Mansplaining

[Krysos]

how is this any different from the left wing mentality that seeks to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor?

eh eh eh

no you don't. That is not what "the left" seeks AT ALL, we'd like to see the fruits of everyone's collective industry shared more fairly with those who do the work that makes the fruits. This requires organized for-hire labor.

Also, a cursory investigation of economics would show you that a system wherein all funds flow up to a small minority is not long-term functional. Redistribution is an essential function of any economy, without it there's no money in circulation.

no one loves the idea of a "welfare queen" just popping out little baby paychecks. First off, I'd say it's fairly rare occurrence, and second, what choice do we have? Take the kids? Sterilize the mom? Leave them to fend for themselves and possibly turn to crime?

you seem to forget that we live in a society. Society, look it up. I had to "pay more" for health insurance (when I had it) in order to pay for breeders to cover their children. I didn't force them to have kids, why should I pay more? Because it's the decent thing to do. Same with all the other crap that get's built or done or whatever with "my money" - get over it, you want to live independently, go befriend a bear and move to the woods. Oh way, you don't actually own sufficient land to be self-sufficient? Well, welcome to the society of humans on earth, it's not a perfect place you may have noticed. but we get along ok, together.

As I said, each side has their own justifications for the redistribution. The wealthy see themselves as rugged industrialists that power the society and provide the opportunities for the lower classes, and the welfare queens feel as though they are justified because they believe they live in an inherently unjust society. Spare me the condescension until you actually understand what I'm saying or where I'm coming from, please. It's astonishing to me how presumptuous and outright rude the left has become in the last 15 years. What ever happened to being non-judgmental and open-minded? Is that not a liberal value? I SAID I have more compassion for the poor than I do for the rich already so I don't know why you constantly need to keep treating me as though I'm parroting Ayn Rand. I even specifically said in an earlier post that I don't think it's proper for the unfortunate to not receive medical care, clothing, food, etc. I agree with you that it's the decent thing to do, ultimately, to pay for the people that can't take care of themselves but it's also the decent thing for the ones that are capable of paying for themselves to do so also instead of gaming the system. If you don't like it when bankers do it you shouldn't excuse it when it's coming from less effective scammers either. And yeah, it is time for bed. Night.

[82_28]

It's time for my night night too. But Mr. Krysos, you couldn't be more karmically wrong if that's what you're going after. There has never been a goddamned "welfare queen". It's (probably you're ilk) wingers who created that canard. Nobody wants to be poor, ya know? To equate the theft of trillions of dollars we'll never see again until it trickles down, to women and birth control is highly not only chauvinistic, but it shows you're a winger.

So on this holy day of a democratic republic, if you wanna stick around here, krysos, it is time to be honest. As a winger, I know this is impossible and I feel for you for having an impossible task before you. But we all do. And your right wing bullshit don't bounce here. I'm not saying change your own mind, but be honest with it. You are who you are and think what you think. But, you are gonna get a hard time if you keep this up. Perhaps you'll relish it. I don't know.

We are all under hard times. As a winger, maybe something to night night over. . .

[yathrib]

There is probably nothing more off putting than a winger pretending to be an open minded, dispassionate truth seeker. Just saying.

[yathrib]

By the way, I don't know if I've commented on the original thread topic yet... mansplaining does exist, but I am a little dismayed at the way certain people are starting to use the term to automatically discount any point, issue, or question raised by someone who happens to be a man. Perhaps this makes me a reactionary, but I strongly believe such things need to be taken on their own merits. Ignoring or dismissing facts or opinions one finds uncomfortable benefits no one.

[compared2what?]

Perhaps I should have more properly asked, why should women not have to pay for birth control when men have to? Privately paid for insurance is one thing, publicly funded birth control is another. If men have to pay for condoms why should women not have to pay for their pills? I mean assuming that they are equal and all.

I can't believe I have to point these things out, but:

(a) There is a difference between "equal" and "identical"; and
(b) Conception (and therefore contraception) has extensive medical consequences for women that it doesn't have for men.

Try to bear in mind that we are talking about health coverage, not sex.

Edit: Thanks to c2w for agreeing (sort of) that I shouldn't have to pay for strangers birth control,

You're welcome.

but isn't that a huge part of what the supposed war on women is about? That they not have to pay for birth control pills?

Except that curtailments of reproductive freedom so extreme that they impinge on reproductive health are a huge part of what the supposed war on women is about, no. Not really.

