FREEDOM!!!! [4]

{{ Having a third category seems the obvious answer to me, so obvious I have to assume others have thought of it already, so not sure why its a problem. I can only assume one side or the other say no to the idea for some reason (I'd love to know what the reason is mind you). But I can't see another solution that's fair to everyone and treats everyone the same.

As for the stats, if in 100 years time they still have those records then they will also have records of the change in law explaining the figures- if you look at crime statistics in general you will often see footnotes to them explaining that how certain crimes were recorded were changed in that year etc Its nothing new at all in that sense. }}

A third gender doesn't work as there are not 3 genders. And I don't mean male vs female, I mean there are literally thousands of claimed genders and they all expect to be treated as such.

And it isn't just the labelling, it is the treatment associate with the labelling. The catchphrase "trans women are women" means that they expect all the same rights and treatments as women.

There is a reason why rapes in women's prisons in california have started to increase and why they are now giving out condoms because of pregnancies. Given rapists are a minority of peoples actions and transgender are a minority of people, it is only a matter of time before the stats start ticking, especially after things get put in to law allowing these things to happen.

And just because you don't think the stats or labels matter to you doesn't mean others don't want to be the stat of a man being raped by a "woman" or whatever.

There are lots of ways any law being introduced has impacts, even in speech if we end up with mis-gendering becoming a hate crime.

We need science to catch up with the social issue so that we can make much more informed decisions than we can right now.

I don't see that science has much to do with it. Any people who are at risk or may cause risk in prisons needs some type of isolation - not total, just designed to reduce risk. If sex offenders can get protective custody (though often more on paper than reality) so can trans, etc. Getting too theoretical about it isn't immediately useful. See a problem, solve it. I got speech therapy as a kid because I needed it, with adjustments about missing parts of class, etc. Try something, see if it works, adjust it. No need to wait around for studies, just do it.

they expect all the same rights and treatments as women.- Lance

{{And so they should if they identify as women. The same rights to have their own toilet facilities, the same right to compete on a level playing field in sports, the same right to be kept in prison with other trans women. I dont see how recognizing trans folk as the same as women on a rights front is a danger to anyone. Im not proposing putting trans women and women in the same prison, nature will have its way as homosexuality in male prisons prove even among normally majority hetro male prisoners. But having a section of a prison appropriate to inmate population for trans women is no different in law than having separate areas for biological women prisoners. They'd be getting treated exactly the same, have the same rights as a biological woman but without it being unfair or encroaching on biological womens rights. That is equality surely? }}

Lancebloke wrote: And it isn't just the labelling, it is the treatment associate with the labelling. The catchphrase "trans women are women" means that they expect all the same rights and treatments as women.

That's just the problem, if a person has spent most of their life as a male they will have had all the advantages and benefits that males have in society from birth. Superior status being one of them, being treated with more respect is another. Being paid more, being able to walk down a street at night unmolested, etc etc.....so when a man transitions into a 'second class' person, rights and treatments suddenly become lesser not more. So it would be a culture shock because suddenly as a woman they have been suddenly demoted, even subtly from top dog into not top dog. So demanding that 'trans women are women' is a kind of power play, but it doesn't actually give more power, it just lessens that of biological women.

{{ As a man I dont feel very privileged. Ive done jobs generally considered womens most of my life, mainly care work doing 12 hours shifts with dementia patients. Ive been on minimum wage most of it supported by benefits at need. I struggle to pay my basic bills each and every month let alone put money aside for a rainy day and it was literally half a lifetime ago I had a holiday.
As for being able to walk down a street unmolested- Ive been in about 6 or 7 street fights in my life as an adult (countless more growing up, but half them were just the scuffles of boys) where Ive been jumped by someone drugged, drunk, or just neds, all of them were male. Statistically most violence in the street is male on male. I have a higher chance of being attacked on the street than a woman does statistically. The pay gap is heavily debated as the raw stats dont take into account a lot of factors that effect pay. It is also illegal, and has been for decades in the UK to pay anyone less money based on gender or sexual orientation for doing the same work.
I dont see how treating trans women on the same level and with the same rights as biological women is a threat to biological women so long as one set of rights doesn't infringe on the other but is equal to each other.

