Common Ground Between MRAs and Feminists

Truewords · 2011-09-04T20:56:50+00:00

NOW (the LARGEST feminist org in america) posts "action alerts" against shared parenting bills.

http://www.glennsacks.com/enewsletters/enews_11_28_06.htm

As Christina Hoff Sommers documents in her best selling NY times notable book of the year "The War Against Boys" the AAUW (another fem org) promoted a fake girl crisis in the 1990's using faulty statistics or statistics that they "misplaced" in order to get all attention devoted to girls education, like it is now.

That same org tried to use the "wage gap" as justification for ignoring boys troubles in school.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peg-tyre/who-says-the-boy-crisis-i_b_104172.html

A gap that is bogus btw, as proved by the Consad Report (prepared for The Dept of Labor).

http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf

Then there is the recent male studies movement which seeks to mostly address the boy crisis. The feminist reaction to that was not postive at all of course, because "history is male studies".

http://www.malestudies.org/

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=male+studies+feminist&cp=21&pq=male%20studies%20feminism&pf=p&sclient=psy&rlz=1R2IRFC_en&source=hp&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=male+studies+feminist&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=7dae23aa7eb17534

NOW (again the LARGEST femi org in america) is against boy only schools (but not girl only schools) because "they increase sexism and exacerbate feelings of superiority toward women."

http://www.now.org/issues/education/single-sex-education.html

Many more examples of feminist hate can be found in Christina Hoff Sommers two books - "Who Stole Feminism" and "The War Against Boys".

No sorry there is no "common ground" between fems and MRAs because feminists are dead set against any mens rights issue. Like the recent proposal to shield the identity of those accused of rape in the UK, just google any feminist website and see some of the hateful shit they were posting in response to that.

BTW that proposal was dropped after enough angry manhating feminists cried to the govt.

theozoph · 2011-09-04T22:01:31+00:00

As long as feminists subscribe to the patriarchy hypothesis, which holds as an article of faith that all men are universally privileged over women, there can be no common ground whatsoever between MRAs and Feminists. The patriarchy hypothesis is used by feminists to claim that sexism against men is impossible, that the apparent privileges that women enjoy are really 'benevolent sexism', and that any disadvantages men suffer are due to the patriarchy and are hence self inflicted, so the only cure for them is more feminism. We will have nothing in common with feminists until they abandon the patriarchy hypothesis and start to address the empirical truth of the interactions between the sexes.

2011-09-05T19:03:59+00:00

If so, do you mean to imply that there is no reasonable way to be a feminist or support feminism? If so, what is the point of arguing against feminist beliefs?

Ideological feminism* is a commitment to a set of axiomatic beliefs that are held to be true regardless of evidence. In that regard, feminism is similar in nature to creationism, flat earth theory, or climate change denial. The point of arguing with people like that is not to change their minds, because they are impervious to facts or logic. The purpose is to convince onlookers the absurdity of their position, and the correctness of your own.

*Not all people who call themselves feminists are strongly ideological in this manner, but the most active ones, the true believers, are.

OfficerMudkip · 2011-09-04T20:45:59+00:00

One thing feminists and MRAs can agree on is to misrepresent the other side on a fairly regular basis and claim that their movement is motivated purely by sexism and selfishness.

Celda · 2011-09-05T03:37:10+00:00

Feminists want to eliminate gender roles / stereotypes (when women are harmed), and MRAs also want to eliminate gender roles to allow men to be teachers without pedo-discrimination, etc.

Of course, feminists support gender roles if women are helped (automatic custody for women), so that's not saying much.

2011-09-05T05:23:47+00:00

What modern feminism wants is to have their cake and eat it also; to say that men in general are patriarchs even when they aren't, and that women in general are victims even when they aren't.

One should not seek common ground with such fallacious ideologues.

MRAs should instead seek common ground with other humanists, egalitarians, libertarians, non-PC-crazy anarchists, and those who seek to dismantle the systemic privileging of any group over another. Maybe feminists can join in on the party, but only when they desire to dismantle the system that they have helped institute to gather political power unto themselves and their organizations.

2011-09-05T14:25:25+00:00

because women lack the institutional power that men have.

Yes. Because feminism itself is not institutional at all. Or have any sort of power. Like, when have they ever achieved anything? Clearly, if women would have power, there would most certainly have been some sort societal and legal advances for females?

-- The feministic ideals of equality and stuff are fine and all, but they tend to have pretty big blind spots regarding the flipsides of their own institutionalization and progress. They have become the establishment suffragists and early feminists went to crush.

The jargon still thinks they are an underdog against an almighty system. But from another viewpoint, it has created something of an uncontrollable political force, which often ends up being used for oppressive goals. They are attacking an unjust gender-system, when they have become the most dominating factor directing gender-discourse these days. And if that entirely visible and indisputably existing system (unlike, for example, invisible, theorized and eternally reforming patriarchy...) is criticized, the reaction is hostile.

