I need to take a moment here to talk about the Men’s Rights Movement, because there seems to be some confusion. Actually, there seems to be a whole lot of confusion.
Over the past little while, I’ve had a number of people challenge me on calling out men’s rights activists (hereafter referred to as MRAs). “But men are oppressed too,” people say. “Feminism is sexist, and it teaches men that masculinity is wrong.” “Straight, white men aren’t allowed to be proud of themselves anymore.” “If you believe in equality, then you should want men to have the same type of activism as women.” “Everyone is entitled to their opinion.”
First of all, yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But let’s not pretend that all opinions are created equal – some are based on fact, and some are total bullshit. Like, I could tell you that I believe that vaccines cause autism, and that would be my opinion, but it would also be demonstrably untrue. So let’s not pretend that all opinions should be given the same consideration, because we both know better than that.
Second of all, let’s get one thing straight: men, as a group, do not face systematic oppression because of their gender. Am I saying that literally no men out there are oppressed? No, I am for sure not saying that. Men can and do face oppression and marginalization for many reasons – because of race, class, sexuality, poverty, to name a few. Am I saying that every white cishet dude out there has an amazing life because of all his amassed privilege? Nope, I’m not saying that either. There are many circumstances that might lead to someone living a difficult life. But men do not face oppression because they are men. Misandry is not actually a thing, and pretending that it’s an oppressive force on par with or worse than misogyny is offensive, gross, and intellectually dishonest.
MRAs believe that feminists are to blame for basically everything that’s wrong with their lives. The Men’s Rights Movement is a reactionary movement created specifically to counter feminism, and most (if not all) of their time and resources go towards silencing and marginalizing women. They do things like starting the Don’t Be That Girl campaign, a campaign that accuses women of making false rape reports. They attend feminist events in order to bully and intimidate women, they flood online feminist spaces with threatening messages, and they regularly use smear campaigns and scare tactics to make the women who don’t back down afraid for their physical safety. They do literally nothing to actually resolve the problems that they claim to care about, and instead do everything they can to discredit the feminist movement.
There are certainly issues that disproportionately affect men – the suicide rate among men is higher, as is the rate of homelessness. Men are more likely to be injured or killed on the job or because of violence. Men who are the victims of domestic abuse or sexual assault are less likely to report these things. These are the issues that MRAs are purportedly working on, and by “working on” I mean “blaming feminism for.” The problem is that none of these things are caused by feminism, or equal rights for women, or anything like that. You know what’s actually to blame for a lot of these issues? Marginalizing forces like class and race, for one thing – I mean, it’s not rich white men who are grappling with homelessness or dangerous workplaces or gun violence. You know what else is to blame? Our patriarchal culture and its strictly enforced gender roles which, hey, happens to be exactly the same power structure that feminism is trying to take down. The patriarchy has some fucked up ideas about masculinity, ideas that make men less likely to seek help for issues that they perceive to be too feminine – such as being hurt or raped by a female partner, not being able to provide for themselves, or not seeking help for health issues like depression and anxiety. On a societal level, it means that resources are not as readily available for men who face these challenges, because patriarchal ideas tell our courts, our governments and our charitable organizations that men don’t ever need that kind of help. Yes, the patriarchy overwhelmingly privileges the interests of men, but it also hurts men. It hurts men in all the ways that MRAs are apparently so concerned about, which means that you would think that MRAs would be totally on board with dismantling the patriarchy, but they’re not. Instead, they would rather blame women for their problems.
See, the problem with the Men’s Rights Movement is that they are not doing anything concrete to resolve any of the above issues. They are not raising money to open shelters for homeless or abused men. They are not starting up suicide hotlines for men. They are not lobbying for safer workplaces or gun control. Instead, they are crying about feminism, pooh-poohing the idea of patriarchy and generally making the world a sadder, scarier, less safe place to live in. In fact, I would argue that their stupid antics are actually a detriment t0 the causes that they claim to espouse, because they’re creating an association between actual real issues that men face and their disgusting buffoonery. So good fucking job, MRAs. Way to fuck vulnerable men over in your quest to prove that feminism is evil. I hope you’re all really proud of yourselves.
The Men’s Rights Movement is not “feminism for men.” It’s not some kind of complimentary activism meant to help promote equal treatment of men and women. And it fucking most certainly is not friendly towards women, unless we’re talking about women with crippling cases of internalized misogyny. I believe in equality for men and women, but I also believe that we’re not born with an even playing field. Women still face disenfranchisement, discrimination and a lack of basic freedoms and rights, and although feminism has done a lot of great work over the last century or so, we still haven’t undone several millennia’s worth of social programming and oppression. So that’s why it’s not “men’s turn” to have a social justice movement. That’s why we have the fem in feminism. That’s why fairness and equality involve promoting the empowerment of women, rather than promoting the empowerment of both genders in equal amounts. Because, to use a stupid analogy here, if one person starts out with no apples and another person starts out with five apples and then you give them both three apples each in the name of fairness, one person still has five more fucking apples.
So yes, let’s talk about issues that affect men. Let’s come up with solutions for problems that disproportionately hurt men, like suicide and homelessness and violent deaths (while at the same time recognizing that the fact that there are issues that affect more men than women does not mean that men are oppressed because of their gender). Let’s work on opening up shelters for abused men, let’s create campaigns bringing awareness to the fact that men are also the victims of rape, and let’s pressure the government to improve workplace safety. But let’s find a way to do this that’s not at the expense of women. Instead, let’s join together and fuck up the patriarchy real good, because that way everyone wins.
p.s. If you actually think that straight white men aren’t encouraged to be “proud” of themselves you need to check your privilege a million times over and then check it some more because seriously
How I Feel About MRAs
The Belle Jar 
Hell yes!–>”But let’s find a way to do this that’s not at the expense of women. Instead, let’s join together and fuck up the patriarchy real good, because that way everyone wins.”
110% correct and so well-put. Your post is much more eloquent than the link here, but it reminded me of this: https://twitter.com/DifferentGames/status/441596771027124226/photo/1
Definitely. Feminists have a lot of experience with grappling with the gov’t to get funding for shelters, support lines, etc. Rather than reinventing the wheel, how about the people who really, sincerely care about issues that negatively impact men meet with some of these feminists and get some advice and help on setting up these services? Many hands make light work.
This is great. Well done.
This post fucking ROCKS. Well though out, well argued, well written. Best piece I’ve read yet on MRAs. I’m sharing widely. Keep up the good word Belle Jar.
This is a weak ass rebuttal that MRA’s could easily tear to shreds. You have to realize your debating people and the have brains. People repeating things you don’t even question does not make a solid rebuttal against those refuting those same ideas. In fact I’d call this a sub par fact free rebuttal for lazy people who find researching their opposition and challenging their views to be too much like homework.
As a person who enjoys good debate I truly hope young feminists step up their game because I’m tired of dismissing them as misguided children who stepped into the deep end of the pool.
Points like this:
” But men do not face oppression because they are men. Misandry is not actually a thing, and pretending that it’s an oppressive force on par with or worse than misogyny is offensive, gross, and intellectually dishonest.”
Are easily refuted because ‘oppression’ as used by young white feminists who set the threshold to whatever annoys them no matter how slight opens the door for white men to do the same darn thing. Of course I’d rather deconstruct the young white feminists princess complex that turns social justice into a self serving enterprise for her benefit without regard to the truly underprivileged she steps on in the process. White female privilege is enormous and it’s what fuels the power of feminism in the Western world. Poor people don’t have this kind of voice or power nor do minority groups. It’s social justice by and for white people who co-opt other groups agendas to boost their own victim status. You could say the same about men’s rights but these white men aren’t claiming to be oppressed, but they do claim they are at times treated unfairly. Evidence of that isn’t hard to come by since they can poor over decades of research into male sexual and domestic violence victimization that has been ignored.
I haven’t dropped the numbers on you because I don’t think your worth the trouble but it’s not a debate you can win so be thankful.
‘realize your debating people and the have brains’
If you’re going to act like we can’t win this at least have the decent to form a proper sentence.
‘realize your debating people and the have brains’
If you’re going to act like we can’t win this at least have the decency to form a proper sentence.
I suppose a response from the aforementioned MRA contingency was to be expected. Still, barf.
Don’t worry Edward, MRA’s are not going away, nor are we concerned with the ever ratcheting up of vitriol from Feminists.
We will continue always to fight for equal access to our children in custody disputes in spite of a biased family court system. We will work toward solutions to why men are the vast majority of the homeless. We will advocate for research to address the disproportional number of men and boys who take their own lives. We will not forget that men make up 95% of workplace deaths. Nor will we accept a system which demands our sons sign up for selective service as a requirement for full participation society. We will seek answers and solutions to the failings of our sons at the hands of the eduction system.
MRA’s do not hate women, nor do we wish to take any rights away from women, but we no longer will let Feminist tell men what is good for us. Edward, try to remember Mahatma Gandhi’s words: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Your extremely patronising and baseless response actually proves the point. And take a look at your own hypocrisy, opening with admonishing ‘lazy people’ and ending with ‘I haven’t dropped the numbers on you because I don’t think you’re worth the trouble’. In any case, the numbers you can’t be bothered to drop are entirely irrelevant, as Belle has clearly said that men are oppressed too – just not BECAUSE they are men.
Your point about a princess complex is laughable. In case you hadn’t read the post you are responding to, the idea is to achieve equality so that everyone is better off. In no way would achieving equality for white women ‘step on’ women who aren’t white, and in suggesting so you’re just showing you haven’t really understood the argument here. Your response reads like an exercise in badly conceived power play, in which you assert yourself above the ‘young feminists’ you ‘dismiss’, without realising they have left you far, far behind.
