The men’s rights movement is a collection of groups who believe that men are downtrodden and disadvantaged in our society. They see feminism as an ideology which has taken over the world in the name of female supremacy, and they see themselves as somewhere between a male civil rights movement and an underground resistance to the female hegemony. If you think I’m joking, you might look up groups like A Voice For Men, Spearhead or the Red Pill subreddit, but not without bracing your stomach for the combination of misogyny and self-aggrandising inanity which they offer. For some time this movement, whose members call themselves men’s rights activists (or MRAs) was confined to America, but recently they have found kindred spirits in Britain, in groups such as Justice For Men And Boys.
The trouble with the men’s rights movement is you cannot simply laugh at them. Their ideas are ludicrous and their methods are often repulsive, but they have managed to articulate some of the discontentment a surprisingly large number of people seem to feel about the gains made by feminism over the last century. I find the idea of “red pill men” who imagine they are part of a rebellion against the matriarchal Matrix laughable, but I can’t count the number of people who have told me that feminism “went too far” and that our society is sexist against men. In fact, MRAs sometime bring up issues which do need to be addressed, such as the high suicide rate amongst men, but frame them in ways which obscure the real problem. Here are a few talking points which get trotted out again and again – and why I think they can only be solved by more feminism, not less.[1]
Men and Suicide
The higher rate of suicide amongst young men, when compared to young women, is often cited as proof that women have it easier in our society, or that men are “the disposable gender”. It is an absolute tragedy that so many young men come to see killing themselves as the only way out of their problems, and we need to do so much more to support them. But I honestly believe that this is an effect of the damaging model of masculinity which patriarchy tries to impose upon men, not a result of women in power. The insistence that young men should never show weakness, never admit to anxiety or to worrying that they are not up to the demands being made of them, has a terrible effect. The traditions of “bottling it up” or keeping a “stiff upper lip” whatever happens, can take a horrific toll on the emotional life of any man who finds himself in a situation he can’t deal with on his own. It may make him much less likely to seek help, and even make him less able to accept and implement the help he is offered.
I don’t think this makes men a disadvantaged gender, however. In individual cases this idea of “manhood” destroys lives, and can do a great deal of harm to personal relationships. On a structural level, however, it is unlikely that men as a group will lose institutional power because they are not permitted to express fear or doubt. Preventing young men from expressing these emotions, even at the implicit cost of their lives, merely bolsters the myth that men should be invulnerable, all-powerful and never admit any weakness. That myth normalises men’s control of Fortune 500 companies and their position as the “head” of families. In a perverse system of masculinity, actual men can die as a result of the power base their gender has entrenched. Women don’t benefit from this grim irony. Other men do.
Family Courts
Some of the most extreme rhetoric from the men’s rights movement has come on the issue of divorce and family courts. In some cases, this has involved calls for domestic terrorism and the firebombing of courthouses. The fact that family courts are perceived as favouring the rights of mothers over fathers in custody disputes is frequently advanced as evidence that the state is favouring women, and that feminism is intent on destroying the traditional family. In fact this is a situation which feminists have been equally eager to critique. Children being placed with mothers during family breakup is not based on a secret feminist cabal influencing judicial decision-making, but on the default assumption in our society that women are the primary caregivers. That traditional family MRAs take as the model for “normal” living depends upon women taking the major share of responsibility for the emotional and physical wellbeing of children. They are supposed to be naturally nurturing and emotional, better suited to homemaking and raising children. The family courts are simply taking a sexist society at its word, and placing children with the group supposedly designed to care for them. If men want more “rights” in the family courts – which is what they seem to be equating with a greater share of custody – then they should throw their weight behind dismantling the patriarchal dogma that a woman’s place is in the home.
Maternity Leave
This is another area where women’s supposed extra rights turn out to be part of a system which advantages men. I have sat a dinner parties where maternity leave is described as a good reason not to hire young women, and at other parties where women mention employers asking (illegally) about their future plans for a family in job interviews. Why, the MRAs demand, do women get paid time off to have children, leaving male colleagues to pick up the slack in their workload. Why is their right to defraud the company legally protected? This does look like an astonishing anomaly: female employees are entitled to a period of time in which they are paid but do not work, and which male employees cannot claim.
