Are mens or straight groups wrong?

[-:Undertaker:-]

A month or so ago my University had Student Union elections on, and its something I can't stand. So on the last day of the election I was walking out of the library and I got asked for the hundredth time whether I was voting and who i'd be voting for by campaigners. Now for the past two weeks, i'd usually just keep walking with a short "no thanks" but this time I had to get something off my chest.

So I asked the guy campaigning whether or not the University had a women's officer or an LGBT officer. He then went into a lecture on who they were etc, as though I thought of these things as a positive. So when he'd finished I told him that whichever candidate vows to abolish those two posts has my vote. Now he seemed taken aback by that, as though why would somebody oppose such groups/posts? Anyway it eventually turned into a debate on how I felt it was wrong to have such posts and that if we were to have them - then there ought to be a straight or hetrosexual officer and a mens officer.

Now when it comes to this, people like him would argue that a womens officer is needed because women are in danger of not being treated equally whilst men don't need such a group. The same would be applied for the LGBT officer, that gay people need their rights protecting whereas straight people don't as hetrosexuality isn't all that much of an issue.

On my side I would argue that no groups or positions are needed at all as your rights come as an individual, not when gender or sexuality you belong to. But i'd also argue in the interests of fairness and 'equality' there ought to be a hetrosexual officer and a mens officer as that's only fair.

What do you think? am I making a valid point, or do you agree with the chap I was arguing with?

There are plenty of nifty prizes to be won within this forum. Positive contributions towards official debates will sometimes be rewarded with a month's VIP subscription in a colour of your choice as part of the Top Contributor award. As well as this, reputation will be awarded throughout the debate to those who make valid and constructive posts. Those who make the best contributions within a month win the Debater of the Month award and wins themselves a month's worth of forum VIP and 10 reputation points. Finally, those who create debate topics that generate a lot of buzz and engaging discussion will receive 20 reputation points.

The debate is open to you.

[Inseriousity.]

I can't stand student elections either. You don't hear a damn thing from any of them then election time, they all crawl out the woodwork and there's lots of posters everywhere (admittedly I find some of them funny and some of them are just trying to be funny).

I understand the guy's argument. Just going to use sexuality as an example, an LGBT society is seen as needed because they are oppressed/deemed inferior in mainstream society so a place to go where they feel normal can help that. I don't necessarily think that means that a straight group would be wrong if a number of them wanted to set up a said group but because they don't, we can only assume that is because they don't need it. There isn't a market for it.

There are working men's pubs though (even though these are in decline, again I don't really think there's a market for it anymore because the idea of male and female roles have changed so much) and while I don't always agree with the rules in them - a girl couldn't play snooker with us, she was only allowed to watch - there isn't anything wrong with them. Their pub, their rules. If people don't like them, they won't go (and it's closed now).

I challenge dan to start said groups at his uni and see what the response is.

[GommeInc]

I've never understood why LGBT groups demand to be overheard for the sake of equality with these positions. It seems like they want positive segregation, rather than integration. Positive segregation being, they want to be treated as equals, but at the same time be segregated from society to promote an equal agenda based on how different they are at not being different (essentially what they toot on about). An LGBT Officer is essentially a Student Union position there to prove a point that sexual inequality is alive and well, when true sexual equality can only exist without it.

Same for women officers. They want equality, but want to create inequality by creating a position to promote superficial equality. Gender equality starts from the roots up - a man is more than capable of saying "this is gender neutral or requires no gender specific roles, or men would think differently to women if we were to do this etc" as is a woman supporting both her fellow women and men in the decision making and basic operating standards of these University Student Unions.

A Student Union only needs the following Officers:

- Union President
- Activities Officer
- Education Officer
- Sports Officer
- Welfare Officer
- International Students Officer (as I believe this role exists purely because of the huge demand that would otherwise exist for the above 5).

Liberation Officers, which tend to be LGBT, Minorities, Disabilities and Women's, tend to be a bit out dated and hardly supporting a liberal agenda. What's amusing is that, out of those 4, the only one that makes sense is the Disabilities Officer due to the different mindset and the importance of understanding disabilities on campus - the other 3 make it seem as though they are in themselves a disability, who need to be treated differently which goes against their own policies and agenda. I've heard LGBT and Women's Officers say "we want to be treated the same, because we're not different" - which begs the response, why act differently?

The main "full-time" officers should be able to deal with the diversity within the University. Activities Officers should be able to make events for straight and gay students. In fact, they already do this but it often goes unnoticed. A Welfare Officer doesn't need to be gay or straight to understand the needs of the students in general. The explanation goes on. The LGBT and the Women's roles just seem out of date and promoting a false sense of equality, which I find more damaging these days. I dream of a time where all students are looked at and treated as equals.

[Grig]

Simple answer is no.

I'm fed up of all these feminist groups running around bashing men. A lot of the statistics are grossly misrepresented.

Domestic abuse- 67% initiated by women: http://divorcesupport.about.com/od/a...male_abuse.htm

And here are more links to the pay gap claim. Sure we cannot discount factors such as women having to raise children etc., but to me it seems all a myth completely.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christ...b_2073804.html
http://www.examiner.com/article/obam...ue-experts-say
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin...qual-pay-myth/
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2009/10/art1full.pdf

There's no need for an liberation officer, particularly on gender issues. I'll ramble on about the others, but Gomme's post above has summed it up perfectly.

