Conflict between feminist advocates and the rest of us

This post was originally a comment I left in reply to an Explain It Like I'm Five post, asking the question, "ELI5: why does the issue of women's rights stir up so much anger?"
It was suggested that I post my answer to that in the Men's Rights Wiki. I looked through the listed categories and could not find a heading under which I thought the comment really fit. There are things I'm working on that might more likely belong there, but those are longer term projects. In the meantime, I'm making the comment an entry here, instead.

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It isn't necessarily women's rights issues which are the area of conflict, but feminist advocacy. The two are not necessarily the same. My explanation as to why:

Feminists fail to differentiate between having a fundamental need, and having a fundamental right. The pursuit of conditions or factors to meet fundamental needs (eg., putting forth effort to obtain food and shelter) is a human right. The receipt of conditions or factors to meet fundamental needs (eg., having food and shelter provided at the expense of others) is not a fundamental right, but an act of charity on the part of the provider (as long as it's voluntary - otherwise, it's theft by the recipient, even when those things are needed.) With this misapplication of the word "right," feminists treat the condition of being given possession or position as if it were the same as the condition of having one's pursuit not be being wrongfully obstructed.

Another problem which has a side effect upon this is that feminist advocates fail to differentiate between fundamental needs, and dearly valued/wanted conveniences. Food and shelter are fundamental needs. Yummy food and nice shelter are dearly valued/wanted conveniences. Feminists go beyond claiming the right to the pursuit of fulfillment of fundamental needs to claim the right to receive dearly valued/wanted conveniences.
 
One outgrowth of that combination of beliefs is the sense of entitlement to enforce the provision of the fulfillment of needs or dearly held wants upon other human beings; treating as a given fact upon which society must base law and policy, "If A has a need for or dearly held want of factor 1, B must provide it," where A is the individual with whom feminism identifies itself, and B is the individual with whom feminism takes issue.

This is further modified by another fundamental flaw in the movement; Patriarchy Theory, which in short, blames upon male society all issues or conditions which feminists define as oppression of women. Patriarchy Theory makes female society group A, and male society group B.
So you have a group which labels having (as opposed to not being prevented from reasonably pursuing) that which women want or need to be a right, and asserts that as justification for demanding or taking it from men.

Now, the feminist movement has been treated as the architect and arbiter of women's rights advocacy since its inception, even though not all women subscribe to the feminist line of reasoning, much lest feminist theory. Many of us do not believe that there is systematic, institutionalized discrimination against women in first world countries. Antifeminist women do not believe in Patriarchy theory, Rape Culture theory, or even the feminist description of gender roles as male oppression of women. This leads to conflict between groups of women, who do not all hold the same sets of beliefs and values or all perceive society in the same way, over what is or should be defined as "women's rights," and advocated in the name of women in general.

Then, you have men in the western world waking up to the fact that as society has changed, and women's roles have evolved (in part through feminist advocacy, and in part due to advancements in technology and the advent of conveniences which reduce the effort which both sexes must put into simple survival,) society's expectations of men, and the legal requirements accompanying those expectations, haven't relaxed much at all.
 
That realization has been one of the bigger contributing factors to the growth of the men's rights movement, comprised of people who have noticed that the practical application of feminist advocacy in enforcement of male gender roles authoritative societal imposition of provision for women's wants and needs upon men - is in fact a violation of men's basic human rights, particularly the right to liberty.

In some cases this involves a direct transfer of material possessions from men to women (alimony, child support) and in some, indirect (social programs for custodial parents, funded by income taxes; free birth control for women, funded by taxes.)
In other cases this involves wrongfully obstructing men's pursuit of the fulfillment of needs and wants (preferential treatment in hiring and promotion.)
In some, it involves wrongfully unbalancing the application of policy in the justice system (infringing upon due process rights, unequal treatment in civil disputes and criminal cases, for the imposed protection of only women.)

In other words, despite decades of feminist advocacy claiming female independence and female responsibility, the practical application of feminist theory/advocacy manifests in the difference in social and legal obligations between the sexes, where men are expected to protect and provide, and women may be shielded from conditions and responsibilities which men are expected to face and embrace.
 
That's the base issue between those movements, before you even get to the concepts of what constitutes discrimination or oppression, and what constitutes equality. At the very bottom of every area of conflict between feminism and antifeminist women, and feminism and the MRM, is a struggle over that disagreement; the feminist belief that women have the right to demand or take what we want or need from men, and the antifeminist and MRActivist contention that no, we don't. This is the conflict which creates the big hullabaloo over pretty much any discussion on gender rights.