But again: who benefits from this system? On a short-term basis, perhaps women do. They have the chance to recover from the physical effects of birth, bond with their child and look after it in its early months (assuming, of course, they have a job which provides such benefits.) But what about all the men in the company? Have they not got families? If they have, who is taking care of the children? If they’re sufficiently well-paid, perhaps they can afford childcare. Or their partner may be looking after the children, freeing up their time to devote to the company. In other words, women who take care of children at home are massively subsidizing the firms their partners work for. Instead of asking why one female worker gets to “defraud” the company by taking paid time off, we should be pointing to the invisible female labour which male workers with children represent. Men don’t agonise over whether they can “have it all” by undertaking a career and starting a family. They aren’t hectored by magazines and talk-shows about what they’re doing to their child by working, or what they’re doing to their career by reproducing. Because the men in the company are assumed to be able to call on the unpaid labour of another person to ensure their productivity isn’t too badly affected. The way to rectify this imbalance is not to remove maternity, it’s to campaign for more generous paternity leave, and a culture which believes men should take that leave.
Erotic Capital
Otherwise known as “sleeping your way to the top”, “feminine wiles” and so on. Men’s rights activists, and even a couple of pseudo-sociologists such as Catherine Hakim, suggest that women are at an advantage in the corporate world. When job performance is not related to something physically measurable, such as trenches dug or boilers stoked, they argue that women have an extra attribute that men do not.[2] A way to make more money, or money-maker, if you will. The argument boils down to the idea that women can exploit their sexuality to gain competitive advantages over men. They can flutter their eye-lashes, exert their charisma, and even go further, if they see fit, in the scramble up the company ladder. The poor men are left at the bottom of the ladder, whilst women take all the power.
There are a couple of problems with this, as I see it. Firstly, women are not the only people with a sexuality. Men have one too, which might lead us to ask why men can’t sleep their way up the corporate ladder. After all, I’m told that guys in suits are pretty hot.[3] But men’s sexuality is seen as a part of them, not as implicitly always up for grabs or for negotiation with other people. Put another way, our society sees women as possessing their sexuality almost as a commodity: something which can be evaluated, traded or bought. If that is an advantage because it provides them with some sort of “capital” in certain circumstances – which I don’t believe is even the case – then it is outweighed in orders of magnitude by the perception that women’s bodies are regarded as tradeable objects. The idea that a woman is opening up her sexuality to comment and negotiation simply by being in public, is at the root of so much abuse and assault that it cannot be counted as proof of women’s superior station in life.
Secondly, the “sleeping your way to the top” argument doesn’t even make sense on its own terms. It is logically incoherent. After all, if women are able to leverage their sexuality to achieve an advantage over male colleagues, that presupposes they are not in charge. For a woman to sleep her way to the top, don’t all the people above her in the hierarchy have to be male? Because men’s rights activists always seem to imagine sexuality as synonymous with heterosexuality. Unless they are alleging that there has been a wholesale lesbian and bi takeover of our major corporate institutions, this whole argument seems to hinge on first admitting that men are overwhelmingly still holding the positions of power.
Not in my name
Though they may pick on important issues, and tap into a trendy backlash against women’s rights, MRAs uphold a deeply unpleasant ideology. Men are not oppressed in our society, and to claim that they are merely bolsters a sense of male entitlement which all too often expresses itself in aggression and violence towards women. It’s time for men to disagree, loudly and publicly, with these people who claim to be acting in our name. Men do not want men’s rights, and we want nothing to do with their movement.
[1] A note on terminology: the men’s rights movement always frames arguments in terms of “men” and “women”, meaning cis men and cis women. They assume a rigid gender binary which translates into gender essentialism, and base their arguments on a heterosexist view of human relations. Since I am engaging with their arguments, and seeking to demonstrate that they are in fact arguments in favour of feminism on their own terms, I will not be continually pointing out the ways in which trans men, trans women and gender queer people undermine the very propositions they start from – let alone how queer sexualities plant a mine beneath their worldview…!
[2] We’ll be leaving aside, for the sake of this argument, the fact that women were a mainstay of the physical labour force out in the fields for centuries…
[3] I did a quick poll amongst friends, colleagues and tweeters. It was fairly conclusive.
quiteirregular 
Excellent post, and actually wonderfully timed. I’ve written my own blog post on feminism to put up on Friday. I refer to blog as an inspiration; this post demonstrates exactly why.
Thanks Laura – I look forward to the piece in question!
