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svenskbitch Archive

View 4 posts and 511 comments by svenskbitch on TheRedPill subreddit and various other subreddits related to The Red Pill community.
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1

...and almost no women do. If we look only at cases of malicious, completely untruthful accusations (not those that do not meet legal definitions of rape or that may stem from misperceptions), then false rape accusations are a fraction of actual rapes, and a miniscule fraction of, say, sexual encounters (pick your denominator at will). And only a fraction of those are egregious and provable enough to warrant jail time. So it is a minor problem by any reckoning. Male victims of sexual and domesti…
/r/MensRights25/02/19 08:15 AM
1

No dice here in Europe. All I got was tramadol, which I could only take in small dosages without puking. At one point I had to go to the hospital for some morphine when it got particularly painful. Perhaps we here in Europe are a bit conservative on this issue. But better a bit of pain than creating hordes of addicts.
/r/MensRights25/02/19 08:12 AM
1

You must be confusing feminism with the Taliban... or Victorian England (at least that of the popular imagination - which is often misguided, I know).
/r/MensRights25/02/19 08:10 AM
1

Actually, I do think I have privilege as a man. But not by far as many as feminists claim, and of a slightly different sort. Growing up gay, I was non-conforming. Not flamboyant, but slightly effeminate. It was pretty tough. I had to learn the hard way to stand up for myself in different, often subtle ways - often through humour. The constant threat of violence among men and boys that Peterson refers to (which we should understand as a metaphor) was palpable, and something I had to learn to deal…
/r/MensRights22/02/19 03:20 PM
56

Why is "lying about rape" within quotation marks? If she means cases where the accuser is accused of lying but not actually lying (or doing so consciously and maliciously), then of course criminal penalties are not warranted. But that we would all agree with...
/r/MensRights22/02/19 02:00 PM
1

Great. Though still, the numbers would drop if you tell people what the cost in taxes would be at current prices. Free college tuition, on the other hand, seems downright regressive. Why should low income earners pay for the education of people who will make much more money than them? Much better to have a scheme of deferred tuition, where people pay back the cost based on their income after graduating (in most cases, the full cost - in some, only part of it). Seems much more progressive to me, …
/r/MensRights22/02/19 12:45 PM
1

The overall burden of tax-financed health care would be considerably smaller than that of private insurance, though probably not immediately as the transition takes time. Under a catastrophic health insurance system, private insurance would not be necessary and not have to cover small but high-cost risks, which is the driving force behind the high premia we see today. In Sweden, there is a small private health insurance market that cover the difference between public financed healthcare and prem…
/r/MensRights22/02/19 12:42 PM
1

As an economist and an avid champion of the free market (health care is different in many ways, including the simple fact that sick consumers do not have the kind of power that, say, car or phone consumers do; and of course the opioid crisis is in part a reflection of doctors reacting too nimbly to demand - here in Europe I did not even get anything like oxy after gall bladder surgery), I do think it is important that the market determines prices, including salaries. But there is something wrong…
/r/MensRights22/02/19 12:26 PM
1

51% and growing... https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2018/08/16/increasing-numbers-of-americans-want-single-payer-but-is-that-what-they-want/ However, if you then ask them if they are willing to pay the taxes needed to cover costs at the current level, I think that figure would drop. But clearly public opinion is heading in the right direction.
/r/MensRights21/02/19 11:24 AM
0

...but the UK, for instance, started NHS in a situation with massive public support (they had to take care of veterans and their families after the war, which amounted to half the population anyway), and a health care sector that made up a mere 3% of GDP. In the US, support is growing but far from massive, huge vested interests are likely to push back (doctors in the US can make as much as ten times the salary of their Swedish peers, and the health insurance lobby is mighty), and health care cos…
/r/MensRights21/02/19 11:09 AM
1

I am on your side, though clearly I will not be able to convince you of that. But I am also an economist, and keenly aware of the (mostly unintended) consequences of the kind of radical action AOC and Sanders are proposing in this and other areas. A first step might be something like government funding for what someone termed catastrophic health care; that is unexpected expenses that exceeds a certain percentage of your income (which could be all healthcare for lower-income strata, but perhaps c…
/r/MensRights21/02/19 10:52 AM
-1

...and my country, Sweden, provides universal health care with affordable co-payments for a total of 7% of GDP in public spending - with slightly better health outcomes than the US. In the US, the total figure is closer to 20%, a substantial part of which is public spending. That is why even (classical) liberals often come out in favour of government funding for at least high-cost health care. The problem, admittedly, is that if the US simply imposed such a system in the current situation, publi…
/r/MensRights21/02/19 10:26 AM
1

Not many things I agree with Bernie about apart from the need for some form of universal health care (although I do find him fascinating and entertaining). But for someone on the far left to point out this obvious fact is, I submit, a sign of progress.
/r/MensRights21/02/19 10:11 AM
0

If you see even choosing a far-left, albeit fascinating, candidate like Sanders as a symptom of sexism, then no wonder you see sexism everywhere... Although, to be fair, all things being equal, I would like to see a woman president in the US. At least once.
/r/MensRights20/02/19 11:04 AM
2

To be fair, I would not compare a convicted felon with Lena Dunham. Well... yet. Nonetheless, replace Cosby with any of hundreds of other names, and your point is still made.
/r/MensRights20/02/19 08:02 AM
15

Or you are a Nazi if you are patriotic.
/r/MensRights18/02/19 08:58 AM
0

It is a bit like with single mothers: in an effort to compensate for the discrimination and ostracism they have faced in the past and to ease their burden (they are overwhelmingly of the less fortunate classes), progressivism has at times turned to celebrating and encouraging the phenomenon. Same here: there is no question that being fat (and for that matter being ugly) creates problems that most of us cannot even imagine. I think it is essential that we enhance acceptance of and care about the …
/r/MensRights15/02/19 01:11 PM
1

One of the most common responses in the still rare but, I think, rapidly increasing number of cases where MRA concerns such as male DV victims come up in mainstream discussions is that, given that men are still largely in power (read: most of those in power are men), they would be sure to do things about the issue if it were really a problem. And yet, clearly powerful men by and large choose not to. In fact, they tend to either evade the issue or, as in this case, do the opposite. Even populists…
/r/MensRights15/02/19 01:02 PM
1

I find the backlash from the left befuddling. First of all, this is not a piece in the MRA spirit at all. The main message is that he is privileged because of his sex and, probably, race and that he himself recognises that. The story about the dangerous accusation is a footnote in comparison. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it is one that, contrary to the claims of its critics, is not being told. For two reasons: white men may still dominate society, but not talking about what it is like t…
/r/MensRights15/02/19 10:45 AM
1

I do think there is a tendency towards more and more radical and unnuanced views in the active parts of the MRA movement. This tendency does not make Vice's condemnation justified, but it does provide fertile ground for cherry-picking to support such a conclusion. The same, of course, goes for feminism - to an even larger extent than for us, I think, but there of course I may be biased. This concerns me, as it makes it likelier that concerns will not be addressed.
/r/MensRights15/02/19 10:37 AM
1

To be fair, I think airlines are doing this much more out of liability concerns than because they honestly think anything more than a tiny minority of men are predators. That still does not make it right, but we should also not imagine evil conspiracies everywhere - lest we make the same mistake as we rightly blame (radical) feminism for.
/r/MensRights15/02/19 10:30 AM
2

Note that in no way did she support UKIP or its positions. Her speech was an impassioned and nuanced pledge to true democracy - and in my view, based on what I know of British politics, she was right. The fact that she was forced out because of this proves her point better than anything.
/r/MensRights14/02/19 08:22 AM
1

I see my male friends, especially those of the bulkier variety, have thoughts like this all the time. And much more so when dealing with children; many balk even at smiling back at a baby on the subway (which I do all the time without negative reactions, although of course staying within the constraints of reasonable conduct). To some extent, this is simply pragmatism and common courtesy and should apply to all situations that may reasonably be perceived as menacing. I have been in the position …
/r/MensRights14/02/19 08:18 AM
3

First, please allow me to point out that this is also what most FGM victims, including of its more invasive versions, tend to think. Second, having lived in the US where circumcision is rife, I can fully understand your position. And, as an (uncircumcised) gay man, I also admit, albeit reluctantly and with a tinge of shame as an MRA (moderate and often dissenting, but still), that I can understand (although not explicitly sympathise with) the preference among women that you refer to. Third, even…
/r/MensRights14/02/19 08:11 AM
2

Let us not forget that the end of mass employment has been predicted for centuries. In the 30s, Keynes expected only a third of the work force to be employed by 1960 because of automation. Of course, by and large, the opposite has turned out to be the case. Switzerland, whose currency gained 40% following massive capital inflows after the crisis, has some of the highest salaries in the world (I pay my cleaning lady 35$ an hour!), actually has to battle 3% unemployment rates (4.5% would be a job …
/r/MensRights14/02/19 07:52 AM
1

In fact, I agree. They are different - in many ways. The problem is that we do not understand those differences, let alone act accordingly. Once we do, we can have a productive conversation about how to help victims of either gender. I think it would be a mistake to dismiss this notion wholesale.
/r/MensRights13/02/19 08:52 AM
2

It is no coincidence that, traditionally, we have reserved so much more hatred for gay men and for man to woman transgenderism than we ever had for their female counterparts. The reason we survived as a species at all was that we were obsessed with clear roles: men protecting and providing; women procreating. Gay men and man-to-woman trans people fly in the face of both those obligations. Even the exceptions prove this point: the reason why a few flamboyant transvestites are so beloved in countr…
/r/MensRights12/02/19 08:05 AM
7

For all of the vice of those Swedish feminists: I have to give it to them - they stood up for consistency and fairness on this issue and drove through default shared custody and parental leave for both parents despite fierce resistance from conservative women (mostly). Nowadays Sweden has some of the most empowered fathers in the world, which is a joy to see. Of course, they did so in the hope that it would free up women to take on ambitious careers - which they subsequently largely failed to do…
/r/MensRights12/02/19 07:29 AM
1

Of course not, not sure why you give the impression of arguing with me. But the idea of sex under false pretenses being equivalent to rape (although certainly less serious than using physical force) has a long-standing history - and is not least a remnant of the British legal tradition. In Israel, a Palestinian man was prosecuted (and, I think, even convicted) for sleeping with a woman after convincing her he was Jewish. The much maligned law that supposedly exonerates men for rape if they marry…
/r/MensRights12/02/19 07:23 AM
1

To clarify: this article, from an outlet firmly on the progressive left on gender issues, discusses rape accusations founded on the explicit or implicit promise of marriage. They make up a quarter of reports, and the Supreme Court now appears to have taken action against it. They are, as a result, not strictly speaking "false".
/r/MensRights11/02/19 05:44 PM
1

If anything, women shame other women for being sluts much more than men do (and when they do, it is often about their daughters and sisters). And, fortunately, there are fewer rapists around than women behaving in ways that some might think of as slutty. That is why we all denounce murderers more often than, say, genocidal maniacs.
/r/MensRights11/02/19 12:49 PM
1

...and notice how it would be ridiculous to even attempt something parallel for, say, blacks or whites - or gay and straight. There is something peculiar about gender that sets the issue clearly apart from other social justice concerns.
/r/MensRights11/02/19 12:14 PM
1

If men use the gym more than women (a big if, but not an unreasonable one), then charging men more would be about as reasonable as charging women more for health insurance and less for car insurance... right? Or is there a solid reason for sanctioning one kind of gender-based differentiation (to avoid deliberately the judgy nature of the word discrimination) and not another?
/r/MensRights11/02/19 08:42 AM
1

I think the story was: yes, but MEN have even less empathy for other men - and both genders have much more empathy for women. Although this applies to men and women as groups. The differences dwindle when applied to close relatives and friends of either gender. This is, of course, a terrible obstacle for MRM - but we should not forget that it is a result of evolution rather than, say, something feminists managed to whip up on their own. For 99.99% of its existence, humans have lived under atroci…
/r/MensRights07/02/19 12:18 PM
4

I would add that an important way to make a dent into the harmful parts of today's feminism (let us not forget that many good things happen under it as well, especially in the poorer parts of the world), is to point out the fascinating extent to which feminism veers into traditionalism - dialled up (as Elam puts it) and to which MRA, de facto if seldom as stated dogma, works to actually deconstruct the very same gender roles feminism claims to combat. Empathy for male victims is simply the flips…
/r/MensRights06/02/19 04:59 PM
2

Wow. Should they, and for that matter all of us, not be happy that men are venturing into areas that are, arguably, female-dominated? Is that not a great example of fighting toxic masculinity (or, to use a less incendiary term, gender-role constraints)? I don't get it. Meanwhile, I have yet to see male construction engineers slamming the rise of women among their ranks. In fact, I think all of us actually appreciate some degree of gender balance in the work place (no, not 50%, but more than 1%..…
/r/MensRights06/02/19 04:06 PM
4

There is a US-centric tilt to this debate, I submit. In a country where circumcision is so widespread as to trigger a dedicated episode in Sex and the city, where Charlotte (?) pressured her boyfriend into undergoing the procedure as an adult (only to lose him afterwards, with some poetic justice), it will be hard to rally anything close to the overwhelming opposition to FGM. But the massively successful battle against FGM, which has reduced the practice to a fraction of what it was half a centu…
/r/MensRights06/02/19 04:02 PM
4

...and yet, we could use the momentum and tremendous success (FGM overall is reduced to a fraction, and its most horrific versions virtually eliminated) of the battle against FGM to combat the evils of male circumcision. Starting with those taking place under suboptimal conditions, killing boys by the hundreds in Sub-Saharan Africa (and mutilating them by the thousands) every year. From that perspective, arguing about what is worst is both moot and counterproductive.
/r/MensRights06/02/19 02:43 PM
1

I do feel like a troll sometimes... But to my mind, to the extent we can impose reason and logic to the gender debate overall, the (moderate) MRA point of view stands to win, big time. But that also means it is important to hold other MRAs to the same standard as we would like to hold feminists and society at large.
/r/MensRights06/02/19 02:21 PM
2

....but not by the same men as those qualified to safe tech jobs. Why should the problems of one sub-group justify the entitlement of a completely different one?
/r/MensRights01/02/19 01:33 PM
1

On the one hand, it stands to reason that, if girls cry more, that we would make less assumptions about the severity of the situation. On the other hand, I am a bit surprised. I also see our society more eager to console girls than boys. Does anyone have a link to the study?
/r/MensRights01/02/19 01:31 PM
2

You put me to shame :) India is fascinating: I found it gobsmacking that, after the horrific rape and murder of a student a few years ago, the Delhi Commission for Women, a feminist organisation, came out and discouraged false accusations, saying they made up 50% of accusations. You can imagine what would have to happen to prompt a feminist organisation to take that step. And it would be interesting if what I assumed actually is happening in the UK...
/r/MensRights31/01/19 03:08 PM
1

First point, correlation is not causation (already made). Second point: I would be interested in how this correlation looks in detail. I would be astonished, but also fascinated, if these kinds of sartorial antics also appear to be related to promotion to senior positions of responsibility. As far as I can see, in an organisation where more than 50% of top officials are women, the women that are up do not appear to have used their sexuality to do so. I do not know that for a fact, but it does, I…
/r/MensRights31/01/19 08:56 AM
1

:) the heading was semi-ironic... but only semi-...
/r/MensRights31/01/19 08:42 AM
2

Sorry for a German link. Basically: a woman takes a cab and gets repeatedly, despite admonishments, verbally harrassed by the driver and is only, by her account, able to get out after threatening to call the police. After that, she calls 911 emergency, and the police try to help her but also inform her that they cannot take measures against the driver as no crime had been committed based on her account. Let us assume, for now, that her account is broadly true. I find this bizarre: how are lewd c…
/r/MensRights31/01/19 08:37 AM
1

So if I understand this correctly, to fix a problem, feminists are slamming exactly the ones trying to fix it? Perhaps, in this case, in a slightly gauche manner - but the primary job of the police is not to attend punctiliously to niceties of civility. If there is any gender unfairness going on here, it is that the police does not appear to issue reasonable warnings to men with anything near the same frequency and compassion.
/r/MensRights31/01/19 08:30 AM
2

With all the scandals around prosecutorial misconduct and even patently wrongful convictions swirling over the past year, it would stand to reason that CPS and the judiciary will have become more prudent around sexual assault convictions. Would that not be the simpler explanation of this drop? After all, most false, wrongful or frivolous accusations, while causing significant harm, would, I submit, not have the critical mass of evidence needed to move to trial?
/r/MensRights31/01/19 08:20 AM
3

To be honest, I am not surprised some were "triggered". This essay is written for the already converted - and even I, a converted one, find some of the points exaggerated or simplified. Although I am on your side, I submit you have little to gain from taking a more radical stance than you need to to make a point on this issue. Especially in high school, where it is all too easy to be unfairly pigeonholed. You have plenty of excellent arguments against feminism - or at least, for a substantial re…
/r/MensRights31/01/19 08:04 AM
1

I guess if you look only at mainstream, center left and left-wing media, and focus a bit more on "males" than "heterosexual", you are right. However, I have yet to see signs of systematic actual physical violence against people only because they are heterosexual males... and I doubt many straight men feel compelled to hide who they are on a regular basis (which I still do both at work and on dodgy streets). I am not saying I am suffering, in fact I often feel privileged in many situations (I can…
/r/MensRights30/01/19 02:52 PM
3

To be fair, you can still find God hates Fags signs in rural parts of the US. And, as a gay man considering surrogacy, I still find tangible suspicion even among other gay men and legion legal barriers. True, the West today has improved astonishingly in less than half a century (arguably an unprecedented change), and I do not face imprisonment and torture as in Uganda and Chechnya, but the fact that the coastal, liberal elite in the US is overdoing it does not mean there is not still a problem. …
/r/MensRights30/01/19 12:53 PM
2

Men are getting killed for peccadillos all the time. And you expect them to walk you home? We need women to "man up". Men, if anything, should "man down" a bit.
/r/MensRights30/01/19 10:16 AM
1

... and yet I think we would all be better off if women would man up a bit more and men - a bit less. In so many ways... Think about it.
/r/MensRights30/01/19 10:09 AM
3

I find Peterson brilliant, especially his academic work. But not always. Some of his opinions I find exaggerated and borderline cringeworthy - but that is exactly because I think they mirror some of what is wrong with the Gillette advert (which, by the way, I actually find mild compared to, say, mainstream editorials about hating men - but wrong all the same). Peterson's calls for men taking responsibility, cleaning up their rooms, and generally manning up (apologies if he has not actually used …
/r/MensRights29/01/19 09:47 AM
1

I can't win, can I :)
/r/MensRights29/01/19 09:34 AM
1

I am assuming no such things. All I pointed out was that the researchers did what they set themselves out to do. Of course there was some bias in this selection of topic (there always is in social sciences, mostly in a predictable direction); but I could not find evidence of bias in the evidence collection used to respond to the question once posed. That was all. If you see misandry in such a relatively straightforward observation, then I submit there are other places to look for it first.
/r/MensRights29/01/19 09:33 AM
1

Interesting. Most of the time I get that accusation from feminists :)
/r/MensRights28/01/19 03:49 PM
1

Says who? Of course you can. But ideally, at least for me (who has no right to tell anyone what to do) without making the same mistake as some feminists ranting about toxic masculinity...
/r/MensRights28/01/19 02:06 PM
2

Astonishing, is it not? There is no shortage of actual misdeeds that you could reasonably slam the President for - why in the world should you pick on his hand size? Though of course the fact that he took the bait about his penis size may, to some, have been to ask for it...
/r/MensRights28/01/19 12:48 PM
1

To be fair, the task they put themselves was to determine if there is evidence for the assumption that gendertrolls are mysogynist. In that light, limiting the research accordingly seems sensible to me.
/r/MensRights28/01/19 12:46 PM
1

I have always had the impression that men that are nasty to women tend to be nasty, full stop - often even more so to men. And any woman could tell you that most of her most overt detractors have been other women... In fact, although I am certain there is a small minority of men out there who actually hate women, I actually never see any clear evidence of them. Some of the worst of this ilk I have seen on this forum, but even irrational, sweeping comments translating, say, a story of false rape …
/r/MensRights28/01/19 12:45 PM
2

MRA issues are gaining more and more prominence and sympathy, especially on the left. We should try to understand why that is, and especially - in which circumstances. I do not have a good answer. But for starters, I would say the pundits that have been able to make MRA points in centrist or left-wing outlets have a few things in common. First, they refrain from criticising feminism wholesale. Second, they often ground their arguments in some basic feminist conceptions, such as gender roles (whi…
/r/MensRights28/01/19 12:39 PM
3

For me, it is infinitely more important to hold many, many more malicious false accusers to account in some way or other, than to push for harsher punishment. Just like it is more important to hold more rapists - including female ones - to account than it is to push for even harsher sentences, in a world where grabbing a woman's breast can earn you a stiffer sentence than involuntary manslaughter. This is simply the MRA equivalent of the outrage against the sentencing of Brock Turner. Sure, by s…
/r/MensRights28/01/19 12:25 PM
8

The anti-abortionists are just as much against freedom for women as pro-abortionists are against human life: not at all. But keep making ridiculous assumptions about those on the other side, and all you do is stymie debate and radicalise your own camp. Funny, that, because where I sit here in Europe we have legal abortions but a much lower abortion rate than in the US. Perhaps that is because we try to help women and parents in difficult situations explore different options before they make perh…
/r/MensRights28/01/19 09:12 AM
2

First of all, traditional gender roles and gynocentrism go hand in hand. To the extent that conservatives are actually that, conservative, they should have much in common with feminism. With marginal differences, such as the feminist insistence on the fine line between reasonable preventive measures against and responsibility for putting themselves in harm's way. We should also not forget that caring about men as a gender, beyond the caring needed for them to fulfill their traditional roles as p…
/r/MensRights28/01/19 08:22 AM
-12

I would not say NOBODY cares. The (increasingly mainstream extreme) right certainly seems to have a field day. The problem is more that they seem to be having a field day because they can, yet again, stick it to the (extreme) left rather than because they genuinely care about male victims of sexual assault (by any logic a larger and more ignored problem than false accusations against prominent men). Our main problem is the left at the moment, but that does not mean we should allow the right to t…
/r/MensRights25/01/19 08:56 AM
2

Can someone explain this to me: There are about 100,000 actual convictions of rape every year in the US alone. If you want to raise awareness, all you have to do is to pick examples from there. Although there are false convictions, you would be on firm legal and moral ground in doing so. Yet why in the world do some advocates refer to cases where guilt has not been proven, let alone ones involving probably false accusations? Or for that matter cases involving, say, gauche come-ons? I don't get i…
/r/MensRights24/01/19 03:31 PM
3

About a year ago, the Economist had a briefing on scientific accuracy. It pointed to a meta-survey that concluded that over 50% of published and analysed scientific results could not or only partially be replicated. 50%. And that was looking at NATURAL sciences, which should, in theory, be relatively free of political bias. In most social sciences (less so perhaps in the field of economics), it is not easy to find topics where there are no politics involved and where confirmation bias will be ta…
/r/MensRights24/01/19 01:43 PM
40

How does she combat this? By continuing to do what she does. She is one of the most insidious threats to (extreme) feminism out there: she is a woman, she clearly applies a female perspective, and she is clearly passionate about gender equality. Compare that to Paul Elam. He is a man, is easily caricatured, and spews bile behind a thin veneer of satire. Slamming him is easy and, to most outside our circles, likely to ring true. But with Cassie, I see feminists grasping at straws in desperation. …
/r/MensRights24/01/19 08:57 AM
25

