How/why did you align with the MRM originally?

SCROTAL-SACK · 2019-10-12T02:21:48+00:00

Experience with how women act IRL.

Specifically, experiencing double standards in how they act. Experiences with women when they're out and away from their bf's. Being sexually assaulted multiple times, and raped, and being laughed at when talking about it, being falsely accused of sexual assault and being beaten up. Having a friend attempt suicide after being falsely accused (by the same girl) of sexual assault. Being a victim of domestic abuse and kidnapping, and having my experiences downplayed while seeing constant propaganda of m on f DV online or on TV. The horrid, aggressive constant attacks against men anywhere I look. Feeling like a second-class citizen while being told its my fault that more privileged are "oppressed" because Im white and male.. its just getting worse. I dont even know why Im still here.

a-man-from-earth · 2019-10-12T02:21:48+00:00

It's a sub with a bad name in other parts of Reddit. I had already come across the phenomenon of subs that get vilified without good reason. So I decided to check it out for myself. And I found that I mostly agree with the points made here.

goodmod · 2019-10-12T07:36:00+00:00

I started school at five. I remember one of the first times we were marched up the stairs into the classroom. The teachers said "girls first", and I immediately thought that was unfair. Why couldn't everyone go at the same time? Then there was the playground. We were told in no uncertain manner that boys must never, ever hit girls, even if they hit us.

No convincing reason was given for this privileged treatment. We just had to obey.

I even noted little things, like the fact that in every school the boys' toilet block was more distant than the girls' one. It didn't occur to me at the time that there might be biological reasons for this, so I simply saw it as more privilege.

I went to a boys-only high school, not by choice but because I lived in its catchment area. So I didn't encounter any more issues along those lines. I did, however, have the interesting experience of being catcalled by a bus full of high school girls at the swimming pool. That was a little embarrassing but also quite flattering.

After puberty hit I wanted to get laid, and the social limitations caused by being a shy, nerdy guy who spent much of his adolescence in a boys' school became exceedingly apparent. In fact, my first time involved a girl physically dragging me into her bedroom because she got sick of waiting for me to do something. I am still grateful for that.

Anyway, this is just background to my arrival at university. In those days it was still majority male, and I exacerbated this by taking only STEM subjects.

So I approached the problem of getting laid with logic (big mistake). I decided that I could achieve my goal by finding out what women wanted, and providing it to them. The obvious place to learn this was at the feminist bookstall, because it was full of literature about what women wanted, right?

I armed myself with the reading material they kindly provided, and believed almost every word. It was shocking! Those poor women had been oppressed all this time! Naturally I became a committed feminist and worked hard at it. I'm usually good at what I do, and so I became quite popular with the local feminists (except for the blatant man-haters). I still didn't get laid though, and in retrospect it's obvious why that was.

But that ulterior motive didn't lessen my commitment to feminism, which was based on sincere beliefs I held at the time. I had a lifelong commitment to equal rights, and at the time I thought that feminism stood for this.

Fortunately I never became one of the simpering, self-hating, masculinity-loathing type of male feminist. I retained my critical mind and wasn't afraid to speak up if I thought something was unfair.

As the years passed I began to notice that feminism was not, in fact, dedicated to equality as I had believed. In fact, the reality was quite the opposite. So I became a one-man men's rights movement in my own way.

When I gained access to USENET newsgroups in the eighties, I discovered soc.men and alt.feminism, where I found like minds. From those first steps on the Internet I eventually ended up here.

BlueOrange22 · 2019-10-12T02:15:04+00:00

I started reading about some of the common MR issues like higher pension ages, conscription, etc. I wanted to talk about it and the MRM was one of the few communities that actually listened. I want a movement that supports general equality and fairness for all, the MRM is that so I stayed. Was 16 when I started, am 25 now. Don’t regret it.

OscarAlexHasEntered · 2019-10-12T03:41:04+00:00

Pretty simple- I’m a transgender man who used to be a liberal feminist. When I was thirteen, dysphoria hit like a truck and fucked my worldview in the ass. As soon as I started passing as male, suddenly life got much, much harder, and I was sort of like, ‘holy fuck people treat men like garbage, who decided men were privileged? Oh, women.’ And then I did some research, and found this.

genkernels · 2019-10-12T03:44:59+00:00

I watched Cassie's documentary. Then did some fact checking.

needletothebar · 2019-10-12T03:23:45+00:00

i was honestly really skeptical of it at first because i was exposed to feminism first and i believe they have a lot of very valid points. but then the more conversations i had where people and even feminists would minimize, defend, and even support male genital mutilation made me realize that it's not just one gender getting the shaft in this country.