The food stamp challenge: highlighting issues with social services (3)

Back to the food stamp challenge:

The description in this story and on this facebook page show that the challenge assumes a monthly stipend of $150.00, or 75% of the maximum allowed for a single person. A single person working 30.5 hours a week at federal minimum wage, paying $550.00 in rent and $125.00 in utilities per month (the bottom end of the national average for a 1 bedroom apartment according to Numbero) or a single person receiving $315.00 a month in unearned income (like alimony) or $393.00 a month in earned income (13.5 hours a week at federal minimum wage, or three 4.5 hour shifts) and listing no expenses would receive this much.

These individuals would also be eligible for other assistance programs (results based on first example - 30.5 hours/week at federal minimum wage, single person) and these services can be applied for simultaneously, reducing or even eliminating the strain on the individual's monetary income, so the treatment of food stamps as the sole available income for grocery spending is, in many cases, false or misleading.

Further, taking a single week out of context, and treating one's shopping budget as per-week with no holdover (as in the rule against using anything existing in your pantry) is a deceptively unfrugal method. This limits the participant from being able to use careful planning and conservative cooking habits to stretch a food budget, as we do at my house, a habit which allowed us to not use all of the budget the state allotted us. Purchasing meat products in larger sizes for a primary usage when they are on sale (a roast, a whole turkey, bulk ground meat) will result in a mass of leftovers which can be divided, frozen, and used in later recipes (soups and stews, casseroles, stir-fries and other mixed foods) is one method that only works if you measure your budget with a long-term approach instead of taking into account only the immediate future. Purchasing ingredients instead of ready-made items is another; cost-effective purchase of ingredients that keep (like flour, oil, rice, or dry beans) means buying more than you will use in a week. Take away that planning ability, and your challenge forces the participant to buy pre-packaged, ready-made foods, the immediate purchase of which is less expensive than the immediate total cost of bulk ingredients, but which will be much more rapidly used up.

One thing that participation in the challenge can demonstrate is the impact of small but repeated wasteful spending habits on a monthly food budget. Single-serve foods and beverages, pre-made foods, and unhealthy snacks can more than double grocery expenses. Another is the impact of shopping at the wrong place. Equidistant from my apartment is a grocery store and a convenience store. The convenience store carries some of the same products as the grocery, but the price difference is considerable, even sticking with just grocery items. A gallon of milk from the convenience store is double the price charged by the grocery. A loaf of bread is two and a half times as much. Delving into the snack and convenience item shelves, there are items which are triple the grocery store price. Worse, when I worked at that little store, we had customers asking if they could use food stamps to purchase fountain drinks, machine-made cappuccino, and roller-grill items (expensive as heck; compare spending $1.50 on one hot dog to $4.00 on a package of 8 at the grocery.) Had the store been able to accept food stamps, the answer would have unfortunately been yes.

I know the point of the exercise is showing that living on food stamps is hard. Of course it's hard. Living on any tight budget is hard. The problem is that Americans are starting to forget the difference between hard, and impossible. It has become too easy to fall back on the government for the answer to every little problem, and to not get back up from that safety net once you're down. It's all to easy too get comfortable extending one's budget on someone else's dollar.

The difficulty in remaining within a $35.00 weekly budget is not solely indicative of insufficient funding, insufficient provision, or callousness on the part of public servants for not finding ways to increase the stipend. It is in part indicative of the incomplete picture presented by the test itself, and more so of the level to which America has relaxed its standards of ingenuity, industriousness, diligence, and tenacity. The only remaining question is how hard will our economy have to crash before we figure that out?

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The food stamp challenge: highlighting issues with social services (2)

3) How does this affect the kids?

From the article Expenditures of single parents: how does gender figure in?

Single fathers are much more likely than single mothers to own their homes. In fact, the numbers are almost exactly opposite with regard to owning and renting: nearly two-thirds of single fathers (64 percent) own their homes, while nearly two-thirds of single mothers (63 percent) rent their homes. Like income, home ownership is an important measure of economic well-being. For example, because owners can build equity in their property, they have greater access to loans in case of emergency or even planned-for events, such as their children’s education.

From The Kids Are Not Really Alright, By W. Bradford Wilcox, Slate, Friday, July 20, 2012:

Take two contemporary social problems: teenage pregnancy and the incarceration of young males. Research by Sara McLanahan at Princeton University suggests that boys are significantly more likely to end up in jail or prison by the time they turn 30 if they are raised by a single mother.  

and

One study by Bruce Ellis of the University of Arizona found that about one-third of girls whose fathers left the home before they turned 6 ended up pregnant as teenagers, compared with just 5 percent of girls whose fathers were there throughout their childhood. This dramatic divide was narrowed a bit when Ellis controlled for parents’ socioeconomic background—but only by a few percentage points. The research on this topic suggests that girls raised by single mothers are less likely to be supervised, more likely to engage in early sex, and to end up pregnant compared with girls raised by their own married parents.

