Support NeoGAF

[Mumei]

I read this article (please click; there are links to further articles in the text, they deserve the views, and what is quoted below is only excerpted with removed text replaced with "[...]") a few days ago and I think it's one of the best overviews of why, despite the fact that the men's rights movement occasionally hits upon important issues affecting men, the movement is actually damaging to men's interests by failing to direct them to ways that they can effectively create change in some of these areas, and damaging to everyone's interests in their reflexive opposition to feminism. I particularly like this article because the author, Jaclyn Friedman, is the editor of one of my favorite feminist anthologies and one of the founders of the Yes Means Yes blog, both of which have a lot of important information about what we know about rape culture, rapists, and what research indicates are important ways we can reduce the prevalence of rape.

We do have a few self-identified men's rights advocates in this forum, so I think it is important for me to mention this up front: If someone identifies as a men's rights advocate in this topic, it does not mean that they participate in the sort of noxious, misogynistic commentary seen below, it does not mean that they are affiliating themselves with the "men's rights movement"; they may simply believe that there are important issues affecting men and believe that the label "men's rights advocate" describes their feelings without subscribing to the larger morass of misogyny surrounding the movement online. With that in mind, please do not make this topic an exercise in attempting to get people banned by badgering them into lashing out. I find it irritating, every other moderator finds it irritating, and it is - to be perfectly frank about it - largely ineffective.

And I'd also like to encourage people to think of their discussions in this topic as "discussion." I find little more irritating than people who have no ability to constructively explain their opinions attempting to advocate for their side. If you cannot do the bare minimum work of explaining the premises of your position and how you got to them, and you are talking to the other person as if they are already conversant in your thinking, you aren't explaining your position very well. And if the other person has a snappy retort, is rude, quite obviously didn't read what you wrote, isn't engaging honestly, or whatever, do not sink down to that level. It makes it harder to recognize who the bad actors are in a topic when you engage in shitty posting as well.

Only once the production crew taped the microphone on my dress did I have second thoughts. As part of an upcoming 20/20 special, I’d agreed to a sit-down with Paul Elam. Elam is founder and publisher of A Voice For Men (AVFM), one of the main hubs for the burgeoning “men’s rights’ movement.” In a blog post on the organization’s site, he made his feelings clear: “I find you, as a feminist, to be a loathsome, vile piece of human garbage. I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection.”

This was not going to be a productive conversation.

With the cameras rolling, I told Elam that it was hard to know how to engage with someone who hates you so much it turns him on. He waved the statement away, saying he’d made it in the heat of conversation (this despite the fact that “Fuck Their Shit Up” is AVFM's official mantra). Elam is good at making excuses: Confronted with his own words, he typically says he has to use “extreme” language to attract attention to his cause. When that fails, he likes to claim that his work is “satire” (to which I can only reply, in the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "I do not think that means what you think it means").

Elam’s site is one of dozens of blogs and message boards that constitute the “manosphere,” where participants rant, bond, and spew ideas so misogynist they make Silvio Berlusconi look like Gloria Steinem. There are three main constituencies. There are the Pick Up Artists (PUAs), who'll try to sleep with all the women they can, by any means necessary, and Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), who claim to have sworn off women altogether. Then there are the Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs), who are animated by many of the same misogynist beliefs as their manosphere brethren, but draw different conclusions about what men should do in relation to the scourge that is womankind.

David Futrelle, creator of Manboobz, a site that tracks (and mocks) the manosphere, cites the myth of female hypergamy as one of their motivating forces: “It’s the idea that all women are these fickle, opportunistic creatures who are constantly looking to glom onto some ‘high status’ guy, and exploit him for all he’s worth, and that they’ll immediately desert whoever they’re with as soon as they find someone better. The men’s rights people talk about this as a horrible injustice in the world, whereas the PUA’s are like, these evil women are looking for guys with status, so if we can figure out how to fake that successfully we’ll get to have sex with them.”

What makes the MRAs particularly insidious is their canny co-optation of social-justice lingo. While Pick Up Artists are perfectly plain that all they care about is using women for sex, MRAs claim to be a movement for positive change, with the stated aim of getting men recognized as an oppressed class—and women, especially but not exclusively feminists, as men’s oppressors. It's a narrative effective enough to snow the mainstream media: Just this past weekend, The Daily Beast ran a profile of MRAs that painted them as a legitimate movement overshadowed by a few extremists. Trouble is, even the man writer R. Todd Kelly singled out as the great "moderate" hope that other MRAs should emulate—W.F. Price, of the blog "The Spearhead"—is anything but. According to Futrelle, "This is a guy who ... blames the epidemic of rape in the armed forces on women, who celebrated one Mothers Day with a vicious transphobic rant, and who once used the tragic death of a woman who’d just graduated from college to argue that 'after 25, women are just wasting time.' He published posts on why women’s suffrage is a bad idea. Plus, have you met his commenters?"

[...]

The list of grievances for MRAs is long. It includes the elevated rate of suicide for men, educational discrimination against boys, economic and workplace conditions for men, violence against men, false rape reporting, fathers’ rights in custody battles, rates of male imprisonment and prison conditions, and the horrors of war. Many of these issues deserve a thoughtful response and the force of an organized movement for address them. It’s too bad that’s not what men’s rights activists are offering.

[...]

Instead, no matter what the issue is, the response from Men’s Rights Activists is the same: blame, threaten, and harass women, mostly online. (Though there has been a worrying uptick in offline activity, especially in Canada, it still represents a small percentage of what they do. The exception to that are the men who focus on “fathers’ rights” in custody cases, who, as Boston Magazine documented this summer are well organized and have been having real impact on the way family courts function).

[...]

Blogs like AVFM and The Spearhead serve as what passes for the “think tanks” for MRAs, developing and promoting the MRA agenda. I’m using that term loosely as the ideas they promote tend to be things like arguing against women having access to college education, accusing feminists of encouraging domestic violence so that we can make money, and calling prominent feminists “child abusers” for promoting feminism.

