5 Uncomfortable Truths Behind the Men's Rights Movement

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APF said:
So you are going to organize protests against airlines saying you want to sit next to young children.
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It has nothing to do with the desire to sit next to young children. It has to do with not being immediately perceived as a threatening molester simply because I am a man when I happen to be seated next to a minor.

Would I personally organize a public protest? Probably not. I would definitely however choose not to patronize an airline with such a policy and I could see myself participating in a petition to get such practices reversed.

Perhaps I am in the minority here, but I find this practice to be incredibly offensive.
 
Samarecarm said:
Look, I feel bad for anyone who's been discriminated against on the basis of their sex. I certainly don't deny that women may sometimes (perhaps even frequently) be judged (in employment, in their relationships, or anything else) on the basis of their gender--just as men often are.

I used to have a LOT of sympathy for that, because I definitely had trouble fitting into my role as a man. Still do.

But it's absurd for feminist groups to demand unlimited power because of the claim that women are supposedly uniquely disadvantaged by invisible forces that can't be empirically demonstrated (and that it's immoral to ask for evidence for) is pseudoscience. Yesterday's medieval bishops who claimed to be uniquely empowered to deliver the word of God to the serfs are today's feminist bloggers handing down the latest outrage to the peons.

There is discrimination against women, and there is discrimination against men. Are we going to have a movement that seeks gender equality, or are we going to have a movement that exalts the complaints of women and scoffs at the complaints of men?

Why do we have a thread about the "uncomfortable threads behind the men's rights movement" instead of a thread about what we can do to empower young girls? About how to develop a more equal society?
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You're absurd as are your posts in this thread.
 
Just want to say that Cracked has been really good lately since they've started pairing their columnists with interesting people like people raised by scientologists or EMTs and stuff
 
Samarecarm said:
Look, I feel bad for anyone who's been discriminated against on the basis of their sex. I certainly don't deny that women may sometimes (perhaps even frequently) be judged (in employment, in their relationships, or anything else) on the basis of their gender--just as men often are.

I used to have a LOT of sympathy for that, because I definitely had trouble fitting into my role as a man. Still do.

But it's absurd for feminist groups to demand unlimited power because of the claim that women are supposedly uniquely disadvantaged by invisible forces that can't be empirically demonstrated (and that it's immoral to ask for evidence for) is pseudoscience. Yesterday's medieval bishops who claimed to be uniquely empowered to deliver the word of God to the serfs are today's feminist bloggers handing down the latest outrage to the peons.

There is discrimination against women, and there is discrimination against men. Are we going to have a movement that seeks gender equality, or are we going to have a movement that exalts the complaints of women and scoffs at the complaints of men?

Why do we have a thread about the "uncomfortable threads behind the men's rights movement" instead of a thread about what we can do to empower young girls? About how to develop a more equal society?
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Samarecarm said:
If feminists were men, the media would be calling upon us every day to explain why women are far more likely to obtain college degrees than men.

If feminists were men, the far higher conviction rates for men in our criminal justice system would be attributed to a massive societal biases against men.

If feminists were men, calling someone a "dick" would be a "gendered insult" that would get you banned from GAF.

If feminists were men, stoplights and anything else involving red-green distinctions would be claimed to be biased against men because men are more likely than women to be red/green colorblind.

If feminists were men, the fact that female orgasms are longer, frequent, and more satisfying would be used to "prove" that sex is inherently discriminatory against men.

If feminists were men, we'd be told about how scary it is to go out as a man because you can get kicked in the balls.

N.B. I don't think any of these complaints are REAL. They're (mostly) silly. They're demonstrating how you could apply the same "logic" of the feminist movement and arrive at the opposite conclusion.



But Calibus! Men's groups are scary evil rapists!
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There are tons of data pointing to discrimination against women in many many facets of life. To call those claims "invisible forces that can't be empirically demonstrated" is to be willfully ignorant. The list of complaints you have contain some legitimate greivances, and some absolute stupidity. If you truly believe that street lights being biased against men is a problem, or that people would say it were in some alternate universe, then I don't know what to say to you. As to the serious gripes, the beautiful thing is that femininism is concerned about those things. All your complains about feminism seem to be completely immune to the words of feminists in this thread.

