hope: /r/feminism declares legitimacy of MRM

geengaween · 2013-10-13T23:18:22+00:00

/r/Feminism is fairly moderate, which is why SRS and similar radicals/militants have taken to other feminist subs with the idea that /r/Feminism isn't feminist enough. It comes as no surprise to me, or I dare say anyone else who routinely browses their content that they would recognize the legitimacy of men's rights. The question is whether these moderate feminists are a good representative sample of the type of feminists with power over funding, lobbies, law, education etc. I would have to say no, unfortunately they're not.

Mytecacc · 2013-10-13T21:28:18+00:00

You have a very low opinion of the mens movement and an extremely over exaggerated high opinion of feminists if you think they get to say whether or not we are legitimate.

warsie · 2013-10-14T01:17:16+00:00

The original mens movement of 1970s USA worked WITH feminists. Warren Farrell -was- a feminist after all. There was a split between more pro-feminist mens movmeents and what we know as men's rights.

chocoboat · 2013-10-13T23:59:10+00:00

It's a slow and gradual process, but it's good to see it being made. But it'll be a long time before we move from convincing a few people who spend a lot of time thinking about gender equality, to changing the minds of those who react to a male rape story with "what are you, gay?" or "lol that's hot, I wish that would happen to me".

Hg_CNO_2 · 2013-10-13T22:39:18+00:00

Progress of a mild sort, but ultimately, words, and less so the words of a reddit forum don't mean all that much.

What I want to see is action. I mean, even Big Red (Chanty Binx) acknowledges 'men's issues': losing custody and so forth. Likewise many feminists do, and like Chanty, they always go back to "men doing it to themselves".

Not to invoke Godwin here, but historical anti-Semitism, including that perpetuated in Nazi Germany is pretty clearly based on the "Jews did it to themselves! It's right there in the Bible! They cursed themselves for Deicide". Nobody argued that Jewish issues did not exist.

hierophage · 2013-10-14T02:16:14+00:00

I have mixed feelings about this.

For starters, can't we just all acknowledge the legitimacy of people's issues? Men have specific issues which affect them especially because they are men. Women have specific issues which affect them especially because they are women. Racial minorities, people with low income, people with mental illness, people of minority sexual orientation, etc. Every group of people which faces special challenges as a result of being in that group deserves to have its issues heard and defined, and reasonable solutions proposed and implemented.

I'll start by saying I've found many of the people in /r/feminism to be moderate and reasonable in their views. However, I find feminist support of men's issues in general to be suspect for many reasons. For one, some feminist organizations have actively enshrined old laws and pushed for new laws which run completely counter to the goals of men's rights advocates. The first example that comes to my head is NOW's active stance against equal custody. Furthermore, the most outspoken feminists in support of men's issues have tended to be ostracized from mainstream feminism, such as Warren Farrell and Christina Hoff Sommers. Why? Because mainstream feminism will only address men's issues if it is done within the bounds of their existing ~~dogma~~ theoretical framework, that of Patriarchy. And anyone who takes a serious look at men's issues cannot help but reject the notion that Patriarchy is the real cause of every single one of them.

Therein lies the rub. Feminists may indeed start to acknowledge the systemic oppression of men for being men, but they will not be able to help us until they start to recognize that female agency exists and plays a role in that oppression. The choices women make, the views women hold and perpetuate about men and masculinity are just as if not far more potent fuel for the fire of men's suffering as is so-called Patriarchy. Any feminist who cannot acknowledge this but insists that everything ~~can~~ must be boiled down to Patriarchy, probably due to some desire to trace the source of every human suffering to the actions of a person with a penis, will be incapable of truly understanding our problems or proposing viable solutions.

I would love to see more participation between people who advocate for men's and women's rights. But ideological feminism will not help men, because by its nature it is incapable of helping men.

One good thing I could see coming from this is that, as self-identified feminists begin to take men's issues as seriously as women's issues, they may find themselves in a place where they cannot continue without shedding their old ideas about Patriarchy. And that would be real progress in the gender issues debate. So there is hope.

2013-10-14T02:24:00+00:00

They didn't declare the legitimacy of the MRM. They simply declared the need for a men's movement. It's far more likely that they would be interested in the resurrection of one of the pro-feminist sectors of the men's movement from the 70's, such as the Men's Liberation Movement.

kinderdemon · 2013-10-14T17:24:21+00:00

I love how you guys keep finding out Demmian is an MRA and all real feminists have long since gone to r/feminisms and SRS

nicemod · 2013-10-13T21:56:02+00:00

Sorry, but our rules require that links to other subreddits must be in NP format ("np" in place of "www").