Indeed, MRAs seem to enjoy spreading disinformation about feminism, framing it essentially as whatever they hate about women. In our conversation, Elam cited only Andrea Dworkin and Valerie Solanas, two long-dead women who were extremists even in their day. At the same time, this poster from AVFM’s “Victor Zen” seems to think feminists endorse the pop culture idea of a Mars/Venus divide, while in reality we deconstruct it at every opportunity. Many MRAs are enamored of the idea that feminists are desperate to trap them in marriage, because you know how feminists are all about promoting traditional marriage.

And then there are the personal attacks: One of their tactics is to put out a cash bounty for personal information—including home addresses, places of employment, email addresses, and phone numbers—of feminists who upset them. The deluge of hate mail, rape and death threats for those on the receiving end of these witch hunts is hard to describe.

One young woman, who got in a heated argument with a men’s rights activist at a protest in Canada, was subsequently dubbed as “little red frothing fornication mouth” by AVFM and had all of her private contact information published by MRAs. She received hundreds of elaborate threats of violence. One anonymous commenter invited her to “enjoy being anally defiled.” Another gloated: “I would actually cum cutting that bitch’s throat.” Another outspoken feminist told me personally that she had to get the FBI and the state police involved when AVFM targeted her. Authorities found the threats she received so credible that they advised her to leave home for two weeks, taking her husband and young child with her. Increasingly, men's rights activists target women offline as well. Last month, members of the organization Men’s Rights Edmonton hung large “wanted”-style posters of a professor all over the University of Alberta campus, calling her a bigot. Her crime? She was involved in the university’s anti-rape campaign.

[...]

These targeted hate campaigns are common enough that they’re a risk I and everyone else have to contemplate when we consider speaking out against the men's rights groups or simply sharing a feminist opinion online. Making it terrifying to speak out discourages women from doing so, limiting our ability to participate fully in the digital public square. It’s not hyperbole to say that this kind of terror campaign prevents women from participating in our democracy on equal footing with men.

And make no mistake: anti-woman hate is the defining feature of the MRAs, and the examples above are the rule, not the exception. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a storied civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, told 20/20: "The Manosphere is an underworld of so-called men's rights groups and individuals on the Internet, which is just fraught with really hard-line anti-woman misogyny.” A Voice For Men makes no excuses for their hatred of women, from posts ranting about women who are “begging to be raped” to treatises about how fat women want to be sexually violated because it would mean we are desired. Warren Farrell, the aforementioned “father” of the modern MRAs—he openly called date rape “exciting” and said that incest can be a good thing—has recently signed on as a regular AVFM contributor. For over a year, AVFM hosted in their “activism” section a call to firebomb courthouses written by a man who actually lit himself on fire in front of one. Paul Elam himself wrote an infamous post in which he vowed that, should he ever be called to serve on the jury for a rape trial, he would vote to acquit even if he believed the defendant was guilty.

As bad as Men's Rights Activists are for women (and, really, for our collective humanity), they’re also doing harm to the causes they claim to care about. When an AVFM contributor in Australia called a hotline posing as a man being beaten by his wife and needing a shelter for himself and his son, he claims he was denied help. But if you listen to the recording (or read the transcript), you can clearly hear the counselor on the other line offer multiple forms of assistance, including a free hotel for himself and his son, a direct connection to a police officer specializing in domestic violence, and more. Far from their tagline “compassion for men and boys,” this incident reveals that MRAs are happy to abandon men and boys to real danger when it suits their hate campaign against women.

[...]

It’s hardly the “End of Men” these days (really, Hannah Rosin, get a grip). But as Ann Friedman (no relation, alas) writes in New York magazine, “America is finally getting around to having the conversation about what it means to be a man that, decades ago, feminism forced us to have about womanhood … [E]ven the most ideologically progressive men are just now starting to talk about how to break with masculine stereotypes and still hang onto a sense of gender identity.” It’s the very real pain caused by these systemic problems and cultural anxieties that Men's Rights Activists are all-too-eager to exploit.

Of course, you’ll find women (and, gasp!, even feminists) in leadership in most of the institutions actually working to make life safer for men. It’s feminists who fought a long and recently successful battle to ensure that male victims are included in the FBI’s definition of rape. Some feminists are working to integrate the military so that the burden of war doesn’t just fall on men, and some are working against the militarism that not only enables rape in the armed forces, but underpins the narrow, confining cultural ideas about masculinity that make so many men feel trapped. Feminists have ensured that, through the Violence Against Women Act that MRAs oppose, the overall rate of intimate partner violence in the U.S. declined 64 percent between 1994 and 2010, and that decline is distributed evenly between male and female victims.

It’s hard to know what to do about MRAs beyond taking every possible opportunity to expose them as the hatemongers they are. But I think that the above list of feminist victories for men provides a clue. When she interviewed me for the 20/20 segment, Elizabeth Vargas asked me if I wanted to curtail MRA’s right to free speech, noting that even Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) has the right to protest. I agreed with her then as I do now, and I advocate the same response that’s been so successful against the WBC: rather than try to stop them, we make a peaceful human chain to blunt their hate and counter it with love. In the case of MRAs, we can do that by continuing to work to improve the lives of both men and women, and to end all forms of gender oppression. There’s nothing like the truth to expose a lie.

 

[Jacob]

I think there are some "men's issues" that deserve attention from society. For example, the notion that men can't be caregivers or around children because they're all potential pedophiles is messed up. I don't know if this really needs a "movement" to fix, but raising awareness about it isn't a bad thing.

That said, the whole "men's rights" label is so tarnished by the people who popularized it (and a little pretentious to begin with, since men have never had to campaign for society to recognize them as people) that I don't see any good in using it.

 

[Vesmir]

I dislike that, as a male educator, I am more scrutinized by my peers, and that I am unable to work in a room with students without another (female) adult. But I attribute that more to the prevalence of perversion from certain members of society fucking up the situation rather than my "rights" as a "man".

 

[CLEEK]

Is there as reason I'm missing why anti-MRA commentators seem to group together men's rights with PUAs as if they're one in the same thing?

 

[Gawge]

Feminism is the movement which solves any issues of 'men's rights'.

 

[CornBurrito]

Those stats on the Violence Against Women act are very pleasing. 64% decline between both genders. Why are MRAs against it exactly?

 

[zero shift]

The problem with Men's Rights Activists is that much like their "counterparts", the feminists, its full of social outcasts who take the philosophy way overboard.