If the cost is so little, why can't they pay for it themselves?

I was speaking of the cost to taxpayers. Birth control pills cost enough to be a major expense for the average working family.

It's not like they don't have the choice to not get pregnant.

It would be pretty bad for their marriages if they had to exercise it, though. Just for example. Because if you thought of women as real people, I'm sure you could think of numerous others.
________________

Again, I can't believe I really have to point this out. But:

Contraception is a covered expense because decisions about whether or not to use it (and if so, in what form) are basic preventive care with a wide range of potential consequences in gynecological medicine. Which is a basic part of women's health care. So the question isn't really "Why should I have to pay for a woman's birth control?" as much as it is "Should women's health care cover routine stuff that routinely affects women's health?"

FFS.

[barracuda]

Maybe it's a judgmental, dickish thing of me to do, but it's hard to take you seriously when you can't even use you're or their properly. It's got nothing to do with religion, but I'm not surprised to see that you're so limited in your thinking that you can't conceive of it being anything but. It's about how one group of people should not be forced to pay for the CHOICES other people CHOOSE to make. I have compassion for people that aren't able to control themselves enough to prevent themselves from becoming a burden to society whether it's from an inability to control their own procreation or through health issues caused by addiction or a simple inability to eat or drink anything besides soda and junk food. I'm not saying that these people should be left to die in the streets and not be provided medical care. Certainly their children deserve to be cared for more than some Wall Street dickbag deserves another tax break. But if the left in this country remains unable to see that there's plenty of compassionate and hardworking people that are middle class or working poor that are sick and tired of paying for the indulgences of others (and instead focus on gender and lifestyle issues), then they will continue to marginalize themselves.

Virtually all health care expenses in this country are the result of choices. What a lovely world it would be if everyone exercised for an hour a day, ate a largely vegetarian diet, lived a stress-free lifestyle, and got plenty of sleep each day. These are choices anyone can make, but few people do, and as a result you, Krysos, are forced by the socialist policies of your government to pay for expensive treatments and medicine all the time. If the idea of such socialist plundering of your hard-earned money is abhorrent to you, maybe the first thing you could do would be to examine your own behavior and eliminate unhealthy behaviors based upon personal choices. But unless you're interested in the government regulating the lifestyle choices you make in terms of exercise, vegetable intake, stress levels allowable, and sleep hours allotted, then you have very little real grounds to complain when they pay for any choice-based expenses. And none at all when the use of a medical treatment is part of a basic program of gynecology and women's health care like contraception.

Separating women's reproductive or gender-specific medical expenditures from the vast bulk of other health care (choice-related or otherwise) and the dispersal of those costs is how political parties swing vote blocs. It's nothing more than a tactic based upon using people's attitudes towards sex to polarize opinion. Don't fall for it.

[brainpanhandler]

Maybe it's a judgmental, dickish thing of me to do, but it's hard to take you seriously when you can't even use you're or their properly. It's got nothing to do with religion, but I'm not surprised to see that you're so limited in your thinking that you can't conceive of it being anything but. It's about how one group of people should not be forced to pay for the CHOICES other people CHOOSE to make. I have compassion for people that aren't able to control themselves enough to prevent themselves from becoming a burden to society whether it's from an inability to control their own procreation or through health issues caused by addiction or a simple inability to eat or drink anything besides soda and junk food. I'm not saying that these people should be left to die in the streets and not be provided medical care. Certainly their children deserve to be cared for more than some Wall Street dickbag deserves another tax break. But if the left in this country remains unable to see that there's plenty of compassionate and hardworking people that are middle class or working poor that are sick and tired of paying for the indulgences of others (and instead focus on gender and lifestyle issues), then they will continue to marginalize themselves.

Virtually all health care expenses in this country are the result of choices. What a lovely world it would be if everyone exercised for an hour a day, ate a largely vegetarian diet, lived a stress-free lifestyle, and got plenty of sleep each day. These are choices anyone can make, but few people do, and as a result you, Krysos, are forced by the socialist policies of your government to pay for expensive treatments and medicine all the time. If the idea of such socialist plundering of your hard-earned money is abhorrent to you, maybe the first thing you could do would be to examine your own behavior and eliminate unhealthy behaviors based upon personal choices. But unless you're interested in the government regulating the lifestyle choices you make in terms of exercise, vegetable intake, stress levels allowable, and sleep hours allotted, then you have very little real grounds to complain when they pay for any choice-based expenses. And none at all when the use of a medical treatment is part of a basic program of gynecology and women's health care like contraception.

