Mens Rights Activists

[Gorrath]

If the MRM had actually done anything beyond complain on the internet about the matriarchal shadow government, then I'd be more inclined to give them more credit.

I snipped out the part of your reply that I agree with, which as you can see, is just about damned everything. The issue I take is with the above. On what basis do you make this claim? MRM existed long before the modern internet and I personally belong to an MRM activist group who does lots of things that aren't what you describe. As you said, the internet, and most media really, amplifies the crazy. Since you know that to be true, why then assume that MRM is just what you find on the internet?

I think the biggest problem with MRM is that it was founded as a reactionary movement. On a fair few points, this reactionary attitude was completely justified. On others, it was not justified at all. Since it was founded as a reaction to second wave feminism, and people accept feminism as being an academically backed movement, MRM is seen as being like the climate change denialists of gender politics. This image is not helped by MRAs who actually do treat it like that themselves or the feminists that engage in blatant special pleading by condemning MRM for those MRAs while defending feminism by claiming crazy feminists don't count but crazy MRAs totally do. Even in the academic world some very questionable or outright bullshit ideas get published if they are linked to feminism while even the best MRA ideas and deeds are treated like attempts to send us back to the stone age (or the 50's.)

I can elaborate more specifically on what I mean and give examples, but I don't want to belabor you with an essay you didn't ask for.

 

[Lightknight]

Urgh... MRAs are just like feminists. Some have legitimate claims and issues, but most of them just whine about trivial stuff that doesn?t matter. I swear to God... The MRAs that are whining about a woman being in the Mad Max film? They need to fuck right off.

MRAs are whining about a woman being a star of the film?

Are you just automatically grouping any gendered discussion whatsoever on the side of feminists or the MRAs?

Maybe you're actually just complaining about sexists?

Anyways, I don't know about you guys but this is totally what life is like for me as a white male:

<youtube=EC21NF5rbSk>

It's the best. I don't have to worry about unemployment, getting mugged or anyone criticizing anything I do. If I'm ever bored I get to stretch my scrotum into a pan flute and play a tune or unfurl it into a sail boat to ride into the sun. Literally. The. Best.

On a serious note, I have personally been on the receiving end of sexism that prevented my promotion within an organization (in fact, the employer kept the only three white guys she hired in the mail room and nowhere else all by ourselves with no chance of promotion). Of the 50 or so employees there were only 5 or so white people at all (including the 3 mail clerks).

My wife currently works for an agency that just bullied, forced, and fired a disproportionate number of men out of an already largely female agency (I can never get the number of people straight but it's something like 60 people having left the agency in the last 6 months with 50 of them being male).

As long as there is prejudice based inequality in any form there needs to be people willing to stand against it. We just need to make sure what we're pushing for is equality and not superiority or that's when things go wrong and the crazies get a soap box.

 

[hentropy]

I snipped out the part of your reply that I agree with, which as you can see, is just about damned everything. The issue I take is with the above. On what basis do you make this claim? MRM existed long before the modern internet and I personally belong to an MRM activist group who does lots of things that aren't what you describe. As you said, the internet, and most media really, amplifies the crazy. Since you know that to be true, why then assume that MRM is just what you find on the internet?

I think the biggest problem with MRM is that it was founded as a reactionary movement. On a fair few points, this reactionary attitude was completely justified. On others, it was not justified at all. Since it was founded as a reaction to second wave feminism, and people accept feminism as being an academically backed movement, MRM is seen as being like the climate change denialists of gender politics. This image is not helped by MRAs who actually do treat it like that themselves or the feminists that engage in blatant special pleading by condemning MRM for those MRAs while defending feminism by claiming crazy feminists don't count but crazy MRAs totally do. Even in the academic world some very questionable or outright bullshit ideas get published if they are linked to feminism while even the best MRA ideas and deeds are treated like attempts to send us back to the stone age (or the 50's.)

I can elaborate more specifically on what I mean and give examples, but I don't want to belabor you with an essay you didn't ask for.

Well as far as I know it didn't have the moniker "Men's Rights Movement/Activism" until the internet age, and it was always reactionary. As far as I know, there have been groups actually advocating for a lot of different reforms in a level-headed way, but these groups usually do not associate with the MRM in name. I think of the Good Men Project as a more recent example. Organizations that do good work with real goals, and aren't acknowledged by even the moderate MRAs like AVFM, with those same MRAs usually not putting forward any concerted effort to do more than complain on the internet.

I suppose at a certain point it just becomes an argument about what counts as MRA or feminist or whatever, and that's not really an argument I want get into. I didn't mean to suggest that there's been no organization anywhere that has actually constructively advocated for men's issues, only that groups typically associated with MRM or menninist or whatever they want to call themselves now has done much on that score. Even if there has been money donated to shelters, which I'm sure there has been, they don't go much further than that. When I see a bad portrayal of a man on youtube or elsewhere, I don't see them coming in droves to call it out like feminists do with women, but rather they just go and argue with the feminists when they do point it out, whenever feminism is brought up. Take the recent Mad Max madness, what are some of them so upset about? Because a portrayal of a WOMAN as something other than a delicate flower/love interest. But anyways I'm probably preaching to the choir on that so I'll just end it here.

