This is the first time that I've actually gotten links to read since I've started participating in the thread. It seems the 'father's rights movement' is the counterpoint but may be the exception that proves the rule.
5 Uncomfortable Truths Behind the Men's Rights Movement
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This is the first time that I've actually gotten links to read since I've started participating in the thread. It seems the 'father's rights movement' is the counterpoint but may be the exception that proves the rule.
great, educating yourself is probably the first step to move away from mra stuff
TwEE-N-Toast
Banned
Redpillers, MRA, PUA, Pua-hate. I might be missing some.
Again I think people lump PUA in with MRA because they've seen people associate with both groups. Obviously they're stated goals are different.
What kind of Men's Rights Advocacy are you talking about though? I'd be interested to read something from an MRA group that doesn't sound exactly like /r/TheRedPill... as of yet I haven't found anything.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Look, I like rights as much as the next man but there is no grand structure of entrenched male oppression out there which would justify activism of the kind upon which feminism is based. Men need help with family court adjudication, so there is a growing network of legal support groups intending to address that problem. Men need better advice about mental health, so again there are groups and government sponsored programmes attempting to provide it.
Trying to paint a picture of men as victims of some kind of feminist onslaught is just narrow minded and disingenuous, or ignorant.
Trying to paint a picture of men as victims of some kind of feminist onslaught is just narrow minded and disingenuous, or ignorant.
The Henery
Member
How have you arrived at this conclusion? Unless I'm missing something in your logic, it seems almost offensively dismissive of the strides civil rights activists and law makers have made in the US in the last 150 or so years.
When people of dark skin were dragged to the US, the majority were kept as human slaves, subjugated under violent threat and made to toil without remuneration. They were considered 3/5ths human. To say a black males situation is 'relatively' the same now as it was then is quite outrageous.
Are black people still less privileged than white people in the US? Absolutely and undoubtedly, for a variety of reasons. But even when one uses the qualifier 'relatively', the gap between white and black people is relatively a lot, lot smaller now than in the 1800's. I'm almost certain you know all of this very basic knowledge and yet made the statement anyway.
Some measured perspective, please.
I sincerely hope that this is your exact same assessment on the wage gap.
Here. This bears little resemblance to the red pill.
This, from the same group looks at the men's rights movement at a little wider angle than the social media warriors who drown out all conversation. The part about three categories is especially interesting and I find it unfortunate that the third category drowns out the other two.
The first link bear little resemblance to the popular idea of MRA though. So much so that they did a week long expose on MRA in your second link.
I suppose it's a branding issue then? Is MRA just simply 'men's rights advocacy' or is it a movement defined by those who identity with it? If it's the latter, then most examples I see tend to be... less than desirable.
That first website you linked to me is fucking great though:
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/malefemale-social-construct-biological-fact-hesaid/
This article in particular was a fun read... though the comments are all over the place.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Please point me in the direction of an organization that is attempting to deal with this issue.
Well, there are a bunch of pro-feminist men in this thread / on neogaf who are both constantly derided by those defending MRA, and wrapped into being a part of MRA on that site. So I'm not sure what conclusion we can draw from those links...
poppabk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_and_feminism
Why would I compare a disparity in compensation for voluntary labor that was equally trained and applied for to involuntary incarceration of people who were unequally raked in by politics, law enforcement, and the prison system? Sorry to disappoint you, man, but the apple is still different from the orange.
Always-honest
Banned
what fucking nonsense is this anyway... jesus christ.
Probably a bunch of insecure weirdos.
Yeah, i can see how some men would think that (some of my friends were dumped after many years in a relationship and they believe this to be true). But maybe they need to think harder about the concept of love anyway...
Anyway.. i haven't weird read shit like this i a while. And this MRM is for real???
Probably a bunch of insecure weirdos.
Yeah, i can see how some men would think that (some of my friends were dumped after many years in a relationship and they believe this to be true). But maybe they need to think harder about the concept of love anyway...
Anyway.. i haven't weird read shit like this i a while. And this MRM is for real???
Kite
Member
A quick google search shows that appears in The Red Pill Constitution, tying that to mrm is pretty dishonest imo. In fact if you pay attention to the article, every single one the disgusting quotes are linked to the red pill subreddit yet the title is placing the blame on mens rights.. Sounds like a classic strawman to me.
