I think this just as big of a problem among women. The loudest voices talking about both women's issues and men's issues tend to be quite sexist and obnoxious. Feminism has a misandry problem just as much as the men's rights movement has a misogyny problem. In both cases, it deters non-hateful people from participating, and that contributes further to the problem.
The feminist movement has their share of misandry, but society tend to ignore that minority of the movement and focus on the social issues that the movement highlight.
In the end it doesn't matter if either movement has bad apples. What matter is if we want a society that make abortion illegal or a legal system that base judgement on gender.
That thought can really be generalised; the problem I tend to have with feminism is how it conveniently forgets to address the male side of many problems until it's specifically pointed out, only to be acknowledged briefly and then put on a shelf again.
Ultimately I think a lot of the hostility towards men's rights is counterproductive for people that want gender equality. This hostility had made a lot of people believe that feminism only purports to strive for equality and in reality only strives to advance the interests of women, often at the expense of men (as opposed to the real definition of feminism, which is gender equality for all).
> One reason for this is the growing popularity of “Men’s Rights Activism” (MRA) — groups of men who refer to feminism as “misandry” and advocate vociferously that men face more discrimination than women.
It is a misrepresentation of MRA. Discussing about discrimination practices against men does not make all feminists automatically the enemy. MRA is about real issues that need attention, affecting boys, fathers, husbands and men in general.
This line from the article throws blame without any justification, discredits a movement similar to feminism as mere slander against feminism and frames the issue as a contest "who's suffering the most, women or men?". What if both suffer?
> Men’s Rights Activism sort of makes sense in a culture where masculinity places just as many limitations on men as femininity does on women.
So, men can't complain as long as the total suffering of women is greater than the total suffering of men. It's one or the other, not both, according to OP. Only one group is entitles to complain.
I'd comment more but I'm too angry after finishing the article. She just dismisses men's issues wholesale.
Nothing wrong with equal rights, with having a career, etc.. However, some feminist voices are focused less on promoting women and more on tearing down men. Surprise: misandry is not attractive to most men.
Sure, I'm not "against" feminism in general or anything, although re-reading my previous comment I can see how it gave off that impression. I just think it's a very limited view on things, which translates into suboptimal solutions. I also think it can feed alienation among men at times, rather than involving them in the conversation.
From what I've read and people I've spoken to, quite a large number – though far from all – feminists seem to agree on that in broad lines, yet somehow the public discourse still remains fairly narrow IMHO. Personally, I blame the "MRA" people and their nonsense.
You could put a minimal amount of effort into charitable readings of the comments of others.
Feminism has gone so far as to brand the men's rights movement a hate group, they've gone out of their way to characterize men's rights books as rape-apologizing hate speech, and in some cases[0][1] have actively shut down talks given from what is basically the MRA viewpoint.
This is clearly coercion so I feel justified in saying feminism is attempting to "force" the men's rights movement to develop in a certain way.
Am I saying you're personally trying to force me to do anything right now? That wasn't my intention. As for your view that we should all get together and blame the patriarchy, allow me to rephrase myself for clarity: thanks, but no thanks.
You can see that they're always bashing women and feminism as the cause for these problems, instead of actually trying to fix the issues.
The main difference between feminists and MRAs, is that feminists actually are trying to solve their issues and MRAs bitch on the internet that women are bad. They're doing absolutely nothing to solve the real issues that men are suffering from.
I think I should make some writeup for responses to MRAs, because I think I understand the worldview and bought into it myself for a long time. Of course the response might not be perfect this time around, but I can perfect it incrementally.
The first thing that is crucial to understand is that feminism itself is not the enemy. In fact, intelligent feminists should care about the problems you list. I'm not saying they do, but they should, because feminism isn't anti-men, it's anti gender roles. This means that problems like men being pressured to bury their emotions, or men not getting proper mental health care, or men not getting fair custody, or men not being taken seriously when they are raped, are all things that feminism is supposed to be fighting against. The fact that our society often ignores these problems is not because of feminism, it's because of sexism. Feminists often do ignore problems like this with men, and those feminists are either ignorant or bigoted, because sexist oppression caused by society to men, and sexist oppression caused by society to women, have the same root and are part of the same problem that feminism is trying to fix. This is not a fringe view of feminism. This is the normal view.
The second thing that is crucial to understand is that the caricature of sexist tumblr-warrior "feminists" (that do indeed exist) are a distraction. The fact that people like this are taken seriously probably bothers me as much as it bothers you. However, these people are misrepresenting feminism. They do not say what feminism is supposed to represent. You can think of them as the crazy bigoted Christians or Muslims that are technically part of the same group, but do not represent the whole.
Finally, you have to realize that gender roles and sexism are oppressing men and women. I think the reason so many feminists react badly to men's rights advocates is because they marginalize women's problems while promoting men's. In truth I think this is just a reaction from seeing feminist groups do the reverse. Really, both are a problem. Just because one is a problem doesn't make another problem any more or less important. So instead of saying "This is ridiculous to be worrying about when much worse is happening to men and nobody cares," try saying, "This is an important problem," and separately, "These other things are happening to men and nobody cares."