Actually, the opposite is true. It is better to get slammed than to be ignored completely. To me, that is progress. Just a few years ago, research on domestic violence that looked into perpetration by both genders was completely ignored; recently, feminists have been leaning over backwards to debunk it (largely with little success except for a few points).
/r/MensRights24/01/19 08:50 AM
0

Sure, a small but vocal minority of MRAs, including a large minority of women, are pretty hypersensitive. Sometimes about peccadillos, mostly with some or quite a bit of justification, but still. It is true. But that hypersensitivity dwarfs in comparison that of a vocal minority of feminists. One gets upset about all of masculinity being denigrated, another about sexist air-conditioning and snow ploughing (examples which are not even particularly cherry-picked). But overall, if we want men to br…
/r/MensRights24/01/19 08:48 AM
2

This is a surprise to you? The post was much harsher than many others that also triggered bans.
/r/MensRights23/01/19 12:00 PM
-3

I think the notion that we are living in a feminised society is facile and lacks nuance - and polarises the debate, adding fuel to that ubiquitous notion that MRA somehow has to do with reactionary, unattractive men living in basements afraid of losing their privileges (even though it should not be controversial to observe that male privileges, no matter how you define them, largely fail to accrue to that particular sub-demographic). My country, Sweden, is often slammed as extreme from this pers…
/r/MensRights23/01/19 09:17 AM
-8

What does this have to do with attacks on straight (white) males? This is first and foremost a child, we do not know his sexuality, and he is also disabled and, I presume, black. Still, the schools failure to deal with the situation is atrocious, even if I admit dealing with bullying is much harder than proclaiming zero tolerance (an impracticable policy to begin with).
/r/MensRights23/01/19 09:04 AM
2

To my mind, I am not preaching, just stating the obvious: there are negative, harmful sides to masculinity - but also good sides. Same, though in different ways, for femininity. And this is highly relevant to men's rights: to take just one example, the fact that men overwhelmingly do not speak out about, let alone formally report on, domestic and sexual violence - and that other men, more so than women and perhaps even more so than feminists, do not take those issues seriously. I would honestly …
/r/MensRights23/01/19 08:39 AM
1

The argument by Gillette is reminiscent of the reasoning, by men and women, to justify Victorian prudery. Men as a group are threatening, so it behooves on women to avoid triggering them by displaying something as saucy as a bare ankle, and to find the few good men to protect them. How is this not extreme traditional conservatism masquerading as progressivism? I actually am not intending that as a rhetorical question, and I would especially like to hear what people here who identify as conservat…
/r/MensRights23/01/19 08:18 AM
1

As with most feminist dogma, they are actually mostly right. It is the part that is wrong that destroys everything. There is no doubt that toxic masculinity exists and that it is a problem. What is wrong with what is vaguely emerging as the underlying approach to the subject, to my mind, is two fold. Firstly, we overlook that the toxicity affects mostly, I submit, for other men or for the toxic men themselves. Indeed, most MRA problems are strongly linked to this. Secondly, we downplay the flips…
/r/MensRights23/01/19 08:13 AM
7

If he had based his entire discussion on a one-sided Fox news documentary or for that matter focused only on false accusations, then would indeed have failed in his duty. But from the reporting from Daily Wire, admittedly not a paragon of impartiality, it seems he made an effort to float a wide range of arguments - including male victims of sexual assault, which is hard for any reasonable person to object to. Is this not much better than ignoring it completely, which, had I been a high school te…
/r/MensRights23/01/19 08:04 AM
4

Harris, Warren, Ocasio-Cortez... while I would be glad to see, at least once, a female US president, these are all people that have advocated relatively radical positions. While they are also bright and competent and probably would rein with more pragmatism than some of their extreme views indicate, the approach of the Democratic party seems counterproductive. The best counterpart to the bumbling Trump is not advocating what is, incorrectly, seen as the opposite of his views: moves towards the k…
/r/MensRights22/01/19 03:04 PM
3

To respond to the rhetorical questions about other groups you could do this too: Americans, especially if the author is also Americans. New Yorkers. Concert goers. Not sure what this tells us, but there you go.
/r/MensRights22/01/19 12:55 PM
0

Kilts: no dispute there, and excellent example because it illustrates the differences and raises important questions about what we mean by gender equality and why we, including myself, exactly find the situations different. Karen and Chomsky: Why not? But Chomsky, whom I enjoy highly even though I do not share his conclusions many times, is brilliant, nuanced, iconoclastic and eloquent - not an ideologue. I would rather imagine that they would agree on many things, especially as they are both go…
/r/MensRights22/01/19 10:58 AM
0

Most of the time, yes. I think it was Karen Straughan, whom I used to listen to in the early days of my "awakening" (before she started to become a bit too radical and Trumpist), who told the story of a Moslem immigrant who had, with lecherous but ultimately benevolent intentions, come on far too strong to a female colleague who finally launched a complaint. The company intervened directly, explaining the situation to the offender and setting clear rules for his conduct. He kept his job, but als…
/r/MensRights22/01/19 08:22 AM
2

Great job. Let us, in particular, know what feedback you got. Just a few points that have crossed my mind as I have been thinking about these issues and that, I think, have received short shrift in the debate here and none at all on the "other side" - just for your consideration: The fiendishly complex and reciprocal nature of domestic violence writ large, including a vast array of psychological abuse; The fact that simply looking at gender distribution of perpetrators tell us very little about …
/r/MensRights22/01/19 07:24 AM
-4

First of all, let me make the point that it is important to know exactly what hides behind the term "sexually accosted". There are actions where rapidly escalating the issue is fully warranted. A one-off drunken come-on, no. Reaching in to grab breasts and squeezing them hard, yes. We do ourselves no favours by letting those who commit the latter act, let alone worse ones, off the hook. And my impression, working in an environment that boasts zero tolerance by at the same time has a track record…
/r/MensRights22/01/19 07:10 AM
-3

So many threads on this topic that I had to pick one willy-nilly: I watched the ad yesterday only after first reading several articles and comments about it, most of them critical. So I was expecting the worst. But what I saw was not the worst. True, it was one-sided - but it did not demonise men. With a bit of benevolence, one could even say the opposite. Even the reference to toxic masculinity could be seen as referring to toxic parts of masculinity or the male gender role - a concept I as an …
/r/MensRights17/01/19 08:59 AM
16

The Guardian has actually covered most prominent MRA issues at some point, including a pretty hard-hitting expose of egregious neglect of male sexual assault victims in DRC that, if I remember correctly, also slammed the obstructionism of a few women-centred organisations on the ground. Male suicide, fathers' rights, even false accusations - they are given short shrift, but shrift all the same (if you can say that in English). So this is not a surprise to me - but of course, their overall editor…
/r/MensRights16/01/19 04:04 PM
3

At the risk of fomenting outrage among my fellow MRAs, let me contend that there is some truth to the narrative about toxic masculinity. I know this well, growing up as a non-conforming, slightly effeminate gay man in the 1980s - a time when it was still socially acceptable to express utter disgust against male homosexuals. Let us not forget how far we have come at a time when the left is obsessing about minutiae like minor heterosexism and new pronouns: an old Chinese adage goes "No food - one …
/r/MensRights15/01/19 07:50 AM
1

It is not as much that they think men cannot be abused - that would be a ridiculous claim by any measure. It is that they see violence against men as violence, period - and violence against women as, unless there is ample evidence to the contrary, as motivated by gender. As one blazingly intelligent but staunchly feminist friend told me: women are killed every day JUST because they are women. It took me a while to pin down why exactly that claim is misguided, if not wrong. What bothers me the mo…
/r/MensRights15/01/19 07:32 AM
2

We knew this already - it is mainly because women tend to marry upwards or at the same level of socioeconomic status and stay single rather than marry down. One of the most bizarre aspects of this debate is that if you look at household income, women, on average, outperform men - mainly because of the radical difference between single women and single men households. Compare that to household incomes for, say, Asian and African Americans, and there is no question that the latter are socioeconomi…
/r/MensRights10/01/19 10:51 AM
4

I am surprised that people on feminism have the impression that false accusations are frequently reported. It may be true that they are more frequently reported in the media than before, but in what seems like 90% of cases in outlets that r/feminism pundits would probably not frequent, such as dailycaller. And no, the exchange seems reasonable and nuanced without overweening anger or generalisations. The moderation was unwarranted, but unfortunately not surprising. I do, however, think that we s…
/r/MensRights10/01/19 10:40 AM
1

Would it have been different if she had said "women can be predators, too"?
/r/MensRights10/01/19 10:22 AM
1

One of the not very many positive things that feminists managed to do was to raise awareness of overweening victim blaming. That someone of that persuasion (admittedly an assumption, but a reasonable one I submit) would write something like that is mind-boggling.
/r/MensRights09/01/19 03:12 PM
2

To be fair, I do find it reasonable for an individual support group catering to female victims to make this decision - I would not put the blame there. What is wrong is that there is none for men. This is both a supply and demand-side problem, one that is much bigger than feminist negligence and, at times, obstructionism. After all, even if feminists like to tout the likes of Trump and Putin as some kind of MRAs, they are the last people I would expect to take this matter seriously (male victims…
/r/MensRights09/01/19 03:09 PM
3

What is the link between homophobia and misogyny? If you hate men who love other men, and you also hate women, whom do you love at all? Other men? But is loving other men not what you already hate? I'm confused...
/r/MensRights09/01/19 11:00 AM
1

Because they can and because, for a minority of them, they benefit. Who can seriously claim that the likes of Emma Sulkowicz or Anita Hill (assuming for the sake of argument that her allegations fit this category) did not get a career boost? Some people crave attention, and this is an easy way to get it. That is not a gender issue, it is human nature and a simple case of reacting to incentives. Denying that human beings react to incentives is widespread. In the toxic discussion of immigration in…
/r/MensRights08/01/19 02:24 PM
3

I have seen bans for much less than this. It would be a surprise if you were not banned. We know this by now.
/r/MensRights08/01/19 02:16 PM
-12

I do agree that going public was, to say the least, a strange thing to do for the father. The comments are one-sided and not very compassionate, but not completely off. But for the mother to keep this a secret for all this time... flabbergasting.
/r/MensRights08/01/19 01:38 PM
1

Wow. I am amazed that this study was done, even if only reported in right-of-centre outlets as far as I can tell.
/r/MensRights08/01/19 10:09 AM
1

I never understood the notion that blind recruitment would favour women anyway. Do we not agree that the problem, if you permit me to use that term, is that women fall behind before they qualify for senior positions around 30 (delayed child-rearing age)? We are also missing the kernels of truth of activism in this area. Many here will disagree, but I do think that aiming for some moderate representation of each gender in senior positions IS a good thing. If the board is all male, it does make se…
/r/MensRights08/01/19 10:04 AM
10

If she invited him and manages to spend six times as much in the same restaurant, and then expects him, a student, to pay, then my best advise to him would be to run. This woman is obviously disturbed. Just like women have to worry more than men about their dates being physically abusive, men have to worry more than women about being used this way. Unfortunately, in this respect, straight men still have something to learn. Well, gay men too. No idea why I added that caveat, come to think of it.
/r/MensRights08/01/19 09:45 AM
2

Patriarchy is still rearing its ugly head in Turkey and Switzerland, while the Italians seem to be doing something right for a change.
/r/MensRights07/01/19 01:56 PM
1

Why not deferred tuition for all? You pay when you make money at a rate determined by your income. That would truly open up higher education for all at a fraction of the cost of fully state-funded tuition - a system that, as Friedman pointed out, is regressive as it asks all of society to pay for human capital creation among the more fortunate strata. Why should Wal-Mart workers have to pay for my medical degree?
/r/MensRights07/01/19 01:54 PM
1

This might strike American observers as bizarre, but this is actually an issue Swedish feminists have fought for. They have pushed through mandatory paternal leave, default shared custody, and child support provisions that are minimal by US standards, temporary, seldom more than a few hundred USD a month, and tied to income (and only applies to about a quarter of cases, as most Swedish women tend to work and wage differences are relatively small). Most of the compensation for the primary custodi…
/r/MensRights27/12/18 08:24 AM
2

Well they are on the (classical) liberal side, so of course they are for higher labour participation force for women, as well as for all - even before they take ideology around labour into account. I am too, as long as we allow for ample freedom of choice for as many as possible. And to some extent, it is also money - the organisation is funded largely by strategic partners from the private sector. But mostly, it is pragmatism. Pragmatism that has to pay due homage to the prevailing ideology, tr…
/r/MensRights27/12/18 08:17 AM
1

To be fair, I doubt that material comfort is what drove, to take a stereotypical example, the likes of Bill Gates the most. Not even a cynic would claim that. But I also doubt that the availability of other options, such as finding a rich husband, is what explains the difference between women's and men's choices in this regard and overall. A more important, but also far from conclusive, factor is differences in risk aversion - but if women had not been risk averse, they would not have been able …
/r/MensRights27/12/18 08:10 AM
19

The problem is not that there are moves to enforce child support payments. There should be. The problem is that the US and to some extent the UK have a system of arbitrary and often implicitly punitive child support awards in combination with a lack of a default shared custody principle. Parents have an obligation to support their children. But the amounts should be fair, based on actual income, tied to reasonable living standards, rely on the assumption that the custodial parent will have his o…
/r/MensRights20/12/18 03:53 PM
1

To me, her biggest mistake was delaying her concrete proposal and underestimating the complexity of the issue - she has done everything I would consider reasonable to avoid betraying her party in this kind of situation. But the real blunder was putting an issue like this to a referendum in the first place. It is one thing to ask people whether to join the EU or not; quite another to extricate yourself from a single market. UK politicians of all stripes failed spectacularly to explain this enough…
/r/MensRights20/12/18 08:40 AM
1

To be fair, that was actually not only superfluous, but ACTUALLY sexist. For someone who got a job that was impossible to do well and whose strong suit was not eloquence, she has clearly proven more capable than most expected. But even if she was more like, say, Michelle Bachman, saying things like that should indeed not be acceptable, and we should not defend it here.
/r/MensRights20/12/18 08:36 AM
2

I actually observed closely how this index was developed. While the methodological flaws you point out are beyond dispute for the most part, I can at least say that the people who worked on it did not simply miss them because they had ideological glasses on. It was more realpolitik: first, it would jumble the message to add the complexity and nuance that not normalising scores over 1 would entail; second, it would open them up to criticism to a much more significant extent. I even remember they …
/r/MensRights20/12/18 08:32 AM
1

Ok.... then take my comment as applying to women who do not live on alimony and men who will not face actual starvation if they stop working overtime. In other words, most of us. Well, let us say in the developed and upper-middle income world at least.
/r/MensRights19/12/18 02:06 PM
2

Not society. A bunch of crazy, self-righteous people trying to make a point by hyperbole. I meant harmless in comparison to, say, letting war rape victims in the Congo die on the streets because their gender disqualifies them from access to the resources they need.
/r/MensRights19/12/18 11:06 AM
1

...and the image they use to illustrate this is a woman sitting, ostensibly frustrated, at her desk. And yet, if anything, women are much smarter than men about their life choices. They pay less attention to money, are less likely to work overtime or travel frequently, and are more likely to choose college majors about which they are passionate rather than the ones that are the most lucrative, such as engineering or finance. As a result, most research I have seen show women to have much higher l…
/r/MensRights19/12/18 08:25 AM
1

As a gay man going through a long process to have children, I have to say I am ashamed that the gay community has not been particularly active in distancing itself from the small minority among us that are not only attracted to children, but also have the complete lack of inhibitions and empathy required to act on those feelings. It casts a pall on me; it is subtle and perhaps partly a figment of my imagination, but I feel I constantly have to demonstrate that I am not one of them. Of course, th…
/r/MensRights19/12/18 08:19 AM
1

I recognise the blatant double standards here. But I also know that progress on overjailing of women will also, better late than never, shine the spotlight on overjailing of men, let alone overall. In the Anglo world, especially in the US, we are - by any standard - jailing too many people. True, there are some violent psychopaths out there who we cannot let walk free without endangering the public. But three quarters of offenders are non-violent, and a significant proportion of those are jailed…
/r/MensRights19/12/18 08:11 AM
1

Come on. Men die seven years earlier than women. Batty but essentially harmless ideas like this does not make my top 20. Besides, it creates the unfortunate impression that this, along with different age limits for bar entry (another big issue in my country, Sweden), make up the pinnacle of discrimination against men - in contrast, of course, to women who are killed simply because of their gender (or something similarly hyperbolic and misguided).
/r/MensRights19/12/18 07:45 AM
2

Forget white men. They have lost touch with the working and precariat classes, period. That those vulnerable parts of the population are now springing for the party that champions regressive tax reform (and yes, the Trump tax cuts are regressive by any standard) is utterly bizarre - and the US left is to blame.
/r/MensRights18/12/18 06:47 AM
2

I do not mean to add fuel to the fire of outrage here, but I find this example particularly egregious because she was his MOTHER, not because of the age difference. The influence (power differential, broadly defined) a mother has over her son beats that of the stereotypical boss vis a vis his female secretary many times over.
/r/MensRights13/12/18 09:35 AM
2

Although I do not even know who is the socialist (the extreme trade protectionist in the white house) or who is the fascist (the ones who want to control free speech?) anymore...
/r/MensRights12/12/18 06:05 PM
1

In Germany, where this discussion is downright moderate and nuanced in comparison to the US, an immigrant just got a four year custodial sentence for touching a woman on her breasts without her permission. The case was clear-cut minor sexual assault - no questions there. But it was also the same sentence that he would have gotten for involuntary manslaughter while driving drunk (in fact, the middle of the range). So how can we still argue it is not being taken seriously? Do we actually think eve…
/r/MensRights12/12/18 09:50 AM
4

It should be so easy, should it not, for the Democrats to take over the presidency in 2020. After all, they are competing with someone whose gaffes even many of his fervent supporters, let alone the large silent ranks of centrist Republicans, reluctantly and for the most part surreptitiously deplore. Yet Hillary is still moaning about sexism, Pelosi keeps stooping to new lows, and the new influx of young Democrats float impracticable ideas that verge on the kind of socialism Americans are unlike…
/r/MensRights12/12/18 09:46 AM
2

I was banned to, back in the day when I was at least trying. Cant remember where from. But I would like to underscore that my posts were in no way radical; in fact, I leaned over backwards to give as much way to feminism as I could - and as some of the detractors of my posts here will surely agree, that is quite a bit of way. I think it is good to know what the details of each story is. Some of us are a bit on the radical side.
/r/MensRights12/12/18 08:43 AM
1

Please stop posting about posts about being banned from subreddits. And so on :)
/r/MensRights12/12/18 08:38 AM
1

With the exception of the sell-out breeder crack, not that far from the truth...
/r/MensRights10/12/18 09:36 AM
1

I know. For some reason I have never been invited to those patriarchy meetings. Maybe because I am gay?
/r/MensRights10/12/18 09:34 AM
18

This is one of the precious few things that, to me, could actually change people's minds - the topic, her style, her gender, and her personal approach fit. Reading posts and comments here or AVFM will not do so any more than a Michael Moore documentary would convert staunch right wing supporters (though I admit they do have entertainment value); they serve more as outlets for people who already agree on most issues. But what happened? Did it make a dent? There were several attempts to discredit …
/r/MensRights07/12/18 03:10 PM
11

Of course we should not ban him. But this ban is no surprise and, by far, not the most outrageous symptom of this trend. He is deliberately controversial and one-sided, at times putting things in ways that make me think he himself does not seriously believe them. What is much more disconcerting is that even moderate but outspoken people on the (centre) left face radical measures from slander over protests to outright bans. Think of Laura Kipnis, Bill Maher, and that paragon of by now downright a…
/r/MensRights07/12/18 02:49 PM
4

Wow. But at least I can understand, although not condone, that women do this. What I find bizarre is the claim that MEN do this (this is what Assange was, inter alia, accused of). What possible incentive would he have? Why take such an enormous risk - not only to have to pay child support, but even to face criminal charges? Sure, there are twisted people out there, but this boggles the mind.
/r/MensRights07/12/18 01:36 PM
2

I agree. We should fix it. We need these entrepreneurs, and we are clearly not using all of our entrepreneurial potential overall and among women and other groups in particular. But the fix is not to tell investors what to decide. They are the ones with the skin in the game - if they make the wrong decision, they lose millions. The fix is to get more women to come up with good ideas, present them well, and put them into practice. If feminists come forward with good ideas to do that, I would be a…
/r/MensRights07/12/18 01:34 PM
5

The lunacy goes far beyond these reasonable questions. You can, with strong backing, argue that climate change affects, say, blacks much more than whites because of the strong effects predicted for Sub-saharan Africa and the limited means that region has to adapt to changing conditions. But men and women? Anything that affects women affects the men, women, and children who love them and depend on them - and the other way around. Most people live in families and share these burdens. And if one pe…
/r/MensRights07/12/18 01:26 PM
1

Wow. Am I wrong, or is America losing its inhibitions around the contortions they are willing to go through to defend their partisanship? The debate seems to have left the realm of logic - on the left on sjw issues, but also on the right on issues like the caravan invasion and presidential birth certificates. Even in the mainstream, the right has lost any semblance of spine in standing up to the president, let alone to the free trade, openness, and respect for institutions to be central to their…
/r/MensRights07/12/18 12:47 PM
3

To me, far from an expert in this area, women's fury at this makes perfect sense biologically. Women's power (in their traditional roles as wives and mothers) stems from control of reproduction. Forcible rape, pornography, prostitution, surrogate mothers, and male birth control (short of a vasectomy) - all threaten to undermine that source of power. How interesting, then, that these issues also map well with the sources of outrage among modern feminism - the movement that claims to want to get w…
/r/MensRights07/12/18 12:39 PM
11

I always find it refreshing when we give due credit to the large but often silenced ranks of dissenting feminists out there, who often, at least in part, acknowledge MRA issues and are concerned about how fringe opinions in the movement are becoming mainstream (as we can see when Washington Post publishes editorials justifying hating men or dismissing male Trump voters as driven by insecurity about their penis size (tongue in cheek, of course, but still)).
/r/MensRights07/12/18 12:33 PM
4

That I can actually understand. If I hear an eloquent black person (who was that young woman again) argue against the notion that blacks are systematically oppressed, I would also keep mum whether I agree or not. Although I in part agree, I would be unconfortable voicing such strong opinions as someone who has never known what it is like to be black. Oh yes, I am white... Blond, blue eyes, tall. And while I would not agree that I am an oppressor, that helps me in life far, far more than being ma…
/r/MensRights07/12/18 12:31 PM
3

...and yet, if you would actually do a gender-based analysis with a modicum of objectivity, pretty much all of the top ten MRA talking points would come out front and centre. You would have to engage in quite a bit of contortion to conclude that there is, on average, gender inequality to the detriment of women in areas such as health and education. And while you may be able to conclude that domestic and sexual violence affect women more (at least if you start with reported cases), you still have…
/r/MensRights06/12/18 07:21 PM
1

I do this all the time. I mean in that situation - or when, as sometimes happens, the men's restroom is not in a condition to accommodate what I have to do :). Most women just smile and laugh about it, often I make a cute remark and smile. The ones that get huffy - very few - I just ignore. I honestly don't get why this is an issue at all... or why in the world I should object if women, who of course always need stalls, use the often empty ones in the men's rooms. Hundreds of millions of people …
/r/MensRights06/12/18 12:38 PM
2

