Fuck your Men’s Rights Activism

[YoungDemCA]

What’s the difference between homophobics, white supremacists and “Men’s Rights Activists”? Absolutely nothing.

snip:

In stark contrast to the group’s name, Men’s Rights Activists focus less (or not at all) on men and men’s issues and more on hate speech against women. In other words, it has simply evolved into an online community of trolls whose genuine loathing of women is nothing short of intensely baffling.

In fact, take a look at some of their well-informed opinions:

One might ask why they harbour such hatred. What could have happened to these poor, first world manboys that they can’t help but take it upon themselves to wish harm and ill to women the world over? Abuse? Mommy issues?

The answer is not that simple. Men’s rights activists came into being in the same way the Red October did:
No matter what society you live in, inequality is innately sewn into its fabric. We have created, continue to create and consistently perpetuate hierarchies – of all kinds. If it’s not race it’s gender, or sexuality, or caste, or wealth.

snip:

But whenever there is an imbalance of power, there will always be a continually amassing resistance against it. We’ve seen it in Apartheid, in U.S slavery, and we’re still seeing it with Syria. The resistance against patriarchy is no different. This is obvious in the tumultuous amount of backlash that feminists have received in their efforts to fight for equality. To the point that the word ‘feminism’ itself has somehow become dirty.

Source: http://www.women24.com/Wellness/BodyAndSpirit/Fuck-your-Mens-Rights-Activism-20131206

[NYC_SKP]

1. Sickening material there.

No less sickening than White Supremacists' trash and bigotry.

I'm ashamed of what some people can do and say.

Just incredibly sad.

[nomorenomore08]

18. +1

"Incredibly sad" is putting it a bit mildly, if anything. "Sickening" sounds more like it.

[seabeyond]

2. at least we are slutty and not frigid. will have more to say later. when i read the rest.

busy elsewhere.

[Warpy]

3. I'm not going to use that broad a brush, there are legitimate issues

like child custody after divorce, where women are still favored. Other issues are the ways men are dismissed as victims of rape and spousal assault.

Unfortunately, the legitimate stuff is quickly drowned out by all the adolescent jackasses and the old jackasses who never progressed emotionally beyond the adolescent stage crabbing that women aren't adhering to whatever script they've written for women's lives.

It's called discipline, fellas. You need to bounce the jerks if you want to be taken seriously. Otherwise, you'll be considered a bunch of ignorant teenagers mixed with bitter divorced men.

[YoungDemCA]

5. Perhaps the broad brush from the author of the article...

...comes from the anger and frustration of dealing with all of the assholes and bigots?

The signal-to-noise ratio is really skewed when it comes to "MRA," and not in a good way.

[Squinch]

8. The issues you cite are legitimate, but MRA groups aren't putting any energy into them at all.

Other than the energy it takes to whine.

This is fear and loathing caused by the loss of unearned advantages. Part of me is grossed out by their terrified hatred. The other part of me says, "Heh, heh, heh. You are not the boss of me, and you never will be! And you finally know it!"

[Warpy]

15. Well, you rarely notice entitlement

until somebody comes along and threatens to take it away or only make you share it.

[nomorenomore08]

19. If more MRA's actually did real work on behalf of "men's issues" - child custody, prisoner abuse etc

- then I might be inclined to think this Men's Rights thing actually had some merit to it. But as I said, most of them are far more concerned with punishing or hurting women any way they can, than with actually helping better the lives of men and boys.

The relative few who are actually decent, well-intentioned human beings should really try and find common ground with feminists - they don't have to be (or declare themselves) feminists, but they should realize that feminism is by large not inimical to men's interests. Quite the contrary.

[Warpy]

21. That's why the web site owners and leadership IRL needs to exercise a little discipline

and bounce the woman haters as simply counterproductive. Were they to concentrate on the issues you mention, they'd get a lot of support from feminists because they are human issues.