Mark, maybe the reason boys are falling behind in the education system is that they are more focused on touching and creeping out the girls? We’ve had enough. Now if they are a creeper, they get called out for being a creeper. They’ve were used to being able to gaze-rape and touch without permission and now that they’re getting called out every time for being a creeper they can’t handle it.
I like to tell this story to the little boys who don’t get it: One rooster is used to being able to force himself on the hens whenever he likes. One day the mother farmer says “Enough!” She uses salt pellet on the rooster every time he forces sex. But the rooster only knows rape– it’s his nature. So when he is forced to stop, he loses interest in life. And that’s why a rooster that is kept under control loses interest in life. Boys in school got called out for their aggressions and aggression was all they knew. Boo hoo. Tears.
JemmyRae,
Thank you. I could not have asked for a more thoughtful response. So often I have heard that what men need is more feminism. That feminism is fighting for equality for men as well as women. That is, that all men need to do is support feminism and feminist will work toward equality for both sexes. Of course when I say that I mean both female and male feminist (though it must be added that men can never know what it is to be a woman and thus are only second class feminists.)
You have reaffirmed the very reason why there needs to be a men’s rights movement. At every turn men are to be blamed. Young men aren’t failing in school because of complex issues that need to be addressed, but rather because they are gaze-raping creeps.
Again, thank-you, I could not have said anything that would convince men more for the need for MRA’s than to simply direct them to your own eloquent words.
Mark.
Male feminists have the wisdom to own that they do not have the experiences to understand what is like for womyn whose very existence was one of being second class. Men not talking over womyn who are learning to speak after ages of silence and servitude doesn not = men becoming second class. We appreciate the male feminists that wish to share our space. But our struggle IS NOT ABOUT THEM.
And I thank YOU for showing that MRA’s have no understanding of rape culture. Or maybe EVERY understanding of rape culture? Hmm. Well let me clear your lens for you:
Schools of the patriarchy are the petri dishes of rape culture. This is where little girls were indoctrinated into believing they had no right to say “no”. This is where they were indoctrinated that “boys will be boys”. Well, sorry to break the news, slugger, but now we know what “little boys are made of”. And you know what? A little girl’s physical safety is more important than a little boy’s tears for getting his hand slapped. And: When the entire society is ONE BIG RAPE PEN for womyn, we start to value our physical safety more than your hurt feelings. Strange, huh? Maybe when men and boys get over themselves they’ll take responsibility for their sagging performance in schools.
The only other “complex issue “is that boys were used to having everything set up so that they would look smartest. The loudest, most competitive boys always got the attention for shouting the answer first. They felt insulted if a girl showed them up so our girls were intimidated into not displaying their genius. Well now teachers like me are telling our girls that THEY ARE BRILLIANT. We are stopping the competitive environment that stacked the deck for boys and now are emphasizing cooperative learning and projects, in quiet, well-managed classrooms where all students may succeed.
MRAs believe feminism is the cause of problems that existed for men long before feminism came along. Thats the point, theyre idiots who dont even correctly identify the cause of their concerns thus no one listens to them and they are completely ineffectual. They do NO work for what they are against, which isreally patriapatriarchal gender roles bc secretly they like it the way it is. And we know this bc they lack consistency. Theyll pretty much never accomplish anything bc in their “solutions” such as they are they constantly express a lack of understanding of the role of govt, how govt works, the law and the constitution. They have NO clue. Pretty much everything thing theyre fighting for requires social change and they dont want to change the concept of masculinity they subscribe too thus the status quo will remain.
ALL female “privileges” are a DIRECT result of sexism. We can debate till we’re blue in the face if some of them have advantages, and some certainly do, but that’s irrelevant. EX: Men are NOT oppressed bc women criminal defendants receive lower sentencing than then bc there are TONS of actual reasons why this is so. Truth of the matter is that MRAs understand very little of the issues they claim to care about. I can only assume they dont read a lot or ONLY read stuff they already agree with.
MRM as it stands now are just a bunch of whiny angry dudebros who still havent gotten over the fact that civil rights happened and now women and POC are accessing govt and making it work for them. They are EXACTLY like those disgusting tea party folks and thats also why MRM is majority white and will remain so.
Amen sister. Well said.
Well said, very articulate. As I often do though, please excuse my reading deficiency, or is it my humor? To clarify, what does, “Fucky O U!” supposed to mean?
I completely agree with you. I noted a lot of material and if you don’t read the article carefully one may not understand what you are actually saying. That was a very good article. You are a great writer and extremely articulate, if those two things are different. Thank you.
Your standards are really low.
Well said!
Reblogged this on Athena's Antics and commented:
Mens’ rights must-read
To go with your apple analogy…another apple analogy…
If you have two people and one has 5 apples and the other has none, and you decide each needs 3 for fairness…so you give the person with none 3, and you take 2 from the one who had 5….the one who previously had 5 will almost certainly perceive that as ‘oppression’ even though now they’re both equal (with 3 each) and the person who previously had 5 is still better off than the person who had none was originally.
Aww, that’s cute and clever! Maybe that’s one those silly little boys will be able to understand!
Not sure how I feel about this. Not sure how I feel about having to hit like in order to comment. But I digress.
I wonder if you might soften your stance a little when your son is older. I felt the same way you did at one time, and as my sons got older I get offended at man bashing ( which is not at ALL what I saw in this blog, just sayin;)
I am disappointed at your comments about the “Don’t be that girl” campaign. I don’t know enough about it to argue it, but there ARE in fact women to lob false allegations of rape against men. Caveat, I am rape victim…Yes, more men get away with rape, then innocent men go up the river for same. The few men who did rape and serve time should in no way mitigate the consequences the few women who falsely accuse should face.
I don’t always agree with you, but I always love reading you…..
XOXO
Interestingly, having sons has made me all the more committed to feminism, and all the more appalled by the actions of MRAs. It definitely takes each of us differently.
As for false rape accusations: the problem here is that false accusations are statistically very, very rare, whereas victim-blaming, intimidation, mishandling of reports, and rapists facing no consequences are all fairly common. Campaigning for women to not “be that girl” is ignoring the elephant to address its flea, and is doing it in a way that encourages women to second guess their own experiences, and encourages men and institutional authorities not to trust women (already a huge problem), despite the fact that they really *should* the overwhelming majority of the time.
It is a pretty standard MRA tactic to take a conversation about how to stop rape and to turn it into a conversation about how to stop false rape accusations, generally presented with a bunch of totally made up statistics implying that “real” rape is uncommon and that women are more or less constantly lying to ruin the lives of “good guys”. This distorts the problem of false accusations severely, and distorts the scale of that problem as relates to the problem of rape itself. MRAs suggest that false reporting is essentially an epidemic, when in fact there’s no evidence that it’s anything of the sort.
I don’t dispute that false reporting of *any* crime should bear consequences. In the case of rape, a substantial majority of women who report it face social consequences simply for doing so. They face ill-treatment from authorities and from their communities. They are questioned and minutely examined in every particular of their lives. They are paraded before courtrooms and media, to be pitied or pilloried, and often both. In most settings, a woman who accuses a man of rape is every bit as likely to have her life destroyed as she is to destroy the life of the man in question.
Besides which, there are absolutely legal consequences for false reporting of a crime. We don’t need to campaign for that–it exists, right now, already. Meanwhile, in a world in which the words and experiences of men are so generally overvalued compared to the words and experiences of women, we really don’t need another gesture that contributes no solutions, but bolsters the perception of women as vindictive, senseless, and not to be trusted.
“As for false rape accusations: the problem here is that false accusations are statistically very, very rare, whereas victim-blaming, intimidation, mishandling of reports, and rapists facing no consequences are all fairly common.”
Statistically we can’t establish a rare of false accusations because we have no way of proving most accusations true of false. The statistics are guess work not science.
“It is a pretty standard MRA tactic to take a conversation about how to stop rape and to turn it into a conversation about how to stop false rape accusations,”
That’s an unfortunate truth but I don’t think you understand how much of a threat false accusations are, just like many women know women who are victims of rape, many men know men who’ve been falsely accused at one time or another. It doesn’t always end up with law enforcement. A false accusation is a form of social aggression ad when you see it that way it’s right there with bullying and spreading rumors. People do stuff like that a lot.
The other side of the MRA position is revealing statistics on male victimization and female perpetration which are rarely discussed by feminists. This subject is quite complex because “rape” is a gendered term that focuses on penetration while male genitals are on the outside. No matter what you do to a man’s penis he will never be rape by it’s legal definition. That’s why when you see someone comparing male and female stats by using rape alone they are engaged in act of ignorance or intentional sexism.
I’ll leave you some links but overall we should look at women as at least 40% of the perpetrators of forced sex offenses according to the CDC NISVS 2010. Most males are victimized by ‘forced to penetrate’ which is occurring at the same rate as women are raped. Focus on 12 month stats (table 2) rather than lifetime which are biased downward for men for a number of reasons and those victim long term memory numbers don’t reveal current victimization levels. The stat showing women are 79% of those who forced men to penetrate is on page 25.