 

[User 100115]

As bad as Men's Rights Activists are for women (and, really, for our collective humanity), they’re also doing harm to the causes they claim to care about.

This upsets me SO MUCH.

There are legitimate issues that need to be fixed with regard to men's rights, and these assholes are making it impossible to talk about those issues without attracting the sort of people they produce. They also make it impossible to talk about women's issues without attracting them either, though in a more vile context.

 

[Mumei]

SPE: As mentioned in the article, they are motivated by some of the same ideas (i.e. female hypergamy), though they differ in their responses to this and what they think it means.

I think there are some "men's issues" that deserve attention from society. For example, the notion that men can't be caregivers or around children because they're all potential pedophiles is messed up. I don't know if this really needs a "movement" to fix, but raising awareness about it isn't a bad thing.

I agree. While I think that the notion that men can't be caregivers is best dealt with by deconstructing traditional gender roles that associate caregiving with women and not men, I'm not sure exactly should be done about the idea that men are potential pedophiles. I don't know what can be done besides education about how rare pedophiles actually are.

One idea I've read is that it is related to the construction of sex with men as predators and women as prey, which creates double standards in how we view the same events (see discussions about sexual assault where changing nothing but the gender does often change people's perceptions of what transpired), and possibly encourages us to view men as "predatory" in other contexts. If this is the case, then deconstructing the "predator-prey" construction might be a place to start.

 

[pizza dog]

The problem with Men's Rights Activists is that much like their "counterparts", the feminists, its full of social outcasts who take the philosophy way overboard.

You are part of the problem. "social outcasts", unprovoked potshots at feminism. Give me a break.

 

[Trey]

I have very rarely agreed with this movement, and when I did, I didn't agree with the degree of their arguments.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Custody rights and a less claustrophobic public sentiment relating men and pedophilia ought to be the focus. All of these little groups positing "men's rights" should go home or get out of the spotlight—the mainstream media loves them, methinks.

 

[jerry1594]

Eh the majority of these people are just fronting as MRAs to spew misogynist garbage. Just like the so called white rights movement. It's ridiculous.

 

[Legendary_Red]

Men's Rights Movements are hard to find because our society is still essentially a patriarchy. Men still dominate the corporate, political, and entrepreneur spheres.

The majority of men, such as myself, don't perceive any sort of widespread discrimination that many women do, hence the lack of widespread movements apart from a few fringe groups.

 

[Lynd7]

I dislike that, as a male educator, I am more scrutinized by my peers, and that I am unable to work in a room with students without another (female) adult. But I attribute that more to the prevalence of perversion from certain members of society fucking up the situation rather than my "rights" as a "man".

Thats silly. You really can't be the sole teacher in a room? Its sad that male educators and teachers are becoming more and more rare, there should be a balance.

 

[CLEEK]

Feminism is the movement which solves any issues of 'men's rights'.

If you look at child custody and divorce, which are two of the bigger hot topics in the men's rights movement, then the current laws around these have come from successful feminist campaigning.

As you would have expected from a patriarchal society - literally, where fathers have control over wives and children - up until laws where changed, the default for centuries were fathers got control over children, and divorce was heavily weighted in favour of men.

So feminism won't be the answer to these points of contention for MRAs.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

A metaphor I've used before: feminism, for all the foul balls it hits (especially when you get into the sphere of Academic feminism, whether it be the gibberish of a Judith Butler or the disingenuous argumentation of someone like Michael S. Kimmel), is at least hitting the ball in the right direction and scoring some runs. Men's Rights Activism will get on base occasionally, but only because they get beaned with the ball.

 

[Uncledick]

"One young woman, who got in a heated argument with a men’s rights activist at a protest in Canada, was subsequently dubbed as “little red frothing fornication mouth” by AVFM and had all of her private contact information published by MRAs. She received hundreds of elaborate threats of violence. One anonymous commenter invited her to “enjoy being anally defiled.” Another gloated: “I would actually cum cutting that bitch’s throat.” Another outspoken feminist told me personally that she had to get the FBI and the state police involved when AVFM targeted her. Authorities found the threats she received so credible that they advised her to leave home for two weeks, taking her husband and young child with her. Increasingly, men's rights activists target women offline as well. Last month, members of the organization Men’s Rights Edmonton hung large “wanted”-style posters of a professor all over the University of Alberta campus, calling her a bigot. Her crime? She was involved in the university’s anti-rape campaign."

I saw that in the news up here in Canada, that lady was protesting the MRA's and was in their face yelling fuck you and calling them all rapists. That is going to illicit a response. A disgusting one, but a response nevertheless.

As for the article, I have been noticing a big upward movement of MRA activity, at least on the net. It's kind of all connected. You can start looking at dating tips/marriage tips for men and wind up on some pretty extreme MRA sites. Guess it's how they are gaining in popularity.

Some things do need to change though, as far is how men are perceived around children, divorce, child custody, abuse against men and higher education.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

If you look at child custody and divorce, which are two of the bigger hot topics in the men's rights movement, then the current laws around these have come from successful feminist campaigning.

As you would have expected from a patriarchal society - literally, where fathers have control over wives and children - up until laws where changed, the default for centuries were fathers got control over children, and divorce was heavily weighted in favour of men.

So feminism won't be the answer to these points of contention for MRAs.

This argument exists in a vacuum where there aren't stats on how many men actually don't want custody: http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2012/04/child_supportcu.html

 

[ixix]

In a lot of ways the Men's Rights Movement is a really depressing thing to me. It's the product of a large (and, from all that I've seen, growing) number of men who feel dissatisfied with, constrained by, or actively harmed by the prescribed roles they're expected to assume in the context of larger society, but who perceive no productive avenues of redress for their problems and who resort to highly reactionary movements as a result.

It's a real shame, and the derision that they're subjected to as a result of the movement's propensity for lashing out only further hardens their perception of being outsiders in -- or, worse, being fundamentally opposed to -- mainstream movements seeking to combat harmful gender roles. And so legitimate issues end up turned into fodder for demagogues and the difficulties members experience in areas where they're out of sync with society's expectations for them get morphed into a nebulous casus belli against people that really ought to be their friends.

Whole situation's clownshoes. I hate it.