I work in the sphere of international development co-operation - not on education, but I have a pretty good idea of what is going on. My rough estimate is that, out of a random sample of 100 projects, at least a third will be only for girls or women (mostly in tech). The other two thirds will, at the very least, have some kind of specific focus on girls. From a low base, there has been speedy growth of mentions of boys, but I have yet to see any major efforts with a clear-cut focus on them (apar…
/r/MensRights05/12/18 04:29 PM
1

But then the toxic masculinity narrative falls apart. Men raped by men you can, albeit reeking of old-fashioned homophobia, classify as honorary women. Not quite worthy of the full range of sympathy that women deserve, but maybe at least half. See how that works?
/r/MensRights05/12/18 12:56 PM
1

More power to you. I would not, especially back then, have had that courage. It is one thing to be a pedophile; quite another to have the complete lack of empathy needed to actually prey on a child. Borderline psychopathic.
/r/MensRights05/12/18 12:28 PM
1

More power to you. I would not, especially back then, have had that courage. It is one thing to be a pedophile; quite another to have the complete lack of empathy needed to actually prey on a child. Borderline psychopathic.
/r/MensRights05/12/18 12:24 PM
1

If you are rich, powerful, and enjoy the backing of the entire Republican party, then yes, I agree it is a stretch to claim destruction of lives. The likes of Kavanaugh can handle the flac. The likes of Brian Banks, however, less so...
/r/MensRights04/12/18 03:36 PM
113

Let us be pragmatic and selective before we, willy-nilly, slam the inordinate focus on girls and women. First of all, we are talking about some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. Doing something for girls among them beats doing nothing by a wide margin. Second, part of this focus stems from the demand that is out there. People simply care about girls, and if an ostensible focus on them prompts more people to support the issue and pay attention, so be it. Third, the progress we make in …
/r/MensRights04/12/18 03:03 PM
10

Well that is not a fallacy (I think you meant "myth"), I submit. As a gay man, something that would easily fall into that category of sexual assault happened to me several times in my life (mostly by men, and mostly because I put myself in dangerous situations, for which I blame myself). Never did I even consider reporting them. Nor, to be fair, can I reasonable claim to have suffered life-altering trauma, lest I be a world-champion at repression - only enough to feel strongly about this issue a…
/r/MensRights04/12/18 09:06 AM
1

That everything is overhyped, we can agree about. In the US in particular, I see mothers worrying, without anything happening, about their sons in middle school. And college men are increasingly (though this is an impression based on anecdotes and perceived press coverage) systematically worried about interacting with, let alone sleeping with, women - some of them even recording encounters or consent (way to kill the romance). People: there is no war on women or oppression of (straight, white) m…
/r/MensRights04/12/18 08:44 AM
4

This, along with someone accusing me of spreading ass cancer for being gay, sounds like feminist trolling - especially the crack about messing with video games and the ridiculous stereotypes it hints at. The extremism I have seen here is innocuous in comparison.
/r/MensRights03/12/18 05:11 PM
9

...and this INCLUDES those who tend to prefer other men in positions of power, whether it be because they consider women less capable or more fragile, or because it is simply a function of the gender of the people they know professionally. It also includes legislation that has held women back, such as the Victorian-era couverture laws or laws restricting occupations and working hours for women. It is, in fact, astonishing that anyone would assume otherwise. What indication do we have that this s…
/r/MensRights03/12/18 05:06 PM
1

I have a long list of things that Trump, or at least his administration, did that I agree with. The list of things I disagree with or find appalling is even longer, but still - his stance against Assad and Myanmar is, for instance, fully reasonable and borderline compassionate. So he is right: more so than the proverbial broken clock. In the US, most people I know are on the (relatively moderate) left - with one exception: a close relative who married into OC Republicans. I visited them recently…
/r/MensRights03/12/18 09:20 AM
1

...which of course reeks of victim blaming IF a serious offense was actually committed (which we have to assume often was the case). See how frustrating it is, even if we basically agree? How on earth is this discourse going to turn productive if participants do their best to play up their disagreements?
/r/MensRights03/12/18 09:13 AM
2

...because, I guess, it involves talking to people, building relations, and digging deeper. The thing is: most people are not even aware there is more to tech than coding, a battle that I am fighting every day as my staff still think setting up the web site is something for which we should hire a technology firm.
/r/MensRights03/12/18 09:11 AM
1

Skipping over the amusing dig about what differentiates me from a "real economist", of course at some level you are right - and maybe the overall tenor here prompted be to be a bit less nuanced than I normally would have been. But we have to look at it from this perspective: if we are using the potential of women in STEM as much as we can, then the obvious conclusion would be that we are also using the potential of men in teaching at below college or high school level as much as we can. For the …
/r/MensRights03/12/18 09:09 AM
1

I probably should have said good, decent. That is what I meant. My point was that we should not let the actions of a few overcast our impression of the entire group, whether we are talking about women, men, or Moslems.
/r/MensRights03/12/18 08:56 AM
1

This woman is not only, judging from what we know, paranoid, but idiotic enough to enter into a relationship with a man she has such egregious suspicions about. It baffles me, as a gay man, that so many straight men get involved with clearly mentally ill women like this. Is this the male version of women who get involved with men who abuse them (a phenomenon that may be exaggerated but nonetheless tangible)?
/r/MensRights30/11/18 11:56 AM
2

I'm honoured and positively surprised. Thank you as well.
/r/MensRights30/11/18 11:50 AM
1

As a hobby economist, all I see is folly: demand for talent is so overheated that Bay Area STARTING salaries for coders often exceed $150 k - higher than top law firms and investment banks. Why in the world would you then want to exclude three fourths of your talent pool? If most companies do this, the effect, in theory, should be a substantial wage premium for female coders. I do not know if this is the case, and it is anyway hard to measure fairly. Normally, such a wage premium will attract mo…
/r/MensRights30/11/18 11:02 AM
1

First of all: Although I lean liberal (libertarian without the crazy stuff) and hence to the moderate right on the US political spectrum, I think Trump is an idiot and a disgrace to a great country like the US. That is not what I want to discuss, but I am saying this so you know my potential bias. But I find myself constantly having to defend if not Trump, then the people who voted for him in the progressive echo-chamber in which I work. People around me keep pushing the simplistic, supercilious…
/r/MensRights30/11/18 10:52 AM
3

While I am still an MRA, let me take the risk of not sounding like one if I may. The point here, in my view, is not that the only resource a college should have when faced with serious accusations is to resort to the criminal justice system. That system has, and should have, very high standards of evidence, which of course means that many crimes committed in private and without clear physical evidence (as is mostly the case in date rape situations where both parties acknowledge sexual contact an…
/r/MensRights29/11/18 08:21 AM
3

To be fair, there are better ways to make that same point. Especially as we know that feminists can become outraged at far minor infractions. Yes, he is right, but he cannot reasonable claim not to have known the reactions that his remarks would spark. But it is still a sign of the times that saying something which is not only reasonable, but even reflects a foundational principle of any justice system, can trigger such vitriol. Of course, we see this all over - it is not a phenomenon reserved f…
/r/MensRights28/11/18 04:39 PM
7

This is not a new phenomenon, and one that we can see now and throughout history whenever we deal with topics that are particulary sensitive. It is also not limited to the left: We know, of course, the history of mob justice against black people in particular - but more recently we see this in the US reaction to the horrific terror attack 17 years ago, during which Moslem people were treated in ways that in some instances make pre-civil rights abuses appear tame in comparison. Not to mention, of…
/r/MensRights28/11/18 02:55 PM
5

I wonder how much of this backlash is not as much against the actual reforms - which almost anyone I talk to would, if pressed, agree with - as against DeVos and Trump and some of their much, much battier, partisan ideas. But this still troubles me. I see striking parallels to the US abortion debate: although both sides obviously care about both babies and women's rights to bodily integrity, each side uses arguments that make few concessions to the concerns of the other. Similarly, in this parti…
/r/MensRights28/11/18 02:01 PM
1

Feminists don't have to. Even if few people openly identify as such, they sympathise with the plight of women instinctively. No one does so with men as a group. With their male friends and family members, sure. Their colleagues, ok. But not with men as a whole. So we need moderation and just a bit more political nous to get ahead. People sometimes says Elam's overly controversial formulations is what brought so much attention to us. But I think that is often attention that makes it so easy to wr…
/r/MensRights28/11/18 09:19 AM
1

She is a budding surgeon. She was just practicing. Why all the fuss?
/r/MensRights27/11/18 05:48 PM
6

Exactly. Go with that. There is no way a feminist would read that and see that image without finding confirmation for her wild stereotypes about the movement...
/r/MensRights27/11/18 05:47 PM
2

True, and growing up gay, slightly effeminate and non-conformist in other ways to boot, I know this well - although the self-loathing that the then rampant homophobia (now the movement is bitching about heterosexism - back then, only a few decades ago, it was fully acceptable to express open disgust) infuses in you was, I submit, even worse. It was rough. But I also learned things from it. I learned how to navigate around male aggression, the importance of humour and alliances, and how to be ass…
/r/MensRights27/11/18 10:35 AM
11

Note that this includes all forms of violence, not only domestic. I am surprised it is only one third. A much discussed research piece by a Norwegian feminist in Sweden, Slagen Dam (battered lady), raised havoc a decade ago with the finding that over half of women had suffered violence. It later came out that the definition of violence included, famously, a shove in the bus queue (knuff i busskön). What was most astounding to me is why the figure was not closer to 99%. I cannot imagine that a si…
/r/MensRights26/11/18 09:57 AM
3

I would give a bit of way to start off. After all, as is in the nature of any kind of activism, we are, as a whole if not sexist, at least one-sided. For instance, discussions about the actions of a few, often mentally disturbed women often degenerate into unintended overgeneralisations about (by implication all or most) women. That is most often an expression of frustration rather than tangible misogyny (though of course there are actual misogynists on this forum, just like there are actual mis…
/r/MensRights26/11/18 09:48 AM
2

Of course there is no moral justification for men having to pay on dates. At least in general: if he is older and working and she a student, then common sense would say things are different - but as a function of income rather than gender. But a discussion in these veins strike me as adopting exactly the social engineering-based presumptions of the other side that we, most of the time, decry. Specifically, we appear to presume (when arguing against this social constraint) that we can willy-nilly…
/r/MensRights26/11/18 09:40 AM
2

To be fair, if you - correctly - point out the mistakes of Trump on a clearly right-wing site, you also get downvoted. Tribal adhesion trumps (!) facts to an ever growing extent...
/r/MensRights22/11/18 06:29 PM
3

Just to bring in some good news: The BBC world news podcast had a good five-minute segment on IMD. It was actually something akin to positive, nuanced, and compassionate - staying clear even of the typical caveats along the lines of "of course women have it worst, BUT", let alone reinterpreting IMD as a call for men to take more responsibility. Yes, I know, BBC is still largely feminist on social justice issues - and it still stays clear of the talking points where we probably disagree with femi…
/r/MensRights22/11/18 08:00 AM
1

As a quasi-insider, let us not forget what a big step it is for WHO to come out like this at all. There is bound to have been fierce internal resistance. There are three issues that are gaining cross-partisan attention in the international community: men's health, boys' education, and, to a lesser extent, fathers' rights. The data is clear and indisputable, and momentum is growing - even among self-identified feminists. Male DV victims? That will take another couple of decades...
/r/MensRights22/11/18 07:05 AM
2

I just went through the UN SGs report on the SDGs. One of the SDGs is gender equality. The goal itself is neutral, although the targets at times talk about women's empowerment. This would have been a great place to signal gender inequities in health and education. In MDG reporting, where in many places the education gender gap still favoured men, girls' education featured prominently, after all. But no. The report studiously focused on the third of indicators where you could still reasonably cla…
/r/MensRights22/11/18 07:00 AM
1

Of course they will. Activists always exaggerate anyway, and feminists have the particular opportunity to play into our instincts to protect and provide for women (which were essential to ensure the survival of the human race for 99.9% of our existence and which have only become more and more superfluous in the past few generations). But at the very least, let us not give them more ammunition than they already have. Realpolitik, if you will.
/r/MensRights19/11/18 09:54 AM
1

But I think the feminist side is far too powerful for us to be effective if we employ their one-sided tactics. It will only polarise the issue, allow them to dismiss us as pitiful misogynists or white supremacists, and engage us in an unholy alliance with a right wing who is much more concerned with sticking it to the left overall than any real concern for male victims (apart from Supreme court nominees and their ilk), let alone male victims of sexual assault. Think about it: World War I was one…
/r/MensRights16/11/18 05:24 PM
2

Wow. It is, I submit, no coincidence that it is to some extent exactly the people that rise to prominence by speaking out for (their version of) social justice that do these types of things. She will join the ranks of, say, Asia Argento, Kimmel, and maybe even Trudeau. Hillary Clinton may not be a slave owner, but she is notorious for bullying staff (especially, some say, female staff) and has added insult to injury with her strong stance against the women who accused her husband. You need, I th…
/r/MensRights16/11/18 04:45 PM
1

Russian Roulette gives you a one in six chance to die. The problem is serious, but that comparison is hyperbolic. Almost all women and men appreciate compliments and have tolerance for a reasonable degree of gaucheness that crosses the line a bit. It is of course also the same hyperbole that leads some to claim ridiculous things like subjective perception should be the deciding factor, even in actual matters of criminal or civil law. They start from a world view that "men" have for centuries jus…
/r/MensRights15/11/18 01:26 PM
1

What frustrates me is this: On the (semi-radical) left, there is a worry that much sexual harrassment falls below the radar screen because it is not of the grab her ass and leer variety. On the right, these worries are dismissed wholesale by cherry-picking statements that appear to say things like this. I am too lazy to check all the sources, but all you need to do is to change a claim that complimenting a woman CAN BE sexual harrassment to IS, and voila. Grounds for dismissal and outrage. At th…
/r/MensRights15/11/18 09:22 AM
3

For me, this stands to reason. Boys grow up with the mantra not to hit girls surrounding them; girls do not - in fact, they often see female violence celebrated, from the proverbial slap to Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and her ilk. Of course, women should be more likely to resort to light violence when they are frustrated. But this does not mean that men are the worst affected by domestic violence. It does not even mean that we can simply compare a light slap by a woman to that by a man to a partner…
/r/MensRights14/11/18 07:36 AM
2

To be clear: I am not saying that straight white men are not under attack, only that it is important to understand the different dynamics involved. Much of the time, the straight and white aspects are used as a political weapon to support demonisation of men. This bothers me in particular because the problems that afflict men tend to affect men of less privileged groups to an even larger extent - mostly class, which even the left for some reason tends to neglect of late, but also race: think abo…
/r/MensRights12/11/18 02:28 PM
2

But MRAs are dismissed as white males, at times with "angry" and "straight" added in for good measure, because lumping those together makes it all the easier to delegitimise the movement altogether and obviate any need to think more deeply about it. This is, in part, because people, including feminists (at least when they have to), recognise most of the MRA talking points to some extent so that simply saying "men" is not convincing enough. So far, no surprises. These are activists, and activists…
/r/MensRights12/11/18 07:21 AM
2

Perhaps not, although he has referred to the white race on other occasions. Which makes me cringe... poor rural white men without high school degrees, no question. But Kavanaugh is not by any means oppressed, especially not because his race. This is why it is so easy for the left to ridicule his statements (and the kernels of truth they contain) as overblown fear of losing unjustified privilege. We keep forgetting that, no matter what narrative you support, we cannot simply compare gender and ra…
/r/MensRights08/11/18 02:07 PM
1

Overt feminist rhetoric that involves devaluation of men loses elections not only because it rubs most people the wrong way, but also because it allows the other side to venture into areas that were previously off limits. Take the calls to believe Blasey Ford (admittedly a circus that was not about sexual assault and gender issues at all, but about the politicisation of SCOTUS). It allowed Trump to actually complain about the plight of white men. It made me cringe for several reasons: first, if …
/r/MensRights08/11/18 10:51 AM
3

This is what I do not understand: Few people that I speak to express any sympathy for men's rights as a concept (even if they recognise most of the issues on the top 20 list of MRA talking points if you put them diplomatically). That is why men's rights as a concept barely feature among politicians, only specific issues that seem more motivated by partisanship than actual compassion for men. But among those I talk to, many of which are on the left and sympathise with feminism, pretty much noone …
/r/MensRights07/11/18 05:56 PM
1

Use the terms you want; it is all a matter of degree. My point was only that there are degrees of punditry out there, and that the moderate voices are best placed to win people over with arguments rather than outrage. Then again, some people even violently protested someone as moderate, soft-spoken, and compassionate as Warren Farrell... and Cassie Jaye, from whom I have not heard a single note of radicalism, found herself attacked on grounds that were anything from flimsy to completely false in…
/r/MensRights07/11/18 11:44 AM
1

I understand that some subreddits automatically ban you if you post on this subreddit, which they equate with ones that are, by any standard, racist or xenophobic. It also even happens here: several times people accused me, using highly selective, context-ignoring quote-mining from previous posts, of being a feminist-in-disguise to undermine posts where I merely tried to add some nuance to the discussion and remind people not to let understandable outrage veer into wholesale dismissal of women (…
/r/MensRights07/11/18 11:34 AM
9

The talk was named No, I don't believe all women. All the warped minds of SJWs had to do was to think away the "all", and voila, the radical misogynist straw man they were looking for appears in all its splendour. One that even I would rally against if it were given such a platform. But we also have to acknowledge that such a title was intended to provoke. No one can reasonably claim the reaction was a surprise. We might find it unfair, but walk around with a gold watch in South Bronx (in the 80…
/r/MensRights25/10/18 08:25 AM
3

Louder with Crowder? Come on. Be smart. He is a radical pundit that will only convince people that are already convinced. Would you "convert" a conservative by showing a Michael Moore documentary? Much better to start with the likes of Warren Farrel, Cassie Jaye, and Norah Vincent. Then move on to academic dissenters like Hoff Summers, Kipnis, and Fiamengo. Then to the articulate semi-radicals like Straughhan. AVFM and LwC - don't even mention them.
/r/MensRights24/10/18 06:31 AM
1

I also have the impression that his behaviour was reprehensible, but not provably illegal. If I suspend that disbelief and assume he is guilty of criminal acts, then this case seems to be one of "hoist by your own petard". Under intense political pressure, the prosecution buried evidence and tampered with witnesses - which by the standards of justice should lead to acquittal. If I retain my (very slight) disbelief, then the question remains: how can such a strong movement be built on such weak c…
/r/MensRights24/10/18 06:22 AM
4

The case, the one case, that in the eyes of all sides appeared to justify metoo is falling apart. Although I do not have the energy to delve into the minutiae, I think this shows us two things. A: the legal system and presumption of innocence work, at least for the top 1%. B: there is a problem when someone who has behaved atrociously and even admitted to it can get off scot-free, even when he has the world against him.
/r/MensRights23/10/18 06:13 AM
6

What we forget in this conversation is that we do not need to show that falsely accusing someone of sexual assault is an attractive prospect overall. It is enough if it is so for a (tiny) minority of the population, such as those suffering from narcissistic or borderline personality disorders or even psychopathy. Funny, that, as we have no problem imagining how (male) psychopaths benefit from raping and murdering people without for that matter having to be convinced of that benefit ourselves... …
/r/MensRights19/10/18 11:32 AM
1

I do not contest that gender studies are overpoliticised at best, "pure distilled misandry" at worst. They clearly are, with a few exceptions. But what I disagree with is two-fold: the unflinching instinct to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and the reasoning behind the decision. Orban puts forth hyperbolic reasoning about undermining the family, buttressed by a simple-minded version of biological determinism that sensible researchers would not agree with. This is pure and simple right-win…
/r/MensRights19/10/18 10:15 AM
5

Feminists, not women....
/r/MensRights19/10/18 07:55 AM
1

Surely you are not comparing an abortion to a nose job? And (positing for the sake of argument that we have a system of tax-funded universal health care) if we do not take care of ailments that stem from irresponsible behaviour, where do we stop? Overweight people who develop diabetes? Smokers who develop lung cancer? Mountain climbers who fall and break their limbs? At any rate, abortions are not expensive procedures - most of the funds spent actually go on the counselling involved (which often…
/r/MensRights17/10/18 04:32 PM
8

This example was so egregious that even Trevor Noah, normally ever so eager to toe the feminist line, satirised it (admittedly focusing only on the race angle). Not even feminists, as far as I have read, have supported this clearly mentally disturbed woman (while vehemently defending the likes of Argento). This is not the problem we need to focus on. Rather, the much larger issue is the huge mass of cases of false accusations that cannot be disproven, does not involve other "oppression dynamics"…
/r/MensRights17/10/18 04:23 PM
2

Abortions are already "free" (well, save for 10%-20% copayments) in most EU countries through Government-financed (or mandated) health care... and funding almost all health care but excepting abortions, if that happens, is of course questionable. But that is not where the debate is here in Europe. In Germany, there is an outcry over a ban on advertisements from abortion clinics, framed in a teutonically toned down version of the war on women. This is, of course, silly: abortion is a last resort,…
/r/MensRights17/10/18 04:15 PM
1

This is far too heavy handed - and, trust me, driven by right-wing, instinctual populism rather than any real concern for men's rights - or for that matter academic integrity. Hell will freeze over before Orban starts talking about, say, male victims of domestic violence or sexual assault by women. I find the growing trend of extolling the likes of Orban, Putin, Trump, and Bolsonaro as MRA-champions misguided and disconcerting. The measure also widely overshoots the mark. The issue is not the id…
/r/MensRights17/10/18 04:00 PM
2

And yet historical research is all about nuance and trends. We have seen an explosion of social history research that tells us a lot about the plight of the poor, of minorities, of rural and urban life. Research into black history is also politicised, but also solid and relatively nuanced - for the simple reason that blacks were indeed, by any standard oppressed. I recently read a book that went so far as to compare and contrast slavery and indentured servitude, and that speculated that slavery …
/r/MensRights17/10/18 08:40 AM
3

A case of false accusation has to be particularly flagrant (or ridiculous) for Trevor Noah to pick it up...! While I enjoy his satire, he is among the most partisan of an already partisan bunch of the US news-turned-into-entertainment genre (for some reason, the right is not able to come up with good satire, unless I am missing something). Note, however, that he was careful to not make this about gender. Rather it was about race and white entitlement. Some truth to that, I guess, but I could not…
/r/MensRights16/10/18 09:29 AM
2

On both the left and the right, we use history as fodder for our predetermined ideological beliefs. On the left, we focus on different kinds of oppression narratives - on the right, on moral purity and institutions. The way many US conservatives interpret the Boston tea party, for instance, is the right-wing pendant to that of historical oppression of women. And yet, is it not clear that an instinct to protect and provide for women was not only a haphazard notion throughout history, but essentia…
/r/MensRights16/10/18 06:46 AM
16

Apart from (instinctual, partisan, and uninformed) opposition to feminism, this guy has, as far as I know, not done anything in support of men's rights. Quite the contrary: he is a virulent homophobe and supports heavy-handed police tactics (and we know which gender suffers most from those).
/r/MensRights15/10/18 12:08 PM
1