You say "We should have a gender-equality movement."
We say "We do. It's called feminism."

You say "Feminism should be concerned about male issues, too."
We say "Feminists are concerned about that." There's some in this very fucking thread.

You say "If feminists were men, blah blah..."
We say "Some men are feminists." I'm a man. I'm also a feminist. Some of those things in your list concern me. Some don't because their lunacy.

I think you need to talk to more feminists, because it seems like your arguments against them in this thread are against claims that aren't being made.
 
Samarecarm said:
Sounds like the attitude of the feminist movement.

"Men lost more jobs during the recession than women? BU BU BU BU BOOBS IN VIDEO GAMES

I'd rather not have to spend every day advocating for men's rights, frankly. It's an ugly, miserable business, and there are hundreds of other ways I'd rather spend my time. But as long as there are groups out there that have made it their policy to unilaterally favor women on any issue, ever, there's a need to counteract that with the opposite, or society is just going to get trampled on. Someone's got to it, and it might as well be me.

Why can't we all be friends?
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Ok, your posts have to be satire.
 
Ego and righteous indignation always lead people to play the victim. I especially love seeing this pattern in people who already have power and are in no way victims.
 
Samarecarm said:
Sounds like the attitude of the feminist movement.

"Men lost more jobs during the recession than women? BU BU BU BU BOOBS IN VIDEO GAMES

I'd rather not have to spend every day advocating for men's rights, frankly. It's an ugly, miserable business, and there are hundreds of other ways I'd rather spend my time. But as long as there are groups out there that have made it their policy to unilaterally favor women on any issue, ever, there's a need to counteract that with the opposite, or society is just going to get trampled on. Someone's got to it, and it might as well be me.

Why can't we all be friends?
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Why don't you go read your "feminists are evil" posts and then come back to me with an answer.
 
Samarecarm said:
Sounds like the attitude of the feminist movement.
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Immediately you go to feminists. It's as if you're trying to prove the OP right by example here.

Also, I really need to say that "I certainly don't deny that women may sometimes (perhaps even frequently) be judged (in employment, in their relationships, or anything else) on the basis of their gender--just as men often are." is one of the most blatantly disingenuous sentences I've read.
 
One thing I don't get is why PUA always gets lumped into this. And it's always the same "treating women as a commodity" argument, too. It's quite a myopic sweeping generalization. What about the guy who is afraid to talk to women in public settings and just wants to learn how to do it of the guy who just wants to be a better conversationalist so he doesn't bore people when he tries to talk to them? Not everyone is Mystery.
 
Samarecarm said:
Sounds like the attitude of the feminist movement.

"Men lost more jobs during the recession than women? BU BU BU BU BOOBS IN VIDEO GAMES

I'd rather not have to spend every day advocating for men's rights, frankly. It's an ugly, miserable business, and there are hundreds of other ways I'd rather spend my time. But as long as there are groups out there that have made it their policy to unilaterally favor women on any issue, ever, there's a need to counteract that with the opposite, or society is just going to get trampled on. Someone's got to it, and it might as well be me.

Why can't we all be friends?
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I think you just picked the wrong "enemy" to focus your sights on is all.
Those bad things happen to men not because of feminism (which mostly tries to work in favour of equality and break down and look at power dynamics). I think you need a wider perspective on it and need to consider that because we have a sexist culture and generally unequal culture (because racism and poverty and disability and sexual orientation also plays into all of this), it hurts both women AND men. But often NOT equally (women in general are hurt more by these things, then when you combine it with other factors such as race, you can get even worse results), because society is unequal.
 
Hitokage said:
Immediately you go to feminists. It's as if you're trying to prove the OP right by example here.

Also, I really need to say that "I certainly don't deny that women may sometimes (perhaps even frequently) be judged (in employment, in their relationships, or anything else) on the basis of their gender--just as men often are." is one of the most blatantly disingenuous sentences I've read.
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Its uncanny
 
Samarecarm said:
Sounds like the attitude of the feminist movement.

