Men's rights advocates want men to be equal with women, and feminists want women to be equal with men. Someone please tell me why those two groups are separate.

rbcrusaders · 2012-12-11T03:11:19+00:00

In my eyes, its because of this-

Whenever issues of men are broughtup to most feminists (on this site, anyway) the answer is either 1. boohoo, get over it... 2. that doesnt even happen or 3. women's issues are more important.

Even attempting to address mens issues is called misogynistic. We, as a board, have always held firm to the belief that women suffer discrimination in many instances. We just also claim that men do as well and that there is no 'patriarchy' trying to oppress women-and that is where they get angry and fight us.

In turn, that leads us to believe that equality isnt their actual goal as they claim.

themountaingoat · 2012-12-11T03:13:31+00:00

The best characterization of the problem is that feminist ideology insists that women are the main victims in society. This causes feminists to systematically deny any disadvantage men face and exaggerate all the problems women face. When they attempt to fix these imaginary or exaggerated problems then end up advocating for things which are unequal. A brief list of the things feminism does

-Focuses only on domestic violence against women, and denies domestic violence against men, even though they are roughly equal. This leads to many legal disadvantages for men, and is used to justify the unequal treatment in family courts.

-exaggerates rape statistics and portrays men and 'society' as condoning rape, when rape is actually one of the most reviled crimes. They advocate for removing due process from those accused of rape based on this, and are constantly expanding the definition of rape that they use to include more and more behaviours that are in some sense normal sexual behaviours. This also causes people to mistrust men and women to be afraid. -Feminists act like women are paid less for the same work. In reality women are paid less because they make choices that result in them getting paid less. Feminists then say that those choices are socially conditioned, but give no evidence for that. They also ignore that women are getting benefits from earning less, such as more time off, and so the wage gap is not a necessarily a problem for women, it could be a problem for men. They use this misrepresentation to advocate for things like affirmative action, and I have also heard it used to deny that men have a problem when it comes to education.

-On many of the 'softer' issues like 'slut shaming' and body image issues feminists either miss the disadvantages of the male side of the picture, or portray an issue as something only women face when it is in fact nearly equal (body image disorders). Feminists also have a tendency to portray these issues as something that men or society do to women, and ignore the degree to which women are also involved in reinforcing these roles. For example feminists often complain about misogyny in video games, but media for women, such as romance novels and twilight, have many of the same things in them that supposedly make video games misogynist. The end result of a lot of these things is that they make male sexuality a bad thing.

Even though not all feminists might actively support these feminist actions, almost no feminists fight against them, and so by calling themselves feminists, and doing feminist advocacy they support such actions of feminists, so I have not problem lumping all feminists into the same group.

(note: I have used this comment to answer questions like your question in the past.)

oneiorosgrip · 2012-12-11T03:36:35+00:00

The feminist movement has clearly demonstrated that equality is not their goal.

From the sidebar, anti-male legislation round-up

movement-shaping writing which demonized men, The Women's Room is recognized as "a collective biography of a generation of American women" and "one of the most influential novels of the modern feminist movement." Author Marilyn French cited Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, which treated marriage and motherhood as systems of oppression of women in which the wife is nothing more than a passive servant. French stated that men need to dominate women and insinuated that stupid men are more likely to be successful than sensible men.

The SCUM manifesto, by Valerie Solanas, labeled men biological accidents, claiming that the Y gene is an incomplete X, making men incomplete women. On that basis, the author went on to condemn pretty much every aspect of human existence, attributing all things from general human behavior (mating, trade, social interaction) to naturally occurring misfortunes like diseases to the male response to this supposed inferiority. Solanas advocated subjugating those men who would be willing to join her ranks, and systematically murdering the rest. Ti-Grace Atkinson, elected president of the New York chapter of National Organization for Women in 1967, publicly supported Solanas after Solanas shot Andy Warhol for failing to produce for her a play based on her writing. Roxanne Dunbar, founder of Cell 16, called the manifesto "the essence of feminism."

Second wave feminism is the guiding force behind modern feminism's denial of men's issues, including domestic violence and rape. The rhetoric of the 60s, 70s, and 80s led to (successful) legislative efforts to compromise men's due process rights, as demonstrated by abuse of the Violence Against Women Act, behavior which is incentivized by the practical application of laws intended to protect abused women. Recent attempts by legislators to offer some remedy to this imbalance by making the language of VAWA gender neutral were summarily shot down following lobbying efforts against the move by NOW.

How Rape Laws remove the presumption of innocence

Male Rape Victims Forced to Pay Child Support

Unequal Execution of domestic abuse laws

Often to an unbelievable extreme

Use of threats and harassment to suppress evidence of reciprocity in domestic violence is one reason for that unequal application.

This includes harassment of researchers with whom they disagree, and continued suppression of evidence of gender-symmetry in domestic violence in order to reserve assistance and advocacy for women.

Even in an area of obvious need for equal treatment (the circumcision controversy) feminists have been more intent on asserting superior victim status than addressing the issue, because the issue applied to men. It's only upsetting to them when it's done to girls.

Feminists shamed men and boys into military service during WWII

Opposition to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 until their own stipulations were added at the presumed risk of derailing its passage (or, as with suffrage, if we can't have it, nobody can.)

recent attacks on the speech of groups feminists disapprove

If you still feel like asking why we can't all just get along... My answer.

MechPlasma · 2012-12-11T03:12:06+00:00

Simple: we have two very different notions of what equality is. Feminism is based primarily around that women have it worse by far, that culture is responsible for just about every form of sexism, and that something something Patriarchy. Men's Rights Advocates disagree, consider that kind of thought damaging and hugely discriminatory, and actively try to counter-balance it.