 

[Karkador]

I'm not sure what more can be said other than MRA works the least (and that is, not at all) when its aim is to take down feminism like they're the enemy. The same can be said about feminism, but I think the movement as a whole is beyond that now, despite how some people try to characterize it.

I don't think there's anything wrong or sexist about having compartmentalized movements that raise an issue for one gender (having a "feminism" or a "MRA"), but I also believe that people can probably do more than one thing at once, play for both teams and subscribe to both newsletters.

The in-fighting over what is essentially the same umbrella topic ("let's fix gender disparities and gender dynamics") is holding everyone back.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

I really find the current state of the masculist movement both terrifying and a tragedy. It's effectively undeniable that at the moment there is little more to it than a core of hate-spewing misogynistic bigots desperate to return to the kyriarchal structures that enabled their dominance and the suppression of women. At the same time, I firmly believe that a well-educated and carefully nurtured masculist movement that serves as a complement to the feminist movement and pursues the same aims but with different scopes of action would advance both the cause of men and women, in a number of ways, and the fact we're incapable of realizing that is quite sad. It's difficult and I can't see it happening any time in the near future, but I think the only solution is for those interested in gender equality but with the knowledge or capabilities to focus more on the male scope to come out and identify as masculist, to denounce the current cesspit that is the men's rights movement, and to work alongside the feminist movement to the best of their capabilities - to reclaim the movement, in other words.

 

[Pau]

I dislike that, as a male educator, I am more scrutinized by my peers, and that I am unable to work in a room with students without another (female) adult. But I attribute that more to the prevalence of perversion from certain members of society fucking up the situation rather than my "rights" as a "man".

Damn. That's fucked up. How old are your students, if you don't mind me asking, and does your school place the same limitations in teachers of older students? I can't see something like this being legal in something like a public school.

One idea I've read is that it is related to the construction of sex with men as predators and women as prey, which creates double standards in how we view the same events (see discussions about sexual assault where changing nothing but the gender does often change people's perceptions of what transpired), and possibly encourages us to view men as "predatory" in other contexts. If this is the case, then deconstructing the "predator-prey" construction might be a place to start.

I think using more gender neutral language about things such as sexual assault would definitely help, yeah. Not only does it discourage pigeonholing one gender as the predatory and the other as the victim, but it also keeps us from erasing the very real experiences of male victims of both female and male sexual assault as well as female victims of female sexual assault.

 

[CLEEK]

This argument exists in a vacuum where there aren't stats on how many men actually don't want custody: http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2012/04/child_supportcu.html

I think it is more around the Tender years doctrine and how that still has its hooks in some countries laws.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

I do think that there needs to be a separate men's movement, apart from feminism, as feminism, in my experience, seems to have implicit in it that idea that masculinity has been basically harmful, that it's basic contribution has been oppression and violence. "Masculinity studies" are rarely about the positives a masculine blueprint can provide to a man as he comes into himself, as most of the testimonials I've seen tend to revolve around how psychologically harmful it apparently has been to be told to "be a man" (a contention I find kinda ridiculous, and I tend to think that such has been a convenient scapegoat for folks whose problems root elsewhere). Given most men's issues have less to do with men being "oppressed" than with problems that exist inside of a larger system that still generally favors them, I tend to think a separate subgroup focusing on those things is necessary, while feminism focuses on the bigger picture of things like rape, pay discrimination, etc.

 

[Mumei]

Vesmir, do they follow the same policy for female teachers? If not, I'm not sure why you couldn't point out how this is discriminatory. And frankly, if they really believe that you are a danger, they shouldn't have hired you in the first place. If they don't believe you are a danger, they should support you instead of tacitly encouraging the idea that you're a danger.

This argument exists in a vacuum where there aren't stats on how many men actually don't want custody: http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2012/04/child_supportcu.html

Right. It also doesn't address the fact that the trend has been in the direction of men being more likely to be awarded sole custody, and an increasing trend of default shared custody (which feminists oppose for a number of reasons, most of which are explained in the article I'm about to quote!).

This isn't just true in the United States; it is also true in the UK:

There's only one snag: there's no evidence to suggest that courts are biased against fathers. For one thing, only 10% of child custody cases end up in court, and of those that do a tiny percentage result in limited contact orders. In 2010, only 300 of 95,000 litigated custody cases resulted in the father being prevented from seeing his child, and a 2008 study by Joan Hunt and Alison Macleod showed that when fathers do make contact requests, they nearly always get what they're asking for.

The few custody cases that do result in court are the most troubled – often involving domestic violence, drug abuse and alcoholism. It is bizarre, then, that these are precisely the cases that the government has decided should be granted shared custody, against the advice of David Norgrove's Family Justice Review, a study commissioned by the government to investigate these very matters. Indeed the Australian government faced so many difficulties when it introduced shared custody arrangements that in 2011 it was forced to make an amendment emphasising safety as the priority of any settlement. The Australian government also funded a sophisticated screening system for domestic violence to try to keep victims safe – something our government is unlikely to do.

 

[Dead Man]

I’ve got a tiny taste of this last month. When word spread that I was going to be featured on 20/20, A Voice For Men published a hit piece, calling me a bad feminist (for criticizing Naomi Wolf), accusing me of demonizing male sexuality, and simultaneously suggesting that my bisexuality means I haven’t slept with enough men to have valid opinions about them, that I’m too fat and ugly to get a man to sleep with me, and that I’m a miserable slut who needs to manipulate other women into validating me. The comments thread features someone with the pseudonym Theseus saying “I would love to see a you tube [sic] vid with a heckler in the audience shouting out ‘Hey uh Jackie, I think a dude raping you is the least of your fucking problems’!!” Another commenter promised to do just that. As a survivor of sexual assault, threats like this shake me almost physically. While they never silence me, they always unsettle and exhaust me.

Jesus, that is some vile shit. Fucking sociopathioc wankers.

I dislike that, as a male educator, I am more scrutinized by my peers, and that I am unable to work in a room with students without another (female) adult. But I attribute that more to the prevalence of perversion from certain members of society fucking up the situation rather than my "rights" as a "man".

What the hell? Where is this?

This upsets me SO MUCH.

There are legitimate issues that need to be fixed with regard to men's rights, and these assholes are making it impossible to talk about those issues without attracting the sort of people they produce. They also make it impossible to talk about women's issues without attracting them either, though in a more vile context.