"Men lost more jobs during the recession than women? BU BU BU BU BOOBS IN VIDEO GAMES

I'd rather not have to spend every day advocating for men's rights, frankly. It's an ugly, miserable business, and there are hundreds of other ways I'd rather spend my time. But as long as there are groups out there that have made it their policy to unilaterally favor women on any issue, ever, there's a need to counteract that with the opposite, or society is just going to get trampled on. Someone's got to it, and it might as well be me.

Why can't we all be friends?
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...Uhhh what point are you trying to make here? That gaming communities are talking about female portrayals in games and not male unemployment in the rest of the world? As if one argument can exit but the other can't?
 
Septimus Prime said:
One thing I don't get is why PUA always gets lumped into this. And it's always the same "treating women as a commodity" argument, too. It's quite a myopic sweeping generalization. What about the guy who is afraid to talk to women in public settings and just wants to learn how to do it of the guy who just wants to be a better conversationalist so he doesn't bore people when he tries to talk to them? Not everyone is Mystery.
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PUA culture is heavily heavily tied into psychological gimmickry. Its a horrible way to learn "how to talk to people"
 
MRA basically revolves around social stupidity and entitlement. Most of them are people who are unable to function in a social environment with respect to women. You aren't owed sex, respect, love, friendship, etc because you're "nice" to someone. Treating someone a type of way with the sole intention of getting something as the end result rarely plays out well.

Fuck them and anyone who's down with their message.
 
Septimus Prime said:
One thing I don't get is why PUA always gets lumped into this. And it's always the same "treating women as a commodity" argument, too. It's quite a myopic sweeping generalization. What about the guy who is afraid to talk to women in public settings and just wants to learn how to do it of the guy who just wants to be a better conversationalist so he doesn't bore people when he tries to talk to them? Not everyone is Mystery.
Click to expand...
Because playing The Game requires reducing women to objects in order to successfully manipulate them into liking you.
 
The Technomancer said:
Just want to say that Cracked has been really good lately since they've started pairing their columnists with interesting people like people raised by scientologists or EMTs and stuff
Click to expand...

Do they still have terribly written and poorly researched self-improvement articles written by David Wong?
 
Septimus Prime said:
One thing I don't get is why PUA always gets lumped into this. And it's always the same "treating women as a commodity" argument, too. It's quite a myopic sweeping generalization. What about the guy who is afraid to talk to women in public settings and just wants to learn how to do it of the guy who just wants to be a better conversationalist so he doesn't bore people when he tries to talk to them? Not everyone is Mystery.
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I would venture that their perceived as guys only interested in "acquiring women" because they call themselves "pick up artists." If you're interested in learning to be more comfortable with your self, to be more confident and better able to talk to people, that's fantastic. More power to you, it's a very difficult thing to be good at. And if you want to learn from various PUA sources, that's fine too. It's once you start using those things to be a PUA that people start thinking of you as a sleazy misogynist.
 
PhoenixDark said:
MRA basically revolves around social stupidity and entitlement. Most of them are people who are unable to function in a social environment with respect to women. You aren't owed sex, respect, love, friendship, etc because you're "nice" to someone. Treating someone a type of way with the sole intention of getting something as the end result rarely plays out well.
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Which makes "Women love pragmatically and have no capacity to love unconditionally for romantic partners." sound like pure projection.
 
Oh look, it's all the same posters posting the same old shit again. It's almost as if posting on NeoGAF about Feminism/MRM is tired old road to no where.
 
I love how the some men think that feminism is something that would only benefit women. Society as a whole will benefit from it and from ending this stupidity called gender roles. Masculinity will stop being this very important and very fragile concept and we could all focus in living our happy lives without creating expectations on how someone should behave, or how we can behave towards someone, sorely based by their gender. The fact that men need to follow strict rules that no one knows where the hell they came from, or why, only to prove they are men, and every single man who deviates from it faces stupid amounts of pressure from society for him to conform to the norms is something absolutely toxic and utterly ridiculous when you actually stop and think about it and the shackles it places on every single man stopping them from living their lives and exploring their sexuality fully.
 
