cultural sensitivity goes really deep, FGM will be a slam dunk – not just making it illegal, but everything incident to it.
“It’s a bit of a sensitive subject,”
No “bit” about it. Anything to do with Islam in particular and religion in general is a mish-mash of conflicting hysterias here, in the most non-gendered way that can be meant.
I’m not sure exactly where this fits so I figured I would add it to the Open Thread and see what happens.
The Atlantic recently published this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/?single_page=true
I guess… Well… I feel uneasy reading this article though it is difficult to place exactly why. It is entirely likely that it hits some residual bias in myself, and I don’t want to discount that. Are there any ideas by any of the peoples here as to why this might seem so off-putting?
@PsyConomics
It seems to be a rehash of The End of Men.
“Good men”, meaning richer, more educated men (than a woman with a university degree, possibly a PhD), willing to marry and have children are getting rarer as women get higher up, and men feel less pressure to be the sole earner, or to “die trying to reach the top of the rat race” like salaryman in Japan still do.
So you have less traditional gender role men, and given that this woman is richer and more educated than her parents and grandparents, to her it’s a big decline.
What I find off is that men are only considered that way, and if they earn less or are less educated, they are “deadbeats” not worth even considering.