Though they may pick on important issues, and tap into a trendy backlash against women’s rights, MRAs uphold a deeply unpleasant ideology. Men are not oppressed in our society, and to claim that they are merely bolsters a sense of male entitlement which all too often expresses itself in aggression and violence towards women. this statement show that even if they are being oppressed you wouldn’t see it
Completely agree Jem, but my only wondering (and it is only that, a wondering) is if there’s a danger of lumping all of the groups you mention together as representative of the same movement. It seems to me, for example, that there is a big difference between a group such as ‘Fathers 4 Justice’ which tackles a specific issue, that ‘Fathers currently have no rights in law and are not legally recognised in law.’ and asserts that it ‘supports the human rights of mothers, fathers and children. To apply the law in a discriminatory way against one parent on the basis of their gender is unjust and morally wrong.’, and nowhere that I’ve found argues against feminism; and a site such as antimisandry.com which states it is ‘curing feminist indoctrination’.
I’m not saying that Fathers 4 Justice is necessarily *right* in what it does or what it claims, nor denying that many (most? all?) of its members may identify with the MRA movement, but is there a danger of undoing potentially useful work by suggesting a campaign from the male perspective for equal rights/awareness raising in relation to e.g. parental access, support for counselling etc. necessarily has an MRA underpinning?
Hi Pete – yes, I think you’re right: there’s a need for us to be careful in taxonomy. I didn’t include F4J in this article because I haven’t heard them make any references to MRA groups, and I don’t think they are one, from current evidence. I don’t like their rhetoric (it seems confused and potentially inflammatory) and I don’t like their tactics, (which seem to stress the idea of fathers as transcendent figures of authority) but I don’t think they qualify as MRA. The other reason I think they’re worth extending the benefit of the doubt to is the speed with which genuine MRA groups reveal their colours – it doesn’t take long for “true egalitarian” and “civil rights” rhetoric to degenerate into explicit misogyny. Just as I don’t agree with a lot of what Ally Fogg writes, but I don’t think he’s MRA, I reckon F4J are wrong in approach but not in basic ideology – sorry for the rambling reply! Thanks for contributing.
Oops, my tired eyes misread Justice for Men as Fathers for Justice – sorry, my post probably made very little sense! Thanks for the reply though, which I think clarifies the underpinning of your argument – that it is the ugly ideology underpinning MRA that is at stake here. As far as I’m concerned, feminism addresses the genuine issues of gender disparity highlighted by MRA anyway, and an attack on feminism in the name of eg support for victims of sexual violence seems hugely counterproductive.
There was a lot of discussion around the founding members of Fathers 4 Justice being largely not allowed access to their children due to their use of domestic violence. Looking at the comments down below, I think that we should change the system by ensuring that both boys and girls have to attend obligatory child care lessons, that sexual media that is violently sexist be banned (yes, I did use the B word) so that men can give equal and non discriminatory care to their daughters and that both parents be given and required to undertake joint custody/child care. That way, both parents will have to put their careers on hold whilst bringing up children, both parents will do their joint shares of sick days, dentist appointments and nappy changing and then both parents can be required and judged on their ability to pull as a team for the good of their children rather than cherry picking advantages as and when it suits. Perhaps then the gross inequalities on both sides will abate.
When I first found these MRA-type websites, before I had taken a closer look at them, I was really excited. The issues listed in this article along with many others are really important to me. I’ve seen them hurt people close to me and I thought I’d finally found a place where I could talk about them. Needless to say, I was thoroughly disappointed.
Ultimately, amongst aggressive rage against feminism and a massive focus and on the absolutely wrong things, associating themselves with these issues and the term “men’s rights” is their biggest crime.
You made our problems harder to solve for everyone. Thanks guys!
Reblogged this on Hannah Chutzpah.
I totally agree with what you have written – for example men should have more paternity leave and shouldn’t feel pressure to not take it from their work, and this would even out the job market for women as this “issue” would no longer be relevant – equal opportunities legislation would stop the terms and wages during this leave from being different for male and female employees.
I do have to feel sorry for the minority of men who don’t get access to their children and cannot get access for no reason apart from they aren’t seen as a potential main care giver and the woman has decided to withhold access. A single person cannot overturn a system like this, and it is wrong to blame that single person for the patriarchal system that created it in the first place. Sadly the only groups that are willing to talk to them are these “Mens’ Rights” groups. This does seem something that needs to be resolved in law so that access is a law given right, and the family courts then need to apply this. The law as it is is surely created under the very male-dominated political system we have now though. And they don’t look kindly upon the stunts F4J and the like pull.
[And also I suspect that some of the mothers withhold access for solid reasons but that there is no legal standard evidence for.]