Oh god, this right here, so, so much. This is part of why I would like there to be a new umbrella term for people worried about gender and society, to try and get men involved without attracting the psychopaths. Feminism is the right approach I think, but the name just drives so many men away from interacting with it, then they end up contacting the misogynist groups to vent their frustrations instead of having a discourse about it.

Edit:

Right. It also doesn't address the fact that the trend has been in the direction of men being more likely to be awarded sole custody, and an increasing trend of default shared custody (which feminists oppose for a number of reasons, most of which are explained in the article I'm about to quote!).

This isn't just true in the United States; it is also true in the UK:

Not sure I agree with the conclusion that shared custody promotion is dangerous. Any custody arrangement being promoted is dangerous if it is promoted above all else. Custody defaulting to the mother or father alone is no different. In the absence of danger to the child, shared custody should be the norm if practicable. It is about ensuring safety is the primary concern, and if that is met, then shared custody should be the norm. If it is not safe due to a risk from either parent, then of course it should not be granted in that case.

 

[Kai Dracon]

I wonder how much the current state of men's rights movement is affected by the internet popularizing it. There are a whoooooole lot of resentful, eager young(ish) males on the internet who pretty much power a global hate machine. Endless hate, desperately seeking an outlet.

This sort of thing seems perfect to snatch up all these guys, and give them a specific target. Even better, the target being women, the people who are most likely to have habitually given those types of guys shit in life. (Like the saying goes "It's not that all women hate you buddy. You're just that much of an asshole.")

 

[Uncledick]

This argument exists in a vacuum where there aren't stats on how many men actually don't want custody: http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2012/04/child_supportcu.html

I analyzed the Massachusetts study that you refer to and found that it was quite shoddy and unsupported in its conclusions. I briefly discuss the problems with it in this column: http://www.cathyyoung.net/bgcolumns/2004/divorce.html

Basically, the biggest problem with the study is that it did not separate contested from uncontested custody cases. Many of the cases in which the father received custody were ones in which this arrangement was achieved by mutual agreement.

Overall, when the father asked for sole custody, he received it 44% of the time. When the mother asked for sole custody, she received it 75% of the time, and the vast majority of the rest received joint legal/primary physical custody.

Also, at one point in the study, the authors actually state that female non-custodial parents are disproportionately likely to have either mental/emotional problems or physical handicaps (this is stated in explaining why women who do not have primary custody are far less likely than men to have child support obligations imposed on them). This suggests that cases in which mothers lose custody are not entirely typical and often, fathers only seek custody when the mother is in some way "unfit."

I haven't looked at the studies claiming that false allegations of sexual abuse in divorce cases are quite rare, but just looking at your summary, I wonder what role the investigators' and the judges' own biases played in these conclusions -- especially the conclusion that 21% of sexual abuse allegations by fathers against mothers were intentionally false, as opposed to 1.3% of those made by men. Could this be because "everyone knows" that women don't molest kids, so an allegation by the father against the mother is far more likely to be seen as intentionally false?

Not to shamelessly toot my own horn, but I discuss divorce/custody issues pretty extensively in my book Ceasefire; it was published in 1999, so the data is somewhat out of date by now, but you may still find it to be of interest.

Posted by: Cathy Young at April 18, 2012 06:13 PM

A quote from the comments on that article. I guess it sort of explains a bit of who is more likely to get sole custody when they ask for it (women), and for men that get sole custody it's usually cause of mental/emotional/physical handicaps of their wife.

 

[Karkador]

I wonder how much the current state of men's rights movement is affected by the internet popularizing it. There are a whoooooole lot of resentful, eager young(ish) males on the internet who pretty much power a global hate machine. Endless hate, desperately seeking an outlet.

Despite the examples provided, I think this is a pretty unfair characterization of MRA.

Of course, if your idea is just "a men's issues movement that is interested in working alongside feminists where their issues intersect, instead of reflexively against them," then we're basically saying the same thing.

The way I see it, a "men's issues movement" is for every time a women's movement has to concede that they can't fix everyone's problems. I don't expect one group of people to be able to do everything, but that's why you get more people involved. If getting more things done means having different factions under the same banner, then that's a good thing, right?

 

[Mumei]

I do think that there needs to be a separate men's movement, apart from feminism, as feminism, in my experience, seems to have implicit in it that idea that masculinity has been basically harmful, that it's basic contribution has been oppression and violence.

I don't know that there needs to be a separate men's movement so much as feminism needs more participation from men whose participation is directed towards the issues affecting men and boys. There already women and men in feminism who does this sort of work, but I would agree that men would be the best advocates of issues that particularly affect men.

Of course, if your idea is just "a men's issues movement that is interested in working alongside feminists where their issues intersect, instead of reflexively against them," then we're basically saying the same thing.

 

[zero shift]

You are part of the problem. "social outcasts", unprovoked potshots at feminism. Give me a break.

You can ridicule me all you want, but while these movements have good points you would be foolish to deny that there are crazies on both sides of the alter that damage the initial arguments of these groups. This is why people don't take them that seriously.

 

[timetokill]

I definitely feel the need for a "masculist" or what-have-you movement, without the anti-feminist bent. I think that, by default, necessity, etymology or whatever else have you, feminism alone simply cannot or will not address a lot of issues facing males in modern and future societies.

There are issues, such as men basically being chased out of the classroom, that I think will have long-lasting impacts on how our boys grow up. I've heard from too many fathers that their male children feel excluded or even somewhat vilified in school for the way their gender socializes. These are boys that are growing up in a very female-dominated environment, where they don't have a lot of present male role models to look up to and learn from. Instead, that falls on their fathers outside of school (if present), and then onto music artists, sports figures, and so on.

When I was in school I remember all the things the boys were interested in doing at recess slowly but surely being banned. First you couldn't play dodgeball. Then, you couldn't play tag. We only had two basketballs so if you weren't able to get one for you and your friends, you were basically left with no outlet. Nobody wanted to play jump rope with the girls, or hopskotch or whatever. And if we did, we couldn't play it the way we wanted to. The girls would tell on you constantly, etc -- just a different social experience than what boys often grow up in. The end result is you end up with a lot of frustrated boys who feel like they're being punished for being boys, and no male adults to talk to about it because they're not around. I get that from a lot of fathers today which says to me that it hasn't changed much. I think this is being borne out in how males today are doing worse and worse in our educational system.