Prolonged family dependence on welfare can lead to a cyclical effect wherein the next generation is primed to trap themselves in the same pattern, rather than seeing improvement in their quality of life in adulthood.

A similar study by Mary Corcoran and Roger Gordon of the University of Michigan shows that receipt of welfare income has negative effects on the long-term employment and earnings capacity of young boys.

The study shows that, holding constant race, parental education, family structure, and a range of other social variables, higher non-welfare income obtained by the family during a boy's childhood was associated with higher earnings when the boy became an adult (over age 25). ⁶ However, welfare income had the opposite effect: The more welfare income received by a family while a boy was growing up, the lower the boy's earnings as an adult.1⁷

and

The current welfare system may be conceptualized best as a system that offers each single mother with two children a "paycheck" of combined benefits worth an average of between $8,500 and $15,000, depending on the state. ¹² The mother has a contract with the government: She will continue to receive her "paycheck" as long as she does not marry an employed man.

and

Daughters of single mothers are twice as likely to be single mothers themselves if they are black, and only slightly less so if they are white. ³⁴ And boys living in a single-parent family are twice as likely to father a child out of wedlock as are boys from a two-parent home. ³⁵ The TALENT study, noted earlier, already had found that children born to teenage parents are more likely to become teen parents themselves. ³⁶

And

Research article: Does Father Absence Place Daughters at Special Risk for Early Sexual Activity and Teenage Pregnancy?
Bruce J. Ellis, John E. Bates, Kenneth A. Dodge, David M. Fergusson, L. John Horwood, Gregory S. Pettit, and Lianne Woodward

In conclusion, father absence was an overriding risk factor for early sexual activity and adolescent pregnancy. Conversely, father presence was a major protective factor against early sexual outcomes, even if other risk factors were present. These findings may support social policies that encourage fathers to form and remain in families with their children (unless the marriage is highly conflictual or violent; Amato & Booth, 1997).

4) What does this mean for the national economy?

Based on the issues described following question 3, and the choice-based phenomenon described following question 1 versus the necessary adaptation described following question 2, we are faced with the problem of a self-perpetuating cycle of choice-based welfare dependency related to single motherhood. In other words, as long as it remains acceptable for courts to choose unemployed mothers over employed fathers for custody awards, the problem will continue, and in fact is likely to escalate.
This is not an indefinitely sustainable system.

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The food stamp challenge: highlighting issues with social services

Recent discussion I've seen on this topic has prompted me to write about it. And no, this isn't specifically, on its own, a men's rights or antifeminist issue. However, it is related in that women are disproportionately served by the Health and Human Services (welfare) department of the U.S. government, and in affording themselves of those benefits, they necessitate government pursuit of paternal child support.
This is not a complaint (well, maybe a little;)  but for purposes of this discussion, a statement of reality, based in the gender disparity in custody awards, and how that effects income and eligibility. There is also a difference in tendency to rely on social services for income assistance. This study is old and small, but it raises an interesting point and some interesting questions.
The point:

while single fathers report more income from employment (wages and salaries or self-employment) and savings and investment (interest, dividend, rental, and other property income), single mothers report much more income from assistance sources (for example, unemployment, workers’ compensation, public assistance, alimony, and child support).

The questions:

1) Why? Why is it that more custodial fathers work and support their families, while more custodial mothers rely on the government?

This question doesn't have a simple answer. It would be easy, as a woman, to attribute factors cited in feminist complaints as reasons why women need support; lack of education, unemployability, the difficulty of juggling single parenthood and a career... but reality does not back up those complaints. Women have been given boost after boost in the American education system. We have special funding for post-secondary education, special funding for business goals... even Walmart has gotten in on the "special initiatives for women" gig. With educational initiatives for women dating back to the 60s, and both government and private initiatives spanning all of that time, there must be another explanation for the discrepancy. When you eliminate lack of opportunity and lack of funding, you're left with choice as the obvious answer.

This choice is facilitated by a system designed to protect custodial mothers from poverty. Custodial parent-designated eligibility for a number of social programs (including medicaid insurance and WIC) begins during or may be enhanced by pregnancy, meaning that unwed mothers may become dependent upon social services for income assistance prior to the effects which child custody can have on ability to attend school or accept work. Income caps on these programs discourage initiative to step up from a welfare income to an independent source, particularly when doing so can result in a loss of "income" before it results in a financial gain.

2) Why is this not also happening with single fathers?