Halafax · 2019-10-12T03:25:11+00:00

My ex is disturbed. I didn't understand her nature prior to the marriage, I couldn't see it. After the marriage, I kept trying to salvage the marriage, long after I should have stopped.

I had sacrificed so much, I assumed my effort would be recognized by the state if it came to a divorce. Just the opposite, the state's interest was solely in me continuing to support a destructive person, because she was a woman, so that they wouldn't have to.

The state didn't care about the kids. The state didn't care about me. The state's only interest was itself, specifically shielding itself by any means available. I came to harm. My children came to harm. The state not only didn't help, it continued to attack me.

What is seen can never be unseen. The state happens to agree with feminists, for reasons that have nothing to do with feminism. It's just convienent for itself, a reason to attack productive people.

It won't get better for men until the system can't extract free value from men. Once you see how it all really works, it's impossible to see anything else.

-NotaBene · 2019-10-12T03:15:22+00:00

I'm Christian, white, married, male, and have a cynical mind. It was only a matter of time :) A friend introduced me to Dalrock and I was hooked.

smartsenior · 2019-10-12T10:17:42+00:00

Highly functional and competetive autist here.

Couple of key experiences formed my stance on gender.

My first memory of feeling discriminated against was in primary school at age 6. Physical education, 25 meters dash. I was the quickest of all students, but ended up with the second best grade while much slower girls got an A. Baffled, I asked the teacher to explain. She could not.

12 years later I chose mandatory civil service over going to the army. I worked in an institution for severly disabled people. Again, women did not have to do this. I asked my boss why that is. She said: because women breed.

Strangely, this non sequitur went round and round in me for years. I could not bear the ambiguity of women being capable of everything a man is (which I was told) and women having social privileges (which I saw). So I said hello to Asperger's.

It took a couple of women behaving badly to strip me of my last illusions in my mid-20s. Last nail in the coffin was the observation of women pandering to the max during my (STEM) postgrad studies.

Today, I am a single father to a four year old girl while still paying (!) a grand per month in child support to the mother. This is by far the best deal I could get within the borders of my jurisdiction.

Bringing up my girl, goal is to break the cycle of female solipsism by creating awareness of both sides of the gender divide. Empathy for all things living.

The current generation is lost, however.

Egalitarianwhistle · 2019-10-12T03:13:17+00:00

I was called an MRA by an angry, dogmatic feminist for standing up to a public rape accusation, (not me,) in which I attempted to show evidence that actual provable lies had been told in the accusation.

At first I was like... how dare you?

I've since embraced it. The MRM is the radical notion that men are human and their lives are as valuable as women's.

Their veracity should be judged by the same standard as women's.

I hate double standards.

liztu_june · 2019-10-12T04:57:53+00:00

My parents would ground me for months upon end for watching porn mean while my sister got to run around in bikinis. Then I got my own computer gaming computer and discover YouTube and found other people content that felt that men where a disadvantage class.

Gohorne · 2019-10-12T07:44:58+00:00

I was refused a rental on a flat for the ‘safety and comfort’ of the live in landlady, purely on the basis of being male.

LettuceBeGrateful · 2019-10-12T11:34:07+00:00

In the span of a week, a female friend said something about the wage gap being a myth, and then while chatting with my cousin, she said she hates feminists.

I had never heard that perspective before. Even during my stint as a Republican, I considered myself a feminist because "men have all the rights" and "feminism means gender equality," all that crap. Interestingly, it was those two women who planted the seed for me to check out this sub. I felt like a chump for believing the wage gap, and I at least wanted to see all the vile misogyny of the MRM myself.

Somehow, I didn't become an evil woman-hater, I just started taking men (including myself) seriously as well. That doesn't fit the reddit narrative, does it?

2c165 · 2019-10-12T05:50:29+00:00

TRP gave me a simple, powerful model explaining many of the social phenomena I had witnessed in my teens and early twenties. GMOW was the logical conclusion given that MR will never undo societal norms favoring women, as those are rooted in biology.

NoButtholeNoGood · 2019-10-12T08:13:36+00:00

I learned at some point about how damaging circumcision is, and after a bit of time exploring the web I saw it was considered a common MRA topic. Then I subscribed to this sub, but that's the extent of my MRA activity.

