Feminists, if the Men's Rights Movement is toxic, how would you suggest men's issues get resolved?

[deleted] · 2016-02-12T14:45:13+00:00

In my opinion it doesn't matter what feminists or anyone else suggest how "men's issues" are resolved. It also doesn't matter how "men's issues" is defined. No one really cares about "men's issues". No one, that is, except a tiny sliver of men and an infinitesimally small group of women talking on the Internet to and at each other and at their enemies, real and perceived. And even that tiny group of men who writes about and "cares" about those issues doesn't agree on what "men's issues" are. And they don't agree on how to address them or solve them. Even most men don't care about "men's issues".

This is to be expected, because men are different from women. Individual men care about their own issues which affect them and their loved ones, directly and immediately. Men, individually or collectively, really don't care about things that affect "men" as a gender.

Men don't band together and "fight" for "men's issues" like women do for "women's rights". This is why MRAs are so ineffective. In over 50 years of agitating for "men's rights", MRAs have achieved exactly nothing in the way of legislative reform or improving conditions for men on the ground. If anything, conditions for men have worsened exponentially in the last 50 years. While sites like A Voice For Men have tried to call attention to problems affecting men, the bottom line is that no one cares about men who can't get laid; or don't do the work to try to get laid, or get falsely accused of rape; or whatever other ills befall men through their own fault or no fault of their own.

There are no lobbyists for men. There are no interest groups of any real significance seeking to help men. No interest groups have any real power in seeking legislative change to help men. It's because men don't work like women do. There is a Team Woman. There is no such thing as "Team Man". Men are more individualistic, and work to solve their own individual problems as best they can.

It's why there's no real cohesion at The Red Pill subreddit. It's why you see everything from self improvement gurus like GLO all the way down to incels raging against the world. Same thing in the manosphere at large, which is perhaps a bit larger than r/TheRedPill. It's all a collection of men, each looking out for themselves. It's why you see men doing what they always do, which is banding into tribes. This is what men do. They form tribes of men for the purpose of providing for each individual man and for the tribe, and to defeat other tribes for money, resources and women.

Men have to resolve their own individual issues. In fact there really is no "men's issues"; there is only millions of individual men with their individual issues. There never has been and never will be a "group solution" to "men's issues". A man simply cannot look to others, or to feminists, or to other men, to resolve his individual issues. He has to do it himself. He has to find his own way of resolving them himself, for good or for ill. He can look to r/TheRedPill or other manosphere sites for information on how to do that, but it requires work on his part, and application on a daily basis, by him and him alone. Others cannot do it for him. No one will pass laws to help him. No one will give him government money to help him do that. No one will tell him the "best way" to do that.

That's why The Red Pill subreddit and manosphere sites are what they are. It's all a clearinghouse of information, which a man can select and use for his own ends. He takes what he likes or what makes sense or what works, and he leaves the rest. And that is all it is.

CuddleLumpkin · 2016-02-12T01:11:51+00:00

I have no issue with men laying out issues and solutions to problems that uniquely or disproportionately affect men. I'd get behind lot of those causes, such as how men are disproportionately homeless, how men disproportionately commit suicide.

The problem with the MRM is that the only time they ever bring up these issues is when they are telling off feminists on the Internet. They use these issues as leverage to attempt to smack down feminists and tell them to get back into their place. "Yeah well if you think women have it bad, guess what, men are more likely to be homeless and more likely to commit suicide than women!"

There has never been any significant effort, if any effort at all, to help men in need. Yet MRA can line Paul Elam's pockets like no tomorrow. Elam, the founder of the Men's Rights website A Voice for Men, was able to raise something like $50K in just a few days for the "security" for his little get together in Detroit a couple years ago, which he admittedly spent about $7K on security, and pocketed the rest (which received no criticism from MRA). That money could have gone to help homeless men, underserved veterans, hell, into a fund to help men in family court. There was a Canadian man who opened up a domestic violence shelter for men. He had to shut it down because he didn't have the funds to keep it going. He ended up killing himself over the heartbreak of the shelter failing. Yet MRA can give Paul Elam $50K in like, three days of fundraising?

That's why the MRM is a joke to me. I would suggest the MRM becoming a movement that actually advocates for men, rather than a slacktivist movement that spends the majority of its time and resources on bitching about how much they hate feminists.

tl;dr the MRM is not proactive, pro-man group, it is a reactive, anti-feminist group

haikufun · 2016-02-11T23:09:08+00:00

Casual feminist here. Have the men's rights mov't. Just don't be the extremists who blame all women for everything. I dislike both extremes of paranoia (the other being hating and blaming all men) because if you really live in that horrible world, what is left to fix? Take some agency and blame for yourself because our culture is partly our fault, and start from there.