[nomorenomore08]

24. Agree all around.

[seabeyond]

27. you were in the thread about the bad mean fems. i did not read it. but the ones that are so out

there. you know, selecting the extremist out of extreme. i was hoping you all were not talking about those of us on du, but who knows. but... what was the most outrageous about these supposed so horrible women that are ultimate in extreme, or us? i remember you agreed about the extreme. i do not even kinda remember the wording.

what was the most horrid that these women (or us) say. i really didnt read what the outrage was with what point of view.

was it the separatist issue. was it the fact women did not want to be around men. was that what was so extreme and so horrid about the women (or us). lol.

what kind of percentage would this be in the female population? pretty damn small. and what was so horrible? that women did not want to be around men. what if they had been raped all thru childhood? i think it takes a pretty damn strong woman to be raped thru out childhood and as an adult be able to still embrace man. but what was really the offense in that thread?

women not wanting to have sex with, not wanting to share space with men?

that would be womans extreme.

lets see what mens extreme is. that is thru out the net. all over the place. in every comment section of net publication that talks about a woman. not a woman that is "asking" for it cause of some kind of sexual whatever. but.... any article that has a woman in it. lets look at the extreme, that is EVERYWHERE. rape, kill, get a froiegn woman to serve not a spoiled western. slut. whore. hit it. do it. fuck it. pass it around.

what is the extreme that our society hears repeatedly in every corner of the net, including du?

when women walk up on a thread that has a woman. no woman in particular, just a woman. a woman in politics. and you hear men say... oh man, i could hit it.

and what is the extreme feminist that is the evil of this world, bringing the downfall, picking on men?

i read this in the mens group a while, while ago. i really do not remember much and i did not read the article or what you all were talking. i am tired of hunting things to blame feminist for. but in the face of this OP i am really curious, what is this extreme feminism that is so so so scary.

[nomorenomore08]

28. Any belief system can be taken to an unreasonable or unrealistic extreme.

And generally I reject the notion of labeling someone an "extremist" just because one doesn't agree with everything they say.

That Men's Group OP - to which my reaction was mostly something like "So what?" - concerned a very small segment of feminists who could be considered a bit off the deep end, certainly a good deal more extreme than, I would think, anyone on DU. Separatism is part of it, yes, also perhaps a view of men as universally predatory - which, depending on one's particular life experiences (trauma etc.) may be somewhat understandable.

And you have a point here, about how "extremes" - violence, hatred, general inhumanity - are in some ways the norm in our society. It's not implausible to suppose that that would give rise to other, equally extreme ways of thinking in response.

Basically, I realize that there are extremes in every group, and it's not something that keeps me up at night. And I find it honestly laughable how some play up the "scary extreme radfem" thing like it's a genuine threat - like Andrea Dworkin come back from the grave to yell at them, or something...

[ismnotwasm]

4. They're no joy, that's for sure

[xulamaude]

6. Rape Tourette's!!!

Oh, that's just...

[mike_c]

7. speaking as a male, I find those comments baffling....

They are very extreme, and I cannot believe that they represent anything remotely close to mainstream male thinking. Even the notion that "men's rights" is a thing worth dwelling upon is basically ridiculous except, I suppose, in some narrow circumstances. But pitting men's rights against women's, as though there are only so many rights to go around and we dudes have to struggle with women to insure they don't get all of them, I mean, that's ludicrous.

I hope the posts you cited are representative only of their misogynist writers' paranoid perspectives. I'm shocked at the bitter tone. The one that repeatedly refers to "western women" sounds like it's layered with cultural and religious paranoia as well. I would be appalled to hear anyone I know express views like those you quoted.

[nomorenomore08]

10. +1

I can't imagine any guy I know subscribing to these ideas - and if he did, I'd certainly want to keep him at a distance. Most of these guys sound like potential (if not actual) rapists and wife-beaters - same pattern of self-righteousness, skewed ethics and naked hostility.

Also, you're correct that it's not a zero sum game. Liberation - which I see both genders as in need of, in different ways - ultimately benefits us all.

[seabeyond]

13. as far as the western thing. that is interesting. for a time i was going into the news comment

sections. there was a lot of men that would go after western women. asian, and south american women are the ones you want. the bow to the man. take care of him and his needs with no whiney. western women are all princesses that are spoiled and demanding, ect....

i did not know

but there were a lotta lotta men talking this. it is not a small amount of men that have this mentality.

[ismnotwasm]

16. Good for you

These guys make a lot of noise though, and are the groups that come up on-line when men need help and are seeking it. There are better organizations not based on hate.