After lurking in the mens rights subreddit for a few hours, it reminds me too much of OWS. It has some good ideas but with no real leader or dominant group to act as a spokesman it has no clear message to rally around. This makes it too easy to dismiss them cus the fringe lunatics make an easy target. I can't support the mrm movement as it stands now, but I'll be keeping my eye out for when/if they get organized and get a cohesive set of ideas together. And when they ditch the wierdos.
and what message would you like that to be?
You must feel really strongly about men's rights if you're willing to sit back and wait for someone else to come up with ideas for you to adopt.
Scooter155
Member
I personally know one of those guys who has trouble getting women and has come to the perfectly
logical conclusion that the problem lies not with him, but instead with every woman on the planet. You know, the whole "I'll never get a girlfriend because I'm a nice guy and girls only like jerks" kind of guy. Hey, maybe the problem is that you're assuming all women are irrational, shallow and stupid, huh?
He's a friend of a friend and I've tried to talk some sense into him, he mostly seems harmlessly insecure, but reading stuff like this really worries me...
il
He's a friend of a friend and I've tried to talk some sense into him, he mostly seems harmlessly insecure, but reading stuff like this really worries me...
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Why wouldn't you? Or do you consider men intrinsically more prone to crime? Remember men are paid approximately 105 - 110% more than women and are incarcerated 1500% more, even the raw wage gap has men only earning 120 - 130% more than women. Even just in sentencing for the same crime gender differences are as high as 60%.
DoktorEvil
Banned
If he worries you, maybe you should help him get out of his self-defeating cycle.
After this whole Santa Barbara situation, I will always help a fellow man with his lady problems just so he doesn't think doing things like that are ok.
There's a few issues the MRA groups bring up which do seem like legitimate topics, e.g. rape accusations, domestic violence cases, and child custody. Data seems to run purely at the anecdotal level though, and any internet 'discussion' devolves to the same shit they usually spew, on both sides of the debate unfortunately. In the case of child custody, I seem to recall reading that actual custody awards are fairly even for mother/father in many areas.
The internet 'community' around them at this point is a typical circlejerk with nothing of real worth. It's just like a lot of the radical "feminism" on the internet that these guys are supposedly fighting against -- they're just shitting on the opposing viewpoint and getting nowhere. I get the feeling that all the crazy shit is an attempt to get awareness, so people know you're doing something and hopefully find the good stuff (if any) that they're striving for -- just that, by and large, people will stop after reading the bullshit and never get to whatever core values you were trying to preach.
The internet 'community' around them at this point is a typical circlejerk with nothing of real worth. It's just like a lot of the radical "feminism" on the internet that these guys are supposedly fighting against -- they're just shitting on the opposing viewpoint and getting nowhere. I get the feeling that all the crazy shit is an attempt to get awareness, so people know you're doing something and hopefully find the good stuff (if any) that they're striving for -- just that, by and large, people will stop after reading the bullshit and never get to whatever core values you were trying to preach.
Random Painted HIghway
Member
Do they even have bumper stickers? That seems like the lowest level of activism these days. I see way too many keep calm and chive on bumper stickers these days, for reference, nothing that I can see being mra or pua referenced.
Kite
Member
What about it? I didn't even really know about this whole mrm stuff until a few months ago and never seriously looked into it until last night. There are a few issues that require immediate action like assistance for male rape/domestic abuse victims and unequal child custody for fathers. Others are more dubious like the boys are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and drugged. And then there are the more nebulous stuff that I have no idea how to change like men are presumed to be rapists/child molesters if seen anywhere near children alone and the whole issues with traditional gender roles and how they hurt both men and women. If a mrm group can come up with something actionable then I'm in.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
I've come to this thread very late.
I can't even muster offense at Samarecarm's posts. I just chuckle incredulously at the idiocy.
And I'm only on page 1.
I can't even muster offense at Samarecarm's posts. I just chuckle incredulously at the idiocy.
And I'm only on page 1.
But there are for example father's groups that you can support if you want to advocate for reevaluating custody disputes. You don't have to pine for a group that may or may not coalesce, you can actually take action now.