 

[Gorrath]

I snipped out the part of your reply that I agree with, which as you can see, is just about damned everything. The issue I take is with the above. On what basis do you make this claim? MRM existed long before the modern internet and I personally belong to an MRM activist group who does lots of things that aren't what you describe. As you said, the internet, and most media really, amplifies the crazy. Since you know that to be true, why then assume that MRM is just what you find on the internet?

I think the biggest problem with MRM is that it was founded as a reactionary movement. On a fair few points, this reactionary attitude was completely justified. On others, it was not justified at all. Since it was founded as a reaction to second wave feminism, and people accept feminism as being an academically backed movement, MRM is seen as being like the climate change denialists of gender politics. This image is not helped by MRAs who actually do treat it like that themselves or the feminists that engage in blatant special pleading by condemning MRM for those MRAs while defending feminism by claiming crazy feminists don't count but crazy MRAs totally do. Even in the academic world some very questionable or outright bullshit ideas get published if they are linked to feminism while even the best MRA ideas and deeds are treated like attempts to send us back to the stone age (or the 50's.)

I can elaborate more specifically on what I mean and give examples, but I don't want to belabor you with an essay you didn't ask for.

Well as far as I know it didn't have the moniker "Men's Rights Movement/Activism" until the internet age, and it was always reactionary. As far as I know, there have been groups actually advocating for a lot of different reforms in a level-headed way, but these groups usually do not associate with the MRM in name. I think of the Good Men Project as a more recent example. Organizations that do good work with real goals, and aren't acknowledged by even the moderate MRAs like AVFM, with those same MRAs usually not putting forward any concerted effort to do more than complain on the internet.

I suppose at a certain point it just becomes an argument about what counts as MRA or feminist or whatever, and that's not really an argument I want get into. I didn't mean to suggest that there's been no organization anywhere that has actually constructively advocated for men's issues, only that groups typically associated with MRM or menninist or whatever they want to call themselves now has done much on that score. Even if there has been money donated to shelters, which I'm sure there has been, they don't go much further than that. When I see a bad portrayal of a man on youtube or elsewhere, I don't see them coming in droves to call it out like feminists do with women, but rather they just go and argue with the feminists when they do point it out, whenever feminism is brought up. Take the recent Mad Max madness, what are some of them so upset about? Because a portrayal of a WOMAN as something other than a delicate flower/love interest. But anyways I'm probably preaching to the choir on that so I'll just end it here.

You appear to have some misinformation going on here. MRM as a movement was founded in the 70s out of the Men's Liberation Movement. The term MRM was not invented in the internet age. It absolutely was a reactionary movement that was founded as anti-feminist. This is where it starts to become a problem because it was specifically reacting to the parts of second wave feminism that the movement felt (in many cases rightly) that men and masculinity were being outright demonized. This anti-feminist reaction has been errorneously construed by many feminists and even people identifying as MRAs to mean that MRM objects to all or most of feminist ideollogy even though this was not at all the case (with the caveat that, obviously, people in the movement had different ideas about what should be objected to.) Instead of MRM being viewed as objecting to specific parts of second wave feminist teaching about men, masculinity and the nature of the patriarchy, it is instead viewed as being wholly anti-feminist.

The second major reason for the founding of MRM was to combat the problems created by a swiftly advancing feminist movement that was so focussed on women's rights that issues with men's rights were either wholly ignored, hand-waived, or contextualized as being less important or not important. Even early MRAs did good work in fighting for the adoption of better laws and attitudes towards men with regard to how they were being treated in family court, a problem that has been given little more than lipservice even in modern feminism and worse, very prominent and influential feminist organizations directly opposing legislation to help remedy the issue.

I don't personally care for AVFM even if it serves some positive function for the same reason I don't care for a ton of feminist blogs/forums/sites that often engage in rather questionable assertions or become rife with finger-pointing and blame games. You will find a ton of that on the net regardless of which movement you want to look at. The internet can be a festering cesspool of scum and villany. My group spends no time as a group on the internet, we are all too busy with activism as opposed to slacktivism. I would share more details but I don't like letting really personal information of mine that could identify me out into the wilds of the internet. If you look at the work done by MRM groups that aren't of the internet slacktivist variety like r/redpill and AVFM I think (hope) you'll see the good work.

Lastly, there is major misinformation about the Mad Max reaction. The principal article written against the film was, as happens so damned often, attributed to MRA when the person who write it is absolutely NOT an MRA. Return of Kings is not an MRA site and it is my understanding that the guy who runs the place is actually anti-MRM. But because MRM is linked to every wacko with batshit ideas about getting women back into the sandwitch making business, the headlines read what they read. In fact, as a reaction to all of that my MRM group used our movie night to go support Mad Max. Everyone agreed it was an awesome film with some great messages and characterization. Low and behold, not one of my MRA buddies think that the message, "women shouldn't be treated like property" is a fantastic one!

Anyway, hope some of that helps you understand my position. The misinformation about MRM from without and within has created a situation where it is almost toxic to associate with it. I still do it though, just as I call myself a feminist despite Tumblr.

 

[Phlap]

In an ideal world, MRA's and feminists would be one group, fighting for equal rights of both sexes.

Ah well.

