Right. In fact the only people I see talking about this are feminists (SJWs if you like). The only time it comes up in MRA arguments is as this kind of attempt to find a defeater.
All MRAs I’ve ever heard were downright weird in their worldview. There are some problems worth fighting for (nothing comparable with what women faced and still face), sure, but that doesn’t seem to be their focus. Their focus seems to be demonizing feminists and derailing. (Let’s quickly talk about custody: feminists and MRAs could actually be marching in exactly the same direction: The root cause of the problem are strict gender roles, women are for taking care of children, men are for working. But no, feminists are to blame. MRAs also love using warped statistics, but that is very much besides the point. There is no reasonableness in that movement.)
The text implies that some sort of MR movement would spring up as a widespread reaction to feminism (and it doesn’t have any comparable issues to fight for, it doesn’t have the numbers, it doesn’t have the intellectual depth nor the academic backbone). It did spring up as a tiny reaction to feminism. Wikipedia tells me that the movement has its roots in the 1970s, so it’s not like this would have been something completely new in 1987. It’s hard to say, but I see no reason to believe that the MR movement is that much bigger than it was in 1987. And it still defines itself as a reaction to feminism. Which makes about zero sense. All the issues they are fighting for were not caused by feminism. Far from it. Many feminists will be perfectly capable of recognizing them as valid problems. (But, again, that’s very much besides the point.)
MRA? You mean the group of mostly men pushing for equal rights to custody and/or visitation of their kids? Wasn't that group started by a male feminist scholar?
What do they have to do with this fringe hate website most of us never heard of before?
> 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.
>Mmm. Nothing gets the Men's Rights fanatics frothing like the suggestion that they aren't the most oppressed people of all time (OF. ALL. TIME.).
Speaking as a "Men's Right Fanatic" I don't give a hoot about the oppression olympics. I rarely ever see MRAs make this claim. On the other hand I see feminists making it all the time. Not all feminists, just the ones who thing that fighting sexism is about scoring points for their gender.
it's always hilarious to me that feminism is always the clear solution to these petty MRA talking points. feminism wants to split the check, if MRA types embraced feminism a lot of the things that hurt them would evaporate.
You're still pushing a false equivalence. There are to a first approximation no non-hardcore MRAs. Feminism, on the other hand, is entirely mainstream. It's like saying that the more hardcore ends of both Roman Catholics and Branch Davidians have a problem with violence.
There's a good reason MRAs are sometimes anti-feminism: because feminists are sometimes anti-men. A few examples:
That documentary I mentioned, The Red Pill (which is not related to the reddit sub), faced a lot of opposition from feminists and screenings were cancelled because of it.
Affirmative action in Swedish universities ended because feminists were opposed to the fact that affirmative action was helping men (who are vastly underrepresented in Swedish universities). The education minister, from a party that has traditionally supported feminism and affirmative action, said: "The education system should open doors -- not slam them in the face of motivated young women". The message is clear: equality for women, but not for men.
The infamous Dear Colleague policy for handling sexual assault allegations on campus blatantly ignored the rights of men, and suffered many defeats in court, but continued to be popular with feminists until the "non-feminist" MRAs ended it.
I looked at the other subbreddit you mentioned, MensLib, a few times before it was locked down, and I never saw them opposing feminist policies that hurt men.
I'm willing to engage with you if you're willing to move past attributing all good things and only good things to feminism and slandering anyone who opposes feminist overreach. If you can't acknowledge that feminists, like any other special interest group, sometimes advocate their own interests at the expense of others, you've deified them in a completely unwarranted way.
(Also, the Reddit sub TheRedPill is not an MRA sub and doesn't claim to be; it's a sub advocating a "sexual strategy" and their introduction clearly says "I'm not here to parade the concepts of Men's Rights". It's not related to the film I mentioned and has nothing to do with this discussion. I honestly don't know why you brought it up, except perhaps in another attempt to slander MRAs.)