ThePigmanAgain · 2019-10-12T08:47:46+00:00

I have no idea what "opened my eyes." At least as far back as my late teens it seemed obvious that men have serious problems, just as it is obvious with the poor and the blacks. As for the MRM itself, i had seen stories on TV about drum-beating weirdos and that did nothing for me. I even attended one group in the late 90s and found it to be just some guys complaining about their dads. Then the internet took off. I went Googling for info on female-on-male domestic violence and bumped into the old GlennSacks.com site. Holy crap, here were a bunch of guys going on about concrete, systemic problems and trying to solve them! Jumped in with both feet, and haven't left since.

ShawshankRetention · 2019-10-12T15:15:26+00:00

When my brother dated a hardcore upper class but frustrated feminist. At first i agreed with some of her point but wanted to point out that some of the thing she described came from women and not men. Then, as she lashed out, i understood how hatefull she was.

He is with a much nicer person now.

_Zetto · 2019-10-12T13:14:12+00:00

Got a feminist girlfriend. Then I realized

PrekaereLage · 2019-10-12T14:27:55+00:00

I was interested in women’s rights first having had first hand experience of some of the difficulties they face. The reading led me to men’s rights, and I remain concerned about both. I’m specifically interested in how we can work together and find common ground because I do think there’s room for everyone.

Omz-bomz · 2019-10-12T15:03:10+00:00

Why? logic I guess, it's fairly obvious when you know the facts. For me it was a gradual shift, from merely scoffing at ridiculous claims by feminists, to actually be part of men right groups localy. I've had three incidents that have shifted my view that way over the years, the first two incidents was long before I started to get into mens rights, but the last in addition to my sisters feminist claims was probably the one that pushed me "over the edge" so to speak, and actually standing up publically about mens rights.

First was child services trying to push me into signing documents stating that I was the father after my cheating ex told them I was the dad in an attempt to get back with me (she contacted me first trying to guilt trip me and lying about the time of conception (was after we broke up)). Child services not informing me that I have a right to parantal test, and being frankly obnoxious in the way they tried to strongarm me into signing even when I demanded a test.

Second was a close friend that got twins with his then summer fling, and she promptly not wanting anything to do with the children (even though she refused to terminate), and him experiencing the polar opposite reaction from the child services, having to repeatedly go to courts to get single parent legal rights and reimbursement, her refusing to pay etc, basically him having to fight every inch of the way to get the same support in society that is automatically given to a mother.

Third was a nutjob I hooked up with out on the town drinking, and the morning after, even after snuggling in the bed and clearly being into it, she suddenly accused me of raping her when her flatmate opened the door and said something to the effect of "how could you sleep with someone like him?". Me promptly leaving, almost excusing myself for having hooked up with her, and fearing legal repercusions left me thinking for a long time on how it was somehow my fault that she regretted it (or just pretended to due to her friends reaction) the day after.

My sister being a feminist (or just regurgitating their claims) over the last few years made me read up on all the different claims to debunk it, and as part of that getting into the mensrights forums and other men rights organisations.

stevesax5 · 2019-10-13T20:05:30+00:00

Three words: false rape allegation. Still dealing with it. Pretty much ruined my life/career.

Male_Positive · 2019-10-13T23:15:32+00:00

My mother was a feminist, so I learned all about it at an early age. That's why I became an MRA.

sadhukhan_p · 2019-10-12T05:51:50+00:00

I have started my journey with men's rights in 2010. I realized the most important aspect missing in men's rights was quality research and quality platform to voice our opinion without any feminist influence. That is when I started The Male Factor, a website that caters to men's rights needs. In that, I have once written about why I started fighting against feminism -

https://themalefactor.com/2012/12/29/why-i-fight-feminism/

Ovv_Topik · 2019-10-12T18:03:21+00:00

I was 'radicalised' by the ludicrous bias of of BBC news. Not even joking.

Flying_Testicles · 2019-10-13T01:47:32+00:00

Found paul elam online while searching for dating advice.

KngpinOfColonProduce · 2019-10-13T02:13:18+00:00

Through calm, rational explanation by Karen Straughan.

I had come across some messaging suggesting men had it worse than women before, on 4chan, but they had always come either with bold-faced claims without argument or facts, or with an overt tinge of misogyny. Karen's was the first exposure I had that was good.