Separating women's reproductive or gender-specific medical expenditures from the vast bulk of other health care (choice-related or otherwise) and the dispersal of those costs is how political parties swing vote blocs. It's nothing more than a tactic based upon using people's attitudes towards sex to polarize opinion. Don't fall for it.

Or ya know.... stop falling for it. FFS

[Project Willow]

Well, it's a thread on a feminist topic, so of course it's been trolled all to hell.

This is off topic folks.

This discussion belongs in the War on Women thread, or a new one about reproductive issues, or taxes, or flagrant, cowardly, misogynist trolling. It doesn't belong here.

[jlaw172364]

@Project Willow

I don't know why people bother responding to Krysos. He lies by omission.

I don't like the mansplaining thing because it seems like, no wait, it IS an Orwellian overreaching, an attempt to get me to self-police my thoughts to the point of ridiculousness. Am I never to try to explain anything to any woman again for fear of being accused of mansplaining? Am I to expect semi-educated women to accuse me of mansplaining every time I open my mouth because they read a few articles on some website? It seems like it's all about telling men they should shut up and listen more . . . which is what I hear male chauvinists say to women!

I listen to women plenty. I've listened to them for years. I've tried my best to relate to their issues and problems. I read female authors. I'm engaging in a dialogue with you, a woman. I'm sorry that you don't like it that I'm disagreeing with you on one minor issue, this issue of mansplaining. I'm sure you and I would probably agree on my things, many of which are more black and white, like, for example, the Pakistani man and woman who killed their teenaged daughter with acid because she looked at a boy. Clearly an act of depravity. It doesn't get any more open and shut than that.

But when you start telling me how to think and act, expressly or implicitly, you venture into a gray area.

[82_28]

Well, it's a thread on a feminist topic, so of course it's been trolled all to hell.

This is off topic folks.

This discussion belongs in the War on Women thread, or a new one about reproductive issues, or taxes, or flagrant, cowardly, misogynist trolling. It doesn't belong here.

Let me mansplain a little something for you, little lady. I think we're just being an immune system for this thread and keeping it together. RI has very few trolls because we self-police and maintain civility. It took a page or two to do so, but Krysos outted himself masquerading as a person that while welcome here, his machinations are not. Just takin' care of biz. Nippin' shit in the bud.

To address your "feminist topic" bit, though, I have to say this isn't a feminist topic any more than it is a masculine topic. Mansplaining QED. The very term includes me and all other males.

[Project Willow]

@Project Willow

I don't like the mansplaining thing because it seems like, no wait, it IS an Orwellian overreaching, an attempt to get me to self-police my thoughts to the point of ridiculousness. Am I never to try to explain anything to any woman again for fear of being accused of mansplaining? Am I to expect semi-educated women to accuse me of mansplaining every time I open my mouth because they read a few articles on some website? It seems like it's all about telling men they should shut up and listen more . . . which is what I hear male chauvinists say to women!

The analogy is only apt if you erase male privilege, which you do here, as well as show your contempt for those you view as lesser, women. You should self-police your misogyny. You should shut up and listen more.

I listen to women plenty. I've listened to them for years. I've tried my best to relate to their issues and problems.

I see no evidence of this whatsoever.

I'm engaging in a dialogue with you, a woman.

No you're not. You're preaching to me as if your evaluation of what it's like to be a woman in this culture is more valid than mine, or that of the countless other women who've spoken to the OP issue. Time and again you've offered nothing but cold denial of women's voices on this topic, arrogantly supplanting your pet theories about what we must really be experiencing, thinking, feeling, or saying for what we actually are experiencing, thinking, feeling, or saying, as if we are completely incapable of doing so ourselves. You've been mainsplaining mansplaining to women throughout this entire thread.

This is mansplaining:

I think these women read a lot of gender theory, and then their reality tunnel and pattern recognition become all about seeing male patriarchy in every last practice, no matter how innocuous, even if it could just as easily be explained in gender neutral terms, like the man doing the alleged mansplaining came from a privileged family, went to an ivy league school, and therefore feels entitled to hold court on everything.

I'm sorry that you don't like it that I'm disagreeing with you on one minor issue, this issue of mansplaining.

You aren't disagreeing with me, you are devaluing my ability to understand and name my own experience as a woman. You're devaluing my perception, intelligence, and nearly 50 years of living in a female body. That is no minor issue to me.