Men also have a vested interest in the rape issue and what’s feminists have long gotten wrong was men’s indifference being born of a lack of victimization rather than indifference by men to other men’s suffering. The lack of compassion for men by men is a big problem as is the lack of compassion for men by women. They tend to reinforce one another to the point where men’s identity comes from stoic indifference to their pain or that of other men. I would expect few men to become MRA’s for this reason. It’s far easier for men to sympathize with women as victims than themselves or each other.
http://time.com/37337/nearly-half-of-young-men-say-theyve-had-unwanted-sex/
Click to access NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2013/09/04/the-startling-facts-on-female-sexual-aggression/
Edward, according to the CDC, the MRA math is “flawed”.
http://manboobz.com/2013/10/29/cdc-mra-claims-that-40-of-rapists-are-women-are-based-on-bad-math-and-misuse-of-our-data/
It is important to note that false rape accusations are statistically in line with false reports for most other crimes. There is NOTHING valid in the false accusation argument whatsoever bc dudes that peddle that bs prop up a culture wherein some miniscule number of women think they have to lie about it. The very idea that some large number of women report false rapes is rooted in the disgusting sexist belief that all women are liars and cant he trusted. In online debate men, and not even self professed mras, will argue to death their right to fuck drunk women even though they claim false reports are a thing. Everything is the fault of women to them. But I am reassured by their endless internet hate that theyll never accomplish anything amd rightfully so.
Found this blog when googling after rodgers massacre. Spot on and thanks! Keep on keepin on!
Lidsamy? THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MAN BASHING. Men are the benefactors of the patriarchy so they are the oppressor, not the victim. Men. Cannot. Be. Victims. Ever.
Is it unfair if some small percentage goes to the jails when they are falsely accused? Sure. Boo hoo. But that percentage is smaller than women getting raped. And. Know what else? Unfair does not = oppression.
Sigh. Seriously, Patriarchy. How about a little peer reviewed science. Feminist studies is just sexism against men. If you want to want to win over those who do not
ascribe to feminist doctrine then cite peer reviewed studies that support your views. Short of that, your just a man hating feminist.
It is NEVER, EVER the job of the victim to cite sources to her oppressor.
MY FREEDOM FROM RAPE CULTURE DOES NOT NEED TO BE PEER REVIEWED.
Man-hating, huh? My, that’s very original. Considering that feminists like me are working to FREE men from the shackles of toxic masculinity…..
No. I’m just done.
There is no small percentage of men imprisoned for rape other than the black men that have been released through the work of orgs like the Innocence Project and the issue there was race, not men. Only 3% of rapes ever see a conviction and those tend to be heinously violent rapes. You ppl have NO clue about the criminal justice system.
Thank you for writing this.
The whole idea that some opinions are worth more than others is one of my core arguments when people tell me journalism is a dying field. I’m glad other people agree with me about the inequality of opinions! This is a great piece of writing. Thank You!
Reblogged this on Speaker's Corner.
I am pleased to read, share, and pass this hard hit along to my older sons or daughters. Brilliant writing and balanced diplomacy. My whole womyn thanks you.
Fantastic post. I don’t even know what else to say, I’m just nodding vigorously!
If you want to find out about a feminist men’s movement, check out Voice Male magazine, and the new book, Voice Male – The Untold Story of the Pro-Feminist Men’s Movement.
You realize men in Canada raised $70k over the last 2 years to open up the country’s first men’s shelter right? Might want to do some fact checking before you make blanket statwments .
Toronto alone has 11 single men-only shelters so I doubt theirs was the “first”, though their effort is laudable. There are also a dozen or so that are open to families and single adults, and three male-only youth centres (one of which is for young aboriginal men). By comparison, Toronto has 13 single women-only shelters, so I’d say that there is near-parity in availability in services.
Frankly, there aren’t enough of either, given the number of men and women who are still living on the streets here.
Can you provide a link to the organization you refer to? Thx.
What “men in Canada?” Anne said that MRA groups don’t do that kind of thing – she didn’t say NO-ONE.
I mean I kind of doubt that whatever specific initiative you’re describing can actually be adequately described as “men in Canada.” I bet even if it was a group of men that did the fundraising in question, they were massively supported by the women in their lives. But I’m open to hearing the story in more detail, maybe that’s an unfair presumption.
On the other hand, what is so great about a men’s shelter. Separate question.
Agreed
I’d like to give a signal boost to David Futrelle’s site Man Boobz (manboobz.com), which AFAIK is the best place to find out the latest nonsense from the MRA community.
The Men’s Rights movement is a lot like the “whites’ rights” groups that sprang up in the USA in the early days of the civil rights movement. They spoke of how white people’s rights were being infringed upon, but it was obvious that the “right” they objected to losing was the right to do awful things to black people. If you were white, no matter how low you got, you knew you were better than one of those black people, and things happened that you resented, you knew you could take it out on black people with impunity. Even if overt brutality wasn’t your style, blacks were still a group you could feel morally and socially superior to and whom you could patronize to your heart’s content. This was what the civil rights movement threatened to take away.
The Men’s Rights movement is the same way. They don’t give a damn about how many apples people get, or even about the ways the current system screws lots of men over. They care about their right to keep their boot on women’s necks, which is what gives them the sense that they are somebody.
And while their “kinder, gentler” cousins — the HS’s, the “Good Men” and the “Nice Guys”, the “feminism is discrimination, let’s be equalists” men — wouldn’t dream of actually putting a boot on someone’s neck (or at least, don’t want to be seen doing it), they still prefer a system in which women exist mainly to make men’s lives more pleasant and nobody (= no men) have to think about what happens to women.
They can be counted on to show up and whine “what about teh menz?” whenever women’s rights and women’s oppression are mentioned. Get your anti-feminism bingo cards ready!
I have no idea where white women get off pulling this ‘white rights’ crap after their feminists movement marginalized the hell out of minority men and their issues in favor of ‘social justice’ white women who have more marketing appeal to white men. While black men in America suffered mass incarceration at a rate unlike anything else in the world we saw white women frame themselves as the world’s greatest victims and asserting some ubiquitous ‘male privilege’. These delusions of well off white women regarding the status of men in society are fed by some myopic obsession with the few men at the top who are quite privileged. Theirs was a childish self serving narrative that only worked because white men like them so much but it’s no way to construct a social justice movement and it showed no respect to people of color who face the backlash every time one of these spoiled little princesses decry ‘white male privilege’ without taking a look in the mirror.
White women are born to the same relatively privileged families as white men and I’m disgusted that white women think they are some how detached from whiteness by virtue of being women. This throwing their men under the bus routine has gone on for far too long and minorities who have long since moved beyond bashing whitey as a go to approach to their issues still have to suffer the consequences of these white women doing so. White men won’t turn on white women but they will turn on minorities. In fact white women will join white men in turning against minorities because the prosperity and success of the white family is in the self interest of white women.
I suggest feminists retire their white bashing unless white women are willing implicate themselves. As a real minority I’m quite fed up with the hypocritical B.S coming out of these people. If not for being white, white men wouldn’t give a damn about them nor white women.
You might want to remind your MRA pals not to compare themselves themselves to black men who were lynched or to appropriate Emmett Till’s death by claiming it was due to rape hysteria.
This is a reply to your previous comment (which didn’t have a reply button under it) where you draw our attention to the 2010 CDC study which you and other MRAs claim show women perpetrate 40% of forced sex offences. The CDC has debunked that claim.
http://manboobz.com/2013/10/29/cdc-mra-claims-that-40-of-rapists-are-women-are-based-on-bad-math-and-misuse-of-our-data/
I’m late to this convo but too true. What theyre really angry about is that women and POC are accessing govt and making it work for them. And because they view life as a zero sum game they perceive someone as gaining rights as something being taken away from them like the apple analogy above. Essentially they have, as a group (men and especially white men) have responded very poorly to civil rights. They are EXACTLY what the tea party is.
Attacking misguided men makes your side of the argument any stronger. If anything, it makes me lump you in with the men’s rights nut-jobs.
We know they are mistaken. You are preaching to the choir. Aiming for the lowest fruit on the tree.
What we need is to stop the hate. On all sides.
Why do you sing the same old song of hate and blaming?
Have you been raped?
I have. But It does not define my opinions of people.
Have you been oppressed?
We all have. people in positions of power do that. its human nature.
What we need on all sides is less blame and more understanding that we live among people who are misguided on all sides.
Too much hate speech is being presented as a movement.
On all sides.
Give me some hope.
You are just fanning the flames of hate and division.
You are not being a positive force in the world.
It is quite clear that Anne is NOT preaching to the choir, given the backlash every remotely contentious post receives. This is like a “ugh, MRAs” 101 – lots of people already get it, who may or may not read this article. Lots of people may read this article who don’t already get it. Like… you, for example.
You would think since she was violenced herself she would “get it” by now, as you say. Some people won’t leave the cage even when the door is opened for them. It’s sad when people ask you to come back inside the cage and sing kumbaya.
Nah. I don’t believe she’s asking you to come back into the cage, I believe she’s saying we need to know how to spread our message more positively without having to insult or diminish each other.
Reblogged this on les femmes.
YEs! I’ll add a resounding FUCK YOU to yours!
I am under the impression from a few men who follow the MRM, it began with a frustration about having to pay child support to xwives when the father would have liked to have been given equal opp for co-parenting or full custody but instead felt the court system unfairly penalized the fathers. I would have to say, a valid issue, but the current use of the MRM is very unproductive and agree, it is not actively supporting men but instead, actively tearing down women. There are some scary examples right here on wordpress. Email me if you’d like the links. I find the MRM both disturbing and fascinating.
The men following the MRM are closer to feminists in their sensibilities than most men. The very notion of men playing victim goes against their traditional role so few are going to choose this path which is tantamount to declaring defeat at the hands of women. It takes men who truly see women as equals to not discount their power or influence over their lives.
” I find the MRM both disturbing and fascinating.”
Better that than simply dismissing it. Men do have a sense of dignity and if women take it upon themselves to tear men to shreds some men aren’t going to lay down and take the whipping. Some will stand up and fight back. Mutual respect is the goal, but it won’t come from a endless stream of abuse from immature women who feel entitled to bully men.
Look Edward, you have to get a little clued up.
Feminism has never been about man bashing, or ‘bullying men’.
Feminism is about taking down the discriminatory and limited MINDSET (and corresponding actions) that overtly or secretly ‘sees’ women as ‘less than’.