The title is misleading: the figure refers to those who think false claims are a problem in the work place. Pretty much 100% would probably agree that there are bound to be false (or hyperbolic) claims; the disagreement would be on the proportion that those claims make up. What surprised me was that there were no differences in gender and only a slight difference between the left and the right (34 vs 29). Wow! That shows you that Americans are much less partisan than the prominent politicians an…
/r/MensRights11/10/18 07:15 AM
1

To be fair, this is because we have had tremendous success in combating breast cancer, not because prostate cancer mortality is increasing (though it will become more widespread as men live longer, as it disproportionately hits men over 50). What used to be a death sentence half a century ago is now in most cases eminently treatable. We are winning that fight, so now is the time to reallocate some resources to deadlier and equally or more common types of cancer (not only prostrate, but stomach, …
/r/MensRights11/10/18 07:04 AM
1

I don't get the logic at all, would you mind elaborating? The MRA movement is fighting for, say, male DV victims, false accusations, male disposability, suicide, and male health. All issues that affect people of less advantaged races much more than whites (Asians, and Jews). And all issues that fit much better with a progressive than with a right-wing, traditionalist agenda. Hardly attractive to that stereotypical white guy afraid of losing his privileges, wouldn't you say?
/r/MensRights11/10/18 06:48 AM
3

I hope she meant that victims need proof if they want to see someone convicted, not to make an accusation. The latter would indeed be a step too far in the other direction...
/r/MensRights11/10/18 06:16 AM
10

As we have seen in Norway, this kind of legislation has limited positive effect and is regressive. The limited positive (defined as stronger, deserved roles for women in corporate governance) stems from the simple fact that we are only talking about boards. The regressive effect stems from the limited group of women that stand to benefit disproportionately to the detriment of, basically, the rest of society. We should not exaggerate the importance of such legislation, however. A quota on boards,…
/r/MensRights11/10/18 06:13 AM
17

This is how we used to see men in the Victorian age, say. Unless we stamp out every inkling of sexuality, women will not be safe as men will not be able to control themselves.
/r/MensRights10/10/18 02:00 PM
2

The comments section gives hope. The overwhelming majority, including self-proclaimed feminists, condemn the extremism. The ones that support it appear to be hopeless ideologues based on their arguments (history is only about men etc.).
/r/MensRights10/10/18 12:25 PM
1

We disagree on degree only. I admit there is an argument to be made that the Economist accepts basic feminist tenets, as does society overall. But it also questions them regularly - and not only claims of the extremes, but of the mainstream, such as the (unnuanced version of the narrative behind) wage gap - and stands up for liberal tenets like due process and free speech. It strongly criticises not only the wage gap narrative, but feminist research (see latest edition on the dog park hoax), gen…
/r/MensRights10/10/18 05:58 AM
3

Not only is there a critical mass of doubt surrounding his innocence, it is also hard to argue that he suffered inordinately - after all, he has rallied half the country behind him, is hailed as a hero in right wing media, and is now one of the nine most powerful judges in the world. Compare that to cases like Brian Banks - or rather yet, people like Brian Banks who did not get exonerated. Socioeconomically disadvantaged, black, and railroaded by the system with no Republican base to support him…
/r/MensRights09/10/18 08:22 AM
2

First of all, do not let these fears control your life. Second, there is not much new in these events - it is part of an overall pattern of school bullying, abusing the temporary strength of the instrument of accusations. That means that what children nowadays have to do to avoid being the target of bullying still applies, as unfortunate at that is. That includes, for boys at least, acting in a non-conforming manner and appearing weak. It is no coincidence that these girls did not pounce upon th…
/r/MensRights09/10/18 08:12 AM
1

You do not need it, because you know the issues in much more depth than the Economist, a generalist outlet, is able to cover. But the rest of the world does; the magazine is arguably the most influential of all across the globe. And to be honest: I doubt getting brownie points from you tops their priority list.
/r/MensRights08/10/18 04:51 PM
1

Whenever we hear about rape crises around the world, they also appear to affect men - and perhaps be symptomatic of a broader problem of violence and crime. And South Africa does have a significant issue with rape by any standard. In DRC, even The Guardian reported the egregious violation of the rights of perhaps as much as 50% of war rape victims (though the numerous male victims were in part a consequence of the women having fled villages ahead of the conflict). Wash, rinse, and repeat for nor…
/r/MensRights08/10/18 02:36 PM
1

I am not sure how to respond to the vitriol. I don't agree with the Economist in this case. But they also do not belong in the camp of SJ ideologues. They have spoken out in favour of due process, criticised gender studies severely, favoured shared parenting, lambasted the divisiveness of the gender debate and man-hating, and repeatedly debunked the (unnuanced version of) the wage gap narrative. I also doubt they would have mocked men's rights in a more neutral context. But here we have Trump ca…
/r/MensRights08/10/18 02:00 PM
-6

We all know here that Trump's statement, taken at face value, is valid. But I cringe at the context. Men's rights should not be about the right of one of the most privileged men in the world to get one of the most powerful positions in the world. In fact, I find Kavanaugh's cry baby, outraged response as morally void and disqualifying as Hillary's attacks on men, blaming sexism for her defeat (as if there are no other conceivable reasons). Powerful men may be under attack, but they should be abl…
/r/MensRights08/10/18 08:18 AM
14

The Economist is classical liberal, far from progressive or left-wing. They have sided with the US right most of the time (it supported Reagan, Bush senior, Clinton, Bush junior (retracted after WMD scandal), McCain, Hillary). They have also lodged legitimate criticism of feminism and metoo. At any rate, most of the time, their editorial style is to take a clear, classical liberal stance, but to include arguments from both sides - allowing people from different political persuasions to make up t…
/r/MensRights08/10/18 08:15 AM
2

They are not in any way as far right as, say, Jobbik in Hungary. In fact, their policies are often reasonable (attract skilled immigrants and focus on integrating them, for instance). The problem is more that the party has plenty of bad apples among its members, including violent racists. Unfortunately, the driving force here is not men's rights. It is nationalism, and islamophobia (there are not enough Jews in Sweden for any kind of antisemitism to take root) with a tinge of that general instin…
/r/MensRights05/10/18 02:50 PM
6

And a vote against Kavanaugh only because of the accusation is saying that justice does not matter. Watching this spectacle from the other side of the pond, this is what strikes me, after changing my mind completely on the topic: Kavanaugh should not be on the supreme court for good reasons. These include extreme partisanship (something Kavanaugh himself wrote 20 years ago that justices should not have), irascibility (I do not care if they bullied him; you want a top job, you bring the thick ski…
/r/MensRights05/10/18 12:47 PM
0

I was not quite able to decipher your message, I'm afraid. But let me try to respond to what I think you are saying. True about Islam and the Koran. And the Bible tells fathers to offer their daughters to strangers and to kill those who do not believe in God. Pretty violent, wouldn't you say? But just like with Moslems, the overwhelming majority of Christians do not take that literally, let alone translate it into action (which many more did just a few centuries ago). I am a (non-militant) athei…
/r/MensRights04/10/18 03:36 PM
4

And yet ironically if there is anything both sides can agree on, it is that both rape and terrorism are abhorrent...
/r/MensRights04/10/18 02:24 PM
9

Most Moslems are not terrorists! There. Am I now a traitor that hates the US...?
/r/MensRights04/10/18 01:30 PM
2

First of all, the goal should not be to make men as afraid of rape as women. Men need to be more wary (also of violence in general), and women need to avoid reasonable caution to degenerate into obsessive fear that impinges on their lives. Second, in contrast to most issues, I do not blame feminism of much, except of course their silence on the issue (with a few exceptions when it comes to male-on-male rape and prison rape). I do not even blame women. It is mostly, far from always, other men tha…
/r/MensRights04/10/18 01:15 PM
26

This is what I do not get. I am not a Republican. I am against Trump. I do not support Black Lives Matter. I am against Israel's actions in Palestine. I condemn Russian invasion of Crimea. But I think I am fully able to speak to my opponents and come away with sympathy and understanding of their position WITHOUT changing my own basic stance. I can condemn Israel's behavior and at the same time understand that they are acting based on an understandable conviction that they are in a state of war. …
/r/MensRights04/10/18 07:31 AM
1

It requires two thirds of the senate... but speculations are indeed out there: https://www.vox.com/2018/9/27/17910524/supreme-court-impeach-impeachment-brett-kavanaugh At any rate, if impeachment could indeed be more than a wet dream (in which case they would start with Trump...), that only makes it even more striking that Trump is not choosing the safer route of fielding another candidate (this time a woman, where a takedown ambush with sexual assault allegations will cause little more than mir…
/r/MensRights02/10/18 04:29 PM
1

On Feinstein: I do not know much nor do I feel compelled to defend her, only call for a bit of nuance, so I will leave it at that. On the hearings: I watched them, and found both witnesses relatively credible - which is why I think Flake ultimately did the right thing. But I just came back from the US, first visiting a firmly Trumpian part of my extended family, and then - a ragingly liberal former colleague who worked on the Hillary campaign. From the Trumpians, I got reactions along the lines …
/r/MensRights02/10/18 03:35 PM
1

I did not know that, but I think my original point remains that an impeachment is much less likely to succeed than raising serious doubts during confirmation hearings. I have not heard of a single case of SCOTUS impeachments, at least not after the heady first decades of the Republic. But let me know if I am wrong, and I will try to fill in the lacunae in my patchy general education... But I do find it a tad disingenuous to suggest that Trump's nomination was not tainted by politics. This is a c…
/r/MensRights02/10/18 03:21 PM
1

I suspect that a post- confirmation investigation aiming at impeachment or even criminal prosecution would be subject to much higher standards of proof than before the nomination. And for an event that took place in 1982, not even Democrats could reasonably expect to provide the appropriate level of corroboration. I wonder why Trump did not simply field a female candidate? It would have been a smart thing to do, and there is no paucity of women judges with the appropriate track record (and polit…
/r/MensRights02/10/18 08:25 AM
0

I had a similar experience with a close relative that I lived with for several years. She is a fervent feminist, but also one that has seen a close teacher colleague suffer from patently false allegations up close and that herself speaks out against the extremes of metoo. But when I posted an article on facebook on a topic like this, from a credible, centrist source, and without comment from my side, she commented that she is sad to see that, as she always suspected, I have a misogynist streak. …
/r/MensRights02/10/18 08:01 AM
-3

Of course the Dems will reject it. But it is better than nothing for both sides, is my argument. And I missed it when FBI said that; it would surprise me, because we are talking about updating the background investigation done before the hearing, right? These are not criminal investigations, but procedures designed to uncover skeletons like this. And I already admitted that it is a show and a stalling strategy. That is true, but notionally unrelated to whether Dr. Ford is telling the truth or no…
/r/MensRights02/10/18 07:29 AM
-2

I have no doubt that you are right about the intentions of the Democrats. With so much at stake, they will surely pull out all the stunts in the book. So did McConnell to thwart Obama's nominee (although with a Rep majority that was much easier). But I still think that Flake was right to insist on an investigation, albeit giving it much less time than the Democrats wanted. The allegations are simply to serious to simply "plow through". (plough?). If, as you presume, no additional relevant inform…
/r/MensRights02/10/18 06:30 AM
-7

This is obviously a regrettable circus. Not for a moment would I consider the behavior of the left noble, nor that of McConnell (come on, people, we may oppose feminism, but to respond to a sexual assault allegation with a metaphor like "plough through it" is cringeworthy) and the right. After all, what is at stake is the composition and slant of the most powerful nine judges in, arguably, the world. But what I also do not get is why the resistance to an extended FBI background check (not a crim…
/r/MensRights02/10/18 05:59 AM
3

I live in Switzerland, though as I am working for an int.org I am not as integrated into society as most foreigners. So my perspective is that of an informed outsider with skin in the game. What is striking here, at least in the German-speaking press (which is the local language I know best and which includes NZZ, arguably the most serious, right-of-centre German language media outlet overall), is that intelligent opposition to left-wing feminism, especially in Germany but with many references t…
/r/MensRights02/10/18 05:47 AM
2

I never argued that it is fine. Only that it is not exactly the same.
/r/MensRights23/09/18 04:49 PM
2

My inner conspiracy theorist is reluctant to go as far as to think this was planned months ago. But of course the point is to delay or even scupper the process. Think of what is at stake: a ludicrously powerful Supreme court dominated by ideological conservatism for a generation to come. Of course they will try everything in the book (or even outside it) to stop that, as would conservatives in the same situation (remember the Obama nominee). I find that terrible. This is the only pillar of gover…
/r/MensRights20/09/18 06:40 PM
36

Well, to be fair, he bragged about his penis size (imagine Obama or Bush doing anything of the kind) so he sort of deserved it... so not the greatest example. But of course, we are allowed to body shame men much more than women. Even cutting penises off is funny and prompts at worst half-hearted apologies.
/r/MensRights20/09/18 09:41 AM
1

Although, of course, I have the impression that something like half, if even more, of the most prominent MRAs are women...
/r/MensRights20/09/18 08:53 AM
4

Whenever I raise this issue with people, I mostly get dismissed as a radical ideologue (and, online, where people do not know me, as a misogynist). I can cite facts and send studies all I like: people will not listen. And I mean people, not militant feminists. The aversion is actually even stronger on the political right. But if I frame it a bit differently, expressing astonishment myself but then bringing up how accepted the stereotypical, mostly deserved movie slap is, people start thinking. A…
/r/MensRights20/09/18 07:15 AM
2

I am of two minds about this. First, I fail to see how ANY investigation of something that happened that long ago could be impartial when there is so much more at stake than just this potential justice. Democrats are facing the risk of a Supreme Court dominated by conservatives for a generation. Given the immense power, straying from the judicial far into the political, of this institution, this is obviously undemocratic - and not in the spirit of the constitution, which was written for a much l…
/r/MensRights20/09/18 06:41 AM
1

This is true (not sure about the exact number, but several times). But of course, Ford also herself claims she only realised it herself recently in counselling and had not come out about it before, so it would be unreasonable to expect the FBI to have found anything even if her version is true.
/r/MensRights20/09/18 06:02 AM
1

I could not agree more. I fervently support men's rights, but I often blanche at how this Forum sometimes makes exactly the same mistakes that we blame feminism for. Extremism, overgeneralisation, cherry-picking. Unfortunately, much of the time when I try to call for moderation and nuance - I admit to a slight over-academic bent - I am often derided as deluded or even a covert feminist (something no one has ever accused me of in my real life, ever). This might be partly my gauche formulations - …
/r/MensRights19/09/18 11:26 AM
2

For physics: The figure I have is 1 in 10, though that may depend on exactly what you define as the extreme high end. My recollection is that the proportion of women in that field is lower than that, so there may be some potential for a moderate version of these instruments to work. On IT, I had two thoughts in mind: first, women used to outnumber men in computer programming until the mid 80s, including during times when men outnumbered women in tertiary education. Second, IT is now much broader…
/r/MensRights18/09/18 10:30 AM
3

If you are a researcher in this field, you have three options. You can toe the line, which is difficult to do as a scientists. You can avoid the topic completely, or at least take care not to draw clear conclusions. Or you can speak out and double down, and face the storm - and accolades from the (far) right. Ironic, because this particular professor is firmly on the political left. But this is all unnecessary, even from a feminist perspective. The issue should not be what the average difference…
/r/MensRights18/09/18 06:55 AM
9

I don't understand the reasoning. Everything else being equal, people get sicker as they get older. If women get older than men on average, it would follow that they would spend more years being relatively sick, right? Is this simply not an issue of quality of life and health of the elderly, rather than a gender issue?
/r/MensRights14/09/18 02:14 PM
1

First of all, I am an MRA sympathiser and a convinced liberal. That means I believe in free markets, small but efficient government and redistribution, equality of opportunity, the right for gays to marry and raise children and serve in the army, and restrictions on personal freedom only when they create substantial public benefits (speed limits, control of pollution, antitrust rules and the like). The overlap between my beliefs and that of the (non-moderate) left in the US today is, as a result…
/r/MensRights14/09/18 11:43 AM
1

That was not my point. Let me try again. One of the ways we can distinguish the left from the right is a focus on social justice and progress (left) and respect for institutions (right). Nothing bad about either: we need the left to lobby to change injustice, and the right to ensure stability and continuity. So how does this apply to MRA issues? I would like to distinguish anti-feminism from men's rights. After all, seeing male victimhood, let alone on par with women, goes counter to the male ge…
/r/MensRights13/09/18 07:02 PM
11

Why in the world is acknowledging male victims of sexual abuse, traditionally ignored or ridiculed, in a social justice context a conservative (right-wing) and not a progressive (left-wing) position? Is the right wing not about preserving institutions and the status quo?
/r/MensRights13/09/18 02:51 PM
1

BTW I was wondering what prompted you to compare discussions on this forum with those likely to take place in restrooms at US gas stations? I am not American, so I may not understand the cultural connotations involved in the comparison.
/r/MensRights12/09/18 12:21 PM
0

You know what? We need people in STEM. 25 year old engineers in the Valley now easily fetch over $200 k when they graduate - a starting salary like that outside of entrepreneurship and wholesale finance is a clear symptom of harmful undersupply. Equally clearly, there is much more potential in getting women into STEM - even taking into account the studies that Damore referred to. Some of the claims in the video are condescending and unscientific (for instance, there is little empirical support f…
/r/MensRights12/09/18 12:19 PM
2

He had assaulted her first by asking her to let him pull the armrest between the seats down. She said she had had enough of such abuse and was no longer going to tolerate it just because she is a woman.
/r/MensRights12/09/18 08:37 AM
8

First, I still marvel at how it is the rich and famous, those who have made it by any standard, that often shout the loudest about discrimination. Even if they are right, why should we have compassion for and take policy measures to protect the 0.01%? Second, she MIGHT have had a point if she was playing against a man and the judge acted more harshly towards her than towards men. But she was playing against a woman. It is as if a woman CEO would blame her ousting on sexism even if her replacemen…
/r/MensRights12/09/18 07:51 AM
1

Wow. I find it fascinating that I seem to want to impress people I do not know from relative anonymity, let alone with relatively simple-minded references (to be fair, they are in my line of work). Although I cannot claim to be immune to the seductive powers of egotism, I hope I at least have the mental restraint and common sense to let my sense of self-worth depend in any tangible way on reactions in online fora. I think the issue is that you use the term "narrative" in some specific, inscrutab…
/r/MensRights12/09/18 06:17 AM
5

Although I, too, find it scary that someone as traditionally conservative as Kavanaugh should tip the scales of a Supreme Court that is, by far, much more politically influential than similar bodies in other countries, and find it unconscionable that he appears to have views that would protect the President from criminal charges, Senator Harris's question on laws that impinge on bodily integrity was the most cringeworthy part of Democrats' attempt to scuttle the process. First, although, as a Eu…
/r/MensRights11/09/18 01:21 PM
1

So neo-classical economics make perfect sense to you without the work of the likes of Lucas and Ostrom? Bizarre but fascinating... but radical claims like yours have a strong, often leftist tradition behind it - atavistic nowadays.
/r/MensRights11/09/18 10:43 AM
50

He was much younger. She was in position of relative power and high status. Counterclaims like this are actually so ridiculous as to be good news: public opinion will be overwhelmingly against her. Let's lean back and enjoy the ride.
/r/MensRights05/09/18 03:00 PM
2

Katy or Keisha? If Katy, then perhaps I misread. I am just overall a bit worried that we are sometimes making the same mistakes that we, rightly, accuse feminism of. Rather than saying it looks like she is a shitty person but that there are possible other angles, including that Dr Luke is not exactly a paragon of virtue, we decide that she is. So while I certainly admit I could be plain wrong in this case and that you could be much better informed, I still find that we are likely to rush to judg…
/r/MensRights05/09/18 10:10 AM
5

Combine the hype around metoo with the nearly pathological need for attention and validation that drives people to participate in reality TV in the first place - and I am wondering why this is the first time this has happened...
/r/MensRights04/09/18 10:53 AM
2

Its a low bar, I admit. But she could have continued to lie, at much less expense.
/r/MensRights03/09/18 04:40 PM
2

Is that not what I wrote? Although I prefer to reserve a bit of judgment about what I do not know, and although we have little reason to think Dr Luke was an angel himself, your interpretation certainly looks likely. I was only commending Katy Perry for speaking out, based on a cursory understanding of events.
/r/MensRights03/09/18 10:58 AM
1

Are you seriously claiming that the narrative approach of, say, Elinor Ostrom, was not an excellent complement to quantitative economics?
/r/MensRights03/09/18 10:32 AM
2

These are difficult questions, and although I consider myself relatively self aware - I am still subject to the constraints of being human. Perhaps one difference is that I am relatively immune to macho peacocks and to the temptation to respond in the same way. This starts internally; I do not take it personally, but approach it rather with a bemused interest in human interaction. This calm perhaps makes me better able to find areas of common interest, so that I can show I understand where they …
/r/MensRights31/08/18 06:16 PM
1

In this forum, we of course all agree that metoo is plagued by hysteria and hyperbole. As does most of society by now. But of course, the problems they point to are real. Maybe not as endemic, and certainly not as women-specific as pundits claim, but there is a range of misbehaviour among powerful people that range from slight intimidation to actual assault. People do not become powerful because they are nice; they also have to have an inordinate amount of confidence in themselves and be ready t…
/r/MensRights31/08/18 05:23 PM
1

Of course, you are right to a great extent. You have to be, as culture and biology are bound to interact. But we are always talking about 80/20 when it comes to these issues. And I grew up as part of the 20. I was gay, slightly (only slightly) effeminate, and I found growing up pretty rough. It is better now that homophobia is no longer endemic in the West by far the way it used to be, but still - not easy to be a non-conforming boy. But I learned something from that. I am now in a competitive e…
/r/MensRights31/08/18 05:11 PM
1

For me, my problem with feminism is not as much about its basic tenets as about the extremes they take it to. For instance, I find it credible that the behaviour that we condition girls to exhibit is less useful than that we condition boys to in a competitive environment. Boys learn very early to be competitive and tough. But they also learn the niceties of where you can be tough, and where not. Of where you should take a stance, and where you should go with the flow. They also learn how to disa…
/r/MensRights31/08/18 04:34 PM
1

Which raises the question of why they changed? Was it hormonal? How did they forget their social conditioning as women? And how could the difference be so stark, given that - wild speculation here - women that feel like men are probably likely to also exhibit behavior on the more masculine end of the spectrum even before transitioning? And what about trans women? Did they become more demure? Any research on this?
/r/MensRights31/08/18 02:51 PM
3

Not sure why this is relevant. But please distinguish the concept of narratives, as in anthropology and liberal economics, which can be extremely useful and enlightening, and the distorted, politicised way in which the word is sometimes bandied about (mostly by the left, but also by the right - think socialist, Moslem, unamerican Obama). Bathwater, not baby.
/r/MensRights31/08/18 09:41 AM
2

Wait, really? If gender is a social construct, they should still be socialised as women throughout most of their lives? And how can they then dismiss transitioning men, of which there are many more, I assume.
/r/MensRights31/08/18 08:59 AM
1

Let me rephrase. The struggle against MGM should build on the enormous momentum and success of that of FGM.
/r/MensRights30/08/18 03:42 PM
2

Not concretely. But I have seen several. How about the US national institute for health...? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3255200/ Perhaps HuffPo is a more accessible read: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/male-circumcision-and-the_b_249728.html I am more surprised it is still cited widely.
/r/MensRights30/08/18 03:41 PM
7

