I am a male and I was an intern for a women's rights organization for a year. We need to talk.

2014-07-03T00:58:22+00:00

No one here will ever impede women's rights, there's no point of doing it cause we all want equality in the world.

Can i ask which organization it was ? I can expect this isn't the US correct ?

I am interested in human trafficking

When it comes to human trafficking a lot of the times boys are left out intentionally. Especially in the US, boys aren't usually counted in things: http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-11-02/news/lost-boys/full/

lazernerd · 2014-07-03T00:31:31+00:00

Pretty much all of the active users on this subreddit support women's rights in addition to men's rights. I'm not really sure what you want to talk about.

dakru · 2014-07-03T00:36:50+00:00

When the organization felt that certain policy was sexist towards men, for example, women's only library.

I have no idea what organization you work with so I can't comment on it, but I can make it clear that scorn here isn't (from my experience) targeted at women's rights organizations or the idea of women's rights. Most people here will agree that women have issues, especially in the third world. Fighting against human trafficking for the purposes of sex (or hell, for the purposes of anything) is a praiseworthy initiative.

Instead the scorn is targeted at the ideologicals, more specifically mainstream academic/activist feminism, which I very much doubt includes you. Why? Because you talked about sexism against men, while mainstream feminist theory holds that sexism against men doesn't exist.

If you go by the feminist definition, sexism is predicated on having institutional power over a group, and since women do not have that power, they cannot be sexists, reverse or otherwise. [http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/faq-arent-feminists-just-sexists-towards-men/]

I think you can understand why these ideas are problematic and need to be challenged.

w00t_usernames · 2014-07-03T02:41