Like I was saying, the systems and forces that influence the job market and a disparity in wages are very different from the systems and forces that unfairly prosecute and put people in jail. Comparing these numbers to each other is basically saying that men are the bigger losers overall because of a single invisible hand of gender bias. Applying the same reasoning to both problems is overly simplistic.
Men account for the majority of the violence in society. This isn't really up for debate given the mountain of research we have on the topic. The expectation of gender parity is something that I think reflects our internal preference/bias towards symmetry, but many things in the world do appear to be naturally asymmetric despite our desire for them not to be. When looking at incarceration rates (in the US), I suspect the largest marginal lens to look through is not really gender (although there are certainly issues related to that), but instead socioeconomic status and race.
I'm not really seeing the need for a men's rights "movement." I think an outside observer would find that the greatest obstacle in life faced by men but not by women is violence. Given that almost all of that violence comes from other men, though, "men's rights" seems like an odd reaction. Addressing the root causes of crime and war would seem to be more appropriate.
Why do we need a singular men's rights movement, rather than specific movements against violence, homophobia, economic disparity, and other phenomena that disproportionately affect men?
Why do we need a singular men's rights movement, rather than specific movements against violence, homophobia, economic disparity, and other phenomena that disproportionately affect men?
The Good Men Project is something of a mixed bag, especially in recent years, though they do still have good articles and not just about gender.
I think the confusion with the article stems from the fact that it isn't very precise in its labeling. It uses "Men's Rights Movement" as a term not just for "men's rights activists," but also for other men's movements. The term that should have been used is "Men's Movement," which is an umbrella term that covers everything from Promise Keepers to the mythopoetic movement to the Men's Rights Movement to pro-feminist men's groups. Tristan Bridges, a sociologist at The College at Brockport, SUNY was interviewed by Feministing here and talked some about these differences within the broader men's movement:
1) Your dissertation examines the problematic way that men are divided into two groups: sexist and anti-sexist. Can you talk a bit about your main findings, and how you became interested in the topic?
Early research on the Mens Movement (an umbrella term covering everything from the Promise Keepers, to the Mens Rights Movement, to Pro-feminist mens groups) sought to situate groups on a continuum from anti- to pro-feminist (see here and here). This research was extremely important and helped us better understand the various political projects that different groups supported. One thing that was quickly apparent was that while many groups have political goals that are directly opposed to feminist issues and agendas, a smaller number of them willingly adopt the label anti-feminist. Increasingly, however, I think larger numbers of mens groups are willing and happy to accept a feminist label. In some ways, this is wonderful news and illustrates a great deal of change in a relatively short period of time. But in other ways, separating groups and individual men into the feminists inequality.and the anti-feminists conceals a number of features of contemporary gender and sexual inequality.
While this categorization and comparison works well for a discussion of the political motivations and goals of these different groups, the same framework is also used to make sense of individual mena framework that is much less useful. Separating men into the feminists and the anti-feminists, the sexists and the anti-sexists artificially simplifies the complex ways in which gender and sexual inequality structure our lives and are reproduced. It superficially separates men in ways that make us think that the good guys can do no wrong and the bad guys can do nothing right.
The good guys vs. bad guys story is just too simple and doesnt reflect the ways that gender and sexual inequality actually work. My findings illustrate that while a great deal of gender privilege still works to mens benefit, something significant has changed: mens experience of that privilege. The increasing publicity of mens collective privilege has ushered in new ways of identifying as men. So, men are pushing the boundaries of what is considered masculine in all sorts of ways: with their dress, their behavior, their interests, and even their politics. Most of the men Ive studied say theyre fully aware that men benefit from unfair advantages, but they also have intricate ways of telling me why they are personally different and dont benefit from some (and sometimes all) of the privileges other men receiveor not in the same ways.
2) Mens rights and fathers rights movements, both of which have been followed by Feministing.com at various points, seem to address what some would argue is a historic gap in the feminist movementattention to men and masculinities. Based on your research into both movements, how would you suggest that the contemporary feminist movement address this gap?