I'm sure you and I would probably agree on my things, many of which are more black and white, like, for example, the Pakistani man and woman who killed their teenaged daughter with acid because she looked at a boy. Clearly an act of depravity. It doesn't get any more open and shut than that.

Your blindness to your own privilege, and your inability to grant those who do not share your privilege a valid voice, render all of your judgements in other scenarios suspect. I won't be entertaining them, let alone looking to find some area of agreement.

But when you start telling me how to think and act, expressly or implicitly, you venture into a gray area.

As do we all, I tell people how to act all of the time. When they address me, I require that they value my humanity, that they treat me with a basic level of respect. A man who feels it's his place to inform me about my life as a woman, or what's going on in my head for that matter, as if he knows better than I, is not treating me with a basic level of respect.

[Krysos]

There is probably nothing more off putting than a winger pretending to be an open minded, dispassionate truth seeker. Just saying.

Except maybe for a spineless groupthink liberal that's too stupid to realize how limited their own thinking is. HEY, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE RULES AGAINST CALLING PEOPLE A TROLL EH?

[Krysos]

Perhaps I should have more properly asked, why should women not have to pay for birth control when men have to? Privately paid for insurance is one thing, publicly funded birth control is another. If men have to pay for condoms why should women not have to pay for their pills? I mean assuming that they are equal and all.

I can't believe I have to point these things out, but:

(a) There is a difference between "equal" and "identical"; and
(b) Conception (and therefore contraception) has extensive medical consequences for women that it doesn't have for men.

Try to bear in mind that we are talking about health coverage, not sex.

Edit: Thanks to c2w for agreeing (sort of) that I shouldn't have to pay for strangers birth control,

You're welcome.

but isn't that a huge part of what the supposed war on women is about? That they not have to pay for birth control pills?

Except that curtailments of reproductive freedom so extreme that they impinge on reproductive health are a huge part of what the supposed war on women is about, no. Not really.

If the cost is so little, why can't they pay for it themselves?

I was speaking of the cost to taxpayers. Birth control pills cost enough to be a major expense for the average working family.

It's not like they don't have the choice to not get pregnant.

It would be pretty bad for their marriages if they had to exercise it, though. Just for example. Because if you thought of women as real people, I'm sure you could think of numerous others.
________________

Again, I can't believe I really have to point this out. But:

Contraception is a covered expense because decisions about whether or not to use it (and if so, in what form) are basic preventive care with a wide range of potential consequences in gynecological medicine. Which is a basic part of women's health care. So the question isn't really "Why should I have to pay for a woman's birth control?" as much as it is "Should women's health care cover routine stuff that routinely affects women's health?"

FFS.

Birth control pills cost $600 bucks a year, at MOST. And it IS sex that someone else would be paying for, just the same as if you'd have to pay for someone's std treatments if they routinely engaged in rest stop sex with strangers. It's irresponsible people doing stupid and unhealthy things which are then expected to be paid for by responsible people that pay taxes. You can call it a medical treatment all you want but ultimately it still comes down to a CHOICE. See octo-fucking-mom for an example. 8 kids, all paid for by the state and they'll probably each have 8 kids which will be paid for by the state. Maybe if people actually removed the incentive for this kind of crap idiots would stop burdening the state with their idiocy.

[Krysos]

It's time for my night night too. But Mr. Krysos, you couldn't be more karmically wrong if that's what you're going after. There has never been a goddamned "welfare queen". It's (probably you're ilk) wingers who created that canard. Nobody wants to be poor, ya know? To equate the theft of trillions of dollars we'll never see again until it trickles down, to women and birth control is highly not only chauvinistic, but it shows you're a winger.

So on this holy day of a democratic republic, if you wanna stick around here, krysos, it is time to be honest. As a winger, I know this is impossible and I feel for you for having an impossible task before you. But we all do. And your right wing bullshit don't bounce here. I'm not saying change your own mind, but be honest with it. You are who you are and think what you think. But, you are gonna get a hard time if you keep this up. Perhaps you'll relish it. I don't know.

We are all under hard times. As a winger, maybe something to night night over. . .

How about you do me a favor and not act like you know a fucking thing about me, since you don't. Or go back to worshipping women that think of you as nothing more than a pet. Either way, just stop trying.

[Project Willow]

Please don't anyone respond to the troll. I contacted the mods.

Again, in case it was missed...

The birth control issue is off topic folks.

The discussion belongs in the War on Women thread, or a new one.