These issues and others have been brought up... fathers' rights, lack of funding for many men's medical issues, suicides, male rape, male incarceration... the immediate suspicion of any male with a child as being a pedophile, and so on.

These are important issues, and unfortunately most "MRAs" are torpedoing these causes because they're using them as shields for anti-women crusades... which then causes women and feminsts to dismiss the issues out of hand because they suspect ulterior motives.

I'm not sure how to solve the problem, but all I know is there is a problem, and when these things don't have safety valves they have a tendency to blow up.

 

[Femmeworth]

I do think that there needs to be a separate men's movement, apart from feminism, as feminism, in my experience, seems to have implicit in it that idea that masculinity has been basically harmful, that it's basic contribution has been oppression and violence. "Masculinity studies" are rarely about the positives a masculine blueprint can provide to a man as he comes into himself, as most of the testimonials I've seen tend to revolve around how psychologically harmful it apparently has been to be told to "be a man" (a contention I find kinda ridiculous, and I tend to think that such has been a convenient scapegoat for folks whose problems root elsewhere). Given most men's issues have less to do with men being "oppressed" than with problems that exist inside of a larger system that still generally favors them, I tend to think a separate subgroup focusing on those things is necessary, while feminism focuses on the bigger picture of things like rape, pay discrimination, etc.

I don't know, I think making a divide will do more harm than good. (Obviously there already is a divide to an extent.) Political theory really needs to be consulted and applied.

 

[cyclonekruse]

Men's Rights Movements are hard to find because our society is still essentially a patriarchy. Men still dominate the corporate, political, and entrepreneur spheres.

Part of that might have something to do with men being, on average, more likely to take risks than women. As they say, fortune favors the bold. You can't get to the top without taking risks. If men are more likely (again on average) to take those risks, they're more likely to end up on top (as well as on bottom when the risk-taking results in failure).

The majority of men, such as myself, don't perceive any sort of widespread discrimination that many women do, hence the lack of widespread movements apart from a few fringe groups.

Lack of perception of discrimination doesn't, in and of itself, mean much. You could simply be oblivious to the discrimination you face. Or the discrimination may not exist.

 

[Uncledick]

I'm not sure how to solve the problem, but all I know is there is a problem, and when these things don't have safety valves they have a tendency to blow up.

Exactly. There needs to be a safety net for rational, calm discussions about these topics. Because something far uglier/violent may be created.

 

[teh_pwn]

I definitely feel the need for a "masculist" or what-have-you movement, without the anti-feminist bent. I think that, by default, necessity, etymology or whatever else have you, feminism alone simply cannot or will not address a lot of issues facing males in modern and future societies.

There are issues, such as men basically being chased out of the classroom, that I think will have long-lasting impacts on how our boys grow up. I've heard from too many fathers that their male children feel excluded or even somewhat vilified in school for the way their gender socializes. These are boys that are growing up in a very female-dominated environment, where they don't have a lot of present male role models to look up to and learn from. Instead, that falls on their fathers outside of school (if present), and then onto music artists, sports figures, and so on.

When I was in school I remember all the things the boys were interested in doing at recess slowly but surely being banned. First you couldn't play dodgeball. Then, you couldn't play tag. We only had two basketballs so if you weren't able to get one for you and your friends, you were basically left with no outlet. Nobody wanted to play jump rope with the girls, or hopskotch or whatever. And if we did, we couldn't play it the way we wanted to. The girls would tell on you constantly, etc -- just a different social experience than what boys often grow up in. The end result is you end up with a lot of frustrated boys who feel like they're being punished for being boys, and no male adults to talk to about it because they're not around. I get that from a lot of fathers today which says to me that it hasn't changed much. I think this is being borne out in how males today are doing worse and worse in our educational system.

These issues and others have been brought up... fathers' rights, lack of funding for many men's medical issues, suicides, male rape, male incarceration... the immediate suspicion of any male with a child as being a pedophile, and so on.

These are important issues, and unfortunately most "MRAs" are torpedoing these causes because they're using them as shields for anti-women crusades... which then causes women and feminsts to dismiss the issues out of hand because they suspect ulterior motives.

I'm not sure how to solve the problem, but all I know is there is a problem, and when these things don't have safety valves they have a tendency to blow up.

I agree with basically everything you said.

I also don't like the gender profiling with cases of sexual assault. I find it to be discrimination to both genders by implying one doesn't have equality autonomy/responsibility, and the other is guilty until proven innocent. And in rape, the disparity between sentences - teachers are a good example. Now this I'm just observing; if anyone has data to dispel it please do so.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

I definitely feel the need for a "masculist" or what-have-you movement, without the anti-feminist bent. I think that, by default, necessity, etymology or whatever else have you, feminism alone simply cannot or will not address a lot of issues facing males in modern and future societies.

There are issues, such as men basically being chased out of the classroom, that I think will have long-lasting impacts on how our boys grow up. I've heard from too many fathers that their male children feel excluded or even somewhat vilified in school for the way their gender socializes. These are boys that are growing up in a very female-dominated environment, where they don't have a lot of present male role models to look up to and learn from. Instead, that falls on their fathers outside of school (if present), and then onto music artists, sports figures, and so on.

When I was in school I remember all the things the boys were interested in doing at recess slowly but surely being banned. First you couldn't play dodgeball. Then, you couldn't play tag. We only had two basketballs so if you weren't able to get one for you and your friends, you were basically left with no outlet. Nobody wanted to play jump rope with the girls, or hopskotch or whatever. And if we did, we couldn't play it the way we wanted to. The girls would tell on you constantly, etc -- just a different social experience than what boys often grow up in. The end result is you end up with a lot of frustrated boys who feel like they're being punished for being boys, and no male adults to talk to about it because they're not around. I get that from a lot of fathers today which says to me that it hasn't changed much. I think this is being borne out in how males today are doing worse and worse in our educational system.

These issues and others have been brought up... fathers' rights, lack of funding for many men's medical issues, suicides, male rape, male incarceration... the immediate suspicion of any male with a child as being a pedophile, and so on.