The feminist movement, feminist organizations, and feminist theory and research have not actually ignored men or masculinity. Movements like Mens Rights and the Fathers Rights Movement might like to believe that feminism doesnt consider men (or only considers them as enemies), or that feminists are only out to hurt men, but its simply not true. The Mens Rights Movement first appeared in the 1970s. It is an anti-feminist group whose basic claim is that feminism has gone too far. They argue that gender inequality still exists, but that it is now men, not women, who are suffering. Fathers Rights has arguably been the most successful branch of this movement.
I believe that the contemporary feminist movement ought to continue to address issues of men and masculinities, as well as the ways that feminist change does not only improve womens livesit helps men too. The Mens Rights Movement has a whole list of ways that they use to talk about how men are the ones that deserve our attentionthat, compared to men, women are doing just fine. What feminist discussions of men and masculinities seek to illustrate is not that these claims are falserather, were interested in illustrating that blaming women and feminism for these issues misdiagnoses the problem and is unlikely to produce real solutions. While cultural understandings of masculinity harm women, they also harm men. For instance, many of mens health issues can be traced to ideologies of masculinity. Boys misbehaviour and struggles in school have much more to do with culturally situating anti-intellectualism as masculine than with programs and support for girls. Similarly, its also not the case that, in the recent recession, employers all randomly chose to fire men over women; rather, men lost their jobs because the kind of jobs that were lost were overwhelmingly composed of men to begin with. Men are tracked into careers that are disproportionately composed of men in a number of waysjust as women are tracked into feminine occupations (see here).
Its cultural ideologies of masculinity that keep boys and men from accessing a full range of emotions, keep some from trying in school, and that physically and psychologically harm boys and men. I believe that the contemporary feminist movement has room for men and that it can continue to support boys and men to understand the ways that feminism absolutely helps girls and women, but it helps men too.
Early research on the Mens Movement (an umbrella term covering everything from the Promise Keepers, to the Mens Rights Movement, to Pro-feminist mens groups) sought to situate groups on a continuum from anti- to pro-feminist (see here and here). This research was extremely important and helped us better understand the various political projects that different groups supported. One thing that was quickly apparent was that while many groups have political goals that are directly opposed to feminist issues and agendas, a smaller number of them willingly adopt the label anti-feminist. Increasingly, however, I think larger numbers of mens groups are willing and happy to accept a feminist label. In some ways, this is wonderful news and illustrates a great deal of change in a relatively short period of time. But in other ways, separating groups and individual men into the feminists inequality.and the anti-feminists conceals a number of features of contemporary gender and sexual inequality.
While this categorization and comparison works well for a discussion of the political motivations and goals of these different groups, the same framework is also used to make sense of individual mena framework that is much less useful. Separating men into the feminists and the anti-feminists, the sexists and the anti-sexists artificially simplifies the complex ways in which gender and sexual inequality structure our lives and are reproduced. It superficially separates men in ways that make us think that the good guys can do no wrong and the bad guys can do nothing right.
The good guys vs. bad guys story is just too simple and doesnt reflect the ways that gender and sexual inequality actually work. My findings illustrate that while a great deal of gender privilege still works to mens benefit, something significant has changed: mens experience of that privilege. The increasing publicity of mens collective privilege has ushered in new ways of identifying as men. So, men are pushing the boundaries of what is considered masculine in all sorts of ways: with their dress, their behavior, their interests, and even their politics. Most of the men Ive studied say theyre fully aware that men benefit from unfair advantages, but they also have intricate ways of telling me why they are personally different and dont benefit from some (and sometimes all) of the privileges other men receiveor not in the same ways.
2) Mens rights and fathers rights movements, both of which have been followed by Feministing.com at various points, seem to address what some would argue is a historic gap in the feminist movementattention to men and masculinities. Based on your research into both movements, how would you suggest that the contemporary feminist movement address this gap?
The feminist movement, feminist organizations, and feminist theory and research have not actually ignored men or masculinity. Movements like Mens Rights and the Fathers Rights Movement might like to believe that feminism doesnt consider men (or only considers them as enemies), or that feminists are only out to hurt men, but its simply not true. The Mens Rights Movement first appeared in the 1970s. It is an anti-feminist group whose basic claim is that feminism has gone too far. They argue that gender inequality still exists, but that it is now men, not women, who are suffering. Fathers Rights has arguably been the most successful branch of this movement.