HP_Wuvcraft said:
Isn't it widely known that MRA is bullshit?

Like, honestly, I'm wondering why this is even a topic.
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By now? Yeah. I gave it a once over and found it to be horseshit as did many others. Im not really convinced anyone that digs into it pays any attention to it unless they are crazy.

Fiction said:
We have a lot of people here that defend it, actually.
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I'm not so convinced of that at all. When I first started asking about those MRA things everyone on GAF was quick to tell me they were nonsense. I looked into it anyway just to be sure, and they were right. I don't recall anyone really drinking that kool aid here.
 
Samarecarm said:
Definitely. I think contemporary liberalism overemphasizes gender gaps and underestimates class divisions in American society.
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Uhh....they/we have been yammering on about class issues at the top of our lungs for ages now. "We live in a modern oligarchy" is totally a contemporary liberal position.
 
Samarecarm said:
Sounds like the attitude of the feminist movement.

"Men lost more jobs during the recession than women? BU BU BU BU BOOBS IN VIDEO GAMES

I'd rather not have to spend every day advocating for men's rights, frankly. It's an ugly, miserable business, and there are hundreds of other ways I'd rather spend my time. But as long as there are groups out there that have made it their policy to unilaterally favor women on any issue, ever, there's a need to counteract that with the opposite, or society is just going to get trampled on. Someone's got to it, and it might as well be me.

Why can't we all be friends?
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What?

And did you even read the article? MRA groups don't even talk about men's issues, they just talk about women.
 
Cipherr said:
I'm not so convinced of that at all. When I first started asking about those MRA things everyone on GAF was quick to tell me they were nonsense. I looked into it anyway just to be sure, and they were right. I don't recall anyone really drinking that kool aid here.
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There's a couple and then there is the whole "we don't need feminism" group of patriots who are blind to the very issues that make it even more relevant than in 1972.
 
Kazerei said:
What?

And did you even read the article? MRA groups don't even talk about men's issues, they just talk about women.
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Dont bother, if you read his posts, he spends most of his time talking about whats wrong with feminism rather than identifying men's issues.

This is pretty much par for the course on NeoGAF.
 
Eyemus Lutt said:
I'm just saying if you mentioned feminist or MRA's to the average person they would have a very negative attitude towards them because the crazies hijacked the cause.
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I can see this with some of the shit that gets peddled under the name of feminism, but I must be woefully in the dark about the MRA's past or something because they've always been complete dickheads from what I've been exposed to.
 
Samarecarm said:
Sounds like the attitude of the feminist movement.

"Men lost more jobs during the recession than women? BU BU BU BU BOOBS IN VIDEO GAMES

I'd rather not have to spend every day advocating for men's rights, frankly. It's an ugly, miserable business, and there are hundreds of other ways I'd rather spend my time. But as long as there are groups out there that have made it their policy to unilaterally favor women on any issue, ever, there's a need to counteract that with the opposite, or society is just going to get trampled on. Someone's got to it, and it might as well be me.

Why can't we all be friends?
Click to expand...

Being a straight white man is fucking amazing, bro! What the fuck are you talking about? Grow some balls and embrace your manhood.
 
Calibus said:
It has nothing to do with the desire to sit next to young children. It has to do with not being immediately perceived as a threatening molester simply because I am a man when I happen to be seated next to a minor.
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But how do you actually, practically, build such a protest? My comment about people wanting to sit next to young children will immediately come to each and every person who sees you trying to organize it.

Calibus said:
Would I personally organize a public protest? Probably not. I would definitely however choose not to patronize an airline with such a policy and I could see myself participating in a petition to get such practices reversed.