These are important issues, and unfortunately most "MRAs" are torpedoing these causes because they're using them as shields for anti-women crusades... which then causes women and feminsts to dismiss the issues out of hand because they suspect ulterior motives.

I'm not sure how to solve the problem, but all I know is there is a problem, and when these things don't have safety valves they have a tendency to blow up.

This is basically what I meant by my post - being a boy/man is different than being a girl/woman, and I've never seen any prominent "mainstream" feminist, male or female, that has ever displayed any real understanding of that experience. And without such an understanding, any attempt at tackling men's issues is simply not going to satisfactorily succeed. "Down with the patriarchy!" and "Deconstruct the gender roles!" may be nice rallying cries, admirable goals (to an extent, in the latter case), but I don't think they're the panacea that feminists often want them to be.

 

[Gotchaye]

You can ridicule me all you want, but while these movements have good points you would be foolish to deny that there are crazies on both sides of the alter that damage the initial arguments of these groups. This is why people don't take them that seriously.

There are crazies in every movement, though. Some movements are nevertheless taken seriously. This doesn't have much explanatory power. MRAs (that identify with the larger movement, etc.) seem overall crazy, and that's a good reason not to take them seriously, but mainstream feminism is sensible enough that one suspects that to the extent it's not taken seriously the existence of convenient crazies is merely an excuse.

These are important issues, and unfortunately most "MRAs" are torpedoing these causes because they're using them as shields for anti-women crusades... which then causes women and feminsts to dismiss the issues out of hand because they suspect ulterior motives.

To expand on this, it's very much a problem that language means what it's used to mean. That large numbers of people are using the sort of rhetoric one might naively suppose would be reserved for legitimate causes as cover for some really disturbing stuff makes it very hard to talk about the legitimate causes. We see this in a lot of other areas too. To pick an example that at least doesn't have much to do with bigotry, directly, in the US it's basically impossible for a national politician to talk about reining in "wasteful spending" so as to communicate that he or she is actually interested in making government spending more efficient. There aren't any words that can communicate this concept, because all the likely phrases are used as euphemisms for cutting spending regardless of efficiency. An example more like the MRA thing would be what we might call "white people's issues". That's nearly impossible to talk about because all of the language that one might want to use is tainted with racism.

 

[Sub_Level]

I don't know if the whole mental health problem with men has anything to do with rights. A lot of guys are, just by their very nature, less social creatures so they're perhaps not as likely to talk with family, friends, and professionals about personal mental problems (many of which I doubt are exclusive to men, including feels of alienation or companionship failings)

And yeah sometimes I feel a little more pressure by society in some ways as a young male. Like people treat me with more apprehension and expect more. I'm solely defined by what value (be it in the form of currency or ability) I can bring to the table, at least upon first impression. But it's like whatever, if you asked me if I would have rather been a girl I would say no lol. And again I wouldn't denominate this as a rights issue, it's a cultural perception dealio that could probably be fixed by being more lax with male displays of value or more lax with sexual pressures on women.

 

[Dead Man]

I don't know if the whole mental health problem with men has anything to do with rights. A lot of guys are, just by their very nature, less social creatures so they're perhaps not as likely to talk with family, friends, and professionals about personal mental problems (many of which I doubt are exclusive to men, including feels of alienation or companionship failings)

And yeah sometimes I feel a little more pressure by society in some ways as a young male. Like people treat me with more apprehension and expect more. I'm solely defined by what value (be it in the form of currency or ability) I can bring to the table, at least upon first impression. But it's like whatever, if you asked me if I would have rather been a girl I would say no lol. And again I wouldn't denominate this as a rights issue, it's a cultural perception dealio that could probably be fixed by being more lax with male displays of value or more lax with sexual pressures on women.

The way it relates to mental health is quite often a lack of resources aimed at getting men out of those shells of self sufficiency and showing that seeking help isn't weak. There have been several very good campaigns in Australia about this, and about rural mens health too.

 

[ronito]

I wish that MRAs could see the amount of damage they do to their own cause. They're sorta like the tea party of men's right's issues.

A good example I was complaining to a co-worker that I had called my daughter in sick at school the school then went and called her mom because "it was a man calling in and they wanted to make sure she hadn't been abducted."

Now I think that's a legitimate complaint/issue. Just because I'm a man with a teenaged daughter doesn't make me a pedophile or a kidnapper by default. But this coworker went off on a tirade about how feminists had skewed the whole of society against men making them either sugar daddies or criminals and how it'd all gone so wrong. And I just sighed and left it there because that's not going to move anything forward. It's the same thing with MRAs, yeah there's lot of stuff in the family law system that needs to be fixed. Yes,there's a lot that needs to be fixed with the incarceration of men. Yes, there needs to be a lot changed in men/homophobia. But you can't move any of those forward because these raving individuals are on a crusade against women.

 

[Sub_Level]

The way it relates to mental health is quite often a lack of resources aimed at getting men out of those shells of self sufficiency and showing that seeking help isn't weak. There have been several very good campaigns in Australia about this, and about rural mens health too.

Oh I agree and that's awesome that Australia is doin' that but I'm just talking semantics because rights to me has always implied something legal or illegal. It's already legal for men to get help and for the help to reach out to men, it's just that push is what is needed. But no rights have to change in the process I don't think.

A good example I was complaining to a co-worker that I had called my daughter in sick at school the school then went and called her mom because "it was a man calling in and they wanted to make sure she hadn't been abducted."

A couple years ago I went to go pick up my little sister from 7th grade and I wasn't on the contact list sheet so I had to spend 10 minutes calling my dad and getting him to verify that I was ok to pick her up. They probably would've been at least a little less wary if I was a woman, but if I was in their shoes I probably would've done the same. It's like complaining about women walking across the street to the other sidewalk when you're walking towards them because you could be a serial killer rapist. It sucks but it's like the unfortunate realities of the world we live in, cautious behavior has facilitated self preservation for thousands of years so why stop now just because in the last couple hundred we've become a bit more civilized overall? (and some would debate the civilized part >_>)

 

[highrider]

I don't know if the whole mental health problem with men has anything to do with rights. A lot of guys are, just by their very nature, less social creatures so they're perhaps not as likely to talk with family, friends, and professionals about personal mental problems (many of which I doubt are exclusive to men, including feels of alienation or companionship failings)

And yeah sometimes I feel a little more pressure by society in some ways as a young male. Like people treat me with more apprehension and expect more.I'm solely defined by what value (be it in the form of currency or ability) I can bring to the table, at least upon first impression. But it's like whatever, if you asked me if I would have rather been a girl I would say no lol. And again I wouldn't denominate this as a rights issue, it's a cultural perception dealio that could probably be fixed by being more lax with male displays of value or more lax with sexual pressures on women.