Historically, yes, more men than women have been in possession of that particular mindset. It’s a brain (thinking) issue though – not a penis/vagina (gender) issue. There are women too who have had (and still have) that mindset.
Whether someone has a penis or a vagina is so not the point. Feminism fights the good fight for change against A FUCKED UP MINDSET that tries to diminish women and their choices.
It is a fight between the feminist side of fairness, compassion and common sense, against oppression, myopia and discrimination on the side of the LIMITED WAY OF THINKING.
See how it’s NOT a fight between women and men?
“We are linked, not ranked.” – Gloria Steinem
I find the MRAs to be about one millimeter away from the Phelps family in their collective contribution to society. Angry, empty, bitter, aggrieved, and defensive, I for one share nothing with them. Thank you for writing this.
I would just like to say that I greatly enjoy reading your blog. It’s so awesome that people will stand up and be counted. Smash the patriarchy!
Great article. Can you use a different word than “crippled” to define someone negative, damaged and self-hating? There are actually people who are “crippled” who don’t feel that they are damaged or that their lives are negative, and who are also super progressive and feminist.
Please, Carolyn. Just. Stop. I have struggled with depression and negative thoughts about myself all of my life. I have been called “damaged” more than once due to self-cutting. I have only recently begun to feel that I’m breaking free. Your thoughtless use of the word “negative” and “self-hating” really just sent me into a bit of a downward spin. Consider your privilege as someone who has never needed to cut herself before you call people “damaged”. Don’t walk over me to gain yet more privilege for youself.
YES!!! Thank you for this, so, so much. It never fails to boggle my mind when arguing with MRAs and they inevitably say something along the lines of, “What has feminism done for men?!?” It apparently never occurs to them that they might attempt to open some shelters and actually help the men who are victims of violence. Nope. Easier to blame feminism for your problems and be abusive on the Internet.
Ironically feminism has done a HUGE service to men by removing the unreasonable burden to be the sole provider but bc our culture still subscribes to this antiquated definition of masculinity theyre stuck perpetuating the status quo (they actually equate traditionalism amd feminism arguing feminism props up traditional gender roles, not exactly bright or aware, these guys) so nothing they want gets resolved.
Best exame is custody. Women become the custodial parent for a valid reason they tend to do the majority of caregving. And when women entered the workforce en masse did men take the opportunity to become more involved parents with their children, only some. Presumptive joint custody is never gonna happen. Only when men start actively parenting more including daily caregiving of children wi men be in a better position in family court bc despite their belief, family court acts in the best interest of the child so if one parent does the bulk of the work thats who wi he deemed the custodial parent. Not to mention most custody matters ALREADY end in some form of shared custody and alimony is dying fast for obvious reasons, most women work, so its not needed much anymore. Most MRA discussions around custody, on their own sites mind you, is only about paying less child support, not about their kids. And thats a shame.
Thank you!!!
Thank you for your clear thinking and knowledge of this topic. The idea that men need to attack the patriarchal society they live in may seem counterintuitive unless one understands that “patriarchy” includes rigid hypermasculine roles for men which are the source of much of the harm MRAs complain about.
It seems to me that MRAs, like many people who feel exploited, have fallen into the dynamic of being afraid to confront their real exploiters, in this case the class of men in power who do exploit the mass of men for dangerous labor, war fodder, and so forth.
An example of confrontation against the real oppressor can be found in the labor movement. The consequences for labor activists often included the severe harm of loss of livelihood. MRAs have much to fear from the same exploiting group, so in a typical dynamic they attack a less-frightening group, one that is non-violent and relatively powerless, as a scapegoat group. This is what MRAs are doing when they attack feminism.
Feminists are neither harmless nor non threatening. Their ability to intimidate men is unrivaled and any man trying to fight them is instantly labeled a hater of women which bring s him great shame. A powerless group would be a small racial minority. That’s the preferred target for angry whites male and female. I know this because I go into right wing forums with a gender topic and the mob will turn immediately to bashing black people, not women. White men love white women. The same can’t be said for minorities.
Once again, my amazing sister-in-law(in-law-in-law? How exactly does that work?) hits it out of the park. As a white male that isn’t exactly the picture of traditional masculinity, I so agree with many of these points. I’m also a guy who is sick of MRAs whining ‘what about the men?’ to invalidate women when rates of abuse aimed at men are so low. Let’s concentrate on the thing affecting twenty-five percent of women before the thing affecting ten percent of men, but lets use a method that may help both.
The term feminism is a bit useless. Feminism is not one unified thing. It’s a range of beliefs and viewpoints. One cannot talk about feminism as though all types are created equally, and as though all types are considerate of all genders. Many feminisms are very cis-centric; some (not all) are anti-male. I know of some feminist groups that use the incredibly violent “bash back” slogan. These groups do not represent the needs of everyone that is oppressed by patriarchy, as the author would have you believe.
I’m not saying that the men’s rights movements discussed above are a good thing, nor am I saying that feminism is a bad thing. But I also don’t see feminism as the answer: it’s an old system that was born out of patriarchy, so it can never fully defeat it. We need a new way of handling gender issues outside of our current dealings.
as long as there is patriarchal hegemony, the word “feminism” clearly describes the necessary counter-struggle. it’s a complex movement and it doesn’t have to describe everyone’s needs in one word. it also isn’t the only movement necessary to combat all oppressions.
but it won’t be obsolete while there is gendered oppression along traditional binary lines. “fem-” is what is disadvantaged, therefore “feminism” is still the antidote.
I think people like you are definitely apart of the solution. MRA’s are a transient force that will exists until we finally address the elephant in the room of male issues or until we abandon this segregated approach to human issues. Egalitarians must rule the roost since lobbying for one group over another breeds bias be it a MRA or feminist.
Although I do not believe the term feminism is useless, I do support you in the fact that the term is generic which is why I stress that we should focus less on titles and more on actions AND intentions. Same goes to the supposed male activists.
Finally! You completely nailed this. Thank you so much.
Finally! Excellent writing. Thank you for this.
I hear on the morning shows discussions about this topic. I was a soldier and been dealing with people for almost 40 years. One man was abused I know of. New organizations are create to make money and cause problems. Woman have a ways to go still. Woman must work and support families. In a lot of case. Woman carry the family and it isn’t easy.
I have no problem with furthering womens rights, I have daughters and believe they need this. But why does one group need to be “more valid” than the other? Men are treated as 2nd class persons during a divorce or child custody hearings. Once we are viewed as equals as parents and some women no longer play the system to “win” at the expense of the best interests for the kids which was the whole point of the movement.
And I tea h my son to be as strong and indepoendat as I teach my daughters. But the methods are different because one is a boy and the others are girls. And once we can have strong caring women we can also have a world that can allow men to be capable of feeling mascuiline and validated as fathers.
You are right. We must teach our children to respect each other. Parent must be careful. We make our children into what they become. Treat boy and girl with equal thoughts and ways, then they well know right from wrong.
I’ll explain slowly. The problem with indoctrinating little boys to feel “masculine” is that these masculine behaviors are the petri dishes for all the misogynistic tendencies that cage womyn and perpetuate the sexual violence. When little boys reach out and try to rape-touch the young womyn, the common phrase is “they’re just being boys”.
Little boys DO NOT NEED TO FEEL VALIDATED because the PATRIACHY does not need to feel validated. Maybe work a little more toward smashing the patriarchy then we can feel some concern for your little boys?
JemmyRae,
If you care about Feminism or Women (Womyn) the best thing you could do is to stop voicing your opinions.
We need all-inclusive love and awareness; everyone is both man and woman; the mother and the father lives on in each of us; honor and respect them both. We are human beings and being as such makes us beings, honor and respect other beings: animals, the earth, et cetera. Why tally up apples when you can be the apple! (too much ?)
You’ve blown me away again with articulating what’s wrong while offering solutions for the actual problems that men face.
Samantha. Please. “Blown away”? We never use idioms that could trigger those of us that live in fear of gun violence. Just a little public service announcement. Thanks.
JemmyRae. Please. “trigger”? We never use idioms that could cause those of us that live in fear of gun violence to have an adverse psychological reaction to a verbal stimulus. Just a little public service announcement. Thanks.
Patriarchy theory is the theory that our entire civilization was built by men for the exclusive purpose of empowering men and subjugating women to be subordinate to all men everywhere. furthermore it also believes that every single aspect of our society was put in place or created to empower men, is marriage is an institution created to allow men to dominate women. And patriarchy theory is the belief that all this was made to benefit ALL MEN. not just a small group of elites at the top of the social hierarchy. and that the small minority of men who are the elites of society will always act in the best interest of all men everywhere. But when I look at the real world, where men’s issues are ignored or minimize, a world where no expense is too great to solve a problem if it threatens women. a world where even though most world leaders are men, they will throw as many men under the bus as it takes. Men must be willing to fight and die for there country, while no equal obligation rests at the feet of women.
I’m going to call bullshit on this.
Patriarchy was fabricated by feminists for feminist to exact the maximum benefit for women at the expense of men.
Mark, while I always appreciate a non-feminist coming in and explaining to me what I REALLY think, you’re laughably off-base here. Patriarchy describes a social organization in which men are preferenced over women, in which men occupy leadership roles, in which descent is traced through the male line. It does not mean that no men ever suffer (there are many kinds of privilege, and gender privilege is only one facet), nor does it mean that every man is automatically looking out for every other man.
Men, in positions of power, have generally sought to secure their own interests, and the structures they have erected generally favor men. These structures also generally enforce strict gender binary and labor division according to gender: for example, women are encouraged to clean and care for children, and men are encouraged to do…well, everything else. Sometimes, this gendered structure isn’t so great for men either; though they broadly have more power, they are underserved in the domestic sphere because of gendered assumptions regarding skill and preference.