Perhaps I am in the minority here, but I find this practice to be incredibly offensive.
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So you would literally do nothing about it (a non-public boycott is literally doing nothing, and you say you'd sign a petition that does not exist and you did not offer to create), even though it's one of your major complaints with how society regards men. Do you see some connection between this and the lack of movement towards how you would prefer men be treated? The people who are actually doing stuff are these crypto-misogynists who reinforce every bad thing people think about how men act and behave, because good people stand back and prefer to do nothing.
 
i still dont understand. what exactly is a 'pick-up artist'? do they go around using pick-up lines or something?
 
The Technomancer said:
I mean, there are some systemic issues facing men. You can point to things like the disparity in incarceration rates (although I personally think that's just part of our larger completely fucked prison problem)
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What about child custody in a divorce or is that actually more equal than I've been lead to believe?
 
animlboogy said:
I don't personally agree with this sentiment. Nobody really needs to use the term "men's rights" for anything. The individual issues men face aren't really of the sort that need to be connected so explicitly to one another, and doing so will always attract an unsavory element.

I'm not so sure most of these guys even care about things like male rape outside of using it as a talking point.
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I dunno, the issue of toxic masculinity I think is a subject that a lot of men can relate to, how it has influenced them and people they know and unite them to want to do something about it. Maybe "rights" isn't a the best word to use overall (though there are a few issues where the word might be ok?) - my only point was that there are certainly gendered issues that males face in Western society and it would be nice if there was an organized movement on the side of the male gender to address them. It feels bad/unjust that it feels like we have to ask the feminism movement to do double duty :/
 
akachan ningen said:
In your mind, what would a decent MR group do or say?
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Honestly it's not a Men's Rights movement that I see as necessary, just that no one should be subjected to arbitrary "standards" or "expectations" based on gender. Men shouldn't cry, women shouldn't have body hair etc. Basically a Stop Being Shitty movement.
 
Calibus said:
I think the real issues men need to be fighting for are things like more fair treatment in family court (alimony, custody rights, etc) and truly offensive sexist shit like not being able to sit next to unaccompanied minors on certain airlines.
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After reading some custody court cases here in Finland I would say this is probably biggest issue where men are treated currently unequally. You have to be very very fucked up mother that the father gets single custody. Other way around there are far less severe standards where father loses custody. Still of course overall there are more issues still in modern world where women are treated unequally.
 
The Technomancer said:
I mean, there are some systemic issues facing men. You can point to things like the disparity in incarceration rates (although I personally think that's just part of our larger completely fucked prison problem)
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Or, you know... maybe it is the way society creates men to be "protective", by which I mean "violent". You know... the way how they must protect their honour and their masculinity at all times, because god forbids they ever get mistaken by a queer, or as weak, or both.

Edit: not saying it is the ONLY reason, but... maybe, maaaaaaaybe it has a small part on the subject you introduced.
 
The Technomancer said:
I mean, there are some systemic issues facing men. You can point to things like the disparity in incarceration rates (although I personally think that's just part of our larger completely fucked prison problem)
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Couldn't that be explained by the fact that high testosterone levels demonstrably increase aggression?
 
Samarecarm said:
Agreed. White-knighting is stupid.

My problem is that, if the situation is reversed, it's not seen as an unfair/unjust/bad situation in the bad. It's seen as payback. "Ah, you can't really complain about this woman did/is doing, because men do it too! Nyah nyah!"

Look, I lost my virginity when my then-girlfriend drove me to her place, locked the door, and threatened to kill herself if I didn't have sex with her. I wouldn't want any woman to be placed in that situation, either. And, once upon a time, I felt a lot of sympathy about women who were put in a similar situation by creepy or aggressive guys. But, over time, after being told over and over that my feelings were invalid because Men Do It Too, and that I should just take it on the chin Because Feminism, I realized that the feminist movement isn't a movement about promoting gender equality or equal relationships or anything; it's about the untestable belief that women are losing in every situation and consequently deserve unlimited power to respond. They're GLAD when bad things happen to men because it's seen as retribution.

I'd rather have a movement that defends everyone's rights and sexuality. But until that day comes, if someone is blindly defending women in all cases, I'm afraid someone's got to be there to blindly defend men :P
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So you're whole deal with feminism is merely out of spite.

The bolded is such horseshit dude.
 
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