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"Men seem to be so cowed that they can't fight back, and it is time they did." -- Doris Lessing, Mens Rightser and onetime author of the feminist bible.

jpflathead

November 18, 2013

139 upvotes

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/11/17/doris_lessing_dead_nobel_prize_author_who_wrote_the_golden_notebook_dies.html

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Post Information

Title	"Men seem to be so cowed that they can't fight back, and it is time they did." -- Doris Lessing, Mens Rightser and onetime author of the feminist bible.
Author	jpflathead
Upvotes	139
Comments	11
Date	November 18, 2013 6:57 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1qvr1a/men_seem_to_be_so_cowed_that_they_cant_fight_back/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/men-seem-to-be-so-cowed-that-they-cant-fight-back.1158543 https://theredarchive.com/post/1158543

Comments

[–]Dronelisk 22 points23 points24 points 12 years ago* (9 children) | Copy Link

[–]kryptoday 8 points9 points10 points 12 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

[–]tn5421 9 points10 points11 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]RubixCubeDonut 5 points6 points7 points 12 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

No, some labels which represent a group allegiance shouldn't be forced on people, but labels which correctly identify somebody's ideological reasoning are completely appropriate to apply regardless of that person's preferences.

For example, if somebody says they don't believe we evolved, they believe that God poofed us into existence, and that science actually supports this world model... they're a Creationist not because they're a part of one of those groups but because that's an accurate description of their beliefs.

There may be some confusion because there's both feminism the ideology and Feminism the Movement (group identity) and because many feminists are intellectually dishonest fuckwits intentionally misrepresenting their ideology in order to forcefully define people as being a member of the Feminist Movement. However, just because many (most?) feminists are too ignorant to understand the nuanced differences doesn't mean we should pretend they don't exist.

That said, MRA and MRM are mostly group identities and thus I would agree that they are labels that wouldn't make sense to force on someone.

[–]Dronelisk 2 points3 points4 points 12 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]RubixCubeDonut 1 point2 points3 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Yeah. Feminism the Movement had specific assumptions it made about reality that make it possible to identify somebody as ideologically feminist, even if they're rejecting the group identity but only walking away with the interpretation of the world.

With MRAs and the MRM in general it's more of a vague rejection of the interpretation of reality that the common societal narrative gives us. Thus, some MRAs identify feminism as the dominant contributor to said narrative and are ideologically anti-feminist in their MRA group identity, but others only reject parts of feminism, and some just have the general feeling of something being off.

Feminism - "women are oppressed".
Mens Rights - vague notion of something is wrong with the way men are treated.

It's this thought that I had in mind when I said that MRA and MRM are group identities. The labels only give a uselessly foggy ideological description. (Hell, I'd say that SRS has a more solid ideological description but I would definitely call that a group identity first and foremost.)

[–]jpflathead[S] 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]hugolp 2 points3 points4 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]jpflathead[S] 2 points3 points4 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Bartab 0 points1 point2 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]ZimbaZumba 2 points3 points4 points 12 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link