Feminists believe that the structures that preference men tend to do so at the expense of women, and that these structures must be challenged and dismantled for women to have equal rights and opportunity. But we ALSO believe that these structures do not universally benefit men, and that dismantling these structures will improve life for everyone.
For example: feminists reject the idea that women are somehow more “natural” parental figures than are men, that they must be housebound and career-sacrificing to parent. By the same token, we do not wish to see men discouraged from full participation in parenting. We desire equal accountability and equal access. Many of the same structural problems that harm men simultaneously harm women–mothers are less employable than fathers, mothers suffer more cultural pressure to leave work when children are born than do fathers, mothers are *withing relationships* given more responsibility for active parenting, and in consequence to all of this, the relationships between fathers and their children suffer.
Women are not “privileged” with economic reliance on male partners, poorer employment outcomes, and housekeeping. These things are as bad for women who do not choose them as they can be for men who do not choose them.
The problem I have, and that many feminists have, with MRAs, is that where we see a need to balance, to create more opportunity and support for women outside the home and for men within it, MRAs tend to criticize the imbalance while parroting the exact same gendered assumptions that serve to create it. It’s difficult to believe that men are well served by, as in the custody issue, fighting for more rights while simultaneously characterizing women as at best illogical and ill-fit to any sphere but the domestic, and at worst conniving and universally evil in intent.
Neither does it seem that men are well served by the MRA tendency to adopt an utterly ahistoric stance, and to reject feminism utterly, even where the stated goals are clearly the same. Again, using the example of custody, until comparatively recently, married men were always full granted custody in separations. This does not justify a current system that preferences women in custody disputes, but that context is important when looking at how we got here. It’s also important to recognize that the vast majority of custody decisions are decided privately, out of court, and that those custody decisions overwhelmingly favor placing children with their mothers–indeed, when men seek custody in court proceedings, they are much more likely to get it than in these private and amicable agreements.
These private decisions favor mothers not because the invisible menace of feminism is somehow jackbooting men into utter powerlessness, but because our culture problematically insists that motherhood should come first, that women are best suited to domestic tasks, and men and women both learn that from the cradle. The limitation of women to a single sphere, and insistence that they are gentle or emotive creatures, rather than rational ones well-fit to outside work–all of this is patriarchy, and it is terrible and limiting for women, but it is also bad for men. We feminists really do get that. We’re working on it.
But it’s a lot harder when the MRM ignores or reinforces problematic structures and gendered expectations. Let me put it this way: the more room you make for us in the boardroom and in government, the more we will be empowered to leave the nursery and the kitchen, and make room for you there. Ideally, one day, we will share equally in all spheres. That’s feminism.
While this article makes several good points, such as the important class connection to the MRA, it suffers from one fundamental problem.
It treats Feminism and the MRA as if they are monolithic things, when in reality each is a collection of thousands and millions of people with their own thoughts, worldview, goals, knowledge, etc.
Certainly, the MRA does have a significant ugly element that loves to spend time posting a lot of rather blatantly offensive shit, but also many earnest minded people who have examined our society and concluded that the idea of a patriarchy that advantages all men at the expense of all women is not quite as clear cut as it’s made out to be.
There is also a significant wing that is, frankly, pointing out the flaws in the Feminist movement and important Feminist talking points that, frankly, Feminists should be doing themselves. For instance, you hear the line ‘1 in 4 women will be raped in college’ so often. But if you dig into the original studies, the ‘sexual assault’ referred to includes ‘pestering for a kiss’. This is frankly a shame. Honestly, every movement and ideology benefits from thoughtful critique, and the MRA does provide this for Feminism, though sadly too often interlaced with venom and slander.
You criticize the MRA for not seeking out a few specific solutions: shelters, hotlines, etc. But here’s the problem: many of the issues men face have specifically political and institutional causes, and the most important job to be done is to raise public awareness to one day forward institutional change.
You write:
“But men do not face oppression because they are men.”
But this statement is not true. Consider this rephrasing, which is true:
“But men face oppression because they are men less often and in different ways than women do.”
To imply men never do is simply false.
For instance:
Family Courts are a silent disgrace, devoid of fundamental Western judicial rights, particularly in America. They do often harm mothers as well, but are particularly harsh on fathers.
This is a case of men facing oppression because they are men – a drawn out, adversarial
family court battle can be completely oppressing to fathers (leading to poverty, a denial of basic rights, dramatically increasing suicide rates, etc.)
Men face a clear, undeniable, statistically very strong discrimination in the judicial system in terms of prosecution and sentencing.
This is a case of men facing oppression because they are men.
Men face a strongly negative media imprinting much like women do: men are taught that their lives are disposable, they they should sacrifice their health and lives for country, for the women in their lives, for money. Boys are taught that their lives are worthless unless they have money and muscles and sexual maturity, that they are disposable, etc.
This is a case of men facing oppression because they are men.
You’ll note that in these, what I consider to be probably the most fundamental, justifiable MRA issues, the solution is not ‘shelters and hotlines’ (although those would certainly help), the the solution fundamentally is political, which as we all know is never an easy solution to pursue.
Here’s what patriarchy theory fails to take into account: In many societies, ‘patriarchy’ is basically a system by which the powerful, ‘Alpha’ men dominate both women and other poorer, less assertive, less powerful men. Feminism, while it certainly touches on the topic, doesn’t really spend much time deeply examining or promoting awareness of the ways men are hurt in this process.
I certainly don’t begrudge Feminism, although I think it’s fair to discuss to consider whether specific Feminist lead policies have had the intended and positive effect, just as we should examine all policies – a discussion that is particularly important among Feminists themselves. Please note this is not a zero sum game; the existence of valid Men’s Rights issues does not preclude the reality of valid Feminist issues.
But quite simply, Feminism doesn’t leave enough room for Male specific issues. We NEED organizations that are focused on the well being of males, simply because males are 1/2 the population and many, many of them are suffering.
Well said!
You might call these things biased or unfair but ‘oppression’ is men’s rights hyperbole. The idea that alpha males are the oppressors is as ludicrous as the charge that feminists oppress men.
While “pestering for a kiss” sounds more like sexu harassment, only iegal in the workplace we need to remember that sexual assault does NOT just mean rape. Thus I’m ok with those studies results bc they encompass range of inappropriate and often illegal sexual activity.
Reblogged this on Learning From The Voices Around Us and commented:
This! ALL OF THIS!
HELL YES!!
Seeing this on facebook I was expecting the usual “MRA is bad!” screed, but instead I find that all angles are covered and all issues acknowledged with potential courses of action outlined. I am impressed.
I can’t be bothered saying anything, because as a young white male who was accosted and marginalised by female teachers during my school years, my opinion is worthless.
Please. Just. Don’t. She covered that base in the article, slugger. Percentages mean anything to you? Your percentage is smaller. Your supposed marginalaziation is the flea on the elephant. F*ck You!
JemmyRae. Should he be ignored because his percentage is smaller? Should we forget the single person so the larger is better off?
Ignoring the individual and blasting him as the flea on the elephant is ignorant.
Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?
To compare,
The individual is just a drop of water in the ocean, true, but the ocean is a multitude of drops.
The problem with most of you is that you are to busy trying to shut each other down.
Fact: Some men have oppressed some women in this world.
Fact: Some Women have oppressed some men in this world.
Fact: This will never change no matter what anyone does.
The reason this will never change is because of choice.
You can be mad, angry or furious at anything in this world, but that thing can still choose to keep doing what it is doing.
But really though, this will not change because people as a whole are not uniform, they are not the same, physically, mentally, spiritually. We were never made to be and therefore we will choose different things. Some people will agree with you. Some will not. I for one know that most of the things these groups do is unproductive.
Protesting against hate is less productive than creating love.
I would say stop fighting against hate and figure out a way to create love so positive change can happen. Then you might just make this world equal. Martin Luther King was one man who taught people to change the world through non-violence.
But as to the beginning of this post. Stop belittling a person response, instead try to teach them the difference in you’re opinion.
Bless you for this comment
Reblogged this on Goodgeekkeeping and commented:
“Yes, the patriarchy overwhelmingly privileges the interests of men, but it also hurts men.”
As an angry feminist (as described by someone else in an attempt to shame me from being a feminist) I think this article is beyond brilliant.
Men need all the help we can offer them in the issues that absolutely face their gender, just as women do. Let’s focus on that instead of the fact that there is another group trying to get rights , safety and equality for themselves based on their gender.
Hey. You might be interested in this essay I wrote about The Red Pill, a male supremacist internet ‘community’: radicalsobriety.blogspot.ca
I love it! Thank you for linking me to it! I’m definitely going to share it on my blog’s FB page.
I absolutely love this write up!
with thousands of misogynist MRA morons hovering around, this piece actually brings to light the actual issues that men should be fighting for.
MRA would be better off and serviceable if they actually focus on the real “men’s issues” and not on how to put down women or feminists.
The fact that an article written principally in support feminism ends up as a discussion of the plight of men tells me everything I need to know. We have a long way to go. To be sure many a slave trader bemoaned his lot. But relative to the plight of the enslaved? One does not ease or dismiss an injustice by pointing to another- real or in the case of men’s rights invented.
No. Stop. Get away from us. Are you a black man? Didn’t think so. WHITE MEN DON’T GET TO TALK ABOUT BLACK FEMALE OPPRESSION. Black people don’t need another white man to “understand” us. This conversation is not about YOU. You are welcome to listen, not to speak.
To quote George Takei, “Oh my!” You lose!