 

[hentropy]

You appear to have some misinformation going on here. MRM as a movement was founded in the 70s out of the Men's Liberation Movement. The term MRM was not invented in the internet age. It absolutely was a reactionary movement that was founded as anti-feminist. This is where it starts to become a problem because it was specifically reacting to the parts of second wave feminism that the movement felt (in many cases rightly) that men and masculinity were being outright demonized. This anti-feminist reaction has been errorneously construed by many feminists and even people identifying as MRAs to mean that MRM objects to all or most of feminist ideollogy even though this was not at all the case (with the caveat that, obviously, people in the movement had different ideas about what should be objected to.) Instead of MRM being viewed as objecting to specific parts of second wave feminist teaching about men, masculinity and the nature of the patriarchy, it is instead viewed as being wholly anti-feminist.

The second major reason for the founding of MRM was to combat the problems created by a swiftly advancing feminist movement that was so focussed on women's rights that issues with men's rights were either wholly ignored, hand-waived, or contextualized as being less important or not important. Even early MRAs did good work in fighting for the adoption of better laws and attitudes towards men with regard to how they were being treated in family court, a problem that has been given little more than lipservice even in modern feminism and worse, very prominent and influential feminist organizations directly opposing legislation to help remedy the issue.

I don't personally care for AVFM even if it serves some positive function for the same reason I don't care for a ton of feminist blogs/forums/sites that often engage in rather questionable assertions or become rife with finger-pointing and blame games. You will find a ton of that on the net regardless of which movement you want to look at. The internet can be a festering cesspool of scum and villany. My group spends no time as a group on the internet, we are all too busy with activism as opposed to slacktivism. I would share more details but I don't like letting really personal information of mine that could identify me out into the wilds of the internet. If you look at the work done by MRM groups that aren't of the internet slacktivist variety like r/redpill and AVFM I think (hope) you'll see the good work.

Lastly, there is major misinformation about the Mad Max reaction. The principal article written against the film was, as happens so damned often, attributed to MRA when the person who write it is absolutely NOT an MRA. Return of Kings is not an MRA site and it is my understanding that the guy who runs the place is actually anti-MRM. But because MRM is linked to every wacko with batshit ideas about getting women back into the sandwitch making business, the headlines read what they read. In fact, as a reaction to all of that my MRM group used our movie night to go support Mad Max. Everyone agreed it was an awesome film with some great messages and characterization. Low and behold, not one of my MRA buddies think that the message, "women shouldn't be treated like property" is a fantastic one!

Anyway, hope some of that helps you understand my position. The misinformation about MRM from without and within has created a situation where it is almost toxic to associate with it. I still do it though, just as I call myself a feminist despite Tumblr.

I was aware of the Men's Liberation Movement. There's been reactionists and anti-feminists around for as long as feminism has been around. The idea of granting them basic citizenship rights like owning property had backlash, and of course so did suffrage. I suppose one could lump in all these reactionaries as MRAs. This is what I meant by trying to figure out what is and is not MRA. It seems to me at least that the birth of the internet and contemporary feminism changed the movement enough that it could be called something different, or just seen as something different.

And again, I don't doubt there are real groups that aren't total redpillers doing actual good work that I would agree with.

The reason feminists were mostly snarky, especially at one time and continuing today, isn't because men don't have problems but that they seemed to pale in comparison. At one time it was normal in our free and enlightened society for girls to be brainwashed into believing that a mommy is all they could be, pressured to get married usually as early as possible, the only schooling they need being basics and finishing school, and once they were married to a man that they may or may not have liked, it was legal to be beaten and raped along with your kids and divorce essentially means homelessness. While there were obviously exceptions to this, women getting educated and contributing in all sorts of ways, even they were marginalized.

In comparison, men having a hard time getting into the child care industry or getting the shaft in custody cases seemed like a problem not worth getting worked up about. "We'll get worked up about men's issues when more than a handful show up at our rallies." Over time society did change but the tribalism, animosity, and alarms about oppression remained, and I agree it's time to put an end to it all.

As I have gathered about Mad Max, while MRAs as a group have not called for boycotts of the movie and Return of Kings is considered fringe even by most MRAs, there is still overlap. It was an AVFM staffer who shared a meme about the boycott and there was much talk on the AVFM forums about it. That's why I said "some", it's clearly not a consensus but not entirely unworthy of mention, considering AVFM is often pointed to as the "good" MRA space. There are certain sex-negative feminists which see all BDSM as rape that called for a boycott of Fifty Shades on those same grounds, and that was just as silly, but it was only some feminists (most people didn't see it because it was terrible).

Edit: Clarey's not a staffer, read my source [http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/05/18/to-one-mens-rights-activist-lying-about-mras-boycotting-mad-max-fury-road-is-worse-than-denying-the-holocaust/] wrong.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

In comparison, men having a hard time getting into the child care industry or getting the shaft in custody cases seemed like a problem not worth getting worked up about. "We'll get worked up about men's issues when more than a handful show up at our rallies." Over time society did change but the tribalism, animosity, and alarms about oppression remained, and I agree it's time to put an end to it all.

One thing that most people tend to miss here is actually health care. Men tend to get the shaft in many instances in health care, where as women get it pretty good. Testicular cancer and prostate cancer are good examples of where men have an awful time of it, because for one there is very little in terms charitable resources, which can make prostate cancer a death sentence. On the other hand breast cancer gets loads of funding and has a really high survival rate. There is also the "Go Red for Women" campaign that spreads awareness about heart disease in women, yet heart disease is just as common in men, if not even more so, but no awareness movements for men's heart disease exists.

So while we need to put an end to tribalism and animosity, we also need to realize that there are plenty of imbalances on all sides that need to be addressed, but aren't.