And perhaps how badly her upbringing as a girl had prepared her for that. We mollycoddle them - and it is hard to do otherwise, as I notice when I speak to my niece, despite all of my good intentions and convictions.
/r/MensRights30/08/18 02:46 PM
3

This study was thoroughly debunked later. But even if it would be true, and even if you ignore the mutilating and sometimes fatal consequences of circumcisions in countries without adequate health facilities, the policy conclusions are crazy - if you circumcise lots of uneducated African men and tell them that is because their chances of contracting HIV will be reduced, expect them to be even less careful. Not to talk about the tinge of racism and colonial condescension implicit in such an idea.
/r/MensRights30/08/18 02:35 PM
1

The practice predates religion. And the practice has been reduced to a tiny fraction of what it used to be, both in terms of number and severity (from removing part of the clitoris to a symbolic pin prick in many cases). These are figures from advocacy groups. Of course the battle is not won yet. But as someone who lived in several Moslem countries, I sometimes think we exaggerate the issue and allow a tinge of Islamophobia to enter - while missing the correlation with poverty, conflict, and lac…
/r/MensRights30/08/18 02:24 PM
1

When it comes to FGM, we are all clear that it is wrong - be it removing the clitoris or a pin-prick. And we have been very successful in stamping it out. Why not build on that success for another issue? Having worked in Africa, I find the contention that it is not an issue at all downright inhumane. Botched male circumcisions kill thousands of boys every year, and mutilate hundreds of thousands. We are talking about children here. Even if you reject the argument that boys have the right to bodi…
/r/MensRights30/08/18 02:19 PM
2

I guess you are right. For some reason I was thinking of dating and domestic violence as different, but then I realised they are hard to distinguish. And it is important to underscore that NOONE cares. Feminists certainly mostly ignore the issue, and downplay it when they address it, but that is what lobby groups do. The problem is that even, or perhaps especially, those I know who distance themselves from or even ridicule feminism, do so even more from the mere notion that DV against men is a s…
/r/MensRights30/08/18 12:21 PM
16

I recommend Norah Vincent, who wrote a book about pretending to be a man (and made a few videos on youtube). The book is not exactly a literary masterpiece, but it addresses gender aspects that both sides of the debate ignore and that I often found surprising and enlightening - such as the nature of male friendships. Just like The Red Pill, it is the perspective of a (probably former) feminist struck by what she founds beneath the surface.
/r/MensRights30/08/18 11:52 AM
4

There was another tread in this vein recently. Anyone interested in gender equality, whether they call themselves feminists or MRAs or gender studies professors, should see people who transitions as by far the best source for understanding what how the experience of being of either gender compares. In the end, all cis-gendered people can do is to guess (sorry for the term, please remove the political baggage when you read it). These voices would be the most likely to change my mind about gender …
/r/MensRights30/08/18 11:28 AM
8

The findings surprise even me, as boys have to, by any logic, be less prone to reporting light violence than girls. Even if you ask specific questions, boys are much more likely to downplay or even forget a slap or a shove. To some extent, of course, this is because it is probably more threatening for a girl to be slapped by someone much stronger than the other way around. Not only because of physical strength, but because a boy who does so must first lose a range of societal inhibitions, wherea…
/r/MensRights30/08/18 09:25 AM
1

Does anyone know about a study that explores the issue of fake rape, or rather, the instrumentalisation of rape throughout history? Including links to political dynamics, public choice, the use of rape as a weapon of war, and perhaps even the biological reasons why we are so inordinately concerned with this compared to other acts of violence (and why it can be so traumatic compared to, say, losing a limb - yes, I actually saw thorough studies using neurological data on this)?
/r/MensRights29/08/18 10:02 AM
2

The cases I have heard about all involve boys' complaints about relatives, and often related to some kind of hysteria about pedophilia (a term that bugs me because it fails to distinguish between sexual inclination, which most manage to suppress, and the lack of empathy needed to actually assault a child). But men and boys lie a lot about other things. So I think the causal factor here is that girls and women stand to gain much more from lying. They are much more likely to garner empathy, encour…
/r/MensRights29/08/18 09:37 AM
1

:) I feel a bit like I would if I, after, say, a moderate, well-evidenced call for more research and resources of male DV victims, would face the riposte that I support wife beaters, want to take resources away from women - perhaps followed by a speculation about how my driving force is frustration at losing my privileges, failure to attract women, and my need to live in a basement because I spend all my time trolling the internet. I tried to say what I was trying to do. If you cannot take that …
/r/MensRights28/08/18 03:43 PM
1

I am not sure how you could read an attempt to flesh out the (warped) logic of an ideological opponent as a defense. Nor why I would disagree with what you write. So I am afraid I have no useful comment to make here.
/r/MensRights28/08/18 02:04 PM
1

Of course, it is not in the interest of most special interest groups to celebrate progress at all in most cases. So most of the time, they keep mum. And if they do celebrate something, they focus on how women contributed. And if women did not contribute directly, perhaps they focus on their invaluable contributions as wives (read: domestic slaves).
/r/MensRights28/08/18 11:05 AM
2

What you write could apply to the extreme, highly visible parts of the movement. But it does not apply to the broad masses that, often without much reflection, support it. The movement would not be able to survive at all without them. That is why I do not share your cynicism, although I sympathise with the sentiment. The comment about being controlled by peer pressure, however, I found, as someone typically relegated to the iconoclastic corner (even on this site), merely refreshingly entertainin…
/r/MensRights28/08/18 08:13 AM
1

Not only many women. The overwhelming majority of women (and men). Even feminists around me - of the staunch but not completely unreasonable variety - nowadays, unprompted, qualify their celebration of metoo with concerns about its extremes, the poison of internecine conflict within their own ranks, and even its resistance to include male victims. That has changed recently. A year ago, they would probably have dismissed concerns with references to the larger question of female victimisation. The…
/r/MensRights27/08/18 06:37 PM
1

Not sure how you meant that reference, but perhaps there is more to it than terse dismissal. Why would Hillary think that she could say something as patently false as that without all-out universal censure? Even if she did not mean it literally. The only reason I could come up with is this: she said so against a perceived backdrop of a single-minded perspective on men as victims of war. While we of course are at least as concerned about civilian casualties, in the US these have been limited in l…
/r/MensRights27/08/18 12:43 PM
10

Men don't matter is of course an exaggeration. But one that is much closer to the truth if you are talking about men convicted of sex crimes. I think the upside EricAllonde points to is that once this issue gets attention and sympathy, there is only so far we can go to help affected women without addressing the question of what happens to men in the same situation. Surely, feminists would have pushed through sex offender registries only applying to male offenders if they could - but there are li…
/r/MensRights27/08/18 10:59 AM
3

I find the blatant omission of even asking the question of what happens to male offenders (especially those of lighter crimes - forget sexual assault, I understand urinating in public or statutory rape with a one year age difference can get you on the list) as repulsive as anyone here. But this is also a positive development. This debate can only go so far without the corresponding question for men coming to the fore, in a world that at least has to pretend to be for gender equality.
/r/MensRights27/08/18 10:42 AM
1

I am a soft-spoken, gay (not effeminate, but not obviously straight), and by nature rarely actively aggressive (only passively). I cannot tell you about the number of times I have experienced exactly what you read women experience, except of course for stares at breasts or questions about having children affecting work. With experience, and in a more senior position, this has subsided quite a bit - also because I have found ways to be assertive without changing who I am. Finding ways to be asser…
/r/MensRights24/08/18 09:12 AM
1

Of course. That is what I meant.
/r/MensRights23/08/18 02:27 PM
1

Not further than what common sense and courtesy and decency tell us. And at any rate not as far as creating formal rules and sanctions. Which, by the way, is nothing compared to the inhibitions most men have when interacting with children they do not know. That, I submit, is an example of true, often internalised sexism. Changing the side of the road to avoid creating situations that may be perceived as intimidating is pretty small in comparison.
/r/MensRights23/08/18 01:07 PM
2

I tried my best to give her the benefit of the doubt, but even the airplane story I did not find credible. Or credible, but not the interpretation that her gender was the determining factor. But even if we grant her that her examples were credible, it is the omissions that are more striking. Given the experiences of others that I have read and, say, ten years of following the gender debate and observing gender issues closely in my own life, how on earth could those examples be the most prominent…
/r/MensRights23/08/18 11:02 AM
1

Now that we are becoming more and more tolerant of transsexualism (term intended as inclusive), we should have a treasure trove of voices like this to inform the debate. I could only find three. Two - this one and Norah (not a transsexual, but a lesbian who lived as a man) - come to conclusions that most of us here would agree with. One seems to bend over backward to come to the opposite, stretching quite a bit to do so through mostly omission and some exaggeration (but I invite others to watch …
/r/MensRights22/08/18 03:20 PM
0

Should this not simply be common sense that applies to both genders? Why make a gender issue out of it? Avoid contributing to situations that may be perceived as threatening as a gesture of common courtesy. Period.
/r/MensRights22/08/18 03:09 PM
5

Let me guess: a feminist troll? Love it, especially the part about ass cancer.
/r/MensRights22/08/18 11:41 AM
1

....just not with the same gusto as they would a conservative SWM... bizarrely, what is a better example of toxic masculinity than a man who, using their power, delights in bullying other men and has a track record of, even if interpreted benevolently, less than respectful behavior towards women (Trudeau and Kimmel)?
/r/MensRights22/08/18 11:11 AM
1

Maybe you are right. And to be fair, they do appear to come from the extreme end of the spectrum: not a single one of the self-identified feminists that I have spoken to have defended Husar. But I would suggest that her gender is even more important than her rank in the "progressive" (not sure what is progressive about denying female perpetration; hard-nosed conservatives would all agree if it would not compete with another basic instinct to stick it to the left where it hurts) stack. Feminists …
/r/MensRights22/08/18 10:35 AM
-6

This strikes me as a relatively small problem. Think about it this way: if you are an attractive woman, men will pursue you. Give in too much, and you will come across as a slut. You need ways to make sure the guy is serious. Paying at least for the first date is one way he can signal that. So straight guys who refuse to do so are doing themselves no favours. Their intent may be justified and they may be great guys. But that is not the way they will come across most of the time. Just like a law …
/r/MensRights22/08/18 08:29 AM
1

Again, that is the MRM interpretation of events. One I sympathise with, but that I find too simple. At the very least, there has to be a superficial narrative with which people who believe themselves to be progressive can justify such blatant double standards. A narrative that does not involve hypocrisy and "victim points". That is the narrative I am trying to understand.
/r/MensRights22/08/18 07:31 AM
1

I want to go a little bit deeper than that. Why is it ok when they do it? What is the justification? And how does that fit with a progressive framework? BTW, I cannot figure out why I am wrong when I see men's rights as one of the most hyperprogressive issues around. Victim feminism is what is reactionary. What could be more progressive than to argue for sympathy with men as a group?
/r/MensRights20/08/18 07:52 AM
4

Fascinating - although to be fair I read a few other sources and found that there was a bit more nuance to the story. Which is of course fine for an opinion piece. Still - how on earth could anyone reasonably use the gender defense in this situation. True, you could point to her having more responsibilities in the home than her male peers - but she also has the means to pay for the help she needs. BUT by what logic could anyone claim that she would not have been subjected to this kind of pressur…
/r/MensRights17/08/18 11:08 AM
1

Mindboggling... what kind of person is she??
/r/MensRights17/08/18 10:54 AM
2

Sure, there is rent-seeking there - just as everywhere where these kinds of opportunities exist. People react to incentives, and feminists are... well... people. But, with a few exceptions, I doubt that is the driving force. Rather, the issue are the factors that enable such rent-seeking and the public choice (the study of the differences between political and market-based decision making) mechanism through which they function. To put it more simply: what makes it even remotely acceptable in our…
/r/MensRights17/08/18 06:55 AM
4

Mon dieu. Why such hyperbole? Epidemic proportions?? By almost all metrics, and all over the world, rape, especially violent rape, is on the decline - as is violent crime overall. What we have seen is a spike in reports - in particular in my country, Sweden (which led some pundits to crown Stockholm, one of the world's safest cities, the rape capital of the world). But that just means that more people (including a growing percentage of male victims) are coming forward. That is, save for the unfo…
/r/MensRights16/08/18 01:35 PM
1

Amazingly, the comments do not reflect the backlash that you would expect at such blatant sexism. Most are completely unrelated. I left a comment as Anders, deliberately tweaked to remove anything that could be offensive to feminists - let us see if it stays put and how people react. What I find amazing is that even if you grant every single one of her assumptions, including that women are worst affected by a given degree of abuse (do we have any study that explores if there could be some truth …
/r/MensRights16/08/18 12:34 PM
3

If a man had done this - even if you only look at hard, written evidence - even I would have found suspension reasonable and the behaviour unacceptable. What strikes me the most is that the arguments her supporters use sound like the parodical, strawman version of people defending an accused and probably guilty male professor. Perhaps appropriate, as the things she is accused of sound equally parodical. Even Weinstein had more sense than to write e-mails like that, I suspect.
/r/MensRights15/08/18 09:51 AM
1

I call bullshit. This does not sound like something a grandmother would say... where is this from? This looks like the reverse of some feminist attempts I have seen to slander MRM... You know what? She should do it. There is no way even a jaundiced justice system would let this one pass. It would come out, and raise awareness. It is the insidious accusations that are the most dangerous. The ones that are malicious, but also well thought through and to some extent believable.
/r/MensRights14/08/18 10:54 AM
1

That you should give a fuck about. Because you are right - at least if you tone down the bile a bit. NYT is one of the most respected outlets in the world, period. Its reporting is state-of-the-art, and it has set itself high standards to live up to. On gender issues in particular, it is not living up to those standards by any stretch of the imagination. The difference is baffling to me as a long-time NYT subscriber (even though I stand to the right of centre on almost all issues except health c…
/r/MensRights07/08/18 08:10 AM
1

On quotas: I am NOT defending quotas, just saying they concern me less than other MRA issues. Basic economics makes sure that they do not go too far - they may temporarily lower wages for men and raise those of women, but in the medium term companies that forego talent because of gender or race will be outcompeted by those that do not. And as for STEM fields, with starting salaries in the Valley often exceeding 200 k, there is a marked lack of talent. And on the final point: let me give you an i…
/r/MensRights03/08/18 09:37 AM
9

I think most of these trolls make comments that reflect a stereotype, widely exaggerated picture of MRAs. Such as saying you can't trust women anymore or that you should have the right to sleep with them.
/r/MensRights02/08/18 10:44 AM
1

Slut shaming: actually, I think she has more of a point (perhaps like that broken clock?) than many of us assume. My father worked with these crimes for decades, and he tells me the overwhelming majority of wrongful or false or questionable accusations are pretty clearly driven by women - or often, their mostly immigrant families - trying to rescue their honour. Among the truly malicious accusations, most do not name a perpetrator and are patently false. That leaves, of course, a small but still…
/r/MensRights02/08/18 08:22 AM
1

It is ostensibly amazing to witness how men's issues can be blamed on misogyny - remember how Jessica Valenti called false accusations a symptom of slut-shaming. I am less worried about that, though. What is important is that we address the issues, not whether we put it in feminist, MRA, conservative, or liberal language. And on a basic level, feminists are right that gender roles underpin differences in gender and the way both can suffer from them. I am also less worried about preferential trea…
/r/MensRights31/07/18 08:22 AM
1

So where does that leave us? It is not only that (perceived or real) radicalism damages our cause and makes it easy to dismiss us, along with concerns that most people, including many feminists, actually agree with. It is also that radicalism on both sides prevents any real debate. That is bizarre, as almost all gender issues are interrelated. I cannot think of any actions on leading issues that (moderate) MRAs are proposing that would actually hurt women. But this way, we are simply not even lo…
/r/MensRights27/07/18 08:46 AM
1

Despite the tone, I fail to see that we disagree about anything apart from nuance and formulations. I am not a native speaker, which perhaps shows through. Like who? Like most people. And, honestly, most feminist dissenters who agree with some or several of our talking points. But I was also thinking about those who keep mum. Those who experience problems or see them - actual problems, not just reflexive frustration with feminist antics - but who shy away from what they see as a movement with cl…
/r/MensRights26/07/18 12:26 PM
1

Thanks for your reply. I am not that interested in letting the exchange heat up unnecessarily, so I prefer to comment on a few issues that interest me and where I would like to hear your and others' views. The hunch that prompted my contribution was the simple observation that pretty much everything the Vice writer accused MRM of could be said about feminism. Such as: MRAs commonly have a victim mentality – viewing themselves as being systemically persecuted, with women getting a better deal – a…
/r/MensRights25/07/18 08:02 AM
1

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...
/r/MensRights24/07/18 03:16 PM
1

I may be a bit more "moderate" about the issues than you, but I guess that, if we would discuss further, I would agree with your sentiment. I am not by far as frustrated, but that is also because I work hard at avoiding frustration. This is of course in large parts for my personal well-being and for my job in an environment where the standard narrative holds and where all I can do to make any difference is to try to add some nuance and pragmatism to take the edge off some of the blatant overreac…
/r/MensRights24/07/18 09:20 AM
10

Wow. What a hit piece. I am amazed that someone managed to sit through this conference and still come away with such aversion. I could tear this to pieces if I wanted to. But others already have, and at any rate we all pretty much agree. Why preach to the converted. But beneath all the hatred and dismissal are some kernels of truth. The MRM should work to rein in its radical elements and think carefully about how to get their messages through. It simply does not work, neither for feminists nor f…
/r/MensRights23/07/18 04:06 PM
2

Wow. This does not happen often. But this is an article that all of us, including feminists, could learn something from. I found it deeply touching, confirming many of my beliefs but challenging or nuancing several. After all, few people have experienced up close what it feels to be both men and women. Please share it broadly. And does anyone know of something similar, journalistic or academic, about trans women?
/r/MensRights23/07/18 01:14 PM
2

Although I understand your frustration, I submit that you are exaggerating - as much or even more as feminists shouting about rape culture and war on women. That is not good for anyone; it makes us miserable and even less likely to be taken seriously. There is sympathy for men out there. I get lots of it every day, and I give it to other men (women, and children). The issue is sympathy for men as a group, period. We care about disaffected groups, men included - even when those groups have almost…
/r/MensRights23/07/18 11:33 AM
2

To my mind, a great illustration of this line of argument - which is, with a few gripes, more or less what I have come to understand myself - is a debate between a pioneering, but unfortunately not very eloquent, Swedish MRA and a leading feminist about 15 years ago. Having gone through all the talking points, the feminist, eager to understand but also convinced the MRA was misguided, finally sighed and, in a moment of striking honesty, admitted that, in the end, the problem she had with the mer…
/r/MensRights23/07/18 11:13 AM
1

There appears to be two Jordan Petersons. There is the one that is standing up for freedom of speech and intellectual honesty. These are values that we all cherish, except for a small set of controversial issues where we leave them by the wayside if they do not serve our purposes. The left does so for gender and social justice; the right on issues such as evolution, immigration, and family values. There is nothing partisan about this per se; free speech and science supported, for instance, civil…
/r/MensRights25/06/18 12:46 PM
1

There appears to be two Jordan Petersons. There is the one that is standing up for freedom of speech and intellectual honesty. These are values that we all cherish, except for a small set of controversial issues where we leave them by the wayside if they do not serve our purposes. The left does so for gender and social justice; the right on issues such as evolution, immigration, and family values. There is nothing partisan about this per se; free speech and science supported, for instance, civil…
/r/MensRights25/06/18 09:34 AM
0

First of all - and I know I will get flac - I strongly disagree with Jordan Peterson on most issues, except free speech. In many ways, he is anti-men's rights - our biggest hurdle is that men are always expected to pick themselves up and take responsibility, and Peterson, as many feminists, are perpetuating that strict gender role. That, of course, will prevent us from taking male victimisation seriously. But what I do not get are the references to Hitler. Throughout his career, starting with hi…
/r/MensRights23/06/18 12:01 PM
2

I don't get it. On the one hand, I can think of scores of female-dominated movies that rank among the best ever made, such as Bergman dramas or The Hours. On the other hand, we hear of hordes of troglodytes that systematically refuse to recognise female talent and somehow always manage to skew ratings in favour of men. Anyone who does the basic maths on this must realise there is no way these claims could possibly be true. BUT I do think that we as a society, including women, blacks, dwarves, an…
/r/MensRights23/06/18 11:49 AM
1

I do not think there is a playbook, in the sense that there are some evil scheming feminists out there who manipulate the masses fully aware of the whole picture. It is more that the reason we have feminism and not meninism in any real sense has nothing to do with an independent evaluation of what afflicts the senses, and everything to do with our instinct to protect and provide for women. One that traditionalist conservatives and progressives share, leaving them at times fumbling for a clear di…
/r/MensRights23/06/18 10:22 AM
0

Not sure how to respond to that in a way that is constructive. So I guess, if it makes you feel better, I will let you triumph by default.
/r/MensRights23/06/18 10:18 AM
1

Again, many of the speakers were, to be sure. The masses that marched, including many people I know, were not. In fact, when I confronted them with some of the egregious facts, they recognised that it was a problem. But they remain convinced that feminism, overall, is for the good, and consider the excesses as hyperbolic venting or the voice of the extreme that is uncomfortable, but that may also bring more attention to the cause - one they still consider the underdog lashing out with over-the-t…
/r/MensRights20/06/18 07:57 AM
1

Bear with me, and take the leap of faith that I am neither straying from logic nor promoting an (extreme) feminist agenda. I think, at the very least, my claim holds numerically. The vast majority of feminists are people who believe in gender equality and that this, by and large, is more a concern to women than to men. They do not follow extreme feminist discourse that closely, and they largely agree with the narrative in the media - such as the wage gap, the need to fight against sexual harrass…
/r/MensRights19/06/18 03:57 PM
0

Yes, they are the extremes of the movement if you consider the masses that, depending on how you phrase the question, would profess support for feminism. This includes most of the people I know and work with, but who would never seriously support the extremes we are raising on this forum.
/r/MensRights19/06/18 10:51 AM
1

There are several parallels, true. But the comparison is, as I think we all agree, overused. More importantly, it ignores the fundamental differences between race and gender. If you are white, most of the people you care about are white as well - even where whites are in a minority, such as Zimbabwe, where I spent some of my childhood. But if you are a man, at least half of the people important to you are women - starting with the most important people at all, your mother, spouse, and daughters.…
/r/MensRights19/06/18 10:48 AM
1

I agree with your trenchant sentiment. I am an MRA supporter, with a background in progressive politics and (passive) feminism. It is because MRM has the facts on its side that I even considered it as an option. But, of course, feminists, racists and utilitarians could answer in the same way. The devil is in the detail. First, of course, scour online fora, and you will find plenty of discussions that are anything from one-sided over exaggeration to downright false. The likes of Janice Fiamingo d…
/r/MensRights19/06/18 10:41 AM
1

I think this is a dangerous, polarising avenue to explore. First, of course, what is to stop MRM from being recognised as a hate movement, which in some ways is already the case? While this is of course not justified, anyone with his mind set on proving this only needs to scour the internet for 15 minutes to find ample "evidence" in the shape of quotes taken out of context. Second, the silent majority of feminists are either passive or, if you push them, dissenting. They do not ignore men's issu…
/r/MensRights18/06/18 10:08 AM
1

I cannot think of a single among the top 20 MRA concerns where action would negatively affect women. Except perhaps for opposing gender quotas on company boards, but to my mind, MRA should not pay much attention to the fates of people who are already some of the most successful and privileged in the world: men and women with the education, network, and skills to qualify for such positions. Think about it. Closing the education gender gap? Our economies urgently need more and better skills in the…
/r/MensRights14/06/18 04:01 PM
5