Please edit your post accordingly.

rightsbot · 2013-10-13T21:08:16+00:00

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2013-10-14T04:31:39+00:00

The definition of feminism is the struggle for gender equality.

So why call it Feminism, then? Is the premise that women are the primary victims of gender inequality? How do you measure that?

2013-10-14T08:01:39+00:00

The definition of feminism is the struggle for gender equality. As such, we consider it necessary to acknowledge the existence, and the legitimacy, of men’s issues, and the need for a movement and a dedicated discussion space to address such issues.

I'm going to dial back my usual cynicism for a moment and say "That's encouraging."

2013-10-14T09:24:06+00:00

IDK what to make of it. The idea that men are a part of patriarchy and thus privileged defies gender equality in their terms. Men are not discriminated against by what feminist preach. How can we have "issues" when we are socially privileged and in charge of social norms etc. Them accepting that actually is like there is something wrong with their theories.

I think they are going to experience a break down to some extent because of the rise of the MRM. See how the delicacy of their movement breaks so easy with free speech? See the reason why they didn't want men to say anything about gender? We supposedly had "privilege" they labeled us with.. Social problems 101 "labeling theory". On and on I could go. Is only a matter of time now. Their theories are breaking.

intensely_human · 2013-10-13T22:05:17+00:00

I wouldn't get my hopes up too high...

baskandpurr · 2013-10-14T00:01:35+00:00

That's actually kind of nice, although I'm a bit suspicious that they just want to co-opt the MRM like they did LGBT and atheism. Still, if they carry on like this /r/MensRights might even stop laughing at them. Eventually.

intensely_human · 2013-10-14T07:33:28+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Mitschu · 2013-10-14T21:58:58+00:00

No, they declared the legitimacy of /r/masculism, which at the time of its creation was a subreddit for discussing men's rights from a feminist perspective. Also from the FAQ:

Feminism is about gender equality. As such, feminists believe in equality for all genders. Any other view is hypocritical. So, there are really only two sane ways for a feminist discussion to handle issues of male discrimination. One is to consider all instances of gender-based discrimination to be on-topic and welcome within a feminist space. The problem with that approach, is the tendency for the focus to shift off women's issues and onto male issues predominantly, aka "derailing". When we allowed this, our userbase was very unhappy and had legitimate complaints that women's issues were being buried by all the "what about the men?" comments that were overwhelming things. So, the other sane/nonhypocritical approach to this issue, is to declare r/feminism to be for women's issues only, but ALSO to support and encourage feminist participation within other spaces which focus on men's issues.

In short - men discussing their issues without feminist overseers = bad. Men discussing their issues with feminist overseers, but in the mainstream body of feminists, also = bad. Men discussing their issues, but only in a specific niche where feminists can monitor and control the discussion, and also only in a space set aside specifically for men's issues apologia? Well, that's = doubleplusgood.

These are the same kinds of people who, at the Secret Toronto Meeting, without any irony, stated that everyone would be allowed to speak during the Q&A, everyone would have a voice, but that there was a limit to how many questions they'd answer, and so women would be given first priority before men, to make sure that every voice was heard.

Without irony, "Everyone gets to speak, but only after women are finished talking, and only if we want to spare the time to deal with the rest."

Which... sums up feminism in a nutshell.

PIBagent · 2013-10-15T19:26:43+00:00

it's something useful to link to if you ever need to convince a feminist that MRM is legit.

yes, like trying to convince a Klansman that the civil rights movement was legit. Asking a bigot if something they are bigoted against requires a movement is the height of foolishness.

Revoran · 2013-10-13T23:00:26+00:00

what a joke. that's like the kkk declaring black people are legitimate. I can see it now. KKK leader at the podium. "Black people... are people too." "Not people worthy of anything other than belittlement, mistreatment, slavery, and death... but they are legitimate".

bobojojo12 · 2013-10-14T02:50:59+00:00

See not all Feminists are bad

Title	hope: /r/feminism declares legitimacy of MRM
Author	intensely_human
Upvotes	34
Comments	57
Date	October 13, 2013 9:07 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1odnup/hope_rfeminism_declares_legitimacy_of_mrm/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/hope-rfeminism-declares-legitimacy-of-mrm.1161393 https://theredarchive.com/post/1161393

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