I'm a man, and for the life of me I don't get how people are feeling personally attacked by feminism. Same with racism: I just don't connect these issues with me as an individual. And I've never experienced an interaction where others have done so, either. I've been to any number of feminist events with my partner, and nobody ever made a negative comment rooted in the fact that I'm a man.
I went into this article thinking it was going to be an outrage piece about men being sexist towards women. Instead it's about men being afraid of being accused of being sexist.
This is a very real issue. It's already gotten to the point where the people behind the movement are hysterically unreasonable and irrational. Literally even feminists who are integral parts of the movement itself aren't safe from their own vitriol.
Below is an TED talk about the story of a activist feminist who had her entire activist career destroyed simply by saying something that the cancel culture disagreed with:
Depends what the goals of the movements are. Most feminist discussions I've seen acknowledge that "the partriarchy hurts men as well". So highlighting issues like being discriminated as a male single parent or stay-at-home dad would probably find support in feminist spaces: Dealing with them shares the same vision as feminism does, just from the perspective of men instead of women.
In contrast, many spaces that are branded as "men's rights" today seem to go for an entire different vision of society, which often looks like a cartoon version of the 50s (if consistent at all). If lots of men find themselves lonely, unfulfilled and unable to find a girlfriend, I think that is a serious issue, but the solution of the "men's rights" groups - that it's the women who have cut back their own goals and ambitions, just so some men they don't even know have a chance to have sex - seems pretty insane to me.
Also note, not all women are feminists either. There are plenty of women who have issues with men taking on traditionally feminine roles because they it violates their own conservative worldview. I believe that's where the "Karen" slur originated from.
It wasn't that many years ago people did word bubble (frequencies) of reddit subreddits, and both Feminist and Mens Rights Activists subs was very similar. The most common word in the Feminist one was "Men", and the most common word for Mens Rights Activists was Women". The second most common word was also symmetric, Women in the first and Men in the other.
It is not symmetric to assume that all female equality issues and all male equality issues must be the fault of men. People are human. Faults in human society is from humans, and humans are 50% women and 50% men.
I'm agreeing with the claim that there can be no serious distinction drawn such that the concerns addressed by feminism are disjoint from those which should be addressed by a masculist movement constituted on grounds of actually addressing men's problems rather than nucleating around a festering contempt for women, and supporting that claim on the grounds that so long as most men and most women remain heterosexual their concerns are necessarily and intimately intermingled - what affects men affects women and vice versa, by virtue of women and men spending their lives together. The implicit conclusion is that it is therefore absurd to imagine that a men's movement which constitutes itself in opposition to feminism can ever be capable of materially improving the condition of men overall.
Most people who claim to be feminists say that being a feminist means treating both genders equally. Most people who claim to be feminists say that men also have a lot of problems, which are caused by gender biases.
It's a load of shit to say that feminism is all about fighting male privilege. But since these radical "feminists" are the most outspoken people who describe themselves as feminists, they effectively define what feminism means to the public. You can say, if you want, that you think the problems men face aren't as severe, so you think they deserve less attention. That's a value judgement which no-one can argue with. But behaving like only women have problems is simply not honest.
This is really fucking dangerous, if you think that feminism (whether that means gender equality, or women's rights) is a good thing.
Men (at least, the men at the top) are really more powerful than women, and this isn't changing in the foreseeable future. Men put in the hard yards in the high-risk careers, and end up dominating politics, law, and the corporate world. As long as feminism has the moral high ground, that won't be an issue for women, because the small number of men in really high positions still have to do what is seen as the right thing.
But there's no reason why gross gender inequality can't exist in a modern society. Look at most countries outside the US, UK, and some parts of the EU.
Feminism probably happened because women were needed for the war effort. The men were fighting the war, so the women were able to show they could do the work men generally did. There's no real reason that feminism needs to exist in a modern society, it's just path dependence (you can't take a bone out of dog's mouth - people tend to hang onto the rights they have), and the fact that most people (including most men) think that feminism is a "good" thing.
If feminism allows itself to be defined by the radicals (who use some weird Marxist analysis about the class struggle between men and women), that's exactly what they'll get - a class struggle. And if it does stop being about right and wrong (as it has been, up to this point) and simply about men versus women, I have no doubt that the men will gradually try to chip away at the progress feminists have made.
Equality is a great thing. Equality is a thing which most people see as right, and that most people will support. A class struggle is not something everyone agrees with, and it's a war I don't think we really want to have.
If things continue the way they are going, it's not going to be long before a conservative politician can repeat the more reasonable points that men's rights groups are making (not the angry crap about their evil ex, or stuff about sexual assault, but the bits about women having too many advantages in things like the justice system). What will the feminists say? Will they say that they are fighting biases of all kinds, or that feminism is simply about fighting teh menz?
If feminists start fighting against equality, there will no longer be a bright line (equality) which everyone can strive for. It will simply about the two sides trying to push each other around. If you really want to put your money where your mouth is, and bet that women will push harder, that's a matter for you. I'm not really well read on the history of sexism, but I'd bet there's a lot more historical examples of men eroding the rights of women than women eroding the rights of men.
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