Heidegger, arguably the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, was a committed Nazi - stepping back only once he realised the antisemitism was turning into something much, much worse. King Leopold II of Belgium was one of the world's most progressive regents, introducing universal suffrage, civil rights, freedom of speech, and universal health care decades before many other developed countries did. He was also a tyrant, brutally exploiting Kongo as his personal fiefdom. Einstein's racism may …
/r/MensRights14/06/18 11:32 AM
1

The flac comes with being the most powerful (economically, militarily, culturally country in the world... Trumps antics do provide plenty of ammunition (and endless entertainment), but that is not why people decide to shoot.
/r/MensRights12/06/18 07:30 PM
1

Maybe your perception that Europeans and Canadians are filled with xenophobic hate against the US has some parallels to the way feminists dismiss not only MRAs, but dissidents within their own movement, as misogynists, violent ideologues? At any rate, as someone who has lived in the Middle East and seen US flags burned on the street and frenzied mobs, and who has lived in the US and follows the country closely, I am not sure I can think of a reasonable reaction to that statement.
/r/MensRights12/06/18 12:45 PM
0

My point is not to ask IF men should speak up (by any account they should), but how this could happen? What are the mechanisms? Think about this parallel example. The US has hefty sugar tariffs. This benefits a few mega-rich investors and a few thousand workers, but hurts every single US consumer through higher prices. No economist could reasonably argue that this makes sense: very few win, almost everyone loses - including poor sugar producing countries. But no one is speaking out loudly enough…
/r/MensRights12/06/18 12:30 PM
5

Think about it. Who in power would speak out against this? The men (most of them still are, of course) are already in power; why should they speak out when all they see is privilege themselves, and when doing so could easily cost them their jobs? And the women are mostly feminists to start with - and the ones that are not, such as the two women in G7 (Merkel and May) may not consider themselves feminists but go with the flow and only speak out about the extremes. We cannot expect MRM issues to e…
/r/MensRights11/06/18 06:44 AM
1

I do not have a problem. Especially not "such a" problem. I only pointed out that this issue was both universal and trivial compared to a range of more serious issues. If you would like to exchange with someone who does have a serious problem, may I suggest Radfemhub and its ilk?
/r/MensRights11/06/18 06:13 AM
1

I know of few that hate America. Maybe you are confusing Europe with the Middle East? Europeans are, at most, skeptical about some of the more extreme phenomena on the other side of the pond. Then tell me what the tea party has to do with limited government? It was a protest against a liberal reform and called for MORE tariffs, ie. more government? It was an example of small, vested interests fighting to maintain its privileges. How on earth is that liberal, let alone symbolic of American values…
/r/MensRights11/06/18 06:11 AM
1

Was manspreading and sexist airconditioning campaigns good for feminism? I submit the answer is no, but you tell me.
/r/MensRights11/06/18 06:08 AM
1

The winner writes history. Let us say Hitler won. Even if Nazi radicalism would have given way to democratic inclusion later on, we would probably still have celebrated his deeds as perhaps misguided and exaggerated but nonetheless necessary evil to get to the society we have today.
/r/MensRights11/06/18 06:07 AM
4

I do not think feminists are contending there were many women soldiers in WWII. But then again, they seriously want us to believe that the dark ages, where women had to have six children just for the tribe to survive, were ones of deprivation for women and abundance for men. Then again, we all revise history. Americans, for instance, routinely claim that Marshall Aid, about 0.25% of GDP, rescued all of Western Europe. Just a few years ago, something called the tea party movement in the US claime…
/r/MensRights08/06/18 01:09 PM
16

Given MRM issues like suicide, violence, and parental alienation, complaining about this strikes me as the MRM equivalent of manspreading hysteria. The issue is valid. But it is also trivial, and more importantly, giving it prominence makes it easier for society to dismiss men's issues as a whole as such.
/r/MensRights08/06/18 10:02 AM
4

A quick look at UNESCO stats shows that women surpassed men in educational achievement already in the early 90's for developed countries, mid 90's for world average, and late 90's for developing and emerging economies. Only in a few, often poor and war-ravaged countries in Subsaharan Africa as well as a few states in India do you still have slightly more boys finishing secondary education than girls. Even the MINT gender gap is typically less pronounced, and at times reversed, in less developed …
/r/MensRights07/06/18 08:36 AM
182

It feels like it has been only in the past five years that this issue has been taken seriously. I have ran across scores of incidents. Mostly, punishment has been light - but that is not only because of sexism, but also because of the political incentives that have led us to punish (male) sex offenders with incommensurate severity (in a recent case, a German immigrant got four years for grabbing a woman's breast - the same as for manslaughter). If you consider all cases of adults having sex with…
/r/MensRights07/06/18 08:19 AM
1

What her line of reasoning oversees is that, even if you could argue that typically male traits helped cause the bubble of speculation, she is talking about one, highly selective firms. The men and women that made it to positions of authority in banks like Lehmann are likely to have much more in common with one another than with their genders overall. Just like even if you can argue that women CEOs do as well or better than male CEOs, you cannot conclude that more women CEOs would be good for th…
/r/MensRights06/06/18 11:32 AM
15

My math teacher hated my guts. But she gave me good grades, as they were calculated based on whether my test responses were correct or not. My hardcore feminist public speaking teacher also hated my guts. But all I could get was a Bplus. And I am much, much better at public speaking than at maths.
/r/MensRights06/06/18 11:05 AM
20

I am a gay man. So you might say: what does he know? Pretty much nothing from personal experience, true. But indirectly, definitely. My sexuality tends to prompt my friends to be startlingly open to me about what they have lived through - both men and women. Even about things that they might hide from their friends of the same sex: men tell me about emotional upheaval, and women about edgy fantasies of assault and promiscuity. This is my sense. One that I admit is only a sense, and not in any wa…
/r/MensRights06/06/18 09:44 AM
5

Off the top of my mind, here are some REAL reasons why we still have so few female executives. Some align with the SJW narrative, some don't... Women are culturally programmed, through hundreds of thousands of years, to ensure protection and provision for their offspring. This makes one-on-one relationships - with husbands, children - essential. But leadership is about forging broad, ad-hoc alliances - something that men are programmed to do to give their families that protection and provision. …
/r/MensRights06/06/18 09:19 AM
1

Of course, I only know your side of the story - nor any of the details of your interaction. But taking your word at face value, of course you were right - the case should not even have been brought in the first place. What scares me is the thought that you simply got lucky. Remove just a few of the damning pieces of evidence you had, especially the text threatening a retaliatory accusation, and it is not so clear that you would have been able to defend yourself against a jaundiced process. Go fu…
/r/MensRights05/06/18 11:11 AM
1

I agree, but the issue is more complicated than that. First, we do not know what the actual demand is. At the moment, from all I have seen, it is very low - not much higher than supply. Second, we do not know what the potential demand is. Third, as shelters would only attract the less fortunate segments of society, we do not know what places filled with bitter men with few financial means would be like - just think of how homeless shelters tend to correlate with (and probably, but not necessaril…
/r/MensRights05/06/18 08:12 AM
5

I agree. All I tried to do was to be a bit more precise on why we should not be banning shorts: because girls that wear skirts do not have to overcome anywhere near the stigma that boys would have to overcome this state of affairs basically, save for a few unlikely scenarios, condemn boys to wearing long trousers.
/r/MensRights04/06/18 03:52 PM
-2

Was there not a few cases where boys actually tried this and were sanctioned? Anyone remember? As a non-gender conforming (well, a bit, not much) man, I think it would be cool if boys would wear skirts. Mix things up a little. Why should this be more controversial than women wearing trousers? But of course, the inequality lies in the simple fact that boys would have to break gender norms to get the same level of comfort as girls. Norms that, in the peer group at least, are still strictly enforce…
/r/MensRights04/06/18 01:54 PM
1

It is not that we are denying that, throughout history and even now, it is, in a way, literally true that men's voices have been heard. The problem is that those voices have not spoken out about the problems that men, especially less fortunate men, face. In fact, when those male voices have talked about gender issues at all, it has been in favour of women. Even the restrictions that society (men) have imposed on women are based on the (at times exaggerated and misguided) notion of the primacy of…
/r/MensRights04/06/18 12:23 PM
1

I disagree, but more with the simplification, exaggeration, and conclusion rather than the underlying sentiments. But your points, along with my points of (partial) disagreement all point in the same direction: that the traditional left-right divide is outdated at best, and misleading or even pernicious at worst. For instance, your claim that feminism is conservative is, to my mind, relatively well established in MRM (Paul Elam: feminism is traditionalist - dialled up), although most on the left…
/r/MensRights04/06/18 11:04 AM
4

You know what. Maybe it IS worse when men assault women than the other way around. Minor groping instilling fear of death is, of course, a wild exaggeration, but perhaps it does affect women more - or at least differently. The point is: we don't know. The topic is taboo. The only research I have seen focus on one gender as victims (95% of it on women), or at most on children of both genders. A few things are clear, of course. Men are affected much more than most think. Women's plight is wildly e…
/r/MensRights01/06/18 11:41 AM
1

Not quite. Free speech is inherently liberal. In the US, social liberalism tends to be left wing, and economic liberalism right wing. Free speech is somewhere in the middle. I also do not think we can claim that the (ideological) left wing has been less keen to restrict free speech throughout history than the right wing. I will not harp on, say, North Korea and Hitler, but rather just draw attention to what is happening right now in the US: the right wing is, correctly, slamming the left for wha…
/r/MensRights01/06/18 09:49 AM
4

The left-right divide is, as we know, far too simple - especially as it manifests itself in the US. Where to go, for instance, if you are a (classical) liberal? Trump is certainly anything but free trade and pro markets (not to be confused with pro-business), and has a chequered record on immigration and civil liberties. Hillary is relatively liberal, but she is downright illiberal on gender issues and comes from a party with strong interventionist elements. The main reason MRM appears tied to t…
/r/MensRights29/05/18 09:30 AM
2

I grew up in South Africa, and, as you know, we have another, egregious example of formalised racial inequality - in our recent past. So while the system was horrific, I am often frustrated at how it was perceived abroad. Apartheid was not slavery. It was not set up to subjugate black people - subjugation was already a given. It was set up in a time when racial inequality was the rule pretty much all over Africa in an attempt to keep racial tension - mostly among non-white groups - in check at a…
/r/MensRights15/05/18 10:18 AM
3

It is hardly an industry, at least not for gay male couples. In fact, pretty much the only places where they can do it for a fee and with relative legal certainty are a third of US states. Add to that the long process, a range of evaluations, and a price tag of well over $100 k - and I submit that those gay parents have more motivation and means to take care of children well than many straight parents who stumble into parenthood. At the same time, if you look at all the rules and safeguards put …
/r/MensRights14/05/18 11:45 AM
3

I am not saying it is wrong at all. I am saying that it is unwise to conflate the issues of gender and race discrimination for two main reasons: Gender and race dynamics are fundamentally different; we formally enslaved blacks in the past and they still have - I am guessing here - substantially lower living standards. In contrast, we never enslaved women and their average household income is higher than that of men (because single women far outearn single men). It is terrible PR. While most peop…
/r/MensRights11/05/18 11:09 AM
0

You misunderstood several of my points, perhaps deliberately. But I am an MRA, so I am not going to fight in the other direction. My comments reflect only in part our differences in opinion; but mostly they stem from a wish to find a pragmatic, balanced way to reform the system from within to the benefit of all. Taking the more extreme stance will only make it easier to dismiss us as radicals - and, with us, our legitimate concerns. That is all. If you want a scrap, copy paste your comments into…
/r/MensRights10/05/18 11:27 AM
2

True. We are all hankering to be outraged about something... sex and race on the left, immigrants and abortion on the right. Yet the reason we have time and energy for such outrage is that we are all better off and more equal than at any time in history. My grandparents were more concerned with putting food on the table, ideally meat at least once a week. And they were in the middle class of one of the richest countries on earth (Sweden).
/r/MensRights10/05/18 11:22 AM
1

Not at all. They treat black women the way men sometimes treat women: with condescending benevolence. Men they still treat with contempt, unless of course they are useful and compliant.
/r/MensRights10/05/18 11:15 AM
1

A movement that wants both to empower women and enhance their victimhood has to stumble on its own contradictions. Leaving it grasping for straws like race to cover them up.
/r/MensRights10/05/18 11:14 AM
4

Not quite, this has been a growing trend over the past decade I think. There is a critical mass of dissenting voices complaining about how white women dominate the gender discourse. To me, socio-economic class is a much larger factor - but for some reason the left has abandoned what used to be its foundation, up for grabs by the populist right.
/r/MensRights10/05/18 11:13 AM
3

And yet, this example is relatively innocuous - a weird cop-out rather than harmful racism. Nothing compared to, say, the fact that the leader of a radical but visible and high-profile movement like Black Lives Matter being able to call for genocide as an expression of "justifiable rage" with few consequences except ridicule from right-wing pundits obsessed with sticking it to the left. But you know what? As a white person from northern Europe, I can take it. In stark contrast to the notion of m…
/r/MensRights10/05/18 11:10 AM
3

That is, by far, not the full extent of the damage - false accusations are highly visible, but the hype should not cloud the big picture. We are also seeing a vicious circle of victim glorification that acts like morphine: it feels great in the short term, but in the long term it creates a reversion to Victorian sensibilities that makes women feel unable to stand up for themselves, let alone take on the leadership roles they hanker for. And it creates men that are confused about even interacting…
/r/MensRights10/05/18 10:34 AM
1

I am a non-native speaker; and perhaps as a result a bit perfectionist. Though the system helpfully pointed out that, in another contribution, I should not write "I should of course mention that" but rather "I should have course mention that", as "should have" may sound like "should of", but the latter is incorrect. Mea culpa.
/r/MensRights10/05/18 10:18 AM
5

Wow. Think about it this way: often we hear feminists argue that men should not or are not even able to contribute to discussions about sexism because they have not experienced it or, by implication, would lobby for their own gender. The reality, however, is that almost all male voices in the debate, and men in power in general, go to great lengths to support women (sometimes in misguided fashion, but still) and NEVER support men as a group, at most male individuals. Then these white feminists f…
/r/MensRights09/05/18 07:30 PM
1

I understand the outrage. But, first of all, two wrongs do not make a right. The US is, indeed, overconvicting in many cases and apply sanctions that are disproportionate - often several decades (more than second degree murder in many cases). We need less and better and fair criminal sanctions overall, not more people in jail. Second, the crimes are different. The reference point has to be how we sanction false accusations in other areas. These are perhaps too mild, unless they involve perjury u…
/r/MensRights09/05/18 04:37 PM
41

Wow. The Guardian, an outlet which, at least for gender issues, is squarely in the feminist camp, comes out with an article that, save for a few quibbles, could come from a moderate MRA like Warren Farrel. How is this possible? By turning it into a race issue. I find this bizarre. First of all, by any logic, left or right, is it seriously reasonable that women are held back from speaking out because of their race? Second, even if race is a factor, what about, say, social class? How many of the w…
/r/MensRights09/05/18 03:47 PM
1

Thanks for your comments. See my other comments on correlation versus causation. I am not disputing causation, only calling for a bit of caution in assuming it - especially since there are good reasons to speculate that a number of factors will distort those incentives and that, as a result, we should not expect a demand response as linear as we would, say, if Apple lowered the price of their i-phones by 20%. That is all. I wish I could take a strong political stance rather than come with nerdy …
/r/MensRights09/05/18 12:20 PM
2

Our pay gap is even larger than in the US, in fact. But we have less overall wage inequality (a specialist doctor makes twice the salary of a specialised nurse, not ten times), and almost all working-age women are employed - housewives are a rarity. So while husbands earn more than wives in approx two thirds of households, the wage difference is often not that large. And as shared custody is the norm and child support capped at modest levels, most divorces are about dividing up assets, nothing m…
/r/MensRights08/05/18 02:27 PM
1

No no no no. I am not saying that at all. I am only saying that correlation does not equal causation. I am an economist, so of course I understand that people react to incentives at the margin. But there MAY, and only MAY, be factors that makes it difficult to compare payouts in divorces with, say, falling prices for smartphones and airline tickets (which undeniably spark a corresponding demand response). Divorcing someone is much more complicated than an economic calculation, and many of the su…
/r/MensRights08/05/18 02:23 PM
7

As most of you perhaps know, divorce settlements and child support are much, much more modest in northern Europe, especially Scandinavia. Custody is shared by default in the latter, and there is no permanent alimony - only temporary alimony in cases where one of the spouses have been out of the work force or employed part-time with income that would put him or her below the poverty line. What would be interesting is to check how the "generousness" of the divorce system for the lower earning spou…
/r/MensRights08/05/18 10:49 AM
3

The basic misconception - one that permeates most modern SJW rhetoric - is that it is impossible for someone from the presumably privileged class to understand the travails of less privileged classes. That is, the oppression is beyond that which can be explained and intellectually comprehended without personal experience. That is of course nonsense. Nonsense with a kernel of truth, perhaps. But nevertheless nonsense. But what strikes me more: if we only look at the voices that come fourth in med…
/r/MensRights07/05/18 12:20 PM
1

Just to be clear: this case was about whether the clinic had committed any errors, not about damages for her deceit. For that he should have a case, because even if the clinic can with some reason claim not to have obtained a clear revocation of consent, she could not reasonably make the same claim. Also, here in backward Europe, we do not have a tradition of a legal system that ventures into norm setting and other areas that could be considered legislation. Perhaps a US court would have the lee…
/r/MensRights04/05/18 02:32 PM
1

....but in this case, he did not even have sex...
/r/MensRights04/05/18 01:44 PM
1

The court argued that not having a reason to doubt the authenticity of the signature absolves the clinic; it did not rule on the criminal liability of the woman as far as I can tell from the article. But bizarre, then, that they mentioned child support in the verdict, no?
/r/MensRights04/05/18 08:13 AM
1

To be fair, the argument of the court was that the man's retraction was not "sufficiently clear"... although he had put it in writing and called the clinic. Also, the court focussed on the liability of the clinic, so there is a fair chance that this will be overturned. That makes this particular case a bit less egregious, but I guess I had in the back of my mind the anecdotes I have read about female statutory rapists suing their victims (and sometimes their parents) for support.... and one case…
/r/MensRights04/05/18 08:11 AM
1

I can only speculate that this is the case because of the uncertainty around his retraction of consent (with was "insufficiently" clear), and because this was a consultative, specialised court (not sure how that works - it is the lower court for medical liability... anyone who knows the German legal system or who has the patience to read the proceedings, please enlighten us) that mainly treated the question of the liability of the clinic (again, speculation).
/r/MensRights04/05/18 08:08 AM
2

To be fair, systemic sexism is only a minor part of the underlying problem. My understanding is that the principle that parents have the obligation to provide for their children appears to trump all other principles - iow children's well-being is more important than fairness to parents. To some extent, this is of course necessary. My question is: where, exactly, do we draw the line, and why?
/r/MensRights04/05/18 08:02 AM
30

The link is in German, but the title sums it up - and I am sure there are similar cases. Rather than engaging in righteous indignation at this outrage, perhaps we can also discuss the underlying issue: how important is the principle that a child, regardless of the actions of his parents, should have the right to support from both of them? What principles should trump this principle, and why? Where do we draw the line. (Child support in Germany is much skimpier than in the US and capped at modest…
/r/MensRights03/05/18 03:24 PM
2

Patrilineal is only a small part of it, and the rhetoric around it is misleading - even matrilineal societies preserve, by and large, traditional gender roles with men responsible for provision and protection and women for children and households (although some matrilineal societies see women as primary inheritors). To me, what makes a society patriarchal is a system whereby men are given most of the resources and trust (inheritance, political power) in exchange for strongly enforced expectation…
/r/MensRights03/05/18 08:50 AM
1

My point was that feminists have taken an observation that is beyond serious doubt (that those with formal economic and political power have been mostly men) and added the assumption that these men acted in the interest of other men to the detriment of women. That assumption is speciously attractive, as we would think in the same way of apartheid proponents and slave owners (although there, too, reality is more complicated), but not applicable to gender for the simple reason that women are and a…
/r/MensRights01/05/18 05:38 PM
8

I thought it was a platitude by now that feminism is patriarchy (or patriarchal paternalism), dialled up. Our instinct to protect and provide for women explains feminism, traditionalism, the lack of a credible MRM, the fear and aversion that the mere mention of men's issues awaken in most of society, and the fact that a movement that is often more extreme than other movements we universally revile, is condoned and even celebrated.
/r/MensRights01/05/18 01:59 PM
0

Patriarchy meaning rule by (mostly) men is not a fringe theory, it is a statement of fact. The problem is when you tweak it to "by men for men", which by no stretch of the imagination is true today or has ever been.
/r/MensRights01/05/18 01:56 PM
1

That is true, too - and many feminists I've spoken to justify the nastiness and one-sidedness of many a feminist forum with the need to vent. And as long as irrational anger and extremism does not enter the realm of acceptable, policy relevant discourse, that, I guess, is at times unfortunate, but understandable and legitimate. The problem is: we are the underdog (MRA, not men - for you quote miners out there), and whether it is fair or not, our main struggle is to gain understanding and sympath…
/r/MensRights26/04/18 10:37 AM
1

All I was saying was that I do not find this kind of measure particularly egregious compared to many others, and that I, based on my own experience, find it possible that it may have positive effects. That does not mean I endorse it, at least not until we have solid empirical proof that my assumptions could be valid (and maybe even then I would at most condone it). And I know I would not qualify (nor would I want to work in the army anyway), but for all the progress we have seen on gay rights, w…
/r/MensRights25/04/18 12:44 PM
2

Wow. Seriously? Pushing back against (the alarmism around) manspreading makes you a Trump supporter??? Trump has nothing to do with men's rights. He is opposing feminism only as part of an overall instinct to "stick it to the left" whenever he can. Or have you heard him speak out about male victims of sexual and domestic assault? Shared custody? Say you are against the manspreading hysteria and its ilk because you are against traditional gender roles, that obliges men to be chivalrous to women, …
/r/MensRights25/04/18 10:27 AM
1

To be honest, among all the instances of outcome equality-based overreach I have seen, this is a mild one. One that I could perhaps not outright back, but condone. Because the army is new for women, and many a potentially excellent woman soldier or officer is going to balk at committing to an employer that she wants to work for, but that has the reputation for sexism and a pretty rough-edged climate overall. She might even think that that reputation is exaggerated, but even the fear that some of…
/r/MensRights25/04/18 10:21 AM
11

Most of the blame for portraying us as misogynists lie with media, with traditional gender roles and a vocal minority of feminists acting as drivers (yes, the media, because they give this vocal minority such a megaphone and fail to second guess its excesses). But this forum is not innocent. Many here constantly fall into the same trap as feminists do. We often appear to overgeneralise feminists or false accusers to women, even though of course, if pressed, we would make the distinction. We slam…
/r/MensRights25/04/18 09:11 AM
2

This should not be a surprise at all. And neither were the other recent slew of reports on how men do not apply for, let alone obtain, alimony (even though women make up 40% of main breadwinners among divorcing couples, men make up 3% of recipients). But I would like to encourage everyone not to turn this into the battle of the sexes - look, women are stingier than men! Gotcha! Rather, we should add our own analysis to how gender roles bring about this state of affairs, what the consequences are…
/r/MensRights24/04/18 12:22 PM
2