So it would be a culture shock because suddenly as a woman they have been suddenly demoted, even subtly from top dog into not top dog.- Figg

I imagine when gay marriage was proposed, those who opposed it felt much the same way, it was a culture shock and it was impinging on their territory of God saying marriage is between man and woman only. And that by allowing gay marriage it was in some fashion conceding ground. But it wasn't. And it hasn't turned everyone gay or anything or destroyed religion or peoples personal faith. Nor do I think giving trans women equal rights will in the end imping eon or destroy women's rights. }}

I think the sex difference in violence is primarily because men have a greater tendency to actively provoke it while women tend to actively avoid it. If you look at unprovoked violence would it be greater against women? So many factors to untangle. But even if the amounts of violence were equal, women would feel more victimized because they would rarely be escalating it. (Though there are a few women you should NOT attempt to pick a fight with. )

And so they should if they identify as women. - Petty

Your next paragraph contradicts this. They expect THE SAME rights as women, not a trans version. They expect to be treated exactly the same way, not be segregated. I use "they" very loosely as I am aware of plenty of trans women that do not feel that way.

I don't see that science has much to do with it. - Halfy

It has a lot to do with it, particularly in sport. At what point should someone be allowed to transition... when they are 13? At what point do the biological benefits of being male become irreversible.... After puberty? After 12 months of taking beta blockers? Never? What does the mental health picture look like? Suicide rates even amoung those that transition and live in very accepting societies are much higher... is this a mental health issue that should be dealt with differently? I think science has A LOT to say here... we don't accept people that tell us they feel like they were Napoleon in a past life, we send them to therapy.

Figgy - your comments about women is where our thoughts differ. Rape/sexual violence is probably the only place that I think there is a real delta, for obvious reasons. In many other categories sex is not the determining factor while in others women definitely have more rights than men.

They expect to be treated exactly the same way, not be segregated.- :ance

{{Its segregation but its equal segregation. Women and men are already segregated from each others spaces in facilities and sports and the like. It'd be treating trans folk exactly the same way. In that sense its like a civil partnership versus a marriage, as far as the law is concerned thee is no discernible difference, inheritance, next of kin and all that will be recognised same as if they were married. all thats different is the name and that it doesnt need a religious organisation or person to officiate it. Its not lesser than marriage its exactly equal to it. }}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{ As a man I dont feel very privileged. Ive done jobs generally considered womens most of my life, mainly care work doing 12 hours shifts with dementia patients. Ive been on minimum wage most of it supported by benefits at need. I struggle to pay my basic bills each and every month let alone put money aside for a rainy day and it was literally half a lifetime ago I had a holiday.
As for being able to walk down a street unmolested- Ive been in about 6 or 7 street fights in my life as an adult (countless more growing up, but half them were just the scuffles of boys) where Ive been jumped by someone drugged, drunk, or just neds, all of them were male. Statistically most violence in the street is male on male. I have a higher chance of being attacked on the street than a woman does statistically. The pay gap is heavily debated as the raw stats dont take into account a lot of factors that effect pay. It is also illegal, and has been for decades in the UK to pay anyone less money based on gender or sexual orientation for doing the same work.
I dont see how treating trans women on the same level and with the same rights as biological women is a threat to biological women so long as one set of rights doesn't infringe on the other but is equal to each other.

So it would be a culture shock because suddenly as a woman they have been suddenly demoted, even subtly from top dog into not top dog.- Figg

I imagine when gay marriage was proposed, those who opposed it felt much the same way, it was a culture shock and it was impinging on their territory of God saying marriage is between man and woman only. And that by allowing gay marriage it was in some fashion conceding ground. But it wasn't. And it hasn't turned everyone gay or anything or destroyed religion or peoples personal faith. Nor do I think giving trans women equal rights will in the end imping eon or destroy women's rights. }}

Petty, in general, and throughout the whole of history, men have been the dominant and more privileged sex, to argue against that defies all current knowledge. It is an absolute fact that men have advantages though their biological sex from birth. Until relatively recently women were not even allowed to vote never mind lead independent lives. So, if a man has gone though puberty and lived as a male adult he will have unconsciously taken on board all the non-verbal cues of the entire history of human culture and society. He will also have vastly more testosterone to add to the mix. So to have lived as a man and transition into a woman with lesser privilege and status in society will be a shock, and this is which is why tans men are much less aggressive, they have traded up into a privileged gender, not down, and they have lived their adult lives as females with all the resulting social indoctrination, fears and expectations.

As for pay, women are in general paid less for the same job, it might be illegal but its still a thing.