[seabeyond]

17. another issue. when googling. i will type in something about feminism and women and what pops up

is anti women stuff from these groups. young impressionable minds are being fed this garbage or given bogus made up facts.

like, rape victims falsely accuse 45-75%.

that is a horrible thing to teach our boys and young men.

[ismnotwasm]

22. Ew

Like I said they make a lot of noise. And they really are nuts.

[BainsBane]

9. What's the difference between Men's rights activists and men who claim not to be

but invoke the same arguments? Nothing.

[nomorenomore08]

11. Which is why they need to be called out when they invoke said arguments.

For their own benefit as much as anyone's.

[BainsBane]

12. You're the one who goes over there

Have you tried calling them out?

[nomorenomore08]

14. I wasn't telling you or anyone else what to do. Sorry if I came off that way.

And yes, I have expressed doubt and skepticism RE: a number of arguments I've seen there. I try to keep things civil, as much as I can, but sometimes I really get frustrated with certain people's simplistic worldview.

[BainsBane]

20. If you came out and said that, they'd ban you

but that doesn't change the fact that some of the ideas expressed there are the same as MRAsmas.

[nomorenomore08]

23. No disagreement from me. I really have to shake my head at a few of these posts.

Some of the more egregious ones - like (pffft!) galileoreloaded - have been rightly banned from DU, but some of the stuff that gets in just under the radar really isn't becoming of a progressive-leaning site. And you know, I don't think most of these guys are actually bad people, particularly - I do find a certain amount of common ground with them - but like I said, some of their blind spots and inconsistencies frustrate me.

[BainsBane]

25. I think he's back

at least I have a suspicion of who might be him. But since I'm no longer on MIRT, ain't my problem no more.

[nomorenomore08]

26. Yeah, the real assholes always keep coming back, tenaciously... Like drug-resistant bacteria...

[gollygee]

34. Yep.

I think so too.

[BainsBane]

35. Show we yours, I'll show you mine

via PM, of course.

[seabeyond]

38. simpatico... cause i am with you two. nt

[Dash87]

29. The one thing that they all have in common -

they all feel that Feminists have ruined their lives. You can see the anger and hatred through the posts.

[smirkymonkey]

30. What sick crap!

I cannot beleive it. Are there actual men who feel this way?

[xulamaude]

31. Way more of them than you want to imagine, unfortunately -

it's a backlash of different proportions.

[redqueen]

32. Plenty. Salon has written about how these views are becoming mainstream.

This was written in 2009. It's only gotten worse since then.

Why so many here want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend it should be ignored is beyond me.

Plenty of men here like to bring up the fact that some women fantasize about being raped, in an effort to prove... something.

[BainsBane]

33. I think we all have witnessed it too

I've been thinking about why. Whereas once MRAs consisted of a few weird guys, like the one who used to appear on Donahue, they have found their peeps online. They find validation for their antipathy toward women and that in turn reinforces their sense of injustice. The more they talk to one another, the more convinced them become that women and feminists in particular are destroying society. They become more emboldened and that results in what we see today.

[seabeyond]

39. absolutely. and that is the real danger when googling about rape the whole first page is false

accusations and not even what is being googled. and numbers like 45-75% false accusations at that. doesnt that just justify and reinforce? how hard are the young men going to research for actual facts instead of some hateful man mouthing off.

[xulamaude]

40. ^^Right there^^

[gollygee]

36. I have a family member who believes all this crap

And he's a seemingly normal person who holds down a job, has kids, a wife (also an ex-wife, but he was an MRA before not getting custody,) and talks about sports and stuff. Seems totally normal until certain topics come up, including MRA issues like false rape allegations, violence against women, etc.

[xulamaude]

37. He seems totally normal...

and that's the point. These guys are seemingly normal and 'are' normal to most everyone.

It's only some of us who know in our gut that something is off and/or we've educated ourselves who know to expose it for what it is.

[BainsBane]

41. I wish it were just the Tea Party

We've all witnessed that same crap openly challenged by some who claim to be Democrats.

[smirkymonkey]

42. Sick stuff.

And men that object to our opposition to that that shit calling us misandrous is just ridiculous.

[redqueen]

43. I was amused when one of their staunchest defenders tried to shut me up

by saying I could be sued for libel.

These clowns are pitiful. Seriously

He first tried to stop me from calling out MRA talking points by campaigning to have me PPR'd. I guess he hasn't given up on the dream.