After all those lies and half truths, is no one else struck by the fresh wind of honesty???
/r/MensRights23/04/18 08:28 AM
0

Coming from a country, Sweden, where civil claims from victims of a recent terrorist attack amount to just over $20,000 per person, I find the US tort system befuddling and, overall, counterproductive in many ways. But given where transpeople were just a few decades ago, where they were seen as fully legitimate targets of violence and disgust, the angle we should take on this should start with celebrating the progress we have made in giving them rights and build on this momentum to extend those …
/r/MensRights19/04/18 10:18 AM
1

This is what I find bizarre: How in the world did it become a conservative stance to shine a light on male victims of sexual harassment (or, for that matter, assault or DV)? Doing so means questioning gender roles in perhaps an even more radical way than feminism ever did. American conservatism, to my mind, is about celebrating these gender roles, especially as embodied in the family, and at least discourage non-traditional, "alternative" life styles. This means a focus on enabling men to be use…
/r/MensRights19/04/18 09:39 AM
1

I of course meant: "The box should have course read". That makes much more sense. You know us non-native speakers and our quirks...
/r/MensRights18/04/18 04:03 PM
1

As I understand it, this is the view of rape that feminism considers antiquated and misogynist. The bone of contention, I think, is box 6, which, in their mind, offers an easy excuse for most sexual misconduct - bar beating or drugging your victim, perhaps. The box should of course read something about reasonable assumptions, and this is in practice how cases are treated. What strikes me is that the uncertainty of this issue applies to male rape victims of female perpetrators even more. While st…
/r/MensRights18/04/18 11:25 AM
1

Swedish living standards are slightly below those of the US - but that does not include some of the public goods that Swedes enjoy, such as a society relatively free of destitution and quasi carbon neutrality (nuclear and hydropower). But although we pushed through some of the most neo-liberal reforms to our welfare system in the world, including a 30% cut in public spending, charter schools, and privatisation of a range of public services including hospitals and nursing homes, we remain astonis…
/r/MensRights18/04/18 09:03 AM
2

Where does this meme even come from? What reasonable person has claimed that men perform better overall? The claims maligned as misogyny have been about sex differences on average. Although some of his wording was indeed unfortunate, especially in our political environment, the Google Memo actually tries to point to areas where the aptitude and predilections that are more prominent among women are and could be even more useful. Take the process of developing a successful social media app. Sure, …
/r/MensRights13/04/18 12:41 PM
15

Perhaps it is not as much prescience as our inability to see how history repeats itself... This was the time of Anita Hill, the Charles Murray backlash, and date rape hysteria... and Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh excesses on the other side of the political divide.
/r/MensRights13/04/18 08:38 AM
1

The bizarre thing is, even a figure between 0.8% and 3% would indeed indicate systemic wage discrimination. Think about it: you first would have to remove from this average all wages where discrimination would be impossible - contract labour, union negotiated remuneration, public sector salary scales, commission-based employment. The result is that in the sectors where it would be possible to pay women less systematically, we would do so at an average of 5-10%. That is obviously not true.
/r/MensRights12/04/18 08:13 AM
1

I think the argument misses a few points. First, the scoring of the gender gap index has four dimensions: health, education, politics, and business. Very few countries have a gender gap to the detriment of women in the first two (the gaps in the rankings are often more than compensated by gaps favouring women, which are not counted into the ranking). Second, most of the less equal countries are developing or emerging. In general, these countries tend to have lower levels of tertiary education in…
/r/MensRights11/04/18 02:02 PM
2

I think we are making the same mistake in logic as we do when we talk about the efficiency of female CEOs. Leaving aside the fact that measuring CEO effectiveness is complex, and that anyone who looks into the issue has strong incentives to come to the "right" conclusion, the issue is moot anyway. In a relatively free market, it stands to reason that the women who are appointed CEOs are exceptional leaders and have proven to be so already, just like their male counterparts. But that does not tel…
/r/MensRights11/04/18 10:15 AM
2

What is the stance of the Republican party on this? As I remember, they - or at least the social conservative wing - also opposed default shared custody. And most feminist organisations supported the idea, including NOW until the early 80's and the feminist mainstream in Scandinavia. When Mary Wollstonecraft, a pioneering feminist, wrote that women's liberation requires them giving up their privileges, their golden cage (well, I guess she had an upper class perspective), she foresaw exactly this…
/r/MensRights11/04/18 08:41 AM
2

The reality is even more bizarre than that: in many ways today's social marxism goes counter to what Marx ever intended. Marx was wrong that industrialisation and globalisation entrenches class differences. But when he wrote das Kapital, he could not know that. At the time, employment intensive manufacturing was still soaking up excess labour. Because there was so much supply, wages and living standards among workers was still miserable, albeit much better than rural life. A decade after, indust…
/r/MensRights09/04/18 02:20 PM
1

I am reading a biography of Hitler now. In the 20's, trying to rally support for two ideas poorly rooted in Germany at the time, nationalism and racial supremacy, he was refreshingly honest about two principles. First, he despised intellectuals who try to read too much and see nuance - better to specifically read to find arguments for what you already believe in. Second, he refused to adapt his basic messages to fit new developments or insights - people will change their minds only by hearing th…
/r/MensRights09/04/18 10:31 AM
19

Here, again, I have to bring some nuance into the debate. Both the US feminism of the 70s and Swedish feminism today have actually acted strongly to limit this kind of abuse. But while NOW changed tack as their sisters got to the next stages of their lives, Swedish feminism persisted. It is largely thanks to them that we now in Sweden have default shared custody, no permanent alimony (and temporary alimony awarded in only a few % of cases, and a cap on all transfers to the less-earning spouse at…
/r/MensRights09/04/18 09:35 AM
1

I think it is clear why they are not. First, the topic is fiendishly complex. Second, no one has an incentive to stray from the narrative - you either keep mum or confirm that women are oppressed, period. And third, even those who see the actual problems fail to formulate them in a way that sticks to the overall narrative. We are paying women less because some combination of personal preferences and gender roles corral them into, on average, lower productivity areas. There is nothing good about …
/r/MensRights09/04/18 08:35 AM
3

To me, this makes sense. Think about it. Men with a certain degree of human capital (education and experience and skills) are more likely than women with the same degree to prefer full-time work. So on average, the degree of human capital should be lower among part-time male workers than among part-time female. This, in turn, should be reflected in pay. So just like with the overall pay gap, the issue is not gender pay discrimination, but related to a range of deeper issues of gender roles, pref…
/r/MensRights06/04/18 01:34 PM
10

That depends on whom they slur. If it is someone from a group with a higher victim status, they most certainly are held accountable - in South Africa a woman just received three years in prison for using racist slurs against police officers. Had she used the n word, her gender would not have helped her at all. With gay men, I guess we as a society have not quite decided yet who is the worthiest victim. While many of the supposed slights that we read about could conceivably be unintentional or un…
/r/MensRights05/04/18 01:03 PM
6

So let us see. Damore posts a "screed" that, read like the Devil would read the Bible, was at the most one-sided on the intranet of a company that prides itself on open discussion. He is promptly fired and lambasted as someone with a pathological hatred for 50% of the population. An elected representative uses a term that by any definition is a slur in a public setting, and then in all seriousness claims free speech and safe space in defense. What definition of free speech would condemn Damore a…
/r/MensRights05/04/18 12:57 PM
7

Feminism IS traditionalism - dialed up (Paul Elam, I think). I see little overlap between MRM and social conservatism. In fact, I think the latter overlaps with feminism much more than we think. The disagreement expressed by WaF and their ilk tends to refer to the extremist elements of feminism that tends to exaggerate men's agency and women's lack of it. That tends to broaden the concept of sexual assault to an extent that no reasonable person would agree. And, of course, that tends to ignore t…
/r/MensRights04/04/18 09:33 AM
1

I responded to another, similar question below.
/r/MensRights27/03/18 03:00 PM
3

That is an excellent question, of course. I do not have an unassailable answer, I am afraid. I think women have both less carrots and sticks. The carrots: take role models. I think the importance of this idea has been widely exaggerated, but at the same time - the woman I worked with was in a sector with pretty much no other women entrepreneurs at all. We all know that women tend to put more priority on spending time with their families, especially if the husband is also in a work-intensive posi…
/r/MensRights27/03/18 03:00 PM
23

I work with supporting entrepreneurship in developing countries. Not directly, but at the policy level. The imperative to support women's entrepreneurship is ubiquitous. Many programmes focus on women specifically, but almost all of them have "mainstreamed" gender, which in practice means making sure to have as many women as possible among beneficiaries. The effects are often bizarre. On the one hand, these programmes, which should drive structural modernisation of the economy, end up supporting…
/r/MensRights27/03/18 09:32 AM
1

I am not astonished at all. And in fact, this kind of argument could just as well have come from social conservatives. Throughout history, and only a few decades ago, it was that faction that opposed prostitution, pornography, and pretty much any display of sexuality. And feminism IS social conservatism. True, they did call for sexual liberation at some point - but we hear little of that nowadays. True, they helped open up more opportunities for women - but only once work had become suitably saf…
/r/MensRights21/03/18 01:18 PM
6

She was probably not incredulous because she could not think of any examples, but because she could not believe someone would question its existence. For feminists, and for most of society (especially trad-cons), it is obvious: you hear about violence against women, the pay gap, and sexism every single day. Facts do not help, because the reason we see this sexism is not because of objective data (we only use that to reconstruct arguments for what we want to believe), but because for 99.99% of ou…
/r/MensRights20/03/18 09:48 PM
2

You do not need the validation of others. But also consider carefully how much you are willing to sacrifice. Push too much, and you will be judged severely - unfairly, I wager, but allowing people to pass you off as an ideologue will only hurt you and do little for MRM. I am saying this as someone who always tries to be nuanced and careful - but it is an approach that has still cost me in my professional life, and, on the other hand, seen me accused of misandry on this forum. The only things tha…
/r/MensRights20/03/18 06:32 PM
9

The very definition of religion is that no amount of proof to the contrary will cause those who follow it to question their core beliefs. And feminism AND our gender roles do have religious character. There is no shortage of evidence that men are victimised. Start with life expectancy, violence, and suicide. It hardly gets more blatant than that. But they will not convince anyone with such a religious conviction. You can deflect them all by claiming that men themselves are responsible. At the ve…
/r/MensRights20/03/18 06:21 PM
1

Why would you need feminism for that? Is that not already the case? If I were a feminist, the wisest thing to do would be to keep mum about the issue, not give more visibility to an injustice against men...
/r/MensRights20/03/18 01:47 PM
1

There is something different about father's rights compared to other men's rights. Along with issues facing boys - as children rather than as males - they have much more recognition in the general public. Few people are unaware of them, though of course they may underestimate the scope and frequency. But this is not because we care about men. It is because we care about children. Children are important, so fathers' rights are important as it will give them the means to support children. They are…
/r/MensRights15/03/18 12:16 PM
1

By the way, I was impressed at your volte-face and even your apology. I may still guess that you are perhaps too quick to judge, but I fully respect that you are that willing to reconsider. Very few people do - but then again, that is perhaps not only because of character, but because of the polarised nature of the debate and the people such a debate attracts (most men I talk to about these issues actually agree, at least after some discussion, but then conclude that it is not worth the mental g…
/r/MensRights15/03/18 11:58 AM
1

Exactly my point. It is regrettable, but not outrageous if you make the rules of interaction stricter - especially in the work place. But it is outrageous that we allow people to level accusations based on assumptions that are not spelled out - and even more so if we then lump gauche dating behaviour (Aziz Ansari) in with horrific assaults. This is such a pity. There IS a problem in the way I, as a gay outsider, see men and women interact. Constant misunderstandings, and a striking lack of under…
/r/MensRights14/03/18 03:35 PM
1

On parental leave and custody: of course - my point was only that not all of feminism takes that stance. NOW took the opposite stance in the 70s and early 80s, on the correct logic that the leading reason holding women back was their obligation or choice to focus on the family at exactly the stage in their career where they could be the most productive. They only changed their minds as the early feminist generation grew older and faced the downside for women of that stance. Yet another conflict …
/r/MensRights14/03/18 01:46 PM
1

Patriarchy as a system where those in charge have been mostly men - that is of course hard to disagree with. It is the much more specific and harmful feminist interpretation that I disagree with. I did not say the work place was all wrong. All I said was that there is more to it than ostensible equality of opportunity. Nothing prevents men from teaching kindergarten de jure, but de facto - of course! But rather than quotas and ideology, let us focus on pragmatic approaches, see what works, and d…
/r/MensRights13/03/18 09:05 PM
2

I think Deneuve overstates her case, but also misses the point. It is one thing if we as a society agree on a more prudish approach to sexuality. That is not something I would agree with, but would at least accept and comply with. But the problem is not as much prudery as the blurred lines that surround it. We can agree on the basics. We should not grab each other's butts willy nilly. We should maintain basic respect. And the rules should be stricter in a work environment, and stricter still in …
/r/MensRights13/03/18 08:58 PM
1

I have never called myself a feminist; in fact the only one who has in my life is you. And the aspect I oppose the most is the notion of patriarchy, or rather the interpretation of patriarchy as a system built by men for men's benefit. But even so, this forum should be about the ideas, rather than a bizarre exchange about who you think I am. If you want to know what I think about Vawa, I would be happy to tell you - but you seem to assume I support it based on the assumption that I am a feminist…
/r/MensRights13/03/18 06:48 PM
1

I am working in an environment where the predominance of the violence against women narrative is even more pronounced. In the US, Australia, and Western Europe there appears to be, at least, a critical mass of awareness around male victims of DV or sexual assault, and recent anecdotal evidence indicates that we are even taking a concerted look at rape perpetrated by women - albeit restricted to underage male victims, and with light punishment (though the problem is perhaps more the severity with…
/r/MensRights13/03/18 06:37 PM
1

Wow. You still think I only care about one sex, perhaps in part because when I say men and women you respond wrong - i mean only women. Even more starkly, you think the feminist movement is behind me - if I would post anything along these lines on a feminist forum, I would probably be blocked immediately. And the tax analogy you dismiss with a radicalised version of a completely different issue altogether. I am not your enemy, nor will you be able to turn me into one. But of course, your valiant…
/r/MensRights13/03/18 11:40 AM
1

Striving for gender equality through promotion and light nudging designed to help people overcome the constraints of their gender roles. Radically different from quotas or ideology, as focussed on men as on women, but also different from keeping the state out altogether. For comparison: one side wants to outlaw cigarettes (or, say, drugs). The other wants to make them allowed everywhere. I want to allow them, but tax them and put warning labels on the packets and encourage kids not to start.
/r/MensRights11/03/18 10:20 AM
1

Wow. You are only proving my points... :) You claim I want to exclude men from the work force, or at least MINT professions. As what I argue runs both ways, I guess this means you think I also want to exclude women from teaching and pre-school? I am not sure what to say, but at any rate nothing will come across as convincing. You strike me as the MRM equivalent of the feminist that thinks calling for DV shelters for men means that we do not need them for women because they are all lying anyway (…
/r/MensRights09/03/18 03:08 PM
1

BTW our exchange reminds me of when I discuss health care with my free-market, liberal American friends. I am very free market, and a steady supporter of the liberal party in my home country. I want a small Government that focuses only on those things the market provably cannot do better. But I support funding most health care through the tax system. I have good reasons to. The market for health care is crippled for two reasons: in contrast to consumer electronics, which has managed to put immen…
/r/MensRights09/03/18 01:59 PM
1

I still think my assumption is correct, though only at an average. But any such generalisation tends to mask most aspects of the truth and come across as overgendering. The rest of your comment I agree with, of course, though I would also voice a bit of understanding for the predicament that female bosses face - the ones I know, the ones that are honest, hard working and want to be a good boss, constantly ask themselves what is the correctly calibrated mix of toughness, compassion, and stringenc…
/r/MensRights09/03/18 09:41 AM
1

I think you still misunderstand my stance. You are disagreeing with a straw man, and I have to tamper my instinct to start defending things I disagree with in response, albeit with less verve and more nuance than you appear to. So I won't. I am not defending the current approach. I want to change it. But not by simply dropping all social justice goals, but by making them realistic, flexible, and inclusive of all social groups; and by making the tools we use to promote these goals more focused on…
/r/MensRights09/03/18 09:37 AM
1

Not at all. But your accusation is ironic, as in the same comment I mentioned that when I try to bring in a bit of nuance to the debate here, it gets misinterpreted as sly feminist advocacy. All I can do is kindly ask you to assume that it is most definitely not. It is, at most, marginal disagreement with some more extreme MRM views and the way advocacy takes place in practice. I am for freedom, and I vehemently disagree with initiatives that confuse opportunities with outcome and advocate heavy…
/r/MensRights08/03/18 05:18 PM
1

I am not a native speaker, and several of the words you used I was not able to find in the dictionary. So I will make a wild assumption and guess that your post is something along the lines of another argument I have come across - that big corporations supported women's lib only to have more labour to exploit (or something in that vein). I find it pretty natural that politics has as one of its prime goals to ensure sustainable growth. But that is not the only benefit. First, wages are by FAR the…
/r/MensRights08/03/18 02:06 PM
1

Actually, I think it is fully legitimate to aim for some balance in gender representation both at the top as well as across the board. As an economist, I am also convinced that we are all losing out because women are not living up to their potential. It costs over $1 mn to educate a medical specialist - if that person then takes time off or chooses a specialty below her potential, it is not only she that loses out, but society as a whole. We need these people. The claim that men have to give way…
/r/MensRights08/03/18 11:56 AM
1

No one is. And nor do I think it is morally superior in any way to be able to read Mein Kampf without prejudice (although it is indeed terrible by any standard). But what is striking about this debate on all sides is our tendency to throw out the baby with the bathwater without seeing any nuance. That is the same instinct that drives feminists to discredit men's opinions because they have not had women's experiences. Whatever Cosby did or Heidegger supported, the Cosby show should still get the …
/r/MensRights07/03/18 04:58 PM
1

Not many people think like you. I find Ayn Rand's ideas revolting, and I do not think I could read Atlas Shrugged appreciating it for its literary qualities alone. But I could get through the Second Sex, even finding support for many MRM views in what we often dismiss as a feminist screed...
/r/MensRights06/03/18 05:32 PM
2

I was not making that point with any kind of conviction, just as an illustration based only on what I have read without assuming it is all true. Replace him with Weinstein if you will. The point is: even if he has behaved atrociously, should we now not enjoy the Cosby show or even delete him from history? Where do we draw the line, why, what are the consequences, and does that logic apply to other great figures with a murky side?
/r/MensRights06/03/18 02:12 PM
7

What i find striking in this debate, and reflected in MRM responses to it, is the question of the extent to which an artist's private behaviour should discredit her as an artist. We have now reneged on Cosby. For good reason, it appears - but is that principle worth depriving us of the Cosby show (not my favourite, but still)? The question goes deeper. Heidegger was arguably one of the greatest philosophers of all time, but also a committed Nazi (albeit not of the Jew killing variety) - a belief…
/r/MensRights06/03/18 01:18 PM
1

To me, liberalism does not sit well with family values, a focus on defense, and opposition to gun control (given the net liberty effect on society is negative by any account). And it goes contrary to MOST of the things Trump has done, such as the latest astonishing move on steel tariffs. In the end, I would like to see anyone arguing that Hillary is NOT more liberal. So right end of the spectrum - this is as hard to stomach as the excesses of the left is for me at the moment. I do not share the …
/r/MensRights06/03/18 09:58 AM
2

To me, that would be liberalism, not conservativism. John Locke tradition. If you want to distinguish that from the progressive left, the main point of contention would be the extent to which we need government rules and actions to support equality. Mostly, we overuse the Government. But sometimes we get it right. Mandating a few months of parental leave for fathers in Sweden struck many as heavy handed, but that tiny piece of legislation has made fathers pushing prams a salient feature on the s…
/r/MensRights05/03/18 06:38 PM
0

As much sympathy I have with the exaggerated way some talk about straight people, I would find it inappropriate if you tried to tell me that, as a straight person (assuming you are), you feel discriminated. I would not react like the feminist, but I would at least understand the reaction. I do not feel discriminated against today most of the time, but I grew up in a world where homosexuality among men garnered disgust and often hate. And in many countries this is still the case. Being told that …
/r/MensRights05/03/18 06:33 PM
3

I guess I intend my two points from a long-term perspective. In the short term, everything is different. Trump is vehemently anti trade and anti market, and the Koch brothers plumped for Hillary (reluctantly, I am sure, but it would be inconceivable for a classical Liberal to vote for the other side, despite the traditional free-market bent of the US right. At the end of the day, to get society to approach men's rights from a systemic perspective, we have to change a deeply ingrained mindset. A …
/r/MensRights05/03/18 03:44 PM
27

I find this astonishing. Even if you lean out and admit that men do not face discrimination as men, 99% of discrimination is not or only partially gender-related. Just think about how badly we treat ugly people. I felt this strongly when I had adult chicken pox and went out in public. I was met with pure and utter disgust. And growing up gay, in a different world from today, I faced often pure and unadulterated hatred. For her to assume that you never faced discrimination is being guilty of exac…
/r/MensRights05/03/18 10:43 AM
9

I think from a long-term perspective at least, MRM is better placed on the left or centre left. In Europe, I would say the liberals, but the liberals in the US (libertarians, as they call them) come with a survivalist, irrational, knee-jerk aversion to government overall, spiced with a predilection for gun rights that is incomprehensible to most Europeans of all persuasions. Our worst enemy is traditionalism.
/r/MensRights05/03/18 09:34 AM
1

I am of the left (the centre left, but still). For me, men's rights are an issue of the progressive left, as it questions gender roles in a much more fundamental way than feminism ever did. It is much more radical to shine the spot light on the plight of (disaffected) men than it ever was to use instincts to protect and promote women that we all share to push women into the work space after it had become comfortable and air conditioned and ostensibly glorious. It is the WORK of the progressive w…
/r/MensRights05/03/18 09:29 AM
1

As someone pointed out, this was before the blocking feature. But I think this does not undermine the point that the research is misleading. I do not know Tinder at all (as a flaming homosexual, somehow it never interested me), but my female friends tell me that if they are neutral or not interested, they have to take care to give low ratings and not respond, as doing so out of courtesy will be misinterpreted as flirting. It sounds like a nasty world, because it basically replicates the already …
/r/MensRights03/03/18 02:11 PM
1

As someone who has actually worked with Canadian aid, I know full well how obsessed they can be about gender - though they are far from alone in that category. We need to help the vulnerable. And if we help only women and girls, that is of course far better than not helping at all. We should be clear that we are not opposing this per se. Of course, the most troubling thought is that people in desperate need are refused help because of their gender. A friend of mine worked with male rape victims …
/r/MensRights03/03/18 01:07 PM
2

Wow. This is a very American perspective. But I think, with the exception of a few social justice issues, BBC World Service in particular is pretty much the most reliable news source out there if you want world news with relatively little bias. So while we should spend tax money judiciously, maintaining this coverage IS in the public interest with much more value for money than, say, offering generous mortgage interest deductions that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. That barely applies to US…
/r/MensRights02/03/18 12:53 PM
2