Mrs Figg wrote:

Petty, in general, and throughout the whole of history, men have been the dominant and more privileged sex, to argue against that defies all current knowledge. It is an absolute fact that men have advantages though their biological sex from birth. Until relatively recently women were not even allowed to vote never mind lead independent lives. So, if a man has gone though puberty and lived as a male adult he will have unconsciously taken on board all the non-verbal cues of the entire history of human culture and society. He will also have vastly more testosterone to add to the mix. So to have lived as a man and transition into a woman with lesser privilege and status in society will be a shock, and this is which is why tans men are much less aggressive, they have traded up into a privileged gender, not down, and they have lived their adult lives as females with all the resulting social indoctrination, fears and expectations.

As for pay, women are in general paid less for the same job, it might be illegal but its still a thing.

A lot of that isn't true. The pay part especially has been debunked many, many times.

Through most of human history men have been the "bread winners" because of the nature of work historically. Heavy farm work or heavy industry, before that just trying to hunt for food and defend the home.

Women, however were responsible for bringing up the next generation of people and deciding what to do with the bread that was won. Not until technology (both industrial and perosnal... yampons, birth control etc) allowed women more freedom did other things start to change and society need to adapt, which it has been doing.

And the right to vote... most people didn't have the right to vote in the UK for most of civilisation. I think women only got the vote 10-20 years after the bulk of common men. In other places the right to vote was tied to the draft, which women didn't want to be eligible for.

Everything now is super oversimplified into the "patriarchy" which is actually quite far from the reality of things in the context of the history in which it all sits.

You two can argue the toss until the cows come home. The facts are men are a privileged gender, that's the whole point of the equal pay laws, because until there were laws women were paid less. Until there was quotas for jobs, mostly men got the cherry on the cake. That's why there are female quotas in parliament and political parties, because its unequal. That's why we have the fucking equal rights act in the first place. Also most of the worlds wealth and all of its military might is under male control. Come on you guys, you have tried to gas-light me before with this stuff.

Actually I will park my tank on the lawn and stop here. You lot can continue this fascinating discussion among yourselves.

Not gas-lighting. I think society has been built by a combination of men and women throughout history and only very recently has any of this changed and be framed this way.

But OK...

It's like racial quotas: many people will call them racist, but until there's clear representation there will be psychological barriers. America has done away with such quotas since you can capture much the same effects with financial based decisions, which I think is a better way. But in same cases you simply need to look at the balance of gender and race: I was part of the board of a math and science summer camp, when the director realized we were about to hire a faculty primarily of white males. This summer camp was meant to increase STEM participation among inner city kids. Well, there's more white males to hire in math and science, but it projects the wrong message. So we did an unspoken quota, and it was the right thing to do.

The trans subject is harder because there's such a smaller percentage. You just need to be mindful, and if there are equal candidates with a lot of hiring going on, maybe lean towards the trans a little bit, as a tie breaker.

Lance, as far as the science goes you are right, the age of transition could make a difference. But it's not clear somebody even knows they are trans until the body goes through physical changes. Common sense approaches need to be taken now before everything is settled.

I think quotas can be and have been extremely damaging. There have been many examples of people that have gotten in to universities or places of work through a need to fill quotas only to find that this has severely disadvantaged them later on when they just don't have the skills in place as they are no longer being taken based on merit.

It also suggests that these minorities are not capable of doing these things themselves without the aid and charity of others.

Lastly, to suggest diversity is based solely of race of gender is in itself a problem. Diversity of thought does not come from diversity of skin colour or sex/gender. Neither does privilege.

Quotas will not fix problems, they will just highlight flaws and do little to address the causes.

They also don't take in to account preference. The gender pay gap is mostly made up of women doing more part-time work and in roles that pay less. That is because they choose these things. Quotas will not help that.

Just for the record, I am ambiguous about quotas, on one hand I think quotas are not a good idea if its not based on merit. Merit should come before race or gender, its the right person for the job which matters. But if its always white men who get the jobs you have to wonder why that is. Is there a glass ceiling or unconscious bias. I guess some form of quota to shake things up isn't always a bad idea in some cases. Maybe anonymising application forms might help. In medicine or science you definitely need the best person for the job rather than a quota. But in the humanities it might not be as critical.

I am 100% for creating an environment where everyone has an equal opportunity as anyone else for whatever they want to do. But that must come with the realisation the equality of outcome is very, very unlikely to ever happen and that isn't a bad thing.

edit, I meant to say ambivalent not ambiguous.