It's kinda like asking why Republicans and Democrats aren't basically the same on the grounds that they're both trying to make America better.

C0CKPUNCHER · 2012-12-11T08:40:35+00:00

This. Thread. Again.

Read the Faq.

Equality as a demand is the result of specific facts. Feminism and Mensrights disagree on the facts so they have different ideas on what is equality.

quasimotor · 2012-12-11T03:09:43+00:00

http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/whats-the-difference/

AnnArchist · 2012-12-11T05:33:14+00:00

The moment mens issues are brought up, they go WHAT ABOUT THE WOMEN.

Then their greed and lust for attention shines through.

That and the whole "All men are rapists" or "Men can prevent rape" or anything else that assumes men are perverts.

ignatiusloyola · 2012-12-11T05:46:16+00:00

http://orwellwasright.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/feminism-in-the-21st-century/

Read that.

IHaveALargePenis · 2012-12-11T05:59:07+00:00

Look at what feminists say and what feminists do. Hell, ask 10 feminists what the definition of feminism is and you'll get 11 answers.

Point is, that there's a lot of BS floating around about what feminism is and what it represents, but then you look at the insane laws and quotas being created in the EU and you'll quickly realize that feminism is only centered around what benefits women. This is why you hear about things like the glass ceiling but never about the glass floor, because all those men at the bottom are invisible to women.

Here's how a Swedish feminist responded to some questions. Mind you, she wasn't just a simple woman calling herself a feminist but a fairly powerful and connected activist representing the feminist movement in Sweden.

memymineown · 2012-12-11T04:29:22+00:00

This is the best, short explanation I have heard. There are better, longer ones out there.

Men's Rights Activists are fighting against anyone being discriminated against because of their gender. We care about (and many of us are actively working against) the subjugation of women in places like Saudi Arabia.

Feminists do not see issues where men are discriminated against as worth fighting against.

Many of them don't acknowledge that men can be discriminated against because they are male.

Can you see the difference?

EnigmaticInk · 2012-12-11T05:07:00+00:00

That's like asking why there are so many different Christian sects. Though the core belief in equality is there, there are extreme variations of where that line actually is and how we should get there. Equality has become increasingly grey these days. To be honest I don't really see it as a bad thing. It seems natural for me that people of different genders are more willing to tackle the equality issue from their respective side. There's really nothing wrong with that.

MeEvilBob · 2012-12-11T06:01:41+00:00

Feminism is about female supremacy. Notice how even so much as acknowledging that men face discrimination or other violations of human rights is extremely offensive to most feminists, that's not a sign of intended equality.

rightsbot · 2012-12-11T02:58:20+00:00

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sethdar1012 · 2012-12-11T04:28:12+00:00

In theory we have the same goals. In practice, feminism doesn't fight for men directly, and occasionally fights against them. In practice, men's rights spends a lot of time fighting the idea that women are morally superior to men, and that feminism actually does anything to help men.

From my perspective for reconciliation to occur I would say feminism on aggregate would need to make a few statements (I would ask on askfeminists what they would demand from the MRM):

In practice, feminism is not interested in helping men directly.
Viewpoints other than the oppression of all women by all men (ie. certain brands of Patriarchy Theory) are possible.
In western society women have a set of advantages (shorter criminal sentencing, family court bias, impossibility of being a domestic abuser or rapist, etc...) which should be rectified on the same priority as rectifying men's advantages.

The theoretical differences between feminism and the MRM are not very substantial. However, between the radicals, misconceptions, and venom spewing on each side reconciliation seems unlikely.

ghebert001 · 2012-12-12T02:40:49+00:00

One group truly wants things to be equal, take the good with the bad. The other group wants equality but only when it's convenient for them. If you had to take a wild guess which group is which...

fuktardy · 2012-12-14T13:04:34+00:00

I think a lot of MRA's are actually disillusioned feminists. I was a feminist for a long time, perhaps I still am in some regards. However as soon as feminists started to to talk about "men's privilege," it started to get hairy for me. Suddenly I wasn't on their side anymore because I couldn't seriously call myself a "terrifying potential rapist."

Somehow, constantly talking about men's privilege is supposed to decrease violence toward women through education. All I want to say to them is "congratulations self-righteous feminist, you just converted a non-rapist into a non-rapist." I told them if women are so afraid of rape, they should get guns, not expect a world full of socio/psychopaths to suddenly stop just for them. However, my argument was considered invalid because I was talking to pacifist hippies that think complaining is more effective than taking the proper precautions to protect yourself. (I consider myself to be fairly liberal, but I'm not quite THAT liberal, I'll mess someone up if they push me hard enough)

Also, the way they describe privilege seems sort of insulting. Just because I'm a man, I apparently have it easy. Forget the fact that I was raised by blue collars, I'm still privileged in the same way some self-entitled rich kid is.

In general, i think both camps have valid points, and not-so-valid points. Extremists in both camps seem to mess up the reputation of their own. Basically, everyone needs to STFU and listen to each other to find truth instead of trying to gain the higher ground by "being right."

2012-12-11T10:55:28+00:00

I agree with you mockturtlestory, and I've been saying it on both these subreddits for quite some time now.

People just get caught up in labels, and it's a shame, really. MRAs and Feminists are both guilty of it, but I have to admit, when it comes to making ridiculous claims about the other, I find MRAs to be more guilty of this.

Bob_Knows · 2012-12-11T17:37:44+00:00

Feminism is not and never has been about equal anything. Feminism was, is, and will be a violent anti-men, anti-family hate program. They only ever have pretended to advocate "equality" when it furthers their goal of female domination and eradication of men.

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