What is the easiest, most irrefutable, position to have for male advocacy?

NimishApte · 2022-02-22T13:33:08+00:00

Abolishing conscription laws. Conscription is basically involuntary servitude.

duhhhh · 2022-02-22T13:04:02+00:00

Made-to-penetrate, female initiated domestic violence, innocent until proven guilty, MGM, and unequal healthcare access under the law. All are clear and easily defensible.

Suddenly_Sisyphus42 · 2022-02-22T12:50:21+00:00

I'd agree with ending infant circumcision. It seems fairly obvious that it violates any basic sense of consent and has zero proven health benefits, although there is a lot of propaganda about it.

Oncefa2 · 2022-02-22T12:50:32+00:00

Probably equal child custody or divorce in general. But if you want to get technical, anything dealing with homelessness, mental health, or the prison industrial complex, especially if you have a leftist audience.

The later group of issues don't seem like men's rights issues to most people though so I don't know if that's cheating or not (if you want to get your point across, a quick mention about how it's mainly men and minorities affected by these issues might plant a seed in some people's heads though).

Divorce and child custody are obviously "men's issues" and I think a lot of people agree that this needs to be fixed.

The circumcision thing should be straightforward but is crazy in some audiences: they don't see it as a problem, and actually figure that people opposed to it might have something wrong with them. Plus feminists have mobilized against this issue pretty effectively with "whataboutism" arguments where they try to detract from the conversation and talk about FGM instead.

WeEatBabies · 2022-02-22T15:22:49+00:00

The way men are treated during disasters.

From : Portugal giving the better vaccines to women, because patriarchy : https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/qncfo5/portugal_the_consequences_of_deliberately_giving/

To : The U.N. Actively denying fleeing men the support they need : https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/jvw9d2/the_biggest_massacre_in_europe_since_world_war_2/

And let's not forget : https://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/haiti-un-feeds-thousands-more-new-food-scheme-aimed-women

turbulance4 · 2022-02-22T17:07:14+00:00

For me I'm thinking it's either banning routine infant circumcision

Yes I think this is an easy one form a logical/debate standpoint. There is no good argument in favor of keeping MGM. The typical response is "but FGM is sooo much worse." And here I see way too many fall into the trap of responding about how there are various levels of FGM and how the really bad ones are only a tiny fraction of all FGM. The best response is actually "yes, both are bad. Let's make both illegal."

or the US "justice" system unfairly has too many black men incarcerated.

Too many black men are incarcerated. But the discrepancy between black male and white male incarceration is majorly dwarfed by the discrepancy between male and female incarceration. If you want to argue that problem you are going to ether A) have to also argue that we need to fix the male/female discrepancy or B) rely on a biological determinism ("women commit less crime") argument, which would then be inconsistent to not accept the same on the race axis also ("but also black men commit more crimes right?").

Some others have mentioned child custody and I do think that is as equally irrefutable as the MGM issue. The position is well defined, we are looking for a legal presumption of 50/50 custody, overturable if either side provides enough evidence that 50/50 will not work (or both agree on something else). The only real way to argue against that is for the other side to imply that women are just inherently better parents, which is a bad argument.

DevilishRogue · 2022-02-22T18:42:52+00:00

Female only scholarships are allowed but male only aren't despite women dominating academia. Sweden has already abandoned programmes to help under-represented groups in education when they were used to benefit men.

hehimCA · 2022-02-22T17:14:28+00:00

Everyone, including boys and men, has the right to advocate for their own well-being.

MathematicianNo4277 · 2022-02-23T08:56:19+00:00

Fucking homelessness.

This is such an easy and cheapnprovlem to solve (Finalnd and Urah just abolished it) but no. Because it's a men's problem.

What they will do instead is open women's shelters under the banner of domestic abuse but where in fact any homeless woman can go, and call it a day.

The weakest members of our societies, those who suffer the most, are framed as nuisance, subhuman trash. We spend more time and effort making them go away so they won't ruin the scenery than help them.

Homelessness in a wealthy country is a fucking disgrace, and all have it (but Finland and Utah). I refuse to even consider we spend money on "women in stem" programs, or art museums, or subsidies for businesses while we let people die on the streets (which we do not let happen to dogs by the way). Yet that's what we do.

Because men who see their lives go to hell must have had it coming.

gratis_eekhoorn · 2022-02-22T16:34:49+00:00

There isn't, people will travel miles to justify anything that disadvantages males.

magus678 · 2022-02-22T17:22:06+00:00

For me I'm thinking it's either banning routine infant circumcision (or more broadly minor circumcision - many Muslim and African countries practice circumcision later in life) or the US "justice" system unfairly has too many black men incarcerated

I think the problem for the former is that it doesn't do much to raise the water level outside its context, and the latter is will always just be hand waved away as racism (generally attributed to white men).

I am interested in this because these positions with the strongest defenses can be ones spent more time people getting on our side.