Thing is Lance, with all due respec, you are a white bloke and in your day to day adult life you wouldn't have experienced much unconscious bias. You are the at the top of the heap in theory. At the very worst you might have had some stick about any accent you may have, but other than that you wont have experienced the egregious discrimination that your average woman has. I have had job interviews where it has been obvious, in my face, that the person doing the interview didn't want a woman in the job. Sometimes its subtle sometimes its blatant. I once went to an interview at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. I have never left an interview feeling so crushed. Not only was my accent wrong, I was the wrong sex and he let me know it. Patronising didn't come into it, he might well have called me a 'little lady' with no clue and no chance. The fucker. I suppose a Rasta with big locks would have got the same treatment. This was years ago, but it does leave its poison in the sting. If they had had a quota that fucker would have been forced to take either me or the Rasta or whichever he found less offensive to look at every day. He was an elitist fucker though.

{{ as a male care worker if had this the other way, been passed over for senior positions when was obvious best candidate because management prefer a woman in the role. General unconscious bias against a male doing a 'caring' job. I could give you half a dozen personal examples of where being male has been actively detrimental for me in care work.
When it comes to white, male privilege I think its like the average wage- the numbers are skewed wildly by a few who have massive wages, so the average wage looks good- about 35 thousand, whereas the actual wage most working folk take home is between 11-15 thousand.
In the same way Im sure there are those in some big business jobs at top end or the like who do get favourable bias because of being white men, but at the bottom its far more likely to come down to poverty. If youre poor no amount of social bias for men will help you. }}

Figgy - I have had plenty of it for different reasons. I have long hair (like my profile avatar), I have tattoos, I have an Essex accent, I didn't go to university and wasn't great at school, I work in a very corporate environment and I try my best to go in to work in jeans and a hoodie.... plenty of targets that I have been specifically told will stop my progress in my career even though the are all arbitrary and nothing at all to do with my ability to do the work.

I have watched men with no talent progress because they are in the boys club and go out drinking every night. I know that close friend who was told she couldn't have a job because she might be planning to get pregnant soon. I have overheard a clique of female senior managers rip apart another female candidate that they were interviewing because they knew she had the favour of someone else. My senior manager is female, her boss is female and her boss who is the global head of one of the biggest parts of the business is also female. I have seen males be sexualised and harassed by groups of females.

End of the day people are very tribal and tend to form cliques and then exclude other people that are different to them.

I dont want a quota of people with tattoos or males with long hair. I want to continue to work hard and be recognised for that. And I definitely don't want to fail because someone employed me for a reason other than me having the skill set to do the job.

The whole white male thing really pisses me off.

Men tend to work FAR more hours than women. Men, by their nature, are also far less agreeable than women. Men prefer to do jobs that involve things rather than people.

Now, this isn't always a good thing, often having an impact on the household dynamic or with other types of conflict. What it does do is make them more likely to be in senior positions in the types of company that make lots of money. And it is only a very, very small fraction of men who are on the extreme side of those traits that run the very few huge companies.

Also, for most of the last 300 years, those big companies have been in the "west" where the predominant ethnicity is white. So why would this situation be any different?

The majority of CEOs in China and Chinese men... not white ones. In Nigeria, they are black. In the UAE, they are Arabs. Not many women though... that is explainable by my earlier point. There are some, just not many.

On the opposite side, men are very much more likely to be on the bottom end... bankrupt and homeless. That is if they don't kill themselves. That is because the welfare state is often set up to support families and when they break up, women get the preference for child custody and therefore have much more support.

Is there bias? Yes. Are there people who are fucking horrible people? Yep. Is this probably the best time in history to be a person of any gender, race, sexuality etc when it comes to opportunity. I think most definitely.

Is there far more to do..?. There really, really is.

I agree with you about it being the best time in history to be a female in general work. But this is very recent. Only in the last 20-30 years has it been acceptable for women to choose not to have children and go to work. My mothers generation had little choice in the matter.
Having long hair is not the same as discrimination, if you had had discrimination you wouldn't have got your job in the first place. You can cut your hair, you cant stop being a woman or black.

I didnt get jobs because of it. I was told plain and simple. You don't get to pick what is discrimination because it does r fit the narrative.