Men’s rights are human rights and I appreciate the work that the mra do. In fact, they are are a pretty easy target for you right now because they’re organized and focused and that makes it relatively easy for you to focus on them. In time you may appreciate them because what’s coming down the pipe will be much, much harder for you to deal with.
We are decentralized, without a leader. Every man defines himself, for himself. We don’t hate women and we’re not even anti-feminist we simply don’t care. We are quietly living our own lives and will not bend to whatever the current definition of ‘good man’ is. We will no longer be shamed, cajoled, marginalized, or browbeaten simply for having our own needs.
We have gone ghost. We are mgtow.
Enjoy the war with men’s rights activists while you can because the peace will be terrible.
I do agree with you, to an extent. MRA’s aren’t as successful or supported. It reminds me of a little kid receiving a toy, and another child saying “hey I want that too”. Without feminist movements, men’s movements would not exits.
However, I do believe that some good has come from MRAs. There are groups that support feminist movement. There are a lot of movements that focus on ending violence towards women, and that also help men to address their emotions and empathetic sides.For example, The White Ribbon Campaign. Also, there are groups that are seeking support for single fathers. I know a single father who has full custody of his child. Some fathers should be the sole guardian in certain cases.
So in a way, I don’t think we should completely bash men’s movements.
Another thought to consider-what makes us a patriarchal society? Consider these theories when comparing genders: Biological, Cognitive Development, Social Learning, and Psychodynamic.
I am currently in a Gender Differences in Communication course. It is one of the most interesting classes I have taken.
One piece of information I find extremely important is the definition the author, Julia Wood, give for feminism. She explains how she believes in equal rights for everyone, human and nonhuman.
Do I consider myself a feminist? Not really. Originally I would here the word feminist and roll my eyes. Now? I actually consider my standpoint.
Don’t forget that everyone is given a voice. When one voice creates an issue, an opposing one is given an easy opportunity to argue.
We need to be concerned about everybody’s rights.
Men and Women.
Before I get into this, I want to say that I don’t identify with MRM. I don’t read their blogs. I don’t participate in their campaigns. That said, articles like these still chafe pretty bad.
For example, “second of all, let’s get one thing straight: men, as a group, do not face systematic oppression because of their gender.”
The justice system clearly and systematically discriminates against males. I’m sorry to say, but female perpetrators of sex crime (http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1921&context=ulj) and crime in general (http://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx) simply aren’t handled as severely as male perpetrators of comparable crimes. Not by a long shot. That, by extension, influences everything from males’ portrayal in media, to individual males’ self-images. It’s been that say for centuries, yet most people just takeit for granted. You don’t get more systematic than that.
Before I get into this, I want to say that I don’t identify with MRM. I don’t read their blogs. I don’t participate in their campaigns. That said, articles like these really chafe.
For example, “second of all, let’s get one thing straight: men, as a group, do not face systematic oppression because of their gender.”
The justice system clearly and systematically discriminates against males. I’m sorry, but female perpetrators of sex crime (http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1921&context=ulj) and crime in general (http://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx) simply aren’t handled as severely as male perpetrators of comparable crimes. Not by a long shot. That, by extension, influences everything from males’ portrayal in media, to individual males’ self-images. It’s been that way for centuries, yet most people take it for granted, and you don’t get more systematic than that.
(Sorry if this is a double-post; my browser is being glitchy, and I can’t tell if my previous comment made it out.)
I acknowledge the unfairness in sentencing that can occur but it can’t be classified as oppression. Oppressors exercise power over a group they consider inferior to themselves. Therefore, courts can’t reasonably be considered oppressors. Sentencing variations are unfair but it doesn’t negatively impact the lives of most men in any systematic way. Your justifications for calling it oppression are very weak.
How can the courts- the Government itself, I remind you- Not be considered an “oppressor”?
Well said, Auntie. Some men don’t understand the difference between unfairness and oppression.
It’s like one little boy has three apples and one little girl has three apples. The court determines the little boy must give up all his apples to the little girl. Even if the little boy didn’t deserve to lose the apples, he can complain and whine because it’s not fair, but it doesn’t meet the definition of oppression because the court itself is an extension of the patriarchy, which doesn’t consider him inferior. The solution is to destroy the patriarchy, and in the meantime, stop boring us with your tears.
Jax, it’s not one demographic group against another; e.g., men vs. women, white vs. black, heterosexual vs. homosexual, rich vs. poor. Oppressive governments exist in places like China and North Korea. North America? Not so much!
If you want to blame something, blame patriarchal notions that women are weak and helpless and mustn’t be subjected to the same kind of punishments that men receive.
Speaking of which, MRAs help propagate those notions of female inferiority.
Auntie, thank you for your civil response.
While I might be willing to concede that “oppression” isn’t the best word, remember that I only claimed “systematic discrimination.”
Further, the simple knowledge that my own justice system is prone to handle me more harshly than you puts me at a perpetual and systematic psycho-social disadvantage. This pervades everything from media portrayal of men, to daily interaction with women.
Consider the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s definition of systematic discrimination: “Systemic discrimination involves a pattern or practice, policy, or class case where the alleged discrimination has a broad impact on an industry, profession, company or geographic area.” (http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/systemic/)
Now, consider how the JUSTICE SYSTEM has DISADVANTAGED men, both in unspoken PRACTICE and in explicit POLICY, all through the United States. Also consider the resounding impact our justice system has throughout the rest of society. American men are, measurably and by definition, systematically discriminated against.
You’re welcome, Ashkuff. I made the leap from your quote of Belle’s comment about oppression and assumed wrongly that you were rebutting it.
I still disagree that disparate sentencing pervades the lives of men. Surely, it only impacts men who are given unfair sentences, no? I honestly don’t see how that extends to your other points, if you were linking them. We judge a person’s actions/character based on the crime he or she committed, not on the sentence.
I was thinking about what you said about media portrayal. When you consider the movies you’ve seen or you’re into video games, nearly all of them feature male heroes or protagonists. Men get the interesting roles and women are often sidelined. That creates the impression that men are the achievers and women are just the supporters in our society. We’re perceived as less strong and capable. Movies that centre around female characters are often derided as chick flicks.
“…a broad impact on an industry, profession, company or geographic area.”
This applies only to employment, though. In the U.S., I’d agree that the justice system oppresses black men – no question. That is one of the many forms of discrimination they face. It’s not only sentencing inequities, they are profiled by the police and disproportionately jailed over drug offenses. If you’re not a member of a racial minority, you don’t endure suspicion when you’re shopping, the sight of people crossing the street because they’re afraid of you, the sound of car doors locking when you walk by, racist remarks, and all the day-to-day indignities they face. I feel like I have it pretty good in comparison to them. What about you?
I was, in fact, rebutting part of the OP. The author asserted that men do not endure “systematic discrimination,” a specific social ill. “Oppression,” the social ill that you brought up, is very closely related, yet ultimately distinct.
Remember, the justice system doesn’t just sentence men more harshly. It also accuses them, arrests them, and charges them more often than women committing the same crimes. The specter of judicial discrimination can follow a man into any other part of his life. Is that really so hard to grasp?
Systematic discrimination is not, by any stretch of the imagination, limited to employment. Where did you get that from?
I never denied that women are often cast in bland roles. That doesn’t change the fact that men, both in fiction and in nonfiction journalism, are often stereotyped as predators and criminals.
I never denied the extra level of discrimination endured by minorities. Yet, that’s entirely beside my main point.
Let me repeat myself: men endure systematic discrimination, too. I’ve provided the authoritative definition of “systematic discrimination.” I’ve provided reputable evidence showing how men endure the travails of that definition. What else do you need?
This is systemic discrimination in the context of employment. Systemic discrimination in the criminal justice system also exists when it’s due to bias against a particular group. Judges don’t sentence some men more harshly because they’re biased against them; they sentence some women more lightly due to their sexist views of women. It’s unfair but it’s not discrimination.
“It also accuses them, arrests them, and charges them more often than women committing the same crimes.”
That’s news to me, unless the men are non-white.
“I’ve provided reputable evidence showing how men endure the travails of that definition.”
Okay, now you’re really laying it on thick. The vast majority of men are never incarcerated. Unfair sentences, which certainly don’t occur all the time, don’t affect those men in the least. For the remainder, there’s an appeal process available.
“The specter of judicial discrimination can follow a man into any other part of his life.”
How about not breaking the law? No specter! Problem solved!
“This is systemic discrimination in the context of employment.”
I repeat, the definition of “systematic discrimination” doesn’t change, based on the system.
“Judges don’t sentence some men more harshly because they’re biased against them; they sentence some women more lightly due to their sexist views of women. It’s unfair but it’s not discrimination.”
A sexist view that winds up disadvantaging males, and privileging females, is no less discriminatory than the reverse.
Higher rates of accusation, arrest, and charges pressed, especially for sex crimes, wouldn’t have been news to you if you’d followed my sources in my first comment.
“The vast majority of men are never incarcerated.”
By age 23, over a third of American males will have been arrested. The burden is even greater among minorities. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/06/half-of-blacks-arrested-23_n_4549620.html) This can show up on every background check for every job they ever apply for, affecting job prospects and lifestyle ever onward. Hardly something to be dismissed.
“How about not breaking the law? No specter! Problem solved!”
These are the words of privilege. Someone from a demographic that isn’t overly concerned about false accusations or presumed guilt. Someone who isn’t branded a threat, simply because of her demographic. Someone who could break the law, confident that she’s more likely to get away with it than other demographics.
A U.S. agency isn’t the ultimate authority on systemic discrimination in any context other than their area of responsibility. Their definition isn’t applicable to systemic discrimination in the justice system, for example. “(A) broad impact on an industry, profession, company or geographic area” has nothing to do with the justice system.