The higher rate of suicide amongst young men, when compared to young women, is often cited as proof that women have it easier in our society, or that men are “the disposable gender”. It is an absolute tragedy that so many young men come to see killing themselves as the only way out of their problems, and we need to do so much more to support them. But I honestly believe that this is an effect of the damaging model of masculinity which patriarchy tries to impose upon men, not a result of women in power.
This is certainly true, and seems to me to form a double bind for men. It’s not clear (it’s hard to get accurate stats, because of self-reporting, diagnosis issues, etc.) that men suffer a higher rate of suicideality than women, but it is true that men are more likely to use ‘violent’ methods to kill themselves (probably also because of society’s messages about giving up, giving in, wussing out vs going out in a blaze of ‘glory’). This means that, whether they are more likely to want to kill themselves or not, they end up doing so at a higher rate than women (who generally use methods that are more easily counteracted if caught in time).
It’s also true, though rather off your main topic and thankfully very rare, that men who kill themselves are more likely to kill others (most often a partner and/or children) with them. Obviously this is not the same as men who suffer from depression or other mental health issues, and I’m not at all saying all suicidal men are a danger to others, but it is another outworking of the toxic myth (perpetuated by many MRAs) that men should be omnipotent and all-powerful heads of their families, with the right to make choices not only over their own lives, but those of others.
What a depressing exercise in female denial of power and privilege.
Thanks for a great post! Agreed on all counts. The issue isn’t that men need *more* of a voice in society; it’s the assumption that they’re ‘less’ as men (whatever that means) if that voice is shared with women. The swing dance community has for a while been confronting some issues regarding partner dance and the gendered implications of ‘leading’ and ‘following’ (there’s a good debate going on here: http://rebeccabrightly.com/solving-sexism-lindy-hop-community/ ). One of the most important points being made is that it needs to be OK not just for women to lead, but for men to follow; masculinity needs to be redefined so that it doesn’t require men to have the dominant voice at all times. Your blogposts always make me think, but this one especially – I only hope I’ve expressed myself clearly! Happy to clarify if I haven’t.
P.S. I may be wrong, but isn’t it Catherine Hakim who’s the ‘erotic capital’ sociologist, not Christine?
Thanks, Emma – that sounds like a fascinating discussion and I look forward to reading about it. And oops, yes, it is *Catherine* Hakim – thanks for pointing that out!
Men need more of a voice when it comes to gender issues as its dominated by women. Men should and that deserve to be at that table as much as women are.
Hiya,
I read through your post and feel like you’ve miss interpreted what MRA’s are, or at least should be about. The commentary shouldn’t be about who has it worse, but acknowledging that both genders face problems and both sets of problems are worth addressing and solving; that both genders are equally valuable and should be approached with compassion.
There are issues (in my home country of the USA) which males face exclusively, or to a greater degree, than women do (the reverse is also true and I offer no attempt to argue it). As examples: the draft and circumcision. In the US only men are required to register for selective service under the penalty of baring from government loans for school, baring of govenment jobs, fines of $250,000, and imprisonment. If one registers they have to be prepared that in the event of war they could be drafted and face the horrors of war regardless of their opinion on the war. This is something that is sad and unfair towards men.
Circumcision is male genital mutilation; it has almost no medical benefits but many drawbacks. I will refer you to this nice lecture from Oxford that does a great job of thoroughly discussing it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeV8DfRdW1s. It is a little bit long but a good watch. Last I read 30% of infant boys in the US are circumcised. It is sad and upsetting to me that we regard this form of infant abuse as a good and healthy thing for the infant.
I am sorry if the impression you have of the MRA is one of gender who-has-it-worse oppression-Olympics. The movement should be about seeing that issues of men are addressed and resolved. The who-has-it-worse conversation is not meaningful, we are wasting our time on a pissing match of who has it worse, when we could be out fixing the VERY REAL issues that both men and women face in our society. Everyone, at least that I have ever talked to, wants a fair and equal society; we just see different barriers. This difference of perspectives is fine, we all have unique experiences that are equally valuable.
Cheers,
Kevin.
Here’s the thing about the Men’s Rights Movement vs. Feminism:
It’s not a zero sum game.
Why do women need feminism? Because they want to address problems that primarily affect women.
Why do men need Men’s Rights? Because they want to address problems that primarily affect men.
Most rhetoric you’ll see about feminism from the MRM is primarily targeted at today’s tumblr feminists who quote terrible and false statistics (like the “1 in 4” campaign that basically says colleges are more dangerous than 8-mile detroit, which is absurd), and who use borderline hate speech which all but demonizes men as “the oppressor”. These are the people who demonize male sexuality and celebrate female sexuality, and don’t see the irony.