I believe that the contemporary feminist movement ought to continue to address issues of men and masculinities, as well as the ways that feminist change does not only improve womens livesit helps men too. The Mens Rights Movement has a whole list of ways that they use to talk about how men are the ones that deserve our attentionthat, compared to men, women are doing just fine. What feminist discussions of men and masculinities seek to illustrate is not that these claims are falserather, were interested in illustrating that blaming women and feminism for these issues misdiagnoses the problem and is unlikely to produce real solutions. While cultural understandings of masculinity harm women, they also harm men. For instance, many of mens health issues can be traced to ideologies of masculinity. Boys misbehaviour and struggles in school have much more to do with culturally situating anti-intellectualism as masculine than with programs and support for girls. Similarly, its also not the case that, in the recent recession, employers all randomly chose to fire men over women; rather, men lost their jobs because the kind of jobs that were lost were overwhelmingly composed of men to begin with. Men are tracked into careers that are disproportionately composed of men in a number of waysjust as women are tracked into feminine occupations (see here).
Its cultural ideologies of masculinity that keep boys and men from accessing a full range of emotions, keep some from trying in school, and that physically and psychologically harm boys and men. I believe that the contemporary feminist movement has room for men and that it can continue to support boys and men to understand the ways that feminism absolutely helps girls and women, but it helps men too.
I also made a post a few years ago about the men's rights movement and other men's movements here:
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
There was a great factoid-hevy book that came out a couple decades ago, called Backlash-- which documented pretty clearly how Feminism was portrayed as extreme even when it generally wasn't. Throughout the 60s and 70s in particular, a lot of media coverage would focus on stuff like Bra Burning and the more extreme academic feminists, rather than the much more numerous and active ones advocating things that essentially benefit everyone.
Well I was never in MRM or a MRA. It seems to me that Father's rights organizations are, while controversial, something worth discussing as they actually advocate for concrete things like law changes that can be debated and discussed while people like Just Detention are straight up noble.
Deified Data
Banned
Good post.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
Yes yes yes.
I'm interested in some extreme examples of feminism in national politics in America, if anyone has something off the top of their head, because we've also been talking about trying to find decent examples of good MRA actions in politics. Yelling on the Internet or in books doesn't count.
Extreme feminists are like Extreme environmentalists. A few crazies trumped up to discredit everybody even loosely affiliated.
There are also a number of men's groups who focus on violence -- in prison, out of prison, rape, domestic violence. Given that men are both the primary perpetrators and victims of gun grime in America, any gun control group you join is effectively a "men's" group. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of men's groups advocating for specific issues, but on the broader level, it seems like the umbrella groups that would link these individual issue groups are either missing or tainted by misogyny.
I've been following this thread closely and it has been a very informative read, but I had some questions since I'm not really familiar with this subject. People have mentioned that Feminists aren't just about supporting women, but that they also support men's rights. So, in that case shouldn't they be referred to as Human Rights Activist to signify that they want everyone to be treated equally? Or is the term Feminism still used to signify that women still have a farther way to go to be equal to men? Or does the term Human Rights Activist have a different meaning?
The annihilation of transgender healthcare provisions in 1981 (in the USA, at least) came at the hands of one woman.
This wasn't fixed until literally last week.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
Yep. Also because it deals with patriarchal values that we need to move past.
Why should feminism be called something else if they support equality and are concerned about the rights of all people? Making that distinction of "feminism" is important because of those distinct issues that overwhelmingly impact women. It's important for marginalized groups to be able to create an avenue through which they can discuss and approach those issues that impact them. Simply dropping all people under a general umbrella of "Human Rights Activism" would essentially water down any efforts to improve those issues that specifically impact a certain group, since establishing such a generalized group fails to take into account the differences in issues and experiences that a marginalized group has to deal with.
Also, I feel that saying feminism should adopt a more generalized term implies that feminists can't also be "Human Rights Activists" or "equalists" or whatever term someone wants to use. Being a feminist doesn't mean that someone is excluded from supporting the rights of all other groups.
Of course. I was just pointing out situations where people can get miffed at this behaviour and associate it negatively with feminism.
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