The strawman that MRA's think 'men are oppressed by women'

theozoph · 2013-10-08T08:58:57+00:00

Men aren't oppressed, but they are subject to unfair legal disadvantages. Those disadvantages used to be offset by rights under the traditional arrangement :

conscription = right to vote
familial responsibility = familial authority
disposability = respect

Nowadays, those rights have either disappeared or been extended to women who don't share those disadvantages, which is what makes them unfair.

Men have lost their familial authority (and paternal rights), but are still on the hook for paternal responsibility,
men are still considered disposable, but are now subject to cultural misandry,
while men still have to register for conscription, women now share their political power with no similar obligation.

This is what feminists call "equality". It's not. The slow erosion of men's rights has not been followed by a similar erosion of their responsibilities.

"Revenge" feminism has made sure that any transgression would cost them dearly ("primary assailant" DV policies, debtor prison for broke dads), while continuing to neglect men's well-being (educational and health policies geared toward women and ignoring men's needs), and using their newfound political power to secure ever-greater amounts of men's real economical productivity for wasteful (or even harmful) feminist-staffed jobs.

This is not oppression, but it is the creation of a parasitic social body leeching off men's money and suffering to fuel their useless/harmful gender studies, sensitivity training officers, feminist social studies and other equally inane activities.

The MRM is the birth of a counter-lobby to destroy this parasite and finally secure equal parental rights, fair treatment by the justice system and equal representation of men's interests at all levels of government.

Peace.

dejour · 2013-10-08T05:08:14+00:00

The same idea is expressed in the recent National Post article.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/04/are-men-oppressed-male-rights-activists-maligned-as-sexists-fight-to-have-movement-recognized-on-campus/

"Plenty of movements have opposed feminism, Mr. Laxer said, on the grounds of tradition and family, or faith and general cultural conservatism. But the men’s rights movement promotes a narrative of reverse sexism in which women have become oppressors, and men the oppressed."

I always try to correct such statements when I see them but not sure how much a handful of internet comments make.

My position is this (and I believe most MRAs believe something close to it). Society (both men and women) systematically harms men in several important ways. Society (both men and women) systematically harms women in several different but also important ways. Both genders experience sexism, and both anti-male and* anti-female sexism should be addressed with equal fervor.

Added the "and" for proper grammar.

rapiertwit · 2013-10-08T09:34:14+00:00

I think we should avoid the word "oppression" entirely. Some words are best left for the more extreme situations. Blacks in Jim Crow South? Oppressed. Women in Saudi Arabia? Oppressed. Women in 1955 USA? Disadvantaged in many important aspects of life. Men in USA today? Disadvantaged in a handful of important aspects of life, and subject to cultural deprecation, the effects of which on developing boys is unknown but concerning.

Sasha_ · 2013-10-08T09:02:41+00:00

I don't think it's correct to say men are 'oppressed' by women, but I do think that (in the West at least), men are commonly exploited by women, and that a great many men aid and abet that exploitation. I also think society as a whole depends on men being willing and eager to play that sacrificial role, and places immense pressure on men to 'step up' to it.

girlwriteswhat · 2013-10-08T14:29:06+00:00

From the screenshot:

"has 20xs more double standards towards women..."

How is this even possible? The existence of a double standard due to different views/treatment of the sexes would require that any such double standard exists for both sexes. There has to be an equal number of double standards for men and women. :/

4man · 2013-10-08T21:53:57+00:00

It is projection of feminist theory - feminists believe they are oppressed by men (Patriarchy) so the opposing movement, the MRM must believe the opposite.

ClaudeKenni · 2013-10-08T09:13:45+00:00

Men are oppressed by feminists, the government and legal system, and social expectations and double standards. Women do have some responsibility towards those issues, but to say all women, or women specifically, are the cause of that oppression, is wrong. Generally people who make such a claim are those who want to conflate women and feminists, or want to deflect from the feminist narrative which often does blame all men for situations caused by a few people.

rightsbot · 2013-10-08T03:24:17+00:00

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dungone · 2013-10-08T11:47:43+00:00

Whether or not it's a strawman, it would be no more ridiculous than their claim that women are oppressed by men.

The problem here is that feminism is a derivative of Marxism, so it appeals to black and white thinkers. They can only conceptualize one class of people as as being the oppressors of an innocent victim class. Any evidence that contradicts their view gets tossed. They can't help but feel that their entire worldview is under attack when someone provide any evidence of men being at a disadvantage in some way. Simply put, they're projecting their own mindset onto MRA's in order to make MRA's sound ridiculous.

Most people in the MRA do not use a class-based conceptual framework the way feminists do. MRA's can easily see ways in which both genders have some advantages and disadvantages. There are groups of men who are not MRA's who do have a penchant for batshit-crazy conspiracy theories, but their views are challenged rather than embraced by the MRM.

intensely_human · 2013-10-08T14:43:46+00:00

The oppressor/oppressed frame is just that: a frame. It is one way to look at the relationship between two parties of people.

I think we could go either way with it - we could emphasize the word "oppression" and in turn focus on all the ways such a thing is true - or we could go with different words such as "ignored" or "leeching", and this will color and shape our view of what we are doing.