 

[Politrukk]

So, do these actually exist? I don't go to the comments sections of articles very often (a good thing) so I don't really know for certain, but I hear the MRAs are all up in arms about Mad Max Fury Road, so apparently this is a real thing? Maybe?

Or are they like an urban legend?

They exist but they get incredibly hated and downplayed by feminists.

They are not however to be confused with the jokesters who call themselves meninists.

Meninists are people who're pretty tired of the way the stereotypical feminist denounces all men as evil and are more a walking living breathing satire of the bad concepts of feminism.

 

[hentropy]

In comparison, men having a hard time getting into the child care industry or getting the shaft in custody cases seemed like a problem not worth getting worked up about. "We'll get worked up about men's issues when more than a handful show up at our rallies." Over time society did change but the tribalism, animosity, and alarms about oppression remained, and I agree it's time to put an end to it all.

One thing that most people tend to miss here is actually health care. Men tend to get the shaft in many instances in health care, where as women get it pretty good. Testicular cancer and prostate cancer are good examples of where men have an awful time of it, because for one there is very little in terms charitable resources, which can make prostate cancer a death sentence. On the other hand breast cancer gets loads of funding and has a really high survival rate. There is also the "Go Red for Women" campaign that spreads awareness about heart disease in women, yet heart disease is just as common in men, if not even more so, but no awareness movements for men's heart disease exists.

So while we need to put an end to tribalism and animosity, we also need to realize that there are plenty of imbalances on all sides that need to be addressed, but aren't.

It is true that there are more healthcare charities for women than men, mostly due to the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns for things like breast cancer and such. I did read an article once about the pure saturation of a lot of these campaigns might do a disservice to the overall cause (pink buckets at KFC being an example) and money should go to help combating other forms of disease that affect men, women, and everyone equally.

However, that shouldn't distract from the fact that women pay more for healthcare insurance and get less coverage, on average. [http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20141024/NEWS03/141029856] Men do pay more for life and auto insurance, however. There are economic reasons for both of these things, but to say that women have it well off because there's more charities for specific illnesses is a bit of a misunderstanding. Most of that charitable money goes to research, which is a good thing, but that doesn't mean women are getting their healthcare bills paid for while men go wanting.

 

[Gorrath]

You appear to have some misinformation going on here. MRM as a movement was founded in the 70s out of the Men's Liberation Movement. The term MRM was not invented in the internet age. It absolutely was a reactionary movement that was founded as anti-feminist. This is where it starts to become a problem because it was specifically reacting to the parts of second wave feminism that the movement felt (in many cases rightly) that men and masculinity were being outright demonized. This anti-feminist reaction has been errorneously construed by many feminists and even people identifying as MRAs to mean that MRM objects to all or most of feminist ideollogy even though this was not at all the case (with the caveat that, obviously, people in the movement had different ideas about what should be objected to.) Instead of MRM being viewed as objecting to specific parts of second wave feminist teaching about men, masculinity and the nature of the patriarchy, it is instead viewed as being wholly anti-feminist.

The second major reason for the founding of MRM was to combat the problems created by a swiftly advancing feminist movement that was so focussed on women's rights that issues with men's rights were either wholly ignored, hand-waived, or contextualized as being less important or not important. Even early MRAs did good work in fighting for the adoption of better laws and attitudes towards men with regard to how they were being treated in family court, a problem that has been given little more than lipservice even in modern feminism and worse, very prominent and influential feminist organizations directly opposing legislation to help remedy the issue.

I don't personally care for AVFM even if it serves some positive function for the same reason I don't care for a ton of feminist blogs/forums/sites that often engage in rather questionable assertions or become rife with finger-pointing and blame games. You will find a ton of that on the net regardless of which movement you want to look at. The internet can be a festering cesspool of scum and villany. My group spends no time as a group on the internet, we are all too busy with activism as opposed to slacktivism. I would share more details but I don't like letting really personal information of mine that could identify me out into the wilds of the internet. If you look at the work done by MRM groups that aren't of the internet slacktivist variety like r/redpill and AVFM I think (hope) you'll see the good work.

Lastly, there is major misinformation about the Mad Max reaction. The principal article written against the film was, as happens so damned often, attributed to MRA when the person who write it is absolutely NOT an MRA. Return of Kings is not an MRA site and it is my understanding that the guy who runs the place is actually anti-MRM. But because MRM is linked to every wacko with batshit ideas about getting women back into the sandwitch making business, the headlines read what they read. In fact, as a reaction to all of that my MRM group used our movie night to go support Mad Max. Everyone agreed it was an awesome film with some great messages and characterization. Low and behold, not one of my MRA buddies think that the message, "women shouldn't be treated like property" is a fantastic one!

Anyway, hope some of that helps you understand my position. The misinformation about MRM from without and within has created a situation where it is almost toxic to associate with it. I still do it though, just as I call myself a feminist despite Tumblr.

I was aware of the Men's Liberation Movement. There's been reactionists and anti-feminists around for as long as feminism has been around. The idea of granting them basic citizenship rights like owning property had backlash, and of course so did suffrage. I suppose one could lump in all these reactionaries as MRAs. This is what I meant by trying to figure out what is and is not MRA. It seems to me at least that the birth of the internet and contemporary feminism changed the movement enough that it could be called something different, or just seen as something different.

And again, I don't doubt there are real groups that aren't total redpillers doing actual good work that I would agree with.