In a way the MRA's have to oppose feminism even when they agree with the stances presented. Because the system backing them up has become dangerous and should be eventually dismantled. I doubt that even if the organizations for women would turn around and start advancing MR-agenda with full steam, the larger MRA movement would still not be compatible with such an erratic monopoly for gender & oppression discourse even existing. If feminism (or whatever that post-feminism movement will be called) would become gender-neutral, there would still be separatists.

tl;dr; anti-feminism is not dependent on the ideas or theories presented by opposing parties. Just having a monopoly in existence dictating what kind of gender-behaviour is appropriate and having the political and economical power to enforce it is enough.

2011-09-05T03:45:58+00:00

How do you debate with a religious person? Their idea of what makes a fact is so meaningless.

ManThoughts · 2011-09-04T21:24:18+00:00

Nearly all MRAs seem to believe in equal opportunity and equal treatment under the law. A small minority of Feminists still believe in that too, rather than female supremacy. That is a place to start.

AntiFeministMedia · 2011-09-04T20:45:47+00:00

Untill feminism becomes reasonable, there wont be any common ground, there cant be.

The ball is in feminisms court, and even if it did a 180, I cant see my generation of men forgetting whats been happening.

And you've got to understand, the sheer volume of damning evidence that is being amassed, both academically and anecdotally, there will be no truce anytime in the near future from anti-feminists.

2011-09-05T22:36:56+00:00

there is no reasonable way to be a feminist or support feminism

Precisely this. I don't understand how anyone can look at the history of feminism, and the actions of contemporary feminism and think "Oh hey, that's definitely something I want to associate myself with"

We usually don't argue against views that are hopelessly unreasonable, such as the belief that nothing whatsoever is true or that every single human being should be killed because the aliens want it that way.

Because no one believes that. If there was a large amount of people who did believe that you can be damn sure there'd be a movement opposing it.

DougDante · 2011-09-06T03:19:56+00:00

It really depends on who you are talking about. Neither group is monolithic. Common ground includes support for:

End of domestic violence
End of child abuse
End of societal enforced gender roles, especially in the workplace
Gender equality

The mechanisms for achieving these common goals are different between the groups, but broadly, they are supported by the majority in both.

sixofthebest · 2011-09-05T06:17:20+00:00

MRA has no power I don't see how we can support feminism. We can barely support our own movement. The better question to ask is why don't feminists support men's rights? They are the one with the power yet they push for misandrist legislatures like the SaVE act. Remember who were the first to point fingers in the Duke case? The women's studies department? The group of 88? Don't give me that NAFALT excuse. If even WOMEN'S STUDIES academics, the main contributors to feminists literature, are not feminists then who are? Yeah maybe we can't say feminists are fighting for equality, afterall not-all-feminists-want-equality.

If feminists really want to support men's rights, the first step is to acknowledge and apologize for the history of misandry and power abuse within their movement.

Jahonay · 2011-09-05T10:35:16+00:00

The theory behind feminism should be the theory behind MR. Equality in the legal sense of the word. Feminists do not stop at equality under the law, they want women to be just as or more powerful than men so that it's equal. This means they will sue companies like walmart because they don't fire competent male supervisors to hire women. Walmart as a private company should by no means be forced into hiring women who aren't as competent as the men they had hired. Feminists also want women to get paid more than men. The wage gap statistics that they show don't take account for things like whether or not the woman is a mother working part time so she can take care of her kids, it doesn't take into account the level of employment, so it compares doctors to nurses. And more females are nurses, more men are doctors. It also doesn't take into account women who are their own bosses. When it takes this into account. Women get paid 98% as much as men. They know this, but the social leaders in feminism don't want equality, they want superiority. And unfortunately the common people don't fact check feminist leaders, so they often blindly accept their answers.

thingsarebad · 2011-09-05T16:03:53+00:00

None, as all their beliefs are based on falsehoods. Even if they claim they want to "eliminate gender roles", it's for the wrong reasons, and what they really mean is they'd prefer men to be more like women. Any consensus is superficial and transient.

neofool · 2011-09-05T08:55:22+00:00

A bird's eye view would be that both groups believe that people should be treated equally and that the way they are treated by society should be based on their personality and skill set alone.

overcontrol · 2011-09-05T03:36:18+00:00

If so, what is the point of arguing against feminist beliefs? We usually don't argue against views that are hopelessly unreasonable, such as the belief that nothing whatsoever is true or that every single human being should be killed because the aliens want it that way.

We don't argue about killing off the human species for the benefit of aliens, because few, let alone the government, are blatantly killing of the human species for the benefit of aliens. Few still are taking such an argument seriously. If modern feminism wasn't taken seriously, we wouldn't feel the need to argue about it.

A_Nihilist · 2011-09-04T20:50:42+00:00

Feminists and men's rights activists are pretty much all the same kind of filth. You should all be publicly executed and if it were up to me that's exactly what would happen.

Title	Common Ground Between MRAs and Feminists
Author	topoi
Upvotes	5
Comments	65
Date	September 4, 2011 8:37 PM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/k4nh3/common_ground_between_mras_and_feminists/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/common-ground-between-mras-and-feminists.1035043 https://theredarchive.com/post/1035043

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