So, this is a collection of men's rights "critique". I was thinking that this post should be stickied so that people can offer their own critical analysis on this (it's often cited by radfems). That way, we are prepared to know what mud-slinging they will engage.

genkernels · 2020-02-10T19:51:59+00:00

Eh, this critique for the most part isn't. Most of it doesn't address ideas or anything of that nature. It's more a collection of media pieces that try to make weird insinuations. Those that do seem very pre-Cassie-Jaye's documentary in quality. I'll broadly categorize the links here as belonging to two approaches.

The first approach is exemplified by this article. That actually is a decent summary of a lot of MRM things or would be if it's main purpose wasn't to throw shade. It repeatedly tries to make the these emotional points, not as an argument, but rather just kinda needling things like trying to communicate that MRAs have trouble setting up a speech by referring to one time where people had to wait an hour and a half to see Farrell, or that they have ulterior motives by mentioning Farrell's divorce to try to make him seem angry at women. It's not an intellectual argument its a tangle of associations as character aspersions. And that's what a lot of those links are. So it isn't really helpful to offer critical analysis of such a thing because the point of the "critique" never was to provide analysis.

Another sort of this critique is to try to point to something provocative Elam said and say some variation "the MRM could be good except for that", without addressing MRM arguments concerning men's issues as if that was not a matter of contention (digging a little bit into the other main form of "critique"). This wasn't there in that list as much as I expected, though there was an article devoted to "John Hembling said X", and another devoted to Elam's past.

The other main sort of "critique" being offered is like this article

Men who were truly being activists for men would, as women have for decades, be giving up careers and time to start volunteer-run refuges for the thousands of men at risk from these problems...But it’s not the MRAs who do this. One of the only grassroots services for men, Australian Men’s Shed Association,mensshed.org

It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that the reason this activism doesn’t exists is that MRAs are not acting for men,they are acting against women.

Except, of course, the creator of the first DV shelter wrote for AVfM, and everyone knows the tragedy of Earl Silverman, and the broad MRM support for Men's Sheds and CAFE, and NCFM's lawsuit to allow male victims to be supported by the US shelter system. That the MRM is attempting to address root causes of suicide (the "impossible situation" cited by suicide attemptees) as opposed to just telling men to buck up. This approach is to exploit the general lack of knowledge about the MRM.

This is Michael Kimmel saying (bless him) "or I could say, as the Men's Rights Movement do, therefore we shouldn't have these shelters and we shouldn't fund them because the women are all lying. Well it seems to me that if you really believe in gender symmetry [you'd not be] questioning the number of women, you're just saying the number of men in soc---you would want to join with women...but instead they're saying it's like a zero-sum game, if we fund the women then we're going to ignore the men." It's the same thing. And it looks really stupid when put beside the truth.

If you hear "We would be the natural allies of MRAs, if MRAs were sincerely committed to the causes with which they claim to be chiefly concerned." or "MRAs should just be willing to work together with feminists and we'll make progress", that is what this is. Taking advantage of ignorance and nothing more.

Why isn’t [suicide] at the top of the agenda for MRAs?

Because suicide is an intractable problem that can be caused by injustice but isn't injustice itself. Because suicide research is in its infancy which stymies solutions. What is at the top of the agenda for MRAs? The article won't say, because it would make the MRM seem reasonable. This is only a slight variation: by presuming a lack of men's issues through ignorance one can dismiss the MRM as long as you don't listen to it.

Men’s Right’s Activists have been vocal in their advocacy for male victims of domestic violence and there is no doubt that this funding is in response to their activism. It’s troubling though, that this rare success in providing services for men seems, in large part, to be driven by anger that most services for domestic violence are directed at women.It’s both sad and incomprehensible that men’s right’s activism is strongest in the only space where women are more at risk...

And here's a combo method. Remember, the MRAs are the bad guys here for some reason. And it is because they are angry men. Even when they're right they're wrong because angry men are bad, regardless of how righteous their anger. Because women are more at risk, even if it's 20% more, or 10% more, or 5% more (the article necessarily abuses the reader's ignorance of the status quo on DV here), it is incomprehensible to be angry about the entirety of the funding for DV victims being directed at women -- not because that makes sense, but because men's anger and men's pain is taboo.

Oncefa2 · 2020-02-10T19:56:11+00:00

I commonly cite an article from that website from 1996 (reposted in 2009) about how feminists use federal tax money to spread misinformation about domestic violence in order to secure more money from the government...

"The myth of male violence". https://xyonline.net/content/myth-male-violence

I haven't been on that site a whole lot but it seems kind of odd to me that they would publish something like what you found.

Strikester101 · 2020-02-10T13:44:41+00:00

Please remember, you should post substantative criticism of this "critique" when you feel like it. Replying with something like "It's stupid" is not a good argument and wastage of time.

Strikester101 · 2020-02-10T13:26:29+00:00

/u/serpentineeyelash Can you sticky this post?

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