Prof. Starr’s research shows large unexplained gender disparities in federal criminal cases
Prof. Starr emphasized that it is not possible to “prove” gender discrimination with data like hers, because it is always possible that two seemingly similar cases could differ in ways not captured by the data. Given the size of the apparent gender gap and the richness of the dataset (which allowed many alternative explanations to be explored), however, Starr believes that there is “pretty good reason to suspect that disparate treatment may be one of the causes of this gap.”
(emphasis mine)
There isn’t the slightest suggestion of discrimination against white men and boys in the HuffPo article. You’re appropriating an article about racism to try to prove sexism and that is racist. The fact that you blew off my comment about what black men endure cements that. And then you have the gall to accuse me of “words of privilege.” At least I recognize my white privilege. I don’t have to fabricate it on the backs of those with much less than I have.
“Someone from a demographic that isn’t overly concerned about false accusations or presumed guilt. Someone who isn’t branded a threat, simply because of her demographic.”
And there it is: False rape accusations are at the root of your grievance. I was suspicious of your initial disclaimer “I want to say that I don’t identify with MRM.” You do cite different sources than I’ve seen coming from them but you identify with them in spirit.
“Sure, systemic discrimination involves patterns, practices, and policies. The definitions I found were pretty much like that…”
Glad we agree.
“…but I didn’t find anything authoritative.”
Except, presumably, the official definition provided by government equal-opportunity offices. The one I’ve been citing this whole time.
“When I was googling ‘systemic discrimination’, virtually every hit was about racial discrimination.”
[shrugs] So? Racial disparity is a very popular example of systematic discrimination, so it follows that lots of research on systematic discrimination would be about racism. That doesn’t prevent systematic discrimination from also touching on religion, gender, nationality, and disability.
“You’ll need more than one study in your belt to convince anyone that there is widespread discrimination against men in the justice system”
That’s why I’ve cited three, so far.
“You were talking about whites in your first sentence.”
I have to concede, that’s a reasonable abstraction. Yet, it’s also entirely irrelevant. Lemme say it like this: even lumped together, anywhere from 38%-49% of males get arrested by age 23. I repeat, this thoroughly disproves your dismissal of justice disparity as having a minuscule effect on the male population at large.
“If men commit more crimes than women, they’ll be arrested more often.”
This is an oversimplification – one that racists often use to rationalize racial profiling. A measurable justice disparity, rationalized with clearly stereotypical anecdotes, is more than enough to raise concern. And I am growing very concerned.
“If more women than men are arrested for shoplifting, I’m not entitled to claim that women are being discriminated against.”
Stereotype. “Men and women are equally likely to be arrested for this offense.” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10696491) Further, if they weren’t, you might very well be entitled to claims of discrimination.
“Hypothetical situation: There are two distinctly separate brawls taking place in a bar. One is a group of men and the other are women, each group fighting amongst themselves. Injuries are pretty much the same in both groups. The police come and arrest only the men. That would be discrimination on the part of those police officers. You’d need a widespread pattern of this kind of discrimination in order to claim systemic discrimination. The numbers alone don’t prove a thing.”
In essence, my previous citations already illustrate this, given their controls for things like “arrest offense” and other “pre-charge observables.” Seriously, you should give them a read!
“I didn’t just cherry-pick one argument. One of your links went down that path, too.”
One. As in, out of many. One point, followed by one citation, still only constitutes one point. One which you arbitrarily cherry picked as “the root of my grievance.”
“Your arguments on the whole have a distinct flavour of all the arguments I’ve engaged in with MRAs about false rape accusations, like how it follows men for the rest of their days and ruins their lives.”
False accusations of ANY KIND can follow ANY PERSON around their whole lives. Our justice system, however, seems to target males. If another group acknowledges those facts, they may have a point in that limited regard. That doesn’t mean I otherwise identify with them.
Now, please stop comparing me to MRM. It reads like a shallow attempt to stigmatize me, without seriously addressing my points.
“Oh come on.”
^^^See what I mean?
“What media stereotypes are you talking about?”
The stereotype you hearkened, yourself, is a good example. When high-profile men like Woody Allen get accused of sexual predation, yet manage to carry on afterward, people like yourself extrapolate that to “plenty of other men.” Fact is, most men aren’t already millionaires with stunningly successful career histories to surf on, and most men can’t recover so easily. Now let’s get away from sexual predation for a moment (it’s been done ad nauseum) and look at other crimes. If I were conviced to hosting an underground dog fighting ring, like Michael Vick, life as I know it would end. Vick, by contrast, was already wealthy, famous, and professionally successful… so he got his job back. That has no absolutely bearing on us “plenty of other men.”
The US EEOC clearly states that systematic discrimination can happen in a “geographic area” at large, and not just in the workplace.
You dismiss the US EEOC’s definition of “systematic discrimination” on the rather weak premise that the EEOC is only an authority matters employment-related. Remind yourself, discrimination is discrimination, whether it happens in the workplace, courtroom, classroom, or elsewhere. And regardless, you have yet to submit a more authoritative definition of your own. In the meantime, my point still stands.
“Prof. Starr emphasized that it is not possible to ‘prove’ gender discrimination with data like hers,”
This is a common disclaimer attached to most social research. Remember, without telepathy, it’s not possible to “prove” racial discrimination with similar studies, either. Regardless, the disparity is readily apparent, and attempts to explain those disparities often smack of discrimination; e.g. “if only THEY were more like US, they’d have less trouble!” Yuck.
“There isn’t the slightest suggestion of discrimination against white men and boys in the HuffPo article. You’re appropriating an article about racism to try to prove sexism and that is racist.”
I never said whites, in particular, are discriminated against. You’re making things up, then calling me names for it! Quit that. I simply said “by age 23, over a third of American males will have been arrested. The burden is even greater among minorities.” As per the article I cited, this is objectively correct, and it thoroughly illustrates the impact of judicial disparity upon American males, which you incorrectly tired to dismiss as minuscule. That HuffPo article is about race and gender alike. If you can only see one, that says more about you than it says about me.
“And there it is: False rape accusations are at the root of your grievance.”
Sheer untruth. This is called “cherry picking.” You selected one of several arguments I’ve made, misinterpreted it, and arbitrarily labeled it the “root” of my grievance. Quit that. Although I’m genuinely concerned about false allegations (for any crime, not just rape), I’m also concerned about the blatant over-arresting and over-sentencing of males, the propagation of media stereotypes, and the fact that female criminals can act with little to no fear of prosecution… just to name a few. None of these can be rightly be the “root” of my grievance.
Allow me to repeat, in no uncertain terms, the root of my grievance here: American men endure systematic discrimination… [shrugs] at least as described by the US EEOC.
“…where the alleged discrimination has a broad impact on an industry, profession, company or geographic area.”
Impact on a geographic area, not in one.
Sure, systemic discrimination involves patterns, practices, and policies. The definitions I found were pretty much like that but I didn’t find anything I’d call authoritative. When I was googling “systemic discrimination”, virtually every hit was about racial discrimination. You’ll need more than one study in your belt to convince anyone that there is widespread discrimination against men in the justice system. A study that pointedly says there’s no proof of discrimination isn’t going to cut it, disclaimer or not.
Re HuffPo: you said, “By age 23, over a third of American males will have been arrested. The burden is even greater among minorities.”
You were talking about whites in your first sentence.
“it thoroughly illustrates the impact of judicial disparity upon American males”
No, it doesn’t. If men commit more crimes than women, they’ll be arrested more often. Cause and effect. If more women than men are arrested for shoplifting, I’m not entitled to claim that women are being discriminated against.
Hypothetical situation: There are two distinctly separate brawls taking place in a bar. One is a group of men and the other are women, each group fighting amongst themselves. Injuries are pretty much the same in both groups. The police come and arrest only the men.
That would be discrimination on the part of those police officers. You’d need a widespread pattern of this kind of discrimination in order to claim systemic discrimination. The numbers alone don’t prove a thing.
I didn’t just cherry-pick one argument. One of your links went down that path, too. Your arguments on the whole have a distinct flavour of all the arguments I’ve engaged in with MRAs about false rape accusations, like how it follows men for the rest of their days and ruins their lives. Meanwhile, there are plenty of prominent men who have been accused who have gone on their merry way with little impact on their careers or lives: Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, R Kelly, Jameis Winston, etc.
“female criminals can act with little to no fear of prosecution…”
Oh come on.
What media stereotypes are you talking about?
…”Sure, systemic discrimination involves patterns, practices, and policies. The definitions I found were pretty much like that…”
Glad we agree.
“…but I didn’t find anything authoritative.”
Except, presumably, the official definition provided by government equal-opportunity offices. The one I’ve been citing this whole time.
“When I was googling ‘systemic discrimination’, virtually every hit was about racial discrimination.”
[shrugs] So? Racial disparity is a very popular example of systematic discrimination, so it follows that lots of research on systematic discrimination would be about racism. That doesn’t prevent systematic discrimination from also touching on religion, gender, nationality, and disability.
“You’ll need more than one study in your belt to convince anyone that there is widespread discrimination against men in the justice system”
That’s why I’ve cited three, so far.
“You were talking about whites in your first sentence.”
I have to concede, that’s a reasonable abstraction. Yet, it’s also entirely irrelevant. Lemme say it like this: even lumped together, anywhere from 38%-49% of males get arrested by age 23. I repeat, this thoroughly disproves your dismissal of justice disparity as having a minuscule effect on the male population at large.
“If men commit more crimes than women, they’ll be arrested more often.”
This is an oversimplification – one that racists often use to rationalize racial profiling. A measurable justice disparity, rationalized with clearly stereotypical anecdotes, is more than enough to raise concern. And I am growing very concerned.
“If more women than men are arrested for shoplifting, I’m not entitled to claim that women are being discriminated against.”