[Samantha]

Men and straight groups aren't wrong in the slightest - women want gender equality, but to get that they create a group that the men don't have already taking the equality out of question. Without a men's officer or with a women's officer the equality won't work. Likewise with straight and LBGT, if you want equality you don't need a group alienating and setting them aside from the rest, likewise if you had a straight group too, the equality isn't there as it's like cliques again - none of the groups are really needed as it messes with the equality people desperately want, yet, if all 4 groups were there it still would class as inequality due to the difference in groups.

[Adam]

It seems like being gay is a fad amongst young adults/teenagers these days and they do it more for the attention than anything else.

If you're gay, get on with your life. You're the ones moaning that you're not treated like straight people, just why let anyone know? I don't go round proclaiming my straightness.

Controversial post but w/e.

[FlyingJesus]

I don't believe there's particularly a need for straight rights groups since the only discrimination you may face for being straight is perhaps not being let into all gay bars, although most don't care as long as you're paying anyway. Definitely a huge need for men's rights groups considering that as Grig quite rightly said the majority of domestic abuse (when reciprocal) is initiated by women, as well as total domestic violence cases being 50/50 in terms of victim's gender, yet zero "battered men's" shelters exist and when Erin Pizzey - the woman who started up the women's shelters way back when - attempted to begin campaigning for them (having come across the true statistics and realising just how wrong it is to only help 50% of victims) feminists killed her dog, sent her thousands of death threats and essentially forced her to move for her own safety. This "men can't be victims they are only perpetrators" attitude goes into all types of violence and therefore male victims are completely erased, given no help with life-destroying issues and ultimately end up being 3x as likely to commit suicide. Those who don't commit suicide are lucky enough to be likely candidates for the 98% of all workplace deaths which are attributed to men, or become homeless (again mostly a male issue) where once again they are given no help because the majority of resources go towards housing and feeding women.

As with the Pizzey case, all attempts to campaign for the better treatment of males are met with anger and violence at the hands of dogmatic feminists who ignore facts and studies in favour of slogans and miseducation. But of course, it's women who are oppressed, right?

[Demi]

Simple answer is no.

I'm fed up of all these feminist groups running around bashing men. A lot of the statistics are grossly misrepresented.

Domestic abuse- 67% initiated by women: http://divorcesupport.about.com/od/a...male_abuse.htm

And here are more links to the pay gap claim. Sure we cannot discount factors such as women having to raise children etc., but to me it seems all a myth completely.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christ...b_2073804.html
http://www.examiner.com/article/obam...ue-experts-say
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin...qual-pay-myth/
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2009/10/art1full.pdf

There's no need for an liberation officer, particularly on gender issues. I'll ramble on about the others, but Gomme's post above has summed it up perfectly.

I love this, took the words right out of my mouth! I totally agree.

[AgnesIO]

Isn't it to do with laws saying minorities can have groups, but majorities can't?

I believe these is a black police officer group or something, in which case I would suggest creating a white one - although I am certain I would therefore be racist.

My college has an LGBT group that meets one lunch time a week - they even bribe people to go by offering free food.

[lawrawrrr]

Well firstly, I love elections. I love my union, I'm so involved in it and my friends and boyfriend were all running for positions so I was pretty heavily involved. I'm also involved in both the women's and lgbt groups. ///background over


I've been asked this question SO many times, but the thing is, they are represented by groups and leaders because they have typically, in the past, been the minority or unfairly treated. In a lot of places this is still the case - and the job of the LGBT+ and Women's officer is to make sure that those people in the minority get the support and equality they need. It's also the same thing with positions like BME (Black, Minority and Ethic) Officer and, to be honest, Postgraduate Student's officer (obviously the positions change from Union to Union). The point of all of these is to represent the students who fit into that minority and ensure that they are represented equally at your Union AGM, meeting or even on University Senate.

Now, the thing is, people then usually ask, well, why aren't men represented that high up? Well.. they are. I guarantee that almost every University has a male-dominated senate, and most Universities do have a male-dominated staff, so they are naturally, going to be more represented. If male students have a problem, they're usually sent to the Student Support officer (or the equivalent at other Unions), who is typically supposed to deal with students who do not fit into a minority.

I suppose in an ideal world you'd have a team of student support officers and they could deal with everyone's problems, but the thing is, some student support officers could have personal problems with homophobia, with racial issues, or just simply not understand the people in those categories could have (and even to an extent, a male student support officer may not understand a female students' plight for equality - I've experienced this with someone) - and they're more likely to get the support, advice and representation they need with someone who does specialise in that and understand.

At my University (I believe), there are more female than male students, so the argument that males are the majority is a bit invalid there, but then I would apply more of the emerging struggle of feminism, especially if you look into the past as well, and it is very possible that you could have a sexist President or other Sabbatical officer (god knows we've had some of those, and it looks like we will next elections as well) and then you need someone in the Union who can represent that struggle, who the person higher above might respect a bit more than the average student. The person in that role would also have to be a relatively strong-minded individual and part of their role would be to stand up for that.

Masculinities as a study (which is effectively feminism without the 'fem' - it too focused on why men and women should be equal, but more on the man's role than the women's, which is what a lot of feminism tends to lean towards) emerged in the late 1990s, early 00s, but it eventually died out because people didn't think it was worth it, because "men had enough freedom". It's something that has been tried, representing every group, rather than every minority group, but the roles that don't exist and many Universities are usually the roles that were pretty much superfluous - people didn't run, or people didn't use the service.