Like-wise, most of your rhetoric rhetoric regarding MRM is primarily targeted at the MRA masses who repeat the messages of their supposed leaders, and often skew statistics and ideas a little too far. You often lose the original intention of the message.
Just to give you an example of what I mean by “This isn’t a zero sum game”, I can point to abuse statistics which show that in most cases of domestic abuse, the abuse is reciprocal in nature (i.e. both parties are abusing each other).
That begs the question then… where are the support systems for the men being abused? We see and hear all about resources for saving women from violence and abuse, but a man looking for shelter is met often met with mistrust and is re-victimized by being told he is probably the abuser. These are the men who are arrested after calling the cops on their wives for domestic violence, because the Duluth Model of handling DV/DA responses have created “Arrest the man” defaults for police departments.
The saddest part about the entire thing is that it doesn’t truly solve the problem. It tries to solve the problem by handling HALF of the problem. How can DV/DA be solved when we ignore an entire gender?
The question you have to ask yourself is: Exactly what argument can be made against this that doesn’t involve “but women need it more”. Not one (reasonable) person would suggest we remove support from women, just that we need to provide more support for men.
You can make all the rhetorical claims and arguments you want about “patriarchy”, but when it comes to legislature, Feminist groups are the ones who created the support structure for women that forget or intentionally left out equal support for men. THAT’S WHY WE NEED A MEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT.
This is what I really dislike about the mens rights movement –
” Feminist groups are the ones who created the support structure for women that forget or intentionally left out equal support for men”
I mean, what the fuck? What movement fighting for rights has ever provided support for the “other side” … Why is it that men when they see women doing something for themselves the immediate reaction is .. “What about MEEE!!11” … If the mens rights movement spent a tenth of the energy on DV shelters as they spend whining about feminists and trying to create the perfect PUA line they’d be in place already.
MRM has nothing to do with PUA. The fringe groups like Red Pill and MGTOWs certainly co-op the MRM name, but certainly do not represent the whole group.
Also…
‘Why is it that men when they see women doing something for themselves the immediate reaction is .. “What about MEEE!!11″ ‘
I mean, I could call the entire Feminist movement a bunch of women living on the backs of men and screaming “WHAT ABOUT MEEEEEE!!11”, and you would call me a misogynist. You would quote things like the right to vote, right to work, equal pay… these are all very good examples of good things Feminism has done.
Can you explain to me exactly how one fights for equal support under the law without pointing out the Violence Against Women Act and FBI still don’t define envelopment or forced-to-penetrate as rape? You call is whining, I call it A REALLY GOOD EXAMPLE.
Oh also, i certainly think a “What about meeee!” argument is fair when we criminalize female genital mutilation, but the entire populace has fun conversations about whether they prefer “cut or uncut” men.
Yes. What about having a penis gave an adult the right to cut it up?
It’s not about “what about meeeee!”, it’s about equality.
The U.N. called for completely banning circumcision.
Well… female circumcision… we are happily continuing to cut up the boys at a rate of more than 50% of all newborns in the US each year.
The worst part about this post is that it’s clearly biased from the beginning. You’re basically saying that a man who stands up and fights for his right to be a father to his children is an insane person. You’re closing minds in the first paragraph, and losing an opportunity to open them, instead.
Welcome to all the MRAs who have suddenly arrived on my post from the Men’s Rights subreddit where this piece has apparently been posted. Do feel free to explain why the comments over there call me “screamingly gay” and “a massive magina”, and how that plays into your concern for supporting men and promoting rational dialogue over gender. Whilst you’re at it, explain why the message boards at A Voice For Men, the biggest MRA site on the internet, carried a threat to smash my head in. Thanks for dropping by.
It’s interesting to me that you focus on only the immature comments made from troubled individuals and don’t respond and don’t mention the ones that actually critique your post. Why is that? Do you fear that they may be right in pointing out how biased you are in this post? I believe that is the case.
I agree with many things in both Men’s Rights and Women’s Rights movements. Both truly do have a reason to exist, because not only us women have issues that need attention. Re-read your own post and ask yourself if it isn’t biased. Reading it reminds me of the recent Martin/Zimmerman case. The media was plagued with “evidence” that Zimmerman was a racist and that is why he killed Martin. However the truth of the matter is that Zimmerman went to prom with a black woman, the neighborhood he lived in is multiracial, his neighbor is black and was robbed by blacks, he testified in court that a white cop beat a black homeless man and got the cop convicted….however the media ignored all of this, just as you ignore all of the good that MRA’s are doing and only focusing on the bad individuals who claim to be a part of the movement.