{{ The amount of fights I got into when I was young because I'd be innocently walking along the road and go past some smart arses and get "ginger cunt" or "ginger bastard" or "ginger minger" growled at me. Had a short temper and bit of muscle behind me back then, so my response to this was to go on the offensive immediately and just not put up with it. But can't at the same time say it didn't have an effect or that it didn't hurt or damage my confidence or give me dark moments. And can't tell me it wasn't discrimination. Because there is no difference in how it feels to the person it happens to between a black guy walking by and someone saying "Ni**er" at them or me walking by and getting "ginger cunt". Except he can go the police about his and I just had to take it or respond  with violence (until there was no one left in town stupid or brave enough to say it within my earshot any more) because as a male growing up you have to be violent some times, it's part of the male structuring, the posturing the positioning in the rank for girlfriends and who you hang out with. When some ned gives you abuse and you respond by throwing a punch, he knows as well as you do this is part of the game you have to play. You either walk on head cowed and he wins, or you take him out and show who is really the boss here and you win. And as men you both know the options and the stakes as soon as the ned shouts his abuse your way- thats the challenge to the duel, if you've got the balls for it. That's what's being measured. That's the ridiculous game growing up male you're forced into playing.

Life is full of discrimination. That women face discrimination is not in dispute, but almost everyone does in one way or another. But women have been well protected and even favoured in law, in public health programs, in promoting women's rights, and by tax payer money. Men haven't. And maybe that's one reason  suicides among young men in particular are so much higher than among women.

What is a man today? How do we act. When I was growing up romantic big screen heroes played the same game in love- the women feigned disinterest, the hero presses his case, the women begins to flirt a bit but always pulls away at last minute and says no, the hero finally just moves in as she at first resists the kiss then yields. Bond, Indiana Jones, Han Solo, they all did it. It was how as a boy I was presented male romance. Now it'd get me arrested.

When I was a kid you stood up for yourself, if I went home and told my parents I was being bullied my Dad would tell me to take care of it then, and expect me too, ask me each day if I had yet and how I couldn't let anyone bully me or it would never stop. By which he meant, using the slang of the time, to 'claim him' which is challenge to him to a fight which would then take place after school at 4pm on the edge of the school grounds, with a ring of watchers as by then everyone knew someone had been 'claimed'. But he was right. In the world I grew up in attacking your bully and beating the crap out of him in front of your peers was how you stopped it happening. And got you moved up the social ranks with boys and girls.

So much of my youth was like that, if someone in the village caught me up to mischief they smacked me round the head and dragged me home, where my dad would smack me round the head again for it if I was lucky, and get his belt if I was unlucky. I live in a different world now in terms of what a man is expected to be.

My male role models around me growing up were hard drinking working class men, often stuck in grindingly physical jobs that left most of them over 50 riddled with arthritis and bent and broken bones, or breathing difficulties, or worse killed them from stuff like working with asbestos. They were the main bread winners and expected to be. And lots of things were expected, like not showing emotion or crying, not expressing feelings, dealing with things directly 'like a man'.
A lot of that was bad and not mentally healthy, but where is a man now? He is expected not to do any of the things our forefathers did, yet at the same time women still prefer a man who is strong, who is a bread winner, who doesn't go on about their feelings or cry. And the reason they prefer men like that is on average women are still attracted to men like that. Yet as modern men we are told we should talk about our feelings, that we should show our emotions. But in practise, it's as much a hindrance as it always was in society to actually do so. Young boys growing up don't have a working model of what they are supposed to be as men, and all the unhealthy things from the past we still have and society still largely expects of us.

And what of fatherhood, or worse the lack of it. There is plenty of attention given to women and their biological clock and to the menopause, but if you're a man who gets to the age where you have to accept you are never going to be a father, the acceptance that you've failed at the most basic task you have that even animals can manage to do, there's nothing. You just have to come to terms with it in silence, just as a man has too for most things in his life that affect his psyche deeply.

And then those who do have children are expected to be both the modern father whilst restricted in how you can discipline in ways your male forefathers never were, with no real guide how to do it as there's no precedent, still expected to be the bread winner and provider, still expected to be strong for the whole family (and more the desire to be strong for your family is hard-wired in). And then if you end up divorced you can kiss goodbye to those children you've loved, raised, sacrificed and worked your guts out for, as the law is strongly biased towards the mother. And you can kiss goodbye to at least half of all that physical toil you've being doing all those years, and then even if you stay married you'll probably die younger than your partner anyway as men still die younger than women on average by a good few years as we still wreck our bodies with heavy work in comparison to the average womens work.