As usual with feminism, they are 80% right. It is the remaining 20% - the overgeneralisations, hyperbole, and gynocentrism - that cause the stir. Mansplaining does exist. I experience it every single day. But first of all, the term disguises that it is a phenomenon that we can see the phenomenon in both genders - predominantly, but far from always among men. Second, it targets both genders - perhaps with some slight differences - as I can attest: I experience patronising behaviour of the kind de…
/r/MensRights02/03/18 12:43 PM
1

Maybe I did not make my point clear. Semantics, true, but a point that seems inordinately important to feminists. Base your argument on propriety (coupled with extreme partisanism on both sides), and you make the link to the perceived repression of female sexuality. Base it on consent, and everything changes. I am not defending it; in fact most of my criticism of feminism boils down to this kind of thin line. Just trying to understand where they are coming from with such verve and conviction... …
/r/MensRights01/03/18 06:40 PM
5

Why are British tax payers not speaking out against this? I assume that no one will get a reduction, so the net effect will be to increase the wage bill quite a bit. This means that BBC will be paying more than the market requires to attract and retain people, especially since any exercise of this kind will require simplifying the complex factors that determine wage and is not likely to compensate upward adjustments with downward ones (see the turmoil that it took to reduce bloated Greek public …
/r/MensRights01/03/18 06:34 PM
1

It is not a racist sub, but someone who wants to think that will, unfortunately, find an ample supply of quotes to mine. People here often complain about the travails of the white straight male demographic. But our focus should be on gender, and we should acknowledge that being white or Asian or straight does indeed bring some kind of privilege - but being male does not. This is a radical notion for both the right or the left. In fact, it epitomises what feminism claims to champion: men overcomi…
/r/MensRights28/02/18 11:26 AM
1

To my understanding, the right wing angle was not as much consent as propriety. A thin line, but that is how I imagine someone defending the left in both cases would justify this apparent contradiction.
/r/MensRights28/02/18 10:59 AM
1

At the same time, I venture that Sweden would be right at the top of countries to be in for, say, fathers in nasty divorces. Shared custody is the norm, alimony non-existent, and child support capped and applied only in cases of excessive income divergence. Mandatory paternal leave ensure that you will probably have had time to bond with your children. Allegations of violence only matter if proven. Or if you are falsely accused of rape. Sexual assault is harshly punished, but the focus is on reh…
/r/MensRights27/02/18 09:33 PM
-11

This is exactly why I think it is so misguided for BOTH sides of the debate to confound gender with race and sexuality. Sure, it might seem as if "straight white (or why not Jewish) men" are the butt of most SJ criticism nowadays. But while I find the privilege narrative exaggerated and simplified, I do have benefits from being white and northern European. Every single day. I can taste it, smell it, feel it. When I go as an "expert" to the Middle East, I find my words accepted as gospel, whereas…
/r/MensRights27/02/18 02:42 PM
0

My point was: the mainstream Swedish feminist is not frothing. Feminism has for decades combated the natural tensions between a yearning for equality and a de facto status as a women's lobby. Along the way, there have been decisions to make. Upon vehement lobbying, NOW opted for the women's lobby route on the custody issue, while Swedish (feminist) mainstream did not. I still oppose Swedish feminism. But to read that feminism has infused society (arguably true), and then assume that our society …
/r/MensRights22/02/18 01:22 PM
1

Of course. Not only our feminists, but we as a society are often ridiculous. We have even introduced a new pronoun - a feat that many a dictator has failed to do throughout history. My point was not to defend Swedish feminism. I just wanted to highlight that there is a bit more nuance to the story, and that it would be completely wrong to assume that it is simply a more extreme version of the (vocal parts of) US feminism. And while the snow shovelling story is of course silly, it is also innocuo…
/r/MensRights22/02/18 01:16 PM
4

What is bizarre is that Swedish gender studies is much more nuanced than that in the US, as far as what I have seen. True, much of it reeks of ideology - but there are halfway objective studies on male victims of DV, the education gap, and men's health. In fact, in the few areas where it is possible to stay clear of ideology, some excellent insights have emerged. And some of the most critical voices about the discipline arise from within its own ranks. Not defending gender studies as a whole, of…
/r/MensRights22/02/18 01:13 PM
4

Feminism is not feminism. A few things are different. For instance, in Sweden shared custody upon divorce and parental leave for fathers is a leading feminist issue pushed into law - and although I am more of a libertarian suspicious of government intervention, I have to admit the results are astonishing: our fathers are truly involved in their children's lives. Few examples of government intervention has managed to change society for the better in such a tangible fashion. The same goes for sexu…
/r/MensRights21/02/18 08:57 PM
2

Most of the time, we do not pursue false accusations at all. Mostly because they are too hard to prove, especially in cases where the issue is not whether sex took place, but whether it was consensual. But also because the powers that be have few incentives to do so: a shred of a doubt would leave you open to the accusation of going after a rape victim. Often, in the few cases we do pursue, the punishment is light and mostly suspended. That is bad. But it also seems inordinate to me to impose su…
/r/MensRights21/02/18 06:23 PM
1

I also think gender is different from, say, race. I find it perfectly acceptable that, as a white person, I cannot defend my race or take the same liberties as a black person (though of course I condemn the extremes). I even find it a bit petty to counter Black Lives Matter with All Lives Matter, though I would have more sympathy for the Black Male Lives Matter counter (which only exists in my head I guess). And I do accept that I have to be a bit sensitive to the history that blacks have suffer…
/r/MensRights21/02/18 01:23 PM
1

I think they are right. Porn can be highly addictive. I had periods where it started taking over several hours a week and gradually stunting my sensibilities, leading me to venture into more and more extreme imagery of acts that I would probably never actually get involved in myself (nothing too extreme, no worries, but still - you get used to stimuli as quickly as you do to morphine in the hospital), and I am probably an example of moderation (or at least ability to extricate myself from that a…
/r/MensRights21/02/18 12:47 PM
1

The problem is not misandrists, but the people and the systems that enable them. Mostly, this is people thinking - well, that is a bit extreme, but understandable, women have been oppressed for centuries. But in part, it is men. Men who do not stand up for men as a group. For women, sure. For their family, absolutely. For their race, of course (if non-white at least). But for men? In fact, bashing other men is one of the most effective ways to obtain status - whether physically or verbally. It i…
/r/MensRights21/02/18 12:16 PM
1

One of the feminist talking points I do find credible are claims about underreporting. I do think it is more common than not to simply do nothing and put it behind you. And I do think that as MRAs we should not counter feminist claims of the difficulty of reporting assault by dismissing it, but with understanding and the observation that men and women share the problem - in fact, if anything, men do so much more. To me, this is an even more urgent problem than false accusations... And of course,…
/r/MensRights20/02/18 10:45 AM
5

Stories of this ilk emerge regularly. We have, I think, no way of knowing how systemic an issue this is. I am amazed when my straight male friends tell me how they always have the potential suspicion of pedophelia in the back of their heads, but that is of course partly their own imagination and an overreaction (similar to how we worry about terror attacks rather than, say, driving or having a hamburger). But what about the other side? Is our vigilance against pedophiles paying off in any way? H…
/r/MensRights20/02/18 10:40 AM
1

When something happened to me a few years back (male perpetrator), I did not for a second consider going to the police an option. But I also did not suffer much; rather, I tried to learn from the experience and adjust my behavior to avoid the kind of dating situation in which it happened. I had taken risks that I should not have. In light of the gender discussion, I engaged in classic victim blaming - of myself. Had I been a woman, my story would have read as a satire of the narrative. But here …
/r/MensRights19/02/18 01:09 PM
1

Perhaps. But also because men never talk about their experiences. And women tend to assume that if they were bothered, they would - just like many women speak out.
/r/MensRights19/02/18 01:01 PM
1

So I sympathise with MRM. And while I think many commenters here go to far, I also get accused of misogyny for saying things that, to my mind, seem reasonable and nuanced. But I also head a small department in an NGO. And I catch myself almost always hiring women not only if they are equally qualified, but if they are well qualified at all. As we work in difficult countries, most end up being men - but it certainly was not for lack of trying. And I think most of my peers think the same way. Perh…
/r/MensRights15/02/18 11:04 AM
2

I will not make many friends here by saying this. But actually, manspreading does exist. I see it everyday. But. It is by far not all men who do it. In fact, it is a small minority, and it intimidates me as well. And there is certainly a female equivalent. The only gender difference is that men and women tend to be rude on public transport in, on average, different ways. The issue is not noticing the problem. It is associating it with an entire gender and meshing it with a misguided and one-side…
/r/MensRights14/02/18 09:44 AM
1

The statement would actually be ok if they would then go ahead and objectify only those men who have power... not the 99% who do not, or only a little of it.
/r/MensRights12/02/18 01:07 PM
1

In which way exactly? The reality is not that easy. We have an avowedly feminist government and have throughout history run experiments at the far end of social engineering. We have Draconian rape laws. But on the other hand, we also tend to correct our excesses - the laws have not, as far as I know, led to Draconian convictions in cases where most reasonable people would not consider the incident in question a crime (although legally it may be), and the punishment for sexual assault are not in …
/r/MensRights10/02/18 12:05 PM
1

Feminism is against the constraint of gender roles. And so, although in our yen to bash feminism we often forget, are we - albeit from a different, complementary perspective. So it should make sense to discourage (not necessarily outlawing) those single-sex institutions that reinforce those gender roles. Such as all-male institutions that de facto act as career boosters. But should it, by the same logic, not make sense to ENCOURAGE single-sex institutions that serve the purpose of removing gende…
/r/MensRights10/02/18 12:00 PM
1

Because you would lose your moral authority to complain about people unfairly generalising men by doing exactly what you accuse them of. And, of course, increase that gold mine of quotes that feminist journalists can mine when they write the next article discarding us as misogynists with a narcissistic obsession of rescuing our ingrained right to oppress women. Plus, you would prevent a more nuanced understanding of the underlying problems.
/r/MensRights09/02/18 12:12 PM
1

Perhaps, though the way you put it is analogous to starting with the argument that terrorists are Moslem. But I do not think that this is the case because they are women. It is the case because the incentives they face to abuse the system are much stronger and more benevolent than they would be for men who have the rage and lack of empathy to do the same thing. If men would have those incentives, I would wager we would see them do it with at least the same verve as women. But my central point is…
/r/MensRights09/02/18 12:09 PM
1

Actually, I think among police officers that focus on sex crimes, women are well represented. In Sweden they make up the majority. But I wonder why we never hear from them - those who speak out are pundits, ideologues, and at most prosecutors. Certainly it is not from a lack of engagement....
/r/MensRights09/02/18 12:03 PM
1

Depends on how you define patriarchy. A system where men were formally in charge? Then of course it existed, and still does. A system where men in charge systematically act to benefit other men and enslave women? Of course not, at least not to an extent that went beyond gender roles and the necessity of survival. Ironically, if you accept the former definition, then arguably patriarchy is alive and well and the reason we have feminism and metoo in the first place.
/r/MensRights09/02/18 12:01 PM
4

I have a hard time imagining that a divorce court would, in our day and age, take a stance as jaundiced as described. But it is not impossible. Divorces are nasty affairs, replete with machinations and malice. A good lawyer and a pissed off husband and a judge that has heard of some of the extreme miscarriages of justice towards men in divorce cases - could be an explosive combination. Which of course we should oppose as vehemently as when the genders are reversed. More to the point, we should m…
/r/MensRights09/02/18 11:10 AM
1

We knew this was happening, but the scale is definitely surprising. Predictably, the feminist reaction is to mostly ignore this - or dismiss it as male whining and misogyny-driven overreactions. And I agree. The men who do this are vastly exaggerating the risks that face them. But the point is not to assign blame; the point is to understand these consequences. We see these overreactions all the time. If we would be as concerned about daily health risks as we are about terrorism (counting the ove…
/r/MensRights08/02/18 03:13 PM
-36

Come on.... this is exactly the kind of statements that a Jezebel writer will mine and self-righteously cite as evidence of pervasive misogyny. The overwhelming majority of women would never lie about something like this. But a tiny minority, often enabled by narcissism, borderline disorder, or a psychopathic lack of empathy, would indeed see this as an invitation - for revenge, attention, or sheer malice. While I understand your anger, just as little as we should accept generalising men as pill…
/r/MensRights08/02/18 02:46 PM
12

The thing is, while I can only back this up anecdotally, we already have a system like the one she describes. A close relative has worked with sexual assaults for 30 years. He is frustrated at the flac the police gets with references to those untested rape kits (most of which because they were simply not needed as both parties admit sexual contact take place), and has compassion and a sense of justice that is beyond question. He tells me they have resources and they always do whatever is reasona…
/r/MensRights08/02/18 02:40 PM
6

If you accept that male circumcision is not mutilation, then the most frequent kinds of female circumcision would not classify as such either. It is often "just" a pin prick. But first of all, that is not the point. We are against FGM not only because of its horrific extremes, but because it invades women's bodily autonomy. Boys deserve the same courtesy. Period. Second of all, male circumcision is not only, in part because of our success in stamping out FGM across the world, far more frequent, …
/r/MensRights07/02/18 12:33 PM
1

Have you noticed an uptick lately of the amount of feminists that basically say things that MRAs could have said? Especially around metoo, but also generally about the infantilisation implicit in our tendency to, where reasonable, absolve women of responsibility for their actions? To me, it is absolutely clear: no matter how much I like women, if I see them as incapable of saying no to sex or asking for fair pay, how in the world am I going to trust them to run my billion dollar company (if I ha…
/r/MensRights06/02/18 01:39 PM
2

The sheer callousness. I will assume she did not actually claim women get sexually ASSAULTED every day. But leaving that to one side, how on earth could someone respond to a friend telling her about a traumatic event with this kind of dismissal? Even if she is right, that has no bearing on your case. Even if you are the only male victim in the world, you are still a victim. Either this story is missing important elements, or you are dealing with a psychopath. If the latter, I would ask myself wh…
/r/MensRights02/02/18 03:45 PM
2

Such a pity. When I first saw her, I thought she was talented and original. Think about some of the roasts from a few years back. Then feminism broke out... But the hypocrisy is good news. The more obvious it gets, the more backlash there will be from well beyond the ranks of MRAs and libertarians. As for us, I think we should be much more concerned about male victims of what we would all agree is sexual assault - not extending jaundiced feminist definitions to both sexes. Two wrongs do not make…
/r/MensRights02/02/18 09:18 AM
6

As a jazz freak, I am a bit out of touch. But when I did hear this song, I immediately thought it has to spark feminist outrage. After all, it was, arguably, more objectifying than blurred lines... which seemed to me to be about a man trying to figure out what consent is among a flurry of mixed signals. So I guess the outrage came - later rather than sooner, and not clearly distinguishable from the fact that a man won over four women. But it begs the question: what COULD he have sung about this …
/r/MensRights31/01/18 11:16 AM
2

Well I think TG people should be as upset about transtrenders as rape victims should be about false accusers or people equating bad dates with sexual assault. Throw out the bathwater, not the baby.
/r/MensRights25/01/18 11:18 AM
1

As far as I could tell, only conservative - at times arguably alt-right - outlets are reporting on this. But the motivating factor for punishing this student is quite clearly prudery, which is especially intense around S&M activities. When I went to college in the US in the early 90s - think Take back the night, Anita Hill, and the Bell Curve outrage - it was the political right that trumpeted thinly veiled prudery and even bigotry. Think abstinence, family values, and Adam and Eve, not Adam and…
/r/MensRights25/01/18 10:59 AM
1

More and more, I find myself agreeing with feminists of the older generation - starting with Wollstonecraft, who said that the key to women's liberation is giving up female privilege that protect but also stifles them.
/r/MensRights17/01/18 01:34 PM
38

I find this US discussion so bizarre. Just a few decades ago, transgender people WERE truly not only discriminated, but widely despised. That we managed to change that was, I submit, truly a great accomplishment. But now we are all up in arms about stuff that few transgender people actually care about, such as ridiculous pronouns. And we are even encroaching upon the territory that was more or less sacrosanct until now: sexual preferences. That opens up a Pandora's box. I have a particular type,…
/r/MensRights17/01/18 01:31 PM
1

So: we have an imperative to get more gender balance across the board. 50% is often ridiculous, and many her may argue that is not a worthy goal at all, but let us, for the sake of argument, accept that there is some truth to this. If nothing else, because work places dominated by one gender are, to be honest, not that pleasant to work in. On the other hand, we have all kinds of physically demanding jobs where women are significantly less likely to meet minimum standards. There are, of course, m…
/r/MensRights17/01/18 01:25 PM
1

This is fascinating. The movement is cannibalising itself. The tide has turned. There is nothing the MRA should reasonably do, except to push for more recognition for men's experiences with how sexual interaction affects them. The only voices critical of Aziz that I have run across (frequenting mostly centrist outlets) come from women pointing to how we overestimate how easy it is to say no. That is actually true. We, both men and women, do sometimes feel unduly pressured. Aziz is not my type, b…
/r/MensRights17/01/18 11:19 AM
-1

The article requires subscription. Does anyone have an archived link? From the title, it seems like common sense have reached even center-left mainstream outlets...
/r/MensRights16/01/18 04:01 PM
4

From what I have read on media coverage, it seems like the system is working. Most express skepticism, saying that this simply sounds like a date gone awry. Later rather than sooner, common sense will prevail... I think we should work more on the other side of metoo: men's experiences.
/r/MensRights16/01/18 04:00 PM
1

At some point, a friend of mine sent me a link to an article about Putin and his "support" of men's rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. Putin's "masculinism" is a crude campaign to revert to traditional Russian values where men were men. It has no room for sympathy for men that divert from the norm, let alone that are victims of DV or sexual assault. In fact, his anti gay laws only apply in practice to men, not to lesbians. That all sounds more like what feminists want to believe we…
/r/MensRights12/01/18 05:03 PM
14

Wow. A person in authority having sex with a significantly younger minor in a deserted area? That IS abuse. Especially for a pastor. There are scores of unwarranted or even false accusations of sexual assault that we can rally around. This is not one of them. And the fact that some are lends credence to those who want to believe that we hate women and endorse sexual assault.
/r/MensRights12/01/18 04:59 PM
1

The most controversial part is where she calls for freedom to what was translated in German and some US outlets as harass. But the French word was "importuner", which translates better as "to hit on". So a bit racy, yes, but the outrage tells us more about the dynamics of the movement than Catherine's opinions. In fact, I cannot imagine that any of my friends, including self-identified feminists, would disagree with anything she writes. Sure, we should condemn repeated and inappropriate advances…
/r/MensRights12/01/18 01:02 PM
2

I was looking for an emoji showing a tongue protruding from a cheek, but did not find one. Would that have helped?
/r/MensRights09/01/18 05:02 PM
1

Perhaps, though it is hard to compare because women and men tend to be hypersensitive about different issues. I was talking about diplomats representing their country's interests who see it (partially correctly) as their jobs to jump at the slightest perceived slight. Some are just doing their jobs, but the profession tends to attract people that sort of enjoy being offended...
/r/MensRights09/01/18 04:58 PM
2

Where can we see that this comment applies to a complaint about the performance of a staff member that happens to be female? It seems like it applies to sweeping negative generalisations of entire groups of people that may come across, justifiably or not, as sexism?
/r/MensRights09/01/18 04:55 PM
1

Rather than dismissing her wholesale, can we think of a few constructive ideas on how to resolve the underlying issue? There is, I think, a need to keep abuse of power in check, which involves some additional responsibility on the part of the person with power over the other - be they adults (sleeping with minors above the legal age), supervisors, or producers. Poor judgment (which I think it normally is) is at most reprehensible, but not legal. Saying sleep with me or lose your job is of course…
/r/MensRights09/01/18 04:25 PM
2

And yet scores of companies are having software written to anonymise applications (not that easy - it is not only name, but references to softball...). As far as I know, the results have been more or less neutral, but I found nothing scientific or statistically relevant without obvious flaws (that I, as at most a hobby social scientists, could even detect). In fact, I work for an organisation where the pressure to hire women is patent (they dominate in HQ positions but are almost absent from har…
/r/MensRights09/01/18 09:28 AM
1

Perhaps. The thought is attractive, and of course almost by definition we cannot imagine how it could turn out otherwise. As more and more manual labour is automated, what can we do to stop too much wealth accruing to those lucky few with the skills and education to do things that computers are unlikely to be able to replace? I have no convincing counterargument. It looks bleak. But my point was: this exact kind of reasoned pessimism has a long history, clear even in much Greek philosophy - and …
/r/MensRights08/01/18 07:44 PM
1

For 30.000 years we lived in conditions where anything but such gynocentrism would have killed the tribe in a few generations. Women had to bear an average of over four children just to keep the population stable - surrounded by violence, disease, maternal and child mortality rates in the double digits, and average life spans well below 40. Sympathy for underperforming men had no place. But it does now because of our marvellous, unprecedented health and wealth. So how come that men, who still do…
/r/MensRights08/01/18 07:37 PM
1

Except of course that those women will remain unlikely to marry down (even in the cases where the woman is the main breadwinner, her husband mostly has the same or higher education level). So I doubt this issue will grow big enough for women as a group to see it as an issue.
/r/MensRights08/01/18 07:34 PM
0

Dear all, I would like to be critical but constructive about an assumption behind this thread that recurs in MRM discussion fora and that I find misguided and counterproductive. The privilege narrative is misguided; Hayek said that the idea that you can influence aggregate behaviour is a "fatal conceit" that may be attractive, but, when taken to its logical extent, will lead to tyranny. But let us not fall into the rabbit hole of conflating men's issues with those of whites or heterosexuals. It …
/r/MensRights08/01/18 05:52 PM
1

He was unfairly treated because of his race, not his gender. Imagine how unfairly he would have been treated if he were a black woman!
/r/MensRights08/01/18 05:29 PM
5

Did they have to write that men are silent "because of ego"?
/r/MensRights08/01/18 04:42 PM
7

As far as I understand, 3% of alimony payers (or alimony paid?) are women. But women seem to be at the forefront of most serious efforts to lobby for alimony reform in the US, where many states have some of the most non-earning spouse-friendly laws and legal practice in the world (in my country, the much vaunted feminist Utopia of Sweden, alimony is rarely awarded and, if so, only for a transition period, while child support is capped at around 1,000 a month and applies only if one spouse renoun…
/r/MensRights08/01/18 02:25 PM
2

I think it is turning even more banal than that. Being a child of the 80s, I am only belatedly discovering the wonders of modern music. One is Rae Sremmurd, who combines playfully simplistic rap with psychedelic sounds. One of his lines dismisses haters. No more explanation needed. It is not even a specific act anymore. Just something to define yourself against. The boogy man, I think you say in English? Not that Rae does not run any risk of falling into the hater category. He sings songs about …
/r/MensRights07/01/18 10:48 AM
2

I get the point, but there are several ways in which it is misleading. Here is the main one, for those without any background in econ: Productivity normally refers to labour productivity (LP). LP can go up in several ways, but typically you need to invest either in human capital (education) or physical capital (machinery, technology). Most of the productivity boost comes from firms investing more, mostly in physical but also in human capital (staff training). The curves start to diverge where in…
/r/MensRights07/01/18 10:09 AM
7

This is so tiring. Mostly because of feminists, of course. But also because some MRAs still insist on throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Not everything feminism claims is bull. It is its extremes and its flawed, uncontested conclusions that we should fight, not everything ever written in the name of feminism. On a basic level, saying gender roles are at fault are about as insipid as referring to the dictionary definition of feminism. It is correct, but banal. Growing up as a non-conformin…
/r/MensRights07/01/18 09:50 AM
You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.

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