I am indeed biased, *because I think they’re wrong*! I didn’t wake up this morning and decide to weigh the evidence that presented itself at that moment, I have been reading MRA material for years now. I have developed an analysis which I present above. And your choice of example is staggering. Not to mention the way it reveals a serious misunderstanding of the difference between an individual person’s intentions and an oppressive structure in society at large
I am the reddit poster who made the “screamingly gay” comment, and I find it interesting that you choose to cherry pick that particular comment.
I would be all for rational dialog over men’s issues, but every time we try, we get you and your ilk screaming hysterically and protesting at things like the events held by CAFE at the uni of Toronto.
So, why don’t you put on your big boy pants, create a reddit account, and come in and talk with us about men’s issues.
I am sure r/MensRights would be more than happy to have a rational, civil discussion with you about why we believe that feminism has failed men, and offers nothing for us.
” . . . we believe that feminism has failed men, and offers nothing for us.” Do you not understand how ridiculous and entitled this statement is? Feminism was not started “for men”; fighting for women’s liberation does not equal “failing” men. As a previous commenter said, if MRAs spent as much time actually working on men’s issues as they do demonizing feminism, many of their issues would be solved.
You may disagree with the content, but the tone of this post is rational, measured, civil and entirely free from hate speech and anything that could be interpreted as “hysteria”.
“Screamingly gay”, on the other hand, is a homophobic slur, so you’re not really doing a great job illustrating that you’re a proponent of rational civil debate.
Also, do you know why it’s so easy to “cherrypick” comments like yours as illustrations of MRA mentality? Because they are EVERYWHERE. Every comment thread on every blogpost or article on any of the major MRA sites, there are countless examples of violent, hateful, misogynist rhetoric (often with racism, homophobia and transphobia thrown in for good measure). It’s not like you have to search very far, and once you find these comments, you can see that they have been received favourably by other members of the community.
On the majority of feminist blogs, threats of violence and hate speech are BANNED, no matter who they are directed against. If I came onto this blog, and declared that all MRAs were “screamingly gay” and deserved to have their heads smashed in, I have no doubt my comment would be deleted and that if I repeated this behaviour, I would be blocked.
Feminist blogs block this shit because they understand that violent bigoted rhetoric has no place in a social justice movement, no place in movements that care about making the world a better place. Feminist bloggers hold their communities to high standards, because they understand that their message is irreparably weakened by people who resort to violence and bigotry to make their points and they don’t want those people in their spaces or representing their point of view.
Original bias aside, your reply is sexist and way beyond self-serving. I do have fun reading these blogs but you are making the case for those you call your detractors. Pls be careful in citing Family Court, XX and XY’s both are to blame for the current state. It is about children, the next generation.
It is entertaining to read, but with all due respect, you are preaching to the yourself.
Good day,
You are looking mainly at the extremes of the MRM (Men’s Right Movement) without assessing the group as a whole. This would be no different than looking only at FEMEN and other radical feminist groups and claiming that feminism is a misandristic movement. The fact is many persons, myself included, consider themselves to be both Feminists and MRA’s because we see that society has ways that it hurts both genders. Allow me to present a small handful of them below (and I am happy to provide a similar list of how society harms women if inquired)
– Men make up the vast majority of all combat deaths, and of all professional deaths and society often makes light of this fact. For instance think of how many times you hear “Many were killed, including X women and children” or “He killed a lot including women and children”. The children bit is completely understandable however this shows evidence that society views deaths of women on such a more serious issue. For another look at this perspective consider the following quote from Hillary Clinton: “Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children.”
– Men make up the majority of the homeless, yet many homeless shelters and support programs support only women. For example take the Violence Against Women Act which requires spending down by the government to solve the homelessness issue Women face (with no requirements to address male homelessness)
– Men make up about 15% of all rape victims, or about 1/8, however the programs in place (such as call lines) are almost exclusively for women (much more than the 1/8th ratio) and in fact many programs have been known to explicitly say that men cannot be rape victims or even have their operators verbally abuse male rape victims who call in.
And there are many other issues as well, I could spend hours describing them (for both sexes).