I don't think the whole "oppression" frame is very useful. The trouble is, the word has been used for so long and and in so many situations that the concept isn't fluid enough to capture anything that might be unique to our current situation.

Don't get me wrong. We could go with the oppression card if we wanted to. But I think you're right, I simply haven't heard that word bandied around much within the MRM thus far.

I think fairness is an often-referenced concept within the MRM. Is unfairness the same thing as oppression?

Here's Google's definition of "oppress": keep (someone) in subservience and hardship, esp. by the unjust exercise of authority.

Here's the definition of "unfair": not based on or behaving according to the principles of equality and justice.

nick012000 · 2013-10-08T11:04:05+00:00

Men aren't oppressed by women. Men are oppressed by Feminists.

MockingDead · 2013-10-08T04:20:08+00:00

http://youtu.be/g3bXXXerLdk?t=9m30s

There you go.

She seems like a Grade-A cunt. She's grasping at straws.

Demonspawn · 2013-10-08T04:08:28+00:00

Men are oppressed by women via proxy of government. You can do the research and see how women's suffrage has changed the size, scope, and shape of government from critical services to bureaugamy (taxes from mostly men, services to mostly women). Considering that women's suffrage handed a 55% majority control of government to women, this is not surprising.

Since I'm sure I'll be asked for some sources:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/x737rhv91438554j/

Abstract: In this paper we test the hypothesis that extensions of the voting franchise to include lower income people lead to growth in government, especially growth in redistribution expenditures. The empirical analysis takes advantage of the natural experiment provided by Switzerland''s extension of the franchise to women in 1971. Women''s suffrage represents an institutional change with potentially significant implications for the positioning of the decisive voter. For various reasons, the decisive voter is more likely to favor increases in governmental social welfare spending following the enfranchisement of women. Evidence indicates that this extension of voting rights increased Swiss social welfare spending by 28% and increased the overall size of the Swiss government.

http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/WashTimesWomensSuff112707.html

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~iversen/PDFfiles/LottKenny.pdf

Excerpt: Academics have long pondered why the government started growing precisely when it did. The federal government, aside from periods of wartime, consumed about 2 percent to 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) up until World War I. It was the first war that the government spending didn't go all the way back down to its pre-war levels, and then, in the 1920s, non-military federal spending began steadily climbing. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal — often viewed as the genesis of big government — really just continued an earlier trend. What changed before Roosevelt came to power that explains the growth of government? The answer is women's suffrage.

2013-10-08T15:11:51+00:00

Some men are. But the only entity that actually has the power to truly oppress others is the government. No other actor can oppress without the government's consent and knowledge.

mister_ghost · 2013-10-08T15:37:19+00:00

I think there certainly are such members of the movement.

My opinion is the oppression, especially oppression by a specific group, is not always a useful concept, especially since it's a loaded word as of late.

The men's rights movement is far more concerned with finding specific injustices than empowering a group. Bringing the concept of oppression into that would make it far more difficult.

If we decided that men were oppressed and women oppressors, we'd lose one of this movements greatest strengths, which is identifying issues that are difficult to diminish. We, currently, can point out that men are dying at work and committing suicide far too often, and that even in more developed nations they are subject to genital mutilation.

If our narrative were focused on things that are women's fault, we'd need to account for why women wanted men to commit suicide and be circumcised.

It's best to leave the concept of whose fault it is in general at the door, and replace it with an attitude that identifies issues and follows them to their causes.

Funcuz · 2013-10-08T17:11:09+00:00

I've always fought the idea that men are "oppressed" in any way. Men , as an identifiable group are not oppressed. Nevertheless , they are increasingly to be found in the marginalized camp.

Apex fallacy and all that but oppression is the wrong word. Denied their rights , denied their due , denied common decency at times but not oppressed.

Aaod · 2013-10-08T17:28:34+00:00

Perpetuating ideas that "women's issues" are the fault of men is just solidifying that misandric behavior more. Rewrote this slightly and now we realize feminists have based their entire theory off this with something called the patriarchy.

PA2SK · 2013-10-27T22:34:48+00:00

I don't believe that men are oppressed. What I do believe is that mens rights groups are oppressed. And by oppressed I mean that feminists and others opposed to the idea of mens rights protest these groups, have had them banned from campuses and spread misinformation about them intended to turn public opinion against them. Feminists would have you believe that a group of men who simply want to organize a meeting to discuss suicide prevention are a bunch of hate filled misogynists.

Felisha232 · 2013-11-27T02:19:32+00:00

When MRAs support what typhonblue said from the CDC report that '40% of rapists in the USA are female' than you will have those who believe that men are oppressed by women. The fanatisism of avfm is geared to make people believe that women and/or feminism oppress men in one form or another. What the devil is to the church is what feminism is to the manosphere. After all, is there an mano (MRA, MHRA, Mgtow, etc) who isn't anti-feminist? Now that's not going to be easy to find.

Title	The strawman that MRA's think 'men are oppressed by women'
Author	tallwheel
Upvotes	56
Comments	71
Date	October 8, 2013 3:23 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1nyjpa/the_strawman_that_mras_think_men_are_oppressed_by/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/the-strawman-that-mras-think-men-are-oppressed-by.1161861 https://theredarchive.com/post/1161861

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