The reason feminists were mostly snarky, especially at one time and continuing today, isn't because men don't have problems but that they seemed to pale in comparison. At one time it was normal in our free and enlightened society for girls to be brainwashed into believing that a mommy is all they could be, pressured to get married usually as early as possible, the only schooling they need being basics and finishing school, and once they were married to a man that they may or may not have liked, it was legal to be beaten and raped along with your kids and divorce essentially means homelessness. While there were obviously exceptions to this, women getting educated and contributing in all sorts of ways, even they were marginalized.

In comparison, men having a hard time getting into the child care industry or getting the shaft in custody cases seemed like a problem not worth getting worked up about. "We'll get worked up about men's issues when more than a handful show up at our rallies." Over time society did change but the tribalism, animosity, and alarms about oppression remained, and I agree it's time to put an end to it all.

As I have gathered about Mad Max, while MRAs as a group have not called for boycotts of the movie and Return of Kings is considered fringe even by most MRAs, there is still overlap. It was an AVFM staffer who shared a meme about the boycott and there was much talk on the AVFM forums about it. That's why I said "some", it's clearly not a consensus but not entirely unworthy of mention, considering AVFM is often pointed to as the "good" MRA space. There are certain sex-negative feminists which see all BDSM as rape that called for a boycott of Fifty Shades on those same grounds, and that was just as silly, but it was only some feminists (most people didn't see it because it was terrible).

Edit: Clarey's not a staffer, read my source [http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/05/18/to-one-mens-rights-activist-lying-about-mras-boycotting-mad-max-fury-road-is-worse-than-denying-the-holocaust/] wrong.

I don't think it's right or fair to lump all anti-feminists as MRAs though as they are two distinct things. MRM was only opposed to certain, primarily second-wave teachings in feminism that disregarded or demonized men, masculinity and men's rights. To compare that to opponents of the sufferage movement simply isn't fair. In fact, a good portion of MLM and MRM directly borrowed ideas from feminism that were good. Calling everyone who ever opposed anything in feminism an MRA just equates MRAs with anti-feminism. That's not a fair description at all despite often being assumed to be true.

As for men's issues being viewed as lesser problems, that's exactly the issue. How does anyone claim to want equality when they treat one sex's issues as being lesser. I will grant that at one time this assessment did have some merit, but in an era when women's oppression includes things like specific desired representation in video games, how are men's struggles with sexism in two branches of our government a lesser issue? It's exactly that attitude that helped birth MRM to begin with. This goes back to what I was saying about rapidly advancing feminism in the second wave. As women's rights issues were being dealt with in positive ways, practically none of that progress bled over into men's issues. Progress in men's issues were and still are pretty stagnant even while (some, too many) feminists flat out claim there is no sexism or oppression of men or that men's issues exist and will be dealt with just as soon as men quit being men, as if men are the problem and not traditional gender roles.

As for overlap between MRA/MRM and Return of Kings, I don't see how this is the case when Return of Kings have articles like this: http://www.returnofkings.com/7877/the-mens-rights-movement-is-no-place-for-men

In the article you linked, teh author calls RoK "MRA adjacent" in order to try and split the difference on the mistake. That kind of intellectual dishonesty is worthy of scorn. RoK is decideddly against MRA so trying to conflate the two is obnoxious (Not you, the article's author.) Now I"m not claiming that no MRA anywhere supported the boycott, but the article banging on about Mad Max that caused the whole shitstorm is decidedly not MRA, is not by an MRA author, was like so many things erroneously conflated to MRA because people want so associate MRA with things like that whenever they can even when it isn't true. It's that kind of rampant dishonesty about the movement from outside that leads so many to dismiss it outright.

And as you point out, feminism has the same sort of folks. The diffference is lots of people are willing to dismiss crazy internet feminists as crazy internet people whilst pretending that crazy internet MRAs are a totally accurate dipiction of that movement. It's a vapid position based on special pleading where we're expected to look past feminism's issues and embrace the core idea of equality while damning MRM for every nutjob that comes out of the woodwork, even if said nutjob explicitly states that he's against the MRM!

 

[hentropy]

I don't think it's right or fair to lump all anti-feminists as MRAs though as they are two distinct things.

That's... precisely what I was saying at he beginning of this conversation. The MRM, as it is currently situated and judging by the issues that they focus on, is mostly a product of internet age, in my opinion. There have been past movements which have also been reactionary, but it's hard to call them the same, even the MLM and MRM in the 70s-90s was markedly different in some ways. You see them as essentially the same movement that has evolved over that time which is... also legitimate. And now you know why I didn't want to get into this debate about who gets called what when and what counts as what when.

As for men's issues being viewed as lesser problems, that's exactly the issue. How does anyone claim to want equality when they treat one sex's issues as being lesser.

It's less "this one is lesser" and more "women's issues are so monumentally more challenging that men's rights can wait". And as I said, during the second wave there weren't a whole lot of men who were on their side. Early MRAs then got pissed off because women weren't being on their side with their issues. It's a self-replicated cycle, and as I said, I think it's time to end it. Everyone has an interest in tearing down traditional gender roles.