I really appreciated and identified with this, particularly the bolded.

 

[Uncledick]

I wish that MRAs could see the amount of damage they do to their own cause. They're sorta like the tea party of men's right's issues.

A good example I was complaining to a co-worker that I had called my daughter in sick at school the school then went and called her mom because "it was a man calling in and they wanted to make sure she hadn't been abducted."

Now I think that's a legitimate complaint/issue. Just because I'm a man with a teenaged daughter doesn't make me a pedophile or a kidnapper by default. But this coworker went off on a tirade about how feminists had skewed the whole of society against men making them either sugar daddies or criminals and how it'd all gone so wrong. And I just sighed and left it there because that's not going to move anything forward. It's the same thing with MRAs, yeah there's lot of stuff in the family law system that needs to be fixed. Yes,there's a lot that needs to be fixed with the incarceration of men. Yes, there needs to be a lot changed in men/homophobia. But you can't move any of those forward because these raving individuals are on a crusade against women.

Why aren't we hearing these issues by rational calm males in the news today though? I don't think I've ever seen any of this stuff discussed on TV/Newspapers. Is it cause they also suffer or may possibly suffer from the ravings of (hardcore) feminists that don't want these issues brought up in a public sphere? Again safe environments between rational individuals need to be able available for these discussions.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

And yeah sometimes I feel a little more pressure by society in some ways as a young male. Like people treat me with more apprehension and expect more. I'm solely defined by what value (be it in the form of currency or ability) I can bring to the table, at least upon first impression. But it's like whatever, if you asked me if I would have rather been a girl I would say no lol. And again I wouldn't denominate this as a rights issue, it's a cultural perception dealio that could probably be fixed by being more lax with male displays of value or more lax with sexual pressures on women.

This is a good attitude to have. I think some MRAs get into their mindset because they feel they are valued by others based on things they feel they can't control well, but rather than observing how we've all gotten to that point and how it's all connected, they choose to let themselves become bitter over it in a selfish sort of way.

A quote from the comments on that article. I guess it sort of explains a bit of who is more likely to get sole custody when they ask for it (women), and for men that get sole custody it's usually cause of mental/emotional/physical handicaps of their wife.

Good catch! I'd like to see some more deep studies on the statistics here.

 

[Shao Kahn on the Lawn]

I don't know if the whole mental health problem with men has anything to do with rights. A lot of guys are, just by their very nature, less social creatures so they're perhaps not as likely to talk with family, friends, and professionals about personal mental problems (many of which I doubt are exclusive to men, including feels of alienation or companionship failings)

This begs the question though: are men inherently less likely to be sociable or is their behavior a product of generations of gender-based conditioning? The stoic, strong manly-man who keeps his feelings to himself is still a commonly pursued ideal that is pushed on children in the Western world.

You even see such ideals pushed in common phrasing (IE, "Be a big boy." as a response to a boy's crying, "Take it like a man." in response to a man being upset, etc.)

 

[Jimothy]

I don't know if the whole mental health problem with men has anything to do with rights. A lot of guys are, just by their very nature, less social creatures so they're perhaps not as likely to talk with family, friends, and professionals about personal mental problems (many of which I doubt are exclusive to men, including feels of alienation or companionship failings)

And yeah sometimes I feel a little more pressure by society in some ways as a young male. Like people treat me with more apprehension and expect more. I'm solely defined by what value (be it in the form of currency or ability) I can bring to the table, at least upon first impression. But it's like whatever, if you asked me if I would have rather been a girl I would say no lol. And again I wouldn't denominate this as a rights issue, it's a cultural perception dealio that could probably be fixed by being more lax with male displays of value or more lax with sexual pressures on women.

This is drawing on a lot of anecdotal experiences but...

Yeah, being a male is tough sometimes. Not because of oppression against men or whatever, but the expectations of society that men are supposed to be confident and tough. It seems like society is more forgiving with women when it comes to mental health and self-esteem issues. Men are expected to cowboy up whereas girls have more of a network to draw on as support because they're better socialized from a young age. Maybe I'm seeing things but I see a lot of girls posting on online forums about depression and anxiety, and they usually mention having a significant other. Depressed men have an infinitely tougher job getting into relationships because of society's expectation of men being the pursuer when it comes to the opposite sex. For men with self esteem issues, being a pursuer is pretty much impossible because that takes self-confidence. This is probably why the stereotype of Forever Alone is used way more with men than women. Again, there are exceptions to every rule but in my anecdotal experience, this holds pretty true. It's no wonder young men under 30 commit suicide more than any other demographic. Society views men with no self-confidence as worthless.

I think I would be a pretty big supporter of Men's Rights if they focused more on this issue rather than just hating feminists. As it stands now the movement is nothing more than a hate group, at least according to the SPLC.

 

[captmorgan]

Actually one thing that I would like to see covered by either groups, is education and training in certain fields.
Here in Canada there is thousands of dollars available for women that want to enter the trades or engineering programs.
But there is nothing similar for men that would like to enter health care, nursing, social worker, dental.

A lot of theses programs are a majority women but that never seems to be a problem. Getting men into those positions would probably help to soften society's view on men. And it would free up jobs in trades/eng/business as well.

 

[Jimothy]

Actually one thing that I would like to see covered by either groups, is education and training in certain fields.
Here in Canada there is thousands of dollars available for women that want to enter the trades or engineering programs.
But there is nothing similar for men that would like to enter health care, nursing, social worker, dental.

A lot of theses programs are a majority women but that never seems to be a problem. Getting men into those positions would probably help to soften society's view on men. And it would free up jobs in trades/eng/business as well.

This is a really good point too. Society's attitude towards jobs is deeply rooted in classical gender roles. I think it's time we update them a wee bit.