In the wake of Elliot Rogers horrific crime and video release, a lot of people are talking about the Men's Rights movement.

People have a whole lot to say about this group! Here are some snippets from my own FB friends:

Men's Rights Groups are "men complaining that they're being oppressed by not receiving sexual attention"

"this attitude are poisonous and dangerous"

The Men's Right Movement "states itself to be entitled to sex, a woman's attention, and a major promoter of rape culture..."

Being personally unfamiliar with all of this, I decided to ask for some sources.

The responses I got ranged from "I heard it from a friend" to "I read it somewhere, but don't have the links" to straight up cursing me out, all simply for asking for more information on a topic that I knew little about! Also, a good chunk of people posting about this made a disclaimer in their post specifically stating that people were not welcome to discuss the topic with them, and that anyone who disagreed with them can go fuck themselves.

Naturally, when otherwise reasonable people straight up say that they aren't willing to even discuss something, my interest get piqued. So I Googled "Men's Rights" to see what kind of entitled, misogynistic, terrible, bullshit would pop up. Not including Wikipedia articles, here's what I found:

The top result was a Men's Rights page calling out and speaking against one of it's members saying something that seemed to support domestic abuse. I scrolled down and saw an article about how marital rape is obviously wrong, and speaking out against people who defend it. I scrolled further to find a message saying that it's wrong to be misogynistic, and that you shouldn't be against women just because one woman may have treated you badly. I scrolled down even further to find a rant against white people using the N word, and against men comparing their problems to the problems of people of color.

Hmmm... Speaking out against domestic abuse, speaking out against men raping women, being against misogyny, and displaying awareness of white privilege. Surely this must not be the Men's Rights group that everyone is talking about! I must keep looking. I know! I'll go on Reddit! That's where all the terrible people gather!

I looked through the top articles on the Men's Rights subreddit, which were mostly men talking about their own personal experience with sexual discrimination. There were men talking about how they dealt with false accusations of rape and supporting each other. There were posts about issues that affect men, from age-of-consent laws to divorce proceedings to child custody hearings. There were conversations about some of the double standards that exist for both men and women, and there are many, many posts against sexist men, and explanations that being sexist or anti-woman is not what the community is about.

In fact, one of the top articles on the Men's Righs subreddit is a picture of somebody saying something like "If only women could suck dick like they sucked at sports...", and about 500 people rallied in reply, saying that that guy is an asshole and that his attitude doesn't represent the Men's Rights group.

This can't be right?! Where are all of the men who felt that they were entitled to sex? Where were all men who want to treat women as mere objects?

I decided to continue with the Google results.

The third site talked about how domestic violence also affects men and LGBT folks, and how that is underrepresented. There were a bunch of articles about certain legal cases, and how they feel that they are biased against men, which they make arguments for. It was a group of men supporting each other, from being falsely accused of rape to getting screwed out of visitation rights to having to pay more in child support than they can reasonably afford.

This can't be right, though! Where are all the fedora-wearing scumbags complaining about being "friendzoned"?!

So I hit the next result that came up on Google.

This one had articles on how men are represented in the media. There were articles about emotional support for men. There was legal guidance for divorces and custody disputes.

So I hit the next Google result.

The next Men's Rights page had a section to support for survivors of sexual violence. It had interesting articles about men working in nontraditional jobs (traditionally "female" jobs). It had a discussion about circumcision. It had a bit about breaking out of gender roles. Well, this isn't what I expected to find!

I hit Google again.

The next page, which looked like someone's old personal Geocities site, spoke about issues of child support and child custody. Sexual abuse support. Support for single fathers.

So I went to the next Google result, only to find...

There wasn't one.

All of the rest of the Google results for "Men's Rights" linked to articles saying "Men's Rights Groups are hateful!" "Men's Rights groups are just a bunch of men who want to rape and treat women like objects!"

I noticed that something weird happened in my conversations with people about Men's Rights groups on FB. People kept talking about "MRAs/Pick Up Artists".

What?! Why the heck do those things get lumped together? That's like me saying "Feminists/strippers".

I know that male privilege exists. And I know that there are a lot of terrible men out there. But to say that The Men's Right Movement is misogynistic by nature seems misleading to me. Men, like women, do need a place where they can discuss the issues that are affecting them and talk about how they can work to make a change. Just because there are a good number of crazy shitheads who claim to associate with the group, that doesn't make the group itself bad. Blaming MRAs for these recent murders makes as much sense to me as blaming Valerie Solanas's killing of Andy Warhol on feminism.

Speaking of feminism, someone in one discussion asserted that 'Feminism is for everyone!" I think that, as a woman, that is easy to say. But the word "feminism" is not something that many men will be comfortable getting behind. Imagine if I had a group that claimed to be all about gender equality that was called "The Dude Bro Man Club". I don't imagine many women would want to join. I have no problems with the concepts behind feminism, I just have a problem with the word. I stand for just about everything that feminism stands for, but I don't want to attach a label to myself that is inherently exclusionary.

So, to sum up my thoughts: I am dead set against entitled men who think that they "deserve" these objects called women. I do, however, think that men need a forum in which to discuss legal, social, and personal issues that are important to them. Popular opinion seems to be that these forums are all inhabited by the aforementioned morons, but I have yet to see any real evidence of that.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there are some seedy Men's Rights sites that I haven't seen that are just jam-packed with the kind of men that people keep talking about. But from the evidence I have seen so far, the Men's Right movement is not the straw man that people seem to want to make it.

I just think that everybody: men, women, and everyone in between, should be treated with respect as an individual. Whether you do that under the flag of feminism, Men's Rights, egalitarianism, or whatever, that doesn't matter to me.