Some people choose for whatever reason to focus on the issues men face (be it by being men themselves or perhaps a mother wishing her only son a better life in the future). Such people are MRA’s… is there anything wrong with this?
Where where WHERE are these moderate MRAs? Seriously? Every time anyone who is not an MRA writes an article about MRAs, someone pops their head up out a hole in ground and goes “Oh, but those MRAs aren’t REPRESENTATIVE, you’re just looking at the extremists, you’re just cherry-picking, there are lots of moderate MRAs who don’t hate women!”
But WHERE are they? If the people who run and participate on The Spearhead, A Voice For Men and the Men’s Rights subreddit are not the people who represent the mainstreams views of the Men’s Rights, then who does? And why are they not FURIOUS that the aforementioned communities are publishing violent, hateful, misogynistic screeds and violent fantasies about hurting feminists under the umbrella of men’s rights?
During the 1970s, there was a “Men’s Lib” movement as a corollary to the “women’s Lib” side. It’s also the case that many of the leaders in the MRM, specifically AVFM, were originally feminists. Warren Farrell was New York Chairman for NOW in the early 70s before Steinem et al booted him out.
In the same way as during Seneca Falls, the men were locked out of the debate. It’s taken 50 years of screaming in order for them to be heard.
Hence the vehement tone. Especially when at every step, they’re shut down by NOW and Fawcett Trust…
How could “anyone” in today’s world make a public statement that a group of people do not deserve the right to gather, discuss and see that their concerns are heard and addressed within their society?? Feminists like this talk about equality and in the very same breath demand theirs is the only prospective that matters.
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“If men want more “rights” in the family courts – which is what they seem to be equating with a greater share of custody – then they should throw their weight behind dismantling the patriarchal dogma that a woman’s place is in the home.”
Exactly. They say to women, “Don’t work, stay at home taking care of the children. If you are a career women you are destroying the natural family order,” and then they wonder why men have issues with gaining custody of their kids.
What a strange statement.Women have always worked through out history.This is one of those myths promoted by feminists.
So if we look at it in strictly economic terms, if we inspect why the middle class in america has shrunk it is actually because we live in a society where both parents are working.
I’ll save you the hour lecture and summarize: Women entering the workplace (rightfully, mind you, i’m not suggesting they shouldn’t) caused our society to shift into one where the Nuclear Family has taken on far more expenses as a result of dual incomes, and have also taken on more risk as a result.
Now, to address your concerns with “If you are a career women you are destroying the natural family order”, I’ve never heard this from anyone buy hyper-conservative baby-boomers who are just angry with change. The fact is, because our society has created expenses that never existed before (child care was a cost covered by the stay at home parent) as a result of the dual income families, TECHNICALLY SPEAKING the introduction of women into the workforce en-masse did actually cause the breakdown of the traditional family unit.
THAT SAID, no one is trying to take away your right to work. That would be wrong. Furthermore, most of the issues regarding custody and child support are that of punishments and enforcement being heavy-handed toward men and mostly slap on the wrist toward women. It’s hard to say “Well it’s because the system has mostly men defaulting” when you can turn around and say “Men don’t have custody because they’re deadbeats”.
Lets put it this way. Lets say you, a woman, 100k a year, and your husband makes 40k a year. He ends up with custody of children after a divorce because he was the primary care-taker during the marriage, since he only worked 1/2 time or whatever, in order to take care of the kids. The total income of the family was 140k/yr, and you are ordered to pay $3,000/mo in child support, and some amount in alimony.
Now, you decide you want to change your career, and go and get a job making 70k/yr but a much higher job satisfaction.
Going back the judge, the judge orders you, a woman, to continue paying the same amount in child support, but lowers your alimony payment to something else.
All of a sudden, you owe 36k out of your 70k (more than half), and then a considerable chunk of the remaining 34k in alimony. You fall on financial hardship because the area you are living in cannot support making less than 40k/yr in take home pay (after taxes).
You bring this before the judge, and the judge tells you to find a job making more money, and that you don’t have the right to make less money.
You lose your 70k job because of debt issues. You are now imprisoned by the state for defaulting on your child support payments. You are now a FELON who no longer has the right to vote. You have your drivers license and passport taken from you. If you are a lawyer, you have your right to practice law stripped away, along with any other state provided licensure.
When you finish your time in prison, your child support payments are the same. But now you are no longer employable because you are a FELON, which means in a few months you’ll be sent right back to prison.
You are the deadbeat mother, because you wanted some job satisfaction.