Jewptylianin · 2016-02-12T00:49:45+00:00

MRM needs way, WAY better PR as an urgent priority.

For example, you know what would work better than shouting about the lack of shelters for male DV victims? Getting together and opening a shelter for male DV victims. Volunteering your time, effort and $ to open it. Then get a good PR firm to make a short doc about the men there portraying them as human and sympathetic. At no point should you badmouth women or feminism during this process. Emphasize it's about men helping men. You need public sympathy and support before politicians etc. are going to do anything to help you.

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2016-02-12T02:01:34+00:00

Generally they say by focusing solely on women's issues.

midnightvulpine · 2016-02-11T23:03:54+00:00

Not a Feminist, but..

How about by finding people to lead the movement that aren't toxic? Look at past movements and their successes to figure out basic methods by which to address social issues. History is something to study when it comes to what may work today.

What MRAs try and go through official channels to get things done? How many address their concerns to local, state and federal officials? How many hold public protests without flinching at the first sign of opposition? Because all change is opposed. People lose their lives and livelihoods for what they believe.

As I've said before, no MRAs want it enough. They don't get what it takes to really push a movement for social change.

[deleted] · 2016-02-12T01:45:16+00:00

Maybe I could do more research for opening my mouth, but maybe we can identify one problem/issue at a time and see how it's being addressed by Men's Rights Movements?

downunderit · 2016-02-11T22:23:01+00:00

Stop focusing on hating women and start focusing on male issues. And in before you say feminism does it to. A lot of womens issues are due to patriarchy mens issues are not due to feminism.

Lack of sex is not a feminist issue, its not even really a male issue its just a personal issue.

Things like male depression where men are not encouraged to speak up is also not a feminist issue its a societal issue and something important that should be addressed without bashing women to say that we only like stoic men. If anything Red Pill is one of the worst offenders perpetuating male depression under the guise of self improvement.

Join the sub menslib. Those guys are actually working on male issues without the toxicity of women hating.

ControversialAcc · 2016-02-11T23:17:14+00:00

Get the misogynistic shit lords out of "leadership" positions.

Quit mistaking a personal failing for a "men's issue".

KHJohan · 2016-02-11T23:26:48+00:00

Feminism has become a very divided ideology.

The regressive left have hijacked the word, just like they have "Liberal".

Because of this the use of the word feminist or feminism creates a huge blank space in your statement.

Goodhearted people who believe in equality will think of them selves as feminists because of the definition they read when they look it up. like this

The majority of the people who call themselves feminists, are spiteful people who just complain about everything, and tries to blame white straight men for what happened 200 years ago and also for how airconditioning doesn't let them dress in fancy summerdresses. I don't need to link to these people because they are everywhere.

since feminism is soo incredibly divided, discussions on feminism should focus on specific topics to avoid misunderstandings and generalizations, since any feminist who actually cares about equality won't support the feminism everyone else hates, but they will still defend their own feminism, ensuring that decent chunk of people will argue over something they pretty much agree on.

GoldPilot · 2016-02-12T01:56:56+00:00

Visit r/menslib.

They're really doing it right over there.

HashtagNotJewish · 2016-02-13T02:20:32+00:00

Feminism.

bsievers · 2016-02-11T22:22:41+00:00

Feminism, by definition is about equality. Issues like non-equal divorce settlements, child custody agreements, etc are actually an issue many feminists do fight for.

Takarov · 2016-02-12T06:41:46+00:00

I got to throw a plug to /r/men's menslib. Those are, myself included, male feminists who work on male issues without trying to tell women to prioritize our changes over theirs. A lot of men's issues are related to our societies conceptions of masculinity and gender roles. We really don't need to distract women's from women's issues because we don't need women to deal with our issues. The approach is that we as a group need to tackle these issues.

WrensPens · 2016-02-12T02:16:50+00:00

I don't understand the men's rights movement. Its like the self victimization shit feminists do. I'm not a victim.

[deleted] · 2016-02-11T22:31:54+00:00

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Title	Feminists, if the Men's Rights Movement is toxic, how would you suggest men's issues get resolved?
Author	throwawaycomedian95
Upvotes	21
Comments	257
Date	February 11, 2016 10:12 PM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/45bed7/feminists_if_the_mens_rights_movement_is_toxic/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/feminists-if-the-mens-rights-movement-is-toxic-how.276283 https://theredarchive.com/post/276283

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