The thing is, when I was presented with her arguments, I was like, "huh, men are the most common victims of violent crimes? And people care more when women are victims of these crimes? I already knew that, but I never really thought about it!" That was the kind of reaction I had to a surprisingly large amount of what she said. It wasn't new, but thinking of it in terms of gender inequality was.

abananaa1 · 2019-10-13T06:21:27+00:00

Witnessing and being a victim of domestic abuse for all my childhood (from my mother not helped by a very troublesome brother), and then returned home after work went bad when suicidal, to find the abuse worse than ever, mostly toward my father but me too. I tried to get help, called a non gender based crisis hotline for suicide one day upon leaving the house pondering suicide, explained the situation to be told by the feminist I must be making it up, as that kind of abuse (woman abusing men) doesn't happen, and needed to stop wasting her time. Read about Erin Pizzey, realised the mass concealment of domestic abuse perpetrated by women from the earliest years of the refuge movement, also concealed by the radical feminists in universities looking to protect their future careers (home has long been a woman's realm, how they can assert they have no control at home to be able to abuse family members I have no idea). Domestic abuse from my aunts mother (my grandmother) pretty much killed my aunt by suicide (the whole family, my fathers, suffered immensely though) which still wouldn't be recognised or dealt with today. Refuges/the feminist movement need abusive women to keep the cycle going and create the abusers of tomorrow. My mother was abused by her father. That's why they only treat one half of the problem. Or, another reason anyway, they need there to be abusive women allowed to continue untreated, to create the abusers of tomorrow. My brother turned into one, in part because the abuse he suffered growing up that wasn't recognised or treated, his wife then suffered, giving the refuges a new (female) victim to treat and an abusive male to hold up as just another example of an abuser "who are only ever men", to "prove" their dogma. Erin Pizzey is the only truthful activist on domestic abuse. Countless studies, deemed feminist heresy, have proven her right, and the "Marxist lesbianic feminists" (Pizzeys own words).. who took over Pizzey's refuge movement .. hypocritically, and massively damagingly wrong, as they really do make the personal (their experiences of abusive men growing up) ... Political, as they, like my mother, go on to abuse all men then can (these are damaged people running the refuge/feminist DV movement), or excuse all abuse toward all men, or from any woman that they can get away with.

Jay_the_General · 2019-10-13T15:03:36+00:00

A few smaller things, here or there, at school. Then I randomly found some feminist debunking YouTubers. (Dr. Shaym, shoeonhead, etc.) Went deeper into the movement and soon found the mrm. Realized how screwed up the world is. Started noticing even more stuff.

w1g2 · 2019-10-13T19:03:06+00:00

I'm a woman and in 2015 I had an idea for a book. It was originally very feminist, strong kick ass girl as the main character, until I realized that that kind of character was one I was seeing too often and I was just writing it like that to play into expectations. So I began writing from a more moderate perspective but still with a lot of feminist beliefs. Because my story was set in a fantasy world that reflected history, I figured I should brush up on actual historical laws and social conventions to inject into my made up ones.

I read social etiquette books from the 1800s and just in general read people's writings from the time, totally intent on finding misogyny. What I found instead was the opposite, how much men were exhorted to give the best seat, the best piece of meat at dinner, the best everything to women. Although feminists would shrug these off as 'benevolent sexism' this was the first time it clicked in my head that the feminist narrative of men being privileged and women being oppressed by society didn't match up with what I was seeing. I began investigating more and watched girlwriteswhat's videos, and eventually found this subreddit to talk about these issues as it isn't welcomed anywhere else.

n0tqu1tesane · 2019-10-13T23:49:49+00:00

I don't recall the case, other than I think I came across it in Readers Digest, sometime between 1985 and 1995, but there was a case at a school (U of MD?) where the local women's group took a group of photos of men out of the latest yearbook, and pasted them on posters with the words "These men may be rapists".

Those men won their libel suit.