Stereotype. “Men and women are equally likely to be arrested for this offense.” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10696491) Further, if they weren’t, you might very well be entitled to claims of discrimination.
“Hypothetical situation: There are two distinctly separate brawls taking place in a bar. One is a group of men and the other are women, each group fighting amongst themselves. Injuries are pretty much the same in both groups. The police come and arrest only the men. That would be discrimination on the part of those police officers. You’d need a widespread pattern of this kind of discrimination in order to claim systemic discrimination. The numbers alone don’t prove a thing.”
In essence, my previous citations already illustrate this, given their controls for things like “arrest offense” and other “pre-charge observables.” Seriously, you should give them a read!
“I didn’t just cherry-pick one argument. One of your links went down that path, too.”
One. As in, out of many. One point, followed by one citation, still only constitutes one point. One which you arbitrarily cherry picked as “the root of my grievance.”
“Your arguments on the whole have a distinct flavour of all the arguments I’ve engaged in with MRAs about false rape accusations, like how it follows men for the rest of their days and ruins their lives.”
False accusations of ANY KIND can follow ANY PERSON around their whole lives. Our justice system, however, seems to target males. If another group acknowledges those facts, they may have a point in that limited regard. That doesn’t mean I otherwise identify with them.
Now, please stop comparing me to MRM. It reads like a shallow attempt to stigmatize me, without seriously addressing my points.
“Oh come on.”
^^^See what I mean?
“What media stereotypes are you talking about?”
The stereotype you hearkened, yourself, is a good example. When high-profile men like Woody Allen get accused of sexual predation, yet manage to carry on afterward, people like yourself extrapolate that to “plenty of other men.” Fact is, most men aren’t already millionaires with stunningly successful career histories to surf on, and most men can’t recover so easily. Now let’s get away from sexual predation for a moment (it’s been done ad nauseum) and look at other crimes. If I were conviced to hosting an underground dog fighting ring, like Michael Vick, life as I know it would end. Vick, by contrast, was already wealthy, famous, and professionally successful… so he got his job back. That has no absolutely bearing on us “plenty of other men.”
We’re just going around in circles now. You’ve taken a few sources and are trying to shoehorn them into your agenda.
1. Employment discrimination isn’t justice system discirmination.
2. As I said before, the HuffPo article didn’t prove anything nor did it try to as far as white men go. I’m in no mood to read the PDF for your third alleged article of proof.
3. I don’t really care whether men and women shoplift in equal measure. It was meant to be an analogy.
4. Your previous citations don’t prove anything. Wishful thinking doesn’t make it so.
Men aren’t victims of the justice system – not by a long shot. Sexual predators get a helluva lot of breaks; they are rarely even charged, let alone convicted or incarcerated. That includes men without money or power.
Men have far more advantages than women in this world and it pisses me off when some of you paint yourselves as victims over a few perceived inequities that are rarely the result of discrimination. Instead of thanking your lucky stars that’s all you have to contend with, you piss and moan with no regard for what women or minorities are subjected to for a lifetime. Talk about self-absorbed and privileged.
“You’ve taken a few sources and are trying to shoehorn them into your agenda.”
Only if, by “shoehorn,” you mean I gave reputable supporting evidence for a point.
“Employment discrimination isn’t justice system discirmination.”
Systematic discrimination is systematic discrimination, regardless of the system it happens in – workplaces, courtrooms, classrooms, etc.
“As I said before, the HuffPo article didn’t prove anything nor did it try to as far as white men go. I’m in no mood to read the PDF for your third alleged article of proof.”
The article clearly demonstrates that a large portion of males get arrested. I never made it about race. That’s on you.
“Your previous citations don’t prove anything. … Men aren’t victims of the justice system – not by a long shot.”
I’ll repeat myself one final time.
The US EEOC defines systematic discrimination as “Systemic discrimination involves a pattern or practice, policy, or class case where the alleged discrimination has a broad impact on an industry, profession, company or geographic area.” (http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/systemic/) Yes, the EEOC’s primary function is employment equity, however, this definition clearly isn’t limited to that.
Reputable research shows that female perpetrators of sex crime (http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1921&context=ulj) and crime in general (http://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx) simply aren’t handled as severely as male perpetrators of comparable crimes. This is no small problem, either. By the age of 23, anywhere from 38-49% of American males will face arrest, (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/06/half-of-blacks-arrested-23_n_4549620.html), more than twice their female counterparts, disadvantaging males ever onward. Worse yet, explanations for these disparities often smack of discrimination — e.g. “if only THEY were more like US, they wouldn’t get arrested!” This disparity informs destructive media stereotypes, like the very ones you invoked, which permeate society at large. Which chafes. Badly.
Based on all that, I allege that the justice system discriminates against males, both in unspoken practice and explicit policy, resulting in a broad impact nationwide. This is the very definition of systematic discrimination. Whether you acknowledge it or not.
“Wishful thinking doesn’t make it so.”
I agree.
I wish I was wrong.
Yet, that hasn’t made it so.
“Men have far more advantages than women in this world and it pisses me off when some of you paint yourselves as victims over a few perceived inequities that are rarely the result of discrimination. Instead of thanking your lucky stars that’s all you have to contend with, you piss and moan with no regard for what women or minorities are subjected to for a lifetime. Talk about self-absorbed and privileged.”
I never denied that men don’t enjoy other advantages. That doesn’t mean we can’t endure systematic discrimination. Name calling and further stereotypes don’t help, either.
[sighs tiredly]
Up until recently, you’ve been pretty civil, and I thank you for that. Yet, this conversation has started distracting me from my other responsibilities, which isn’t cool. Plus, like you said, we’re starting to go in circles. With that, I’m just going to say goodbye.
Last word belongs to you.
Your arguments are sound. I went and followed the links and research cited. I wasn’t aware that the problem was as bad as that in the States. Sounds even worse than what is here in Canada! Thanks for using logic and sense in your arguments. It’s too bad that logic doesn’t sway those types (such as bellejar) who are only swayed by their emotional views. You’ve educated me, at least. Thanks for that! And no, i’m not a WASP… bnut am part of a (barely) visible minority and am a man…
There is only one thing that would cause otherwise functional men to be so completely out of touch with reality: virulent hatred of women.
First let me say I am a wife and a mom (of both a boy and a girl) in my early 50’s so I have seen a lot of patriarchy, a lot of feminism, and a lot of feminist male bashing. I have also been a practicing Wiccan in the United States for over 30 years so I have seen a LOT of feminist male bashing. (that pendulum has swung more to the center in recent times, but still there’s a lot of it out there. I mention Wicca because the structure is often very matriacial, or at least equal, and yet the men are still being bashed.
I have a husband who is the sweetest most sensitive person around, and yes he has often been bashed and dismissed or belittled in discussions only because he is male and “just couldnt understand.” Well hello here, he is a son, and a brother, and a husband and a father to females, and maybe he does understand. Although you may have problems with this partciular organization headlining your article as you did basicly dismisses any thoughtful male who may wish to listen to what you have to say, as the average reader will never realize you are talking about a specific group.
Men (I’m talking about all men, not just white men) are often discriminated against in our society, in terms of visitation, custody (sometimes dad is the better custodial parent) and when they try to obtain protection orders or press charges when they are the victim of domestic violence. Boys are discriminated against in school because they dont “behave” ie they arent wired to sit for hours on end, and often have greater difficulties with reading comprehension and writing. Men who choose to stay home with their children while mom works (for whatever reasons makes sense to that couple) are depictied as failures or as lazy and shiftless. (As someone who has been there, the majority of criticism came from other women, not men).
I have raised my son to be a good man who appreciates women, but what do you think goes through his mind when he runs across a story like this?He is in college now, most of his best friends are young women (not girlfriends, mind you, friends) and is supportive of their endevours and rights in society, then he sees a headline that appears to condemn him and every other male.
I dont usually comment on stories like this, because most of the responses are in the vein of the ones above, but I dont think feminism requires us to bash the other “side” all the time. I also dont think its the way to raise young men (the next generation) to be respectful of our daughters, which is what we need to be focusing on.
Sounds like a decent mom, to me.
I. Just . . . No.
Meg? Your male progeny and husband might not rape women, but they don’t get a cookie for meeting the very basic requirements of being a decent person. Your husband does not experience gender oppression so he DOES NOT GET TO SPEAK on these issues. He is welcome to listen and hear our voices.
Yes, little boys like to move around in class. Well guess what? They also like to be creepers, touching girls when not asked to. It might seem unfair to make them sit still when it’s in their nature to prowl, but guess what? Unfairness does not = discrimination. You can only discriminate against a class that has no institutional power. MEN CAN NEVER BE DISCRIMATED AGAINST!
You might want to check your internalized-misogyny?
[clears throat, reads from dictionary]
“Discrimination. Noun. The practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people.” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discrimination)
JemmyRae, while I understand that some like to pretend “discrimination” is a strictly power-conditional concept, they miss the fact that power dynamics are subjective. They miss the fact that power dynamics shift with context. They also miss the fact that they’re being inherently discriminatory.
Lastly, nobody asked for a cookie. She asks simply that you don’t prejudge her husband and son (e.g. as “creepers”) because of their Y chromosomes.
Nice post
What always strikes me as quite sad is that both this Men’s Rights Movement (the sentiment is familiar to me, even if the name isn’t) and what I understand feminism to be seem to both want the same thing. That is: respect and equal opportunity regardless of sex (or income, sexuality or ethnic background). I think lines get drawn in the sand, and this leads into some strong positions being taken, and thus further discussions become more challenging. I think it is possible that this anger and ensuing miscommunication has contributed to more people disavowing themselves as feminists (when in all honesty they probably are).