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.
Probably. Most people fighting the gender wars need to sit down, stop talking, and start listening to the other side.
MRAs/feminists are people who are in pain and each one's specific pain needs to be heard. I'm not referring to their grievances toward their gender...that's a separate ordeal. Before we can talk about those things productively, the pain bringing them to the table needs to be empathized with by whoever sits opposite them.
Yeah, in my limited experience, MRAs generally suck at distinguishing between feminism the ideology and feminism the concept, so they end up tripping over themselves trying to explain how they are for women's rights but also against feminism.
I am an advocate for men's rights for many of the reasons you cite, but I also acknowledge that there really are people who adopt the MRA label who are bitterly misogynist nutjobs who have no interest in a more just and equal society, but are rather the flip-side of those misandric feminists who believe--amongst other things--that "rape is nothing less than a conscious conspiracy by all men against all women" (likely not an exact quote as it's from memory, but Brownmiller says something with the same meaning.)
The problem is that misogynist MRAs disrupt the possibility of positive change the same way misandric feminists like Brownmiller and McKinnon do. Because they share a label with sane people, they allow the enemies of sanity to mount a trivially plausible ad hominem against any proposal to genuinely address the real injustices that men and women face due to the simple fact of being a man or a woman.
I'm also skeptical of MRA simply because I do think they are resistant to many feminist arguments that are actually applicable primarily to the working class. I'm in total agreement, I think working class men often suffer a great deal of the blunt of exploitation, but to say that women in similar economic positions don't have their own struggles is also faulty. Anyone who truly wants to change society should recognize that a social movement must involve the concerns of men AND women, white and black, etc. and not be some sort of cheap identity politics that re-enforces the norms of victimhood ideology, and as far as I can tell MRA does fit into that category--but I could be wrong.
That would have been one charitable reading :D Of course I understood you as if you were implying that I am forcing something. Thank you for the clarification!
I cannot really speak for others, I represent no one but myself. I can only guess that, to some extent, such reaction from some feminists is simply defence. The MRA narrative is too focused on feminism, and has too much relativizing, "who's the greater victim" talk, which is stupid.
But I also definitely agree that some of the reaction is just a lack of will to hear what the other side has to say, which sucks.
Your above comment is dead, so I can't reply to it. Replying here:
> The idea that MRA's and feminists are two ends of a single spectrum is one of those cognitive line-fitting traps we nerds fall into.
While I'm all about detecting and uncovering cognitive biases (hardcore LessWrong expat, reporting for duty!), I don't believe GP's analysis was wrong.
Just a guess, but I expect the people you're using to mentally represent MRAs are the equivalent of tumblr feminists (who also should consider treatment options in my opinion). Here's my line based model that attempts to not straw-man either group:
Fringe-MRA: war on men
Reasonable-MRA: there are some men's issues worth talking about (circumcision, work related injury and fatality rates, prison over-representation, gendered divorce laws, etc).
Middle: Meh, what's on TV?
Reasonable-Feminist: there are some women's issues worth talking about (FGM, right to drive/vote/work, right to serve in the military, pay equality/glass ceiling, etc).
Fringe-Feminist: patriarcy!
I don't see why this way of arranging the data should qualify as falling in to a line fitting trap. It seems like there are genuine issues on both sides, and a significant paranoid delusional component to be found at both ends of the spectrum. What am I missing?
I'm not sure that's fair. I think both the majority of MRAs and feminists are egalitarians. It's the vocal crazies that cause us to characterize entire groups. I've seen it from both sides.
In any case, as yummyfajitas points out it's an ad-hominem argument. We should discuss the argument itself rather than the merits of the man making them.
I'm glad to hear that your experience of 3rd wave feminism has been one that includes discussions of men's rights. Mine has been one which identifies any discussion of men's rights as "derailing" and "reactionary." So long as feminists (3rd wave or other wise) exclude discussions of men's rights from their group then there will always be a need for the MRM.
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