PrekaereLage · 2019-10-12T18:17:53+00:00

It's a really long story. Leaving out a lot, you still get a textwall: My parents never really made gender, or girls, an issue and I only had brothers, my early thoughts about feminism (or what I thought that word meant) and standing up for girls were shaped by school and media, I bought the "girls/women have it harder because men hate them for no reason" myth as well as the typical view of history as "men free - women oppressed".
During my later years of school however, I noticed the obvious. I don't remember what exactly started it, it may have been the girl-specific events, noticing how the children dropping out and downgrading to "lower" school forms (because Germany, we still mostly had three tiers back then) were overwhelmingly male, feeling like PE grading standards expected me to be sporty to not hurt my overall grade average while girls got ok grades for free (which of course, you may call bullshit on, as I cannot really know how much harder physical activity is for women and girls), likely an amalgamation of all these things.
Once, after years of having seen boys do quite... physical stuff to each other with impunity and taking part in that myself (I had issues), in an argument with a female classmate, after she said some pretty hurtful things and went right for my weakpoints, in class, so that everybody including the teacher was bearing witness, I slapped her. A blockage in my mind held ,e back, there was no force in there at all, I didn't even effect her makeup, but she was really upset about this anyway. Now, it felt wrong, even though I sincerely believed that I was right to treat everybody the same, regardless of gender, and she went where no boy would have gone unless he was willing to continue the discussion in "body language."
Interestingly, instead of the "how could you hit a girl" reasponse, the most unfavourable thing I heard from my classmates was that we were both in the wrong (fair enough I guess), and I was even told "seriously, I would have punched her full force for that", by other girls. I'm guessing we were around 15-16 back then. I later reconsiled with the girl in question, we actually were on really amicable terms afterwards and put the incident behind us rather quickly, yet even though she, and I believe her on this, never complained about me to the school, I still was taken out of class later that week for a friendly talk with the headmaster. After everything that we boys had been doing to each other with the school not giving half a crap, as soon as a girl was involved, they had their friendly talk trying to get dirt on me, then the headmaster declared me mentally ill and tried to have me expelled.
This is only one example of the continuous bullshit that you tolerate at school, and I'm not even a special case at all. Again, never had an issue with girls, but with the system. Towards the end of school, I was very uncomfortable with the male identity and the baggage attached to it, called myself nonbinary for a while, then found a video on YouTube by Thunderf00t, way before the "sceptic community" was even really a term people used (remember when that was a thing?), and back when criticising Anita Sarkeesian wasn't yet a dead horse and she was gaining or even at the height of her relevancy. The idea that feminism was an ideology and existed completely separate from women was breaking new ground in my eyes. And somebody rightfully calling out the bullshit that I thought everybody except for me just accepted? I was intrigued, though I felt like I was dealing with something taboo. I found loads of other channels in the same domain, learned a lot about the basics of the situation, lurkingly observed GamerGate, came to consider myself an antifeminist (though my view on feminism and what feminism or antifeminism mean changed continously afterwards) and I began to see the kind of people that pushed the "gender is a social construct"-nonbinary-etc things, was confronted with the disagreeable stuff they said, distanced myself from that, and without the progressive brainwashing realised that to deviate a little from the norm you don't need a new gender and that being a man wasn't something I needed to be ashamed of.
Later I found HBR, learned of the term MRA, and just knowing that these people were out there and understood the situation of young men gave me some energy again, I got into Uni after some NEET time, heard of MGTOW, was sceptical but eventually decided that under current conditions I wouldn't marry, but still interact normally with women otherwise.
Learning from MRAs has shown me that there are way bigger fish to fry than I originally thought, but also that their were people fighting. Now I'll keep my head down while in the lion's den until I get my degree, and then help the movement that gave me hope towards its goals more actively as long as it stays on its course that I can stand behind.

dontpet · 2019-10-14T00:52:29+00:00

I started off in men's groups as a personal growth platform. Eventually I got a master's degree in socal work and after a decade or so in the field I thought I'd suggest setting up a support service for men in my region, similar to one existing for women.

I don found myself employees leading the service, though that wasn't my original plan.

That role meant I had to have a look at the big picture for men and there weren't a lot of options at first. So I had to become that person in my region, eventuallydoing a post grad paper in men's health.

I've learned a lot on my own by doing direct care for men and patterns very much emerged that I hadn't thought about much before.

Then I stumbled on this sub and have found it very helpful in interpreting what I see as well as a providing a variety of explanations for the drivers.

Title	How/why did you align with the MRM originally?
Author	AnarchySoda
Upvotes	38
Comments	108
Date	October 12, 2019 2:10 AM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/dgoxkd/howwhy_did_you_align_with_the_mrm_originally/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/howwhy-did-you-align-with-the-mrm-originally.867157 https://theredarchive.com/post/867157

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