This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
His "Women tend to wind up significantly poorer after divorce, not richer" claim covers this too. This study seems to agree, finding 'Third, the key domain in which large and persistent gender differences emerged were women’s disproportionate losses in household income and associated increases in their risk of poverty and single parenting', and it checks out anecdotally too.
Just realized from your quote I was missing the word "from" so I fixed my sentence.
I'm not disputing the claim women get poorer after divorce, I'm pointing out that the counter to the claim that "divorce usually means he loses his assets, income, and children only addresses the income portion. The 10% alimony stat is a pretty eye-opening stat to the common manosphere narrative if you never paid attention to the facts which I acknowledge.
It can both be simultaneously true that men lose their assets and women end up poorer after divorce, since from the perspective of both parties they no longer have the shared pool of resources. An extremely simple example: Bob and Jane had $100,000 in a joint bank account, but after divorce, both only have $50,000, so both end up being poorer than before.
With women not having access to their previous partner's income unless they find another source, yes they will end up poorer over the long term compared to if they didn't divorce. Divorce in general is financially costly. So women typically lose out on the future income, while men lose out on the years of previously accumulated wealth.
Hm. First off, I think the 10% alimony stat is a correct rebuttal to the common manosphere narrative, which is straightforwardly wrong, because the manosphere - whether or not they're directionally correct - doesn't have much of an appetite for precision. Your claim is interesting generally - but I think divorce doesn't take that much wealth from most americans, because most americans don't have that much wealth in the first place, especially when (relatively) young, and assets acquired before the marriage can stay with the original owner.
So I think the specific manosphere claim that women 'divorce rape' men for their own benefit isn't true, unless you're decently rich and married a woman who isn't, which itself isn't as common as the manosphere claims.
My point was that the 10% alimony stat doesn't address the asset portion, so to properly dispute the overall claim you'd need some additional statistics regarding the division of assets. As I pointed out earlier, legally speaking alimony is a separate concept from the division of assets, so just because only 10% of divorces have alimony doesn't mean only 10% of divorces hurt men financially. There's also the part regarding parent rights over children that hasn't been addressed.
Depending on who you talk to even a 10% chance might be too high. Considering 50% percent of marriages end in divorce and 10% of those have alimony, that's a 5% chance that you'll have to pay alimony if you decide to get married. That's a bad roll on a D20. If you know 100 married men men that's 50 of them that will divorce and 5 of them that will pay alimony.
I don't think that's the correct approach to addressing the costs that divorce has on men. If you had a decent amount of wealth accumulated during the time of marriage, is it not true that those assets are likely to be split evenly? Whether or not it should and if the partner that contributed less should have rights to half of that is another conversation, but from the perspective of the man he's losing half of all the money he's earned while the woman gets money she didn't earn.
People who are married are probably on the wealthier end, and divorce starts to happen once people hit their 30s/40s so by that point your average divorcing couple likely do have some assets where losing half of it would hurt. It's not the poor that are getting married, it's middle and upper-class people.
I think in general people should strive to build their wealth, and that people should get married, so a legal structure and culture that disincentivizes marriage (such as the costs of divorce) is not something I condone.
Pardon my lack of knowledge but this usually results in a costly legal battle without the use of a prenuptial agreement right?
I agree with you, most women probably aren't actively seeking to fuck over men, but it also isn't as uncommon as the counterclaim. But most older men have either gone through the experience of a bitter divorce themselves or know someone who has. It probably isn't as big of a problem as the manosphere paints it, but the opposite is not true either. The problem is real and exists. Also, let's not lose focus here, I was specifically talking about @To_Mandalay's counter to the statement "This particularly increases the costs for men through the mechanism of family courts (as divorce usually means he loses his assets, income, and children)." and not "Divorce Rape". A good point was brought up regarding income (although child support and changes in taxes were not addressed), but nothing regarding the other two.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link