As for overlap between MRA/MRM and Return of Kings, I don't see how this is the case when Return of Kings have articles like this: http://www.returnofkings.com/7877/the-mens-rights-movement-is-no-place-for-men

Communists and anarcho-collectivists also don't like democratic socialists, but that doesn't mean they're a mile away from each other. Female supremacists often don't like feminists, but they still get lumped in with us. When people talk about overlap, people talk more about an overlap of ideas. Just because one person says they are not that doesn't mean they aren't that. For example, in that article one of the first things is a vile rant about women in the military, and how "MRAs" are all for it. From my perspective, I've often heard self-described MRAs oppose women in the military and women in combat roles. Some support it more tepidly, but he makes it sound like they're wholeheartedly embracing it as a group. I wish, but no. He may have a weird idea of MRAs and what they believe, but that doesn't actually mean he's as far as he thinks from them. He is much more unabashed and fringe with his beliefs, but to say he has absolutely nothing to do with the MRM and that there's no ideological adjacency is a bit wrong in my view.

In the article you linked, teh author calls RoK "MRA adjacent" in order to try and split the difference on the mistake. That kind of intellectual dishonesty is worthy of scorn. RoK is decideddly against MRA so trying to conflate the two is obnoxious (Not you, the article's author.) Now I"m not claiming that no MRA anywhere supported the boycott, but the article banging on about Mad Max that caused the whole shitstorm is decidedly not MRA, is not by an MRA author, was like so many things erroneously conflated to MRA because people want so associate MRA with things like that whenever they can even when it isn't true. It's that kind of rampant dishonesty about the movement from outside that leads so many to dismiss it outright.

The original article [http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/05/12/furious-about-furiosa-misogynists-are-losing-it-over-charlize-therons-starring-role-in-mad-max-fury-road/] on WHtM on Mad Max didn't mention MRAs at all. As stated above, I don't think it's unfair to call RoK "adjacent" to MRAs seeing as they share a lot of the same ideas (even if the person writing RoK doesn't think MRM goes far enough) The article is just stating that while AVFM may not be officially leading any boycott (something he never asserted), there seemed to be some anti-Mad Max sentiment throughout AVFM, which was counter to what the owner of the site kept saying.

The question is whether or not there's some anti-Mad Max sentiment in the MRM, and the answer is yes, even if they're not actively boycotting or hating on the film as much as RoK.

And as you point out, feminism has the same sort of folks. The diffference is lots of people are willing to dismiss crazy internet feminists as crazy internet people whilst pretending that crazy internet MRAs are a totally accurate dipiction of that movement. It's a vapid position based on special pleading where we're expected to look past feminism's issues and embrace the core idea of equality while damning MRM for every nutjob that comes out of the woodwork, even if said nutjob explicitly states that he's against the MRM!

I suppose the problem there is that there's no very big or influential "good" MRA site or group that calls itself MRA and upholds the principles you want to champion. Whenever I ask an MRA what site actually seems to advocate for men's rights without all the bullshit I usually don't get an answer, or someone points me to AVFM as the most moderate, which is not a good sign. If you don't define yourself then others will define you, or you'll be defined only by your most extreme. Feminism has the benefit of having actually accomplished significant things that many women are at least partially grateful for. Organizations like NOW are able to set the mainstream agenda without it getting too wacky, even if you or I may not always agree with them on everything. The National Coalition for Men is a pretty decent organization, but I rarely hear MRAs talk about it despite also being adjacent.

 

[sumanoskae]

I refer you again to the examples I gave in my post, one of which outright claimed to be part of the "movement" and one of which is by definition part of it.

Sure, the first is part of it (if they identify as part of it), but the second is not unless they actually identify as such.

Hell, if merely caring about men's rights made one an MRA, we'd be seeing loads of MRA feminists.

The definition of feminism is the idea that men and women should be treated as equals. How is that these terms have become diametrically opposed?

If one does not support that equality, in all it's forms, one is by definition neither a feminist nor an activist for the rights of men. I think we as a culture are allowing extremists to hijack terminology.

 

[Gorrath]

I don't think it's right or fair to lump all anti-feminists as MRAs though as they are two distinct things.

That's... precisely what I was saying at he beginning of this conversation. The MRM, as it is currently situated and judging by the issues that they focus on, is mostly a product of internet age, in my opinion. There have been past movements which have also been reactionary, but it's hard to call them the same, even the MLM and MRM in the 70s-90s was markedly different in some ways. You see them as essentially the same movement that has evolved over that time which is... also legitimate. And now you know why I didn't want to get into this debate about who gets called what when and what counts as what when.

I can agree with that. MRM has evolved along with the times, though many of the core complaints are still there because of the distinct lack of progress. I don't want to get into a debate about what to call who when either. What I would take exception to is lumping people together so that someone can pretend like they're all the same. More on that below.

As for men's issues being viewed as lesser problems, that's exactly the issue. How does anyone claim to want equality when they treat one sex's issues as being lesser.

It's less "this one is lesser" and more "women's issues are so monumentally more challenging that men's rights can wait". And as I said, during the second wave there weren't a whole lot of men who were on their side. Early MRAs then got pissed off because women weren't being on their side with their issues. It's a self-replicated cycle, and as I said, I think it's time to end it. Everyone has an interest in tearing down traditional gender roles.

I can't say how many men were on who's side in second wave feminism, but it seems there were plenty enough to get laws changed and ideas about society shifted. In a male-dominated government of the 60's, there seem to have been enough men on board with equality to get the civil rights act passed. Now I"m not saying that there weren't lots of men opposed to these things but the MRM was decidedly on the side of feminism's core beliefs considering they adopted them. We both agree that the fighting needs to stop and that equality is what's important. That trumps everything to me, and so I'd call you friend and ally even though we may (or may not, I can't even tell, lol) disagree on some things.