So um, I have one problem with the “Feminists will handle everything.” Don’t you think it’s a bit inappropriate to suggest that feminism handle ‘every’ problem? Like, male victimization. Unfortunately, when feminist take this on, sometimes the male in “male victim” is sorta left out. I see a lot of women who fall back on stereotypes that honestly, sorta aren’t true. (Think “threatened masculinity”) I know that women who do this are sincere, but it can be a bit ineffective.
So I think there are some things that men should handle on their own without feminism holding their hand.
yeah sorry, I just had it out with some of the most disagreeable, immature, absurd hateful, lying people i’ve ever encountered where I criticised them for attending a conference of the educational needs of boys because it was being run by mra’s. These people were feminists and they were horrid, hateful and sexist to the core. I’m no mra, but i do believe in the right for all children to have their educational needs met. For these feminists to be more concerned about their precious posters and slut walks and to face to face these mra people truly showed who and what they really are. The last thing men need is feminists to femsplain what they need, deserve and how to act. feminists out!
Sorry, but I’ve also come from the page you’re talking about and I could say the exact same thing about the behaviour of the MRAs on that page. There were no feminists throwing around homophobic and misogynistic slurs but there were many from MRAs; I don’t know how long you stuck around but the MRAs even started posting rape jokes in response to someone saying they were having rape nightmares — how is this not “horrid, hateful and sexist”?
Disagree with feminism all you want but stop spreading lies about people simply because you disagree.
I could say a lot more but I’ll leave it there since this thread shouldn’t be highjacked to argue over the content at an unrelated Facebook page.
Oh my giddy aunt! What a lot of mansplaining!
“I don’t want to take away your right to work but you DID cause the breakdown of the family”
Rubbish.
The overwhelming majority of families are still nuclear, whether married or not.
And the overwhelming majority of women in those partnerships have two jobs, only one of which they gat paid for.
MRAs seem to have a yearning for the halcyon days of toxic patriarchy.
Tough.
The pill ended that.
Get over it.
That’s not what I said at all. What I said is “Women (rightfully) entering the workforce changed the way our country and average family’s economic structure works, and has put them at more risk.”
WATCH THE VIDEO. I’m not even the one who came to this conclusion, THE WOMAN IN THE VIDEO WHO IS A UNITED STATES SENATOR DID.
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You nailed your argument when you wrote this – ” A note on terminology: the men’s rights movement always frames arguments in terms of “men” and “women”, meaning cis men and cis women. They assume a rigid gender binary which translates into gender essentialism, and base their arguments on a heterosexist view of human relations. Since I am engaging with their arguments, and seeking to demonstrate that they are in fact arguments in favour of feminism on their own terms, I will not be continually pointing out the ways in which trans men, trans women and gender queer people undermine the very propositions they start from – let alone how queer sexualities plant a mine beneath their worldview…!”
SUPERB POST.
It is due to REAL men of honour like you that i still belive in equality.
Was a pleasure reading this post 🙂
You conveniently pick out the most extreme and outlandish “MRAs” but ignore the radical feminism that real MRAs try to fight back against. The kind that would be happy to relegate men as sperm donors and lesser beings to be kept on a short leash and that declare that men are irrelevant and have no place in society.
I am a divorced man and a custodial parent, who arrived at this webpage by accident, and perhaps in the wrong mood, since I could not let it go. Perhaps it was because my daughters are sitting here close by, peacefully behind me in my living room. I was struck by this quote:
“If men want more “rights” in the family courts – which is what they seem to be equating with a greater share of custody – then they should throw their weight behind dismantling the patriarchal dogma that a woman’s place is in the home.”
You are telling me that I would have had to change the world and society first, and only then I can be allowed to care for my children, while it was obvious that my ex-wife was abusive and unfit to act as a parent?
This type of advocacy in the legal system has hurt my daughters so, so much. Their fate is now a lifetime of memories of pain and hurt, that could have been prevented simply by a lack of vicious discrimination in the court system and a simple focus on the children’s best interests.
Ms. Bloomfield, your line of thinking will make many more victims. Please, reconsider your opinions on this issue.
Sorry to hear about your painful situation but truly, sorry to have to be so blunt but ‘welcome to our world’. Women are trying to change society and the world because of endemic discrimination. The patriarchy created the whole ‘women are better caregivers’ story – so yes, you do have to break down that core inherent misguided notion at the heart of the society. Addressing discrimination in any form is changing society because they wouldn’t be there in the first place. That way other fathers like you won’t suffer – nor other daughters,