I was banned from /r/feminism for daring to defend men

...or at least I think that may be the case. Unfortunately, several attempts to contact the moderators have not resulted in any response back, so I'm unsure as to why I was banned. This of course leaves me only with my deductive reasoning skills (which, I admit, may be lacking) in order to determine why this has happened to me. I hate to rely on only that, but when you are being denied the information you need to understand why something has happened, this is the kind of thing that happens.

Before I tell my story, allow me to explain something. I am a feminist. I still consider myself a feminist despite being banned from their "girls club," but maybe they're just not as into equality as I am? Who knows. I believe in equality among all groups and individuals, which means that I believe in the equality of men, women, and every other gender/race/whatever under the rainbow. Having spoken with some of you on this subreddit about that issue, I'm sure someone will have a problem with that, and I'm sorry if my support of everyone is offensive.

Okay, story time.

The other day, I was posting comments on a few threads on /r/feminism. One of them was about that poor girl who was mistaken for someone else by the MRA and Anonymous. I stated simply that a man has a right to speak up and be heard if a woman makes a false rape allegation against him. Yes, what happened to that innocent young woman was horrible, but my argument was that this never would have happened if we lived in a society where a man could speak up for himself without being entirely ignored to the point where a group like the MRA and Anonymous (neither of which, to be fair, have anything close to journalistic integrity) felt the need to speak up for him by "dropping dox" on someone they thought to be the perpetrator. These aren't people who do thorough background checks (although they obviously should if they're actually attempting to help the situation), they are just trying to speak up for someone who does not have a voice. Just as I would speak up for a woman whose legitimate claim of rape was being ignored (like that poor girl in Maryville), I would also be willing to speak up for a man whose legitimate claim of false rape allegation was being ignored. I made my stance on this issue very clear, and to anyone with eyes it should be clear that this is a defense of a man, but it is also a defense that is in fitting with the concept of equality for all.

The other comments I made were on a thread about an article by Salon which apparently stated a statistic that someone chose to poorly and unfairly depict on the subreddit with the following phrase:

"Male student athletes make up 3.3% of the U.S. college population, but they are responsible for 19% of sexual assaults and 37% of domestic violence"

Now, as anyone with a college degree and experience in close reading/critical thinking can tell you, words can be easily manipulated to fit a certain viewpoint. One look at this and all I could see was "male student athletes make up a small percentage of the college population, but they are responsible for 1/5th of all rape incidents in the United States." How would you say this if you were asked to be more succinct? "male student athletes are responsible for 1/5th of all rapes in the United States." That's simply the way that we read, it's the way that the human brain understands these things.

After doing the math once and determining (thanks to a not so friendly user) that I fudged one of the numbers, I did the math a second time and determined that what these figures actually meant was that 1 in every 17-18 male student athletes was guilty of a sex crime. This is a startlingly high number to be sure, but when depicted as "1/18 male student athletes are guilty of a sexual assault," the information drives the point home that 17 of those 18 men are completely innocent. When that information is depicted as roundabout as it was on /r/feminism the other day, it makes it sound like all 18 of those men are rapists. I simply made the attempt to suggest that the title was misleading and could stand to be edited with more fair and balanced information.

These were the two threads I commented on the other night. A few hours after my last post, I checked my phone and found that I had been banned from /r/feminism. Without much information to go on, I took a look at the threads I had been posting comments in. The remaining comments looked something like this:

"Wow, this has to be the worst thread I've ever read on /r/feminism"

"Yeah, apparently someone from the MRA linked to this thread and they were causing problems"

"Well of course, all men are rapists."

ect.

From the sight of so many deleted comments and the concept put in my head that there had at some point been a bombardment of MRA people choking up the thread, the idea entered my head that I may have been lumped in with them when they were attempting to clean up the mess of a "digital riot" of some kind. Whether this event actually took place or not, I could not and cannot confirm, although the only mention I've seen of it has been on that subreddit.

With all of this information in hand, I was left with a few possibilities:

1. I was banned because I was caught defending men's rights twice in one day on a feminist board.

2. I was banned because I said something that a moderator didn't take kindly to for some reason, even though I only tackled issues from a purely academic, intelligent and understanding viewpoint.

3. I had been lumped in with a group of people seen as misogynists and banned for my assumed association with them because I had been writing in defense of men on that particular day.

4. All of the above.

Whatever the case may be, I feel I've been wrongly banished and I have no real recourse except for to confide on another subreddit which I feel stands for equal rights. Okay, so not all of you give a damn about the rights of women as well as men, but I know some of you do.

Ultimately, there's nothing I can do about this but to point out the utter hypocrisy of it all. After all, if my assumption of #3 is correct, I was banned under the assumption that I had something to do with a group I was not immediately connected with -- this after posting comments in a thread about a woman who had been trashed under the assumption that she had something to do with a false rape allegation. Is that not the definition of hypocrisy?

I just can't believe that we live in a day and age where many people who consider themselves "feminists" are actually misandrists who believe that only women are deserving of "equal rights," as if men have had their chance already. The concept that only one group of people is deserving of equal rights is against the very definition of equality, as it puts one group above another. Still yet, people who believe men are not entitled to equality consider themselves feminists, regardless of the fact that feminism is defined as an EQUALITY MOVEMENT. This only leads to confusion and anger on both sides. It really does bother me quite a bit, but since I can't talk about it there, I guess I'll talk about it here.

I have to admit, I was taken aback even by those who were trying to have a legitimate argument with me when they asserted that "most rape claims are not false, so the few that are shouldn't be reported." They actually said that. They suggested that, for the better good of women everywhere, men shouldn't report false allegations because they might get blown up and spread throughout the media like wildfire, doing possible damage by maybe convincing a rape victim not to come forward. For the sake of a possibility that a rape victim somewhere might not come forward, men who have been falsely accused should not report it. THIS WAS LEGITIMATELY THEIR ARGUMENT.

I'm sorry, but that is not the argument of someone who stands for equality. That is the argument of someone who stands for the betterment of one group of people over another. If you're arguing that one group of people should just "shut up and take their medicine" so that they might not discourage another, larger group of people, you're not a feminist -- plain and simple. You're not fighting for feminism, you're fighting for a hypothetical possibility that is unsubstantiated and has no bearing in reality; you're fighting for one group of people to face and accept criminal charges so that another group of people won't be discouraged about their situation, so they'll feel more safe and secure. I'm sorry, but if it were me, I would not be willing to go to jail on the off chance that it will make somebody, somewhere feel more secure. You wouldn't do it either, so don't suggest it.

Okay, that last bit was on the ranty side, but I'm just trying to get across that it's no sweat off my balls if I get banned from a subreddit that clearly doesn't value the standards that it claims to value. I have no use for communities that present a false face. Oh well, I got banned from /r/feminism. I'm still a feminist and I still believe in equal rights for everyone; for women AND men, not just ONE GENDERED GROUP.