I will say that the idea that "Men's rights can wait" is absurd. How can you have equality if one sex is waiting for... what exactly? I agree that at points in the past we can most certainly and fairly assert that women's issues, especially when it came to codified, legal rights, far outstripped the needs of men's rights. But today? When a good chunk of feminism is preoccupied with calling specific depictions of female characters in video games oppression or fighting for easy access (not the right to) abortion clinics (both issues I understand are important mind you) is there still no room for work on the systemic sexism of men in the judicial system?

As you say below, NOW is big, influential, has power and yet not a single blurb on their front page about a single men's rights issue. Why? Because feminism is still primarily and almost completely occupied with women's issues. Sure they pay lipservice to the idea that men have rights issues driven by traditional gender roles and maybe, kinda, sorta something that looks like sexism (but it's men so, like, not the SAME kind of sexism) but then NOW turns around and lobbies against legislation to help those issues. (They did, in some cases, have good reasons to oppose provisions in those laws, but they sure as shit didn't lobby for any new or better conceived legislation to take their place either.)

As for overlap between MRA/MRM and Return of Kings, I don't see how this is the case when Return of Kings have articles like this: http://www.returnofkings.com/7877/the-mens-rights-movement-is-no-place-for-men

Communists and anarcho-collectivists also don't like democratic socialists, but that doesn't mean they're a mile away from each other. Female supremacists often don't like feminists, but they still get lumped in with us. When people talk about overlap, people talk more about an overlap of ideas. Just because one person says they are not that doesn't mean they aren't that. For example, in that article one of the first things is a vile rant about women in the military, and how "MRAs" are all for it. From my perspective, I've often heard self-described MRAs oppose women in the military and women in combat roles. Some support it more tepidly, but he makes it sound like they're wholeheartedly embracing it as a group. I wish, but no. He may have a weird idea of MRAs and what they believe, but that doesn't actually mean he's as far as he thinks from them. He is much more unabashed and fringe with his beliefs, but to say he has absolutely nothing to do with the MRM and that there's no ideological adjacency is a bit wrong in my view.

Female supremacists do get lumped in with feminists, and it's just as vacuous. Female supremecists are not feminist adjacent. The whole core of feminism is equality, which is precisely what female supremacists don't agree with. They're so not adjacent that they couldn't be further apart. That said, female supremacists may say a lot of things that sound like things some feminists say. Lumping the two together based on that is still absurd. I've heard self-proclaimed feminists who fight against traditional gender roles (women's roles anyway) claim that men are heartless brutes who are naturally violent. Finding MRAs who say dumb shit is no different than finding feminists who say dumb shit.

Also, what he says sounds weird because he is talking about what a lot of activist MRAs actually do believe, which is so far away from what people claim MRAs believe that it's almost impossible to reconcile the two. He's not MRA for the same reason female supremacists aren't feminists; his ideas directly contradict the core values of MRM. He's all for traditional gender roles for both sexes, which is completely incompatible with MRMs value of men and women being social equals. Some shit he says might be seen as being like what some MRAs say but just like my feminist/female supremacist example above, this does not in any way make him adjacent.

In the article you linked, the author calls RoK "MRA adjacent" in order to try and split the difference on the mistake. That kind of intellectual dishonesty is worthy of scorn. RoK is decideddly against MRA so trying to conflate the two is obnoxious (Not you, the article's author.) Now I"m not claiming that no MRA anywhere supported the boycott, but the article banging on about Mad Max that caused the whole shitstorm is decidedly not MRA, is not by an MRA author, was like so many things erroneously conflated to MRA because people want so associate MRA with things like that whenever they can even when it isn't true. It's that kind of rampant dishonesty about the movement from outside that leads so many to dismiss it outright.

The original article [http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/05/12/furious-about-furiosa-misogynists-are-losing-it-over-charlize-therons-starring-role-in-mad-max-fury-road/] on WHtM on Mad Max didn't mention MRAs at all. As stated above, I don't think it's unfair to call RoK "adjacent" to MRAs seeing as they share a lot of the same ideas (even if the person writing RoK doesn't think MRM goes far enough) The article is just stating that while AVFM may not be officially leading any boycott (something he never asserted), there seemed to be some anti-Mad Max sentiment throughout AVFM, which was counter to what the owner of the site kept saying.

The question is whether or not there's some anti-Mad Max sentiment in the MRM, and the answer is yes, even if they're not actively boycotting or hating on the film as much as RoK.

But as you pointed out yourself, there's a sex-negative undercurrent to some feminists and they didn't like 50 Shades of Grey. If a female supremacist wrote a scathing article about how 50 Shades of Grey was shit and should be banned because it's anti-woman, and some feminists agreed, does that mean female supremacists and femanists are adjacent? No, because their core ideollogy is compeltely incompatible. MRM has a ton of ancillary stuff and sub-groups that think all sorts of crap. So does feminism. Neither movement should be dismissed because of that. You have issues with 3rd wave internet feminism, so do I, and I don't think either of us would throw the movement under the bus because of that. I believe the same should be true of MRM, that's all.