And you mentioned testosterone earlier as if it was some sort of advantage instead of something you have to try to control and suppress all the time, as outside of being useful in accidents, sports and taking a gamble on trying for that promotion, its emergence will usually be uncontrolled and lead to more trouble than good. But as with all else there is very little attention given to male hormones, their effects on the person or help for those who have issues with high testosterone affecting behaviour or their relationships.

The point is not to say that men are worse off than women in terms of discrimination, but to imply that if you're white and male life is somehow easier than for a women I don't think is fair. It's just different, but it's got its own equal horrors and pitfalls (and maybe psychologically worse given the high rate of male suicide compared to female). There is not a lot easy about being a man either, and less to no help in how to deal with any of it, or a clear societal direction to follow for what is expected of you as a man in the modern world. Men are in the weird space between transitioning from our roles and place in society of my father generation and all before and where ever men end up fitting into societies structure in the future. But right now society hasn't decided on what a man is, making it all the more difficult if you are one to know what your role is in the world. And a man without a role, who doesn't know why he is, or what for and can't work out how or where he fits in, is a man more likely to end up as one of those suicide stats, or alternatively they will let the testosterone flow and get angry, and then you get support for demagogues like Trump from a disenfranchised angry white male class who feel forgotten by society which has not found them a role to play.  }}

Lancebloke wrote:I didnt get jobs because of it. I was told plain and simple. You don't get to pick what is discrimination because it does r fit the narrative.

As I said, that was your choice, and it is no different from me going to work looking scruffy. That is not discrimination in any way, its the policy of your workplace. In certain jobs you have to look a certain way and dress correctly, its absurd to say that is discrimination. Nobody ever won a law suit for having long hair at work unless you are a Rasta and its your religion.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{ The amount of fights I got into when I was young because I'd be innocently walking along the road and go past some smart arses and get "ginger cunt" or "ginger bastard" or "ginger minger" growled at me. Had a short temper and bit of muscle behind me back then, so my response to this was to go on the offensive immediately and just not put up with it. But can't at the same time say it didn't have an effect or that it didn't hurt or damage my confidence or give me dark moments. And can't tell me it wasn't discrimination. Because there is no difference in how it feels to the person it happens to between a black guy walking by and someone saying "Ni**er" at them or me walking by and getting "ginger cunt". Except he can go the police about his and I just had to take it or respond  with violence (until there was no one left in town stupid or brave enough to say it within my earshot any more) because as a male growing up you have to be violent some times, it's part of the male structuring, the posturing the positioning in the rank for girlfriends and who you hang out with. When some ned gives you abuse and you respond by throwing a punch, he knows as well as you do this is part of the game you have to play. You either walk on head cowed and he wins, or you take him out and show who is really the boss here and you win. And as men you both know the options and the stakes as soon as the ned shouts his abuse your way- thats the challenge to the duel, if you've got the balls for it. That's what's being measured. That's the ridiculous game growing up male you're forced into playing.

Life is full of discrimination. That women face discrimination is not in dispute, but almost everyone does in one way or another. But women have been well protected and even favoured in law, in public health programs, in promoting women's rights, and by tax payer money. Men haven't. And maybe that's one reason  suicides among young men in particular are so much higher than among women.

What is a man today? How do we act. When I was growing up romantic big screen heroes played the same game in love- the women feigned disinterest, the hero presses his case, the women begins to flirt a bit but always pulls away at last minute and says no, the hero finally just moves in as she at first resists the kiss then yields. Bond, Indiana Jones, Han Solo, they all did it. It was how as a boy I was presented male romance. Now it'd get me arrested.

When I was a kid you stood up for yourself, if I went home and told my parents I was being bullied my Dad would tell me to take care of it then, and expect me too, ask me each day if I had yet and how I couldn't let anyone bully me or it would never stop. By which he meant, using the slang of the time, to 'claim him' which is challenge to him to a fight which would then take place after school at 4pm on the edge of the school grounds, with a ring of watchers as by then everyone knew someone had been 'claimed'. But he was right. In the world I grew up in attacking your bully and beating the crap out of him in front of your peers was how you stopped it happening. And got you moved up the social ranks with boys and girls.

So much of my youth was like that, if someone in the village caught me up to mischief they smacked me round the head and dragged me home, where my dad would smack me round the head again for it if I was lucky, and get his belt if I was unlucky. I live in a different world now in terms of what a man is expected to be.

My male role models around me growing up were hard drinking working class men, often stuck in grindingly physical jobs that left most of them over 50 riddled with arthritis and bent and broken bones, or breathing difficulties, or worse killed them from stuff like working with asbestos. They were the main bread winners and expected to be. And lots of things were expected, like not showing emotion or crying, not expressing feelings, dealing with things directly 'like a man'.
A lot of that was bad and not mentally healthy, but where is a man now? He is expected not to do any of the things our forefathers did, yet at the same time women still prefer a man who is strong, who is a bread winner, who doesn't go on about their feelings or cry. And the reason they prefer men like that is on average women are still attracted to men like that. Yet as modern men we are told we should talk about our feelings, that we should show our emotions. But in practise, it's as much a hindrance as it always was in society to actually do so. Young boys growing up don't have a working model of what they are supposed to be as men, and all the unhealthy things from the past we still have and society still largely expects of us.

And what of fatherhood, or worse the lack of it. There is plenty of attention given to women and their biological clock and to the menopause, but if you're a man who gets to the age where you have to accept you are never going to be a father, the acceptance that you've failed at the most basic task you have that even animals can manage to do, there's nothing. You just have to come to terms with it in silence, just as a man has too for most things in his life that affect his psyche deeply.

And then those who do have children are expected to be both the modern father whilst restricted in how you can discipline in ways your male forefathers never were, with no real guide how to do it as there's no precedent, still expected to be the bread winner and provider, still expected to be strong for the whole family (and more the desire to be strong for your family is hard-wired in). And then if you end up divorced you can kiss goodbye to those children you've loved, raised, sacrificed and worked your guts out for, as the law is strongly biased towards the mother. And you can kiss goodbye to at least half of all that physical toil you've being doing all those years, and then even if you stay married you'll probably die younger than your partner anyway as men still die younger than women on average by a good few years as we still wreck our bodies with heavy work in comparison to the average womens work.

And you mentioned testosterone earlier as if it was some sort of advantage instead of something you have to try to control and suppress all the time, as outside of being useful in accidents, sports and taking a gamble on trying for that promotion, its emergence will usually be uncontrolled and lead to more trouble than good. But as with all else there is very little attention given to male hormones, their effects on the person or help for those who have issues with high testosterone affecting behaviour or their relationships.

The point is not to say that men are worse off than women in terms of discrimination, but to imply that if you're white and male life is somehow easier than for a women I don't think is fair. It's just different, but it's got its own equal horrors and pitfalls (and maybe psychologically worse given the high rate of male suicide compared to female). There is not a lot easy about being a man either, and less to no help in how to deal with any of it, or a clear societal direction to follow for what is expected of you as a man in the modern world. Men are in the weird space between transitioning from our roles and place in society of my father generation and all before and where ever men end up fitting into societies structure in the future. But right now society hasn't decided on what a man is, making it all the more difficult if you are one to know what your role is in the world. And a man without a role, who doesn't know why he is, or what for and can't work out how or where he fits in, is a man more likely to end up as one of those suicide stats, or alternatively they will let the testosterone flow and get angry, and then you get support for demagogues like Trump from a disenfranchised angry white male class who feel forgotten by society which has not found them a role to play.  }}

If you aren't allowed to be ginger in Scotland there's no hope for gingers anywhere. but to be honest I don't think they cared about your hair colour it was just something to attack you with, it could have been glasses or a limp, they just wanted to provoke violence regardless. The small town mentality is the biggest reason I left, I was also bullied without mercy as a kid, and also beaten up by boys, just because I was different. Obviously the levels of violence was much lower as girls in general use mental violence, and is that better than physical violence, I doubt it sometimes. I hated my small town and its crappy parochial mentality, I left and never looked back. Not all places are full of boozy violent men who drink ten pints as a sign of machismo, just because their peers think its ok. Sometimes self defeating behaviour needs calling out and defying if its unhealthy. As a kid we had no defences but as adults we do. We all have our problems men and women, but in general women have taken more shit, been beaten about more, and at least if you are a man you can fight back. Women can not fight back, never, its not possible unless the woman is built like a brick shithouse and used to the inside of a cell. Its tough for both sexes in our different ways, but unless you have lived in terror and fear as a woman, its hard to judge which is worse.