I think that Socrates has the right of it in this, as usual, by getting your opposition to tell you what they think the strongest inequality is. Those without an answer weren't going to be worth your time anyway.

You just build from there. From an article I rather like:

As the old saying goes, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they fight you half-heartedly, then they’re neutral, then they then they grudgingly say you might have a point even though you’re annoying, then they say on balance you’re mostly right although you ignore some of the most important facets of the issue, then you win.”

cromulent_weasel · 2022-02-22T20:56:21+00:00

I think men dying younger and committing suicide at far higher rates are inarguable inequalities that men face that it shouldn't be ok to do nothing about.

hendrixski · 2022-02-22T15:54:21+00:00

I'd say child custody.

The most forward progress seems to be happening around child custody. States are reforming their custody laws. Most are still not protecting a child's right to equal access to both parents, but many are making it more possible for men with lots of money to win equal custody in court.

iainmf · 2022-02-22T23:17:53+00:00

Everyone has human rights

Human rights need to be protected

Therefore we need to protect men's rights

---

They may argue that men already have protection, but that doesn't refute the argument. It's arguing that we do not need to do more, not that men's rights don't need protecting at all.

Even so, you can argue that we should make sure men's human rights are not being violated and not just assume they are magically protected.

If they agree with these basic premises then you can move on to the individual issues.

I think an easy issue to talk about is discriminatory laws. There is very little room for interpretation when it's all there in black and white.

RhinoNomad · 2022-02-22T18:26:23+00:00

The easiest position that everyone can get behind?

Probably the toxic masculinity one and the "boys should be able to cry" trope. It's pretty bland, easy to pretend to care about without putting in any real effort to make a difference, and it's pretty easy to put on a t-shirt.

But in terms of male issues that would genuinely help men in need, I'd say male incarceration or male suicide would be better. However, you should realize that even when you bring up those topics, you're still likely to get hit by the lite-misandry (or just regular overt misandry) in the form of argument that pretend to help men but really malign them such as:

Maybe if men didn't commit so many crimes ....
Men commit suicide more often because they are more violent...
Men don't reach out to mental health services etc...

Any argument that puts the blame on individual men for their victimization is misandry, point blank period.

Ineedmyownname · 2022-02-23T02:54:47+00:00

Paternal leave, probably. You can just talk about it it as an economic issue instead of a men's cultural one so left-of-center people stick to their welfarist principles.

genkernels · 2022-02-24T19:43:23+00:00

Government response to Domestic Violence. Feminists are so clearly lying about it, the MRM has some major wins in this regard with VAWA being constantly revised to make it more gender neutral (even though it was claimed to be gender neutral in its first revision), the helpseeking experiences study, laws that are absurdly gendered, 498A, UK legal aid dependant on false DV accusations, there is simply so much material on this subject that is so surprising to people who haven't heard of any of it and so bloody dire too.
Conscription is a "yeah duh" moment that can be over with very quickly.
Anti-male pedophile hysteria is I think a surprisingly easy position, because the stories of men being with their children in public are common and crazy.
University discrimination is a neat one because it's hard to argue that universities weren't doing something wrong in the US when they got shut down by actual courts so hard. Similarly, the ways that universities do affirmative action for the majority is also so blatant that even if a person may contest the issue in a broader context, it is simply hard to argue against when it is this extreme.
In some jurisdictions there are laws against rape specifically, but men cannot be legally considered raped (this is of course especially egregious in India's case, where the reason that men cannot be legally considered raped is because they might lie about it). In the event of statutory rape, men are often not considered harmed. At the extreme end of this we have Nathaniel J, Shane Seyer, and I believe others. Female prison guards routinely view naked male prisoners in this US. This is despite abuse by female guards being well known (alternate link).
Suicide and homelessness are fairly powerful, but it is by no means easy, because it is necessary to prepare a response to "...caused by patriarchy", which, you know, the word "patriarchy" is deliberately designed to be a hall of mirrors. Whereas the "but muh patriarchy" response that university injustice might cause is much more easily answered as it is legitimately off-topic. On the other hand, these issues can go right to the core of the feminist hate movement, so if you want to have that conversation these topics would be a strong way to do that.

ferrocarrilusa · 2022-02-24T21:37:11+00:00

End arrests for victimless acts and broken windows policing. These practices violate people's liberties and treat morality as law

International_Crew89 · 2022-03-01T20:48:09+00:00

I think I agree with you. Hands down, banning all infant circumcision has to be the easiest fight men's rights activists could push.

NotCis_TM · 2022-07-01T20:40:13+00:00

Probably homelessness.

Title	What is the easiest, most irrefutable, position to have for male advocacy?
Author	austin101123
Upvotes	49
Comments	74
Date	February 22, 2022 12:43 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/symqa3/what_is_the_easiest_most_irrefutable_position_to/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/what-is-the-easiest-most-irrefutable-position-to.1103534 https://theredarchive.com/post/1103534

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