And as you point out, feminism has the same sort of folks. The diffference is lots of people are willing to dismiss crazy internet feminists as crazy internet people whilst pretending that crazy internet MRAs are a totally accurate dipiction of that movement. It's a vapid position based on special pleading where we're expected to look past feminism's issues and embrace the core idea of equality while damning MRM for every nutjob that comes out of the woodwork, even if said nutjob explicitly states that he's against the MRM!

I suppose the problem there is that there's no very big or influential "good" MRA site or group that calls itself MRA and upholds the principles you want to champion. Whenever I ask an MRA what site actually seems to advocate for men's rights without all the bullshit I usually don't get an answer, or someone points me to AVFM as the most moderate, which is not a good sign. If you don't define yourself then others will define you, or you'll be defined only by your most extreme. Feminism has the benefit of having actually accomplished significant things that many women are at least partially grateful for. Organizations like NOW are able to set the mainstream agenda without it getting too wacky, even if you or I may not always agree with them on everything. The National Coalition for Men is a pretty decent organization, but I rarely hear MRAs talk about it despite also being adjacent.

The problem with AVFM is that it's a mix of all sorts of ideas in the MRM, some good, some bad. A lot of people point to Jezebel as an excellent feminist blogging site, which is arguably no better and perhaps worse than AVFM. But there's a self-fulfilling prophecy here too. Feminism is accepted, given lots of money, given space in the academic world and has appologists everywhere. NOW gets to set agendas and make progress because people listen. MRM gets defined as its fringe (I mean christ, the SPLC website lists r/redpill as representative of the MRM for fucks sake) and no one listens except to hear what they want to hear. There's no big or influential group because as soon as you mention that you're an MRA, no one takes anything you have to say seriously no matter what it is. And apparently, no matter what you do actually do or profess to believe, a guy who's not even an MRA somehow gets labelled as MRA and so people can point and laugh at those silly MRAs and their backward ideas.

A group that isn't listened to, strawmanned to death, misrepresented, misunderstood and has the same problems as feminism with regards to gender politics, egos, batshit ideas and an even lack of positive media coverage is somehow supposed to be influential? I like a good chunk of what the NCFM does and says and yet the media ( the HUff Post for example) still publishes dismissive articles about it and has little or nothing to say about any good they do.

Lastly I want to say thanks. Thanks for being awesome. Thanks for talking with me and thanks for listening and reading. I appreciate your viewpoint and it's been a real pleasure talking with you. Our conversation is getting a bit long, which is fine by me but whether you chose to reply to some or all of what I've said here, know that I respect your opinion, time and thought put into all of this.

 

[Lord_Boofhead]

Isn't Return of Kings openly disassociated with Men's Rights? I remember coming across an article, I think it was on Polygon but I can't remember, which had a disclaimer stating that the site (which was the subject of that article) was not associated with Men's Rights.

"I'm not a racist but..."

The only people who have to put that much effort into denying that they are something horrid are usually people who are something horrid.

Try actually reading the Misogynistic tripe on RoK and it's clear they are MRA Creeps.


Also I fear many people here are mistaking modern 'RadFems' with mainstream feminism.
The RadFems are the flip-side of the same crazy coin as the MRAs. They are white middle class women who are guilty about the fact they are white and middle class and so want to recast them selves as the oppressed rather than the oppressor. The MRAs are the same, just male.

I also Agree with Guerilla that t 'Identity Politics' race/gender/sexuality/ect is just a smokescreen to distract up from the real issue of Class warfare.

 

[Zontar]

Snip

Isn't that the same logic as saying that socialists all socialists are communist, even if the socialists in question is a strong anti-communist like Orwell? I also fail to see how MRAs, given the nature most have, are somehow comparable only to RadFems instead of feminism as a whole. You wouldn't see governments classifying MRA organizations as charities in places like here in Canada if they where radicals.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Isn't that the same logic as saying that socialists all socialists are communist, even if the socialists in question is a strong anti-communist like Orwell?

Second that.

I also fail to see how MRAs, given the nature most have, are somehow comparable only to RadFems instead of feminism as a whole. You wouldn't see governments classifying MRA organizations as charities in places like here in Canada if they where radicals.

Not quite, "Radical Feminist" is another thing people identify with. It doesn't just mean a feminist someone thinks is radical. There's plenty of decent Radfems around, but Radical Feminism does tend to attract more than its fair share of terrible people.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I think the basic issue that probably sticks for most people, is that of all the causes you could be a part of, including many that encompass the rights of men...

...why basically pick the historical winners? I mean, around the world it's not exactly a debate as to whether on average, men or women have it better. So... who looks at all of that, and says, "Guys... I need to stand up for the rights of a minority of guys, in one or two countries."

From that premise, it's kind of hard to take it seriously as anything other than a reactionary movement, or just a collection of angry losers.

Women are favored legally [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/men-women-prison-sentence-length-gender-gap_n_1874742.html], are paid more for equal work given equal education [http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html], have an easier time finding work [http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2013/ted_20130806.htm], are favored for education [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/06/womens-college-enrollment-gains-leave-men-behind/], have an extensive support network for any problem they might possibly face (This one shouldn't have to be cited), and constantly have offers and benefits thrown at their feet for no reason other than they're women [http://collegesportscouncil.org/newsroom/display_releases.cfm?id=28].

I would love for you to come up with a single way that women are disadvantaged in a first world country. Decades of feminism has seen to it that women have the best of everything and they still aren't done pushing for more.

MRA is a reactionary movement, but it's highly necessary because feminists have way overstepped their bounds.