This may be partly explained in differences in the manner in which custody is determined. For mothers, custody begins at conception, as it obviously cannot be altered during gestation. Therefore, for the never-married single mother, maternal custody at birth is a given unless it is contested by, or conceded to the father. In the event of divorce, the default award is similar due to existing social standards.

Paternal custody in unwed circumstances, then will necessarily depend upon one of two things; either mutual choice by both parents, or evidence-based decision by a judge. The latter is dependent upon proof by the petitioning father that he is a fit parent, able to provide for the child, or that the mother is so unfit that by comparison he is the better choice.

The initial-custody gap (wherein the approach to paternal custody begins with a circumstance of maternal custody) promotes a secondary circumstance which has a direct effect on the father's employment status: Mandatory child support payments. In order to make those payments, the payer must have an income, which in most cases necessitates being employed. 

Social standards also contribute to the employment factor; It has been traditionally expected that fathers will be employed, whether single and noncustodial, or married. Though standards have recently begun to evolve to a more gender-neutral approach to parenting, Census bureau data between 1994 and 2010 shows that in the majority of married couple family groups with one stay-at-home parent, that parent has been the mother. This creates a gap in numbers, wherein custody determination begins with unemployed mothers more than with unemployed fathers.

Though food stamps are universally available based on income standards, an unemployed or underemployed single parent with residential custody will necessarily receive a larger stipend than a single individual, or a non-custodial parent.

Further, under federal rules, to be eligible for benefits a household's income and resources must meet three tests: Gross monthly income, Net income, and assets. The first test measures the applicant's gross income (before deductions) against the poverty level to determine eligibility. The second test measures the applicant's net (after deductions) against the poverty level to determine the size of the stipend. The third measures the applicant's available financial resources: households without an elderly or disabled member must have assets of $2,000 or less, and households with an elderly or disabled member must have assets of $3,250 or less, but in many cases, it is the first test which disqualifies a noncustodial father paying child support. In plain English: The first test counts the noncustodial parent's child support payments, often garnished before he receives his paycheck, against his eligibility for food stamps. A man may be assessed a high debt at a judge's whim (not because it's legal, but because once his pay has been confiscated, he can't afford a lawyer or even court costs to contest the ruling) and garnished at up to his state's percentage limit (60% in my state) of his income before other deductions... meaning that after that percentage is taken, the employer will also take out federally required deductions, state tax, and in many cases local taxes. 

On a personal level, I can report that for some years, this left my husband bringing home 15% of his gross pay. Though his net was far below the poverty level, his gross was just a few dollars per month above where the cut-off for food stamps would have been, were he single... just high enough to keep him from being eligible. Fortunately, our situation did not depend on one person's income. Doing 3 (and sometimes 4) different jobs in 3 (and sometimes several) different counties was not easy, but it kept us housed and fed - though I would also note that there have been times in our history when we have been eligible. Most of those times, we have not opted to apply, but sudden, unavoidable changes in employment have led to use of the food stamp system. Even then, we were eligible for more than we needed based on our household's consumption... I'll expand on this later.

The situation which would have been faced by my husband, were he single, is a reality for many men; income to which they never have access is counted against their eligibility for social programs, designating those with borderline-poor gross incomes as ineligible despite their being rendered impoverished by duel government mandate: They are required to work, in order to pay support, so they must accept whatever work they can get... and that percentage of their pay is confiscated regardless of the circumstances that creates, but still counts against their eligibility for government assistance. When your government can take 85% of your income for various reasons and still deny you assistance because on paper you "have" too much, you can't afford to rely on welfare for support.

Custodial parents, on the other hand, may base their eligibility on a larger household by virtue of that custody. There is no mandate requiring custodial parents to hold a paying job, and there are some programs available only to families with children (like the Healthy Start end of the medicaid system, and WIC, the name of which - Women, Infants, Children - is even gendered.) To a point, by qualifying for multiple programs, a single, unemployed or underemployed custodial parent can actually "earn" more through the health and human services department than a full-time worker brings home. While receipt of child support may reduce the dollar amount of services received, unlike for the payer, it does not do so based on income not received by the applicant. Aside from collected taxes (which may be returned as a refund later,) the custodial applicant actually has all of the money considered income for the purpose of determining eligibility. Further, the assessment of that income often divides it between one person more than the number of "earners" (the kids, plus one parent,) and the parent can claim dependent care (babysitting) costs against the income listed. In all, it is much easier for a low-income single parent - more often the mother - to qualify for assistance than for a noncustodial parent - more often the father. 

These combined factors lead to the prevalence of custodial fathers starting out ineligible for assistance due to existing employment circumstances, rather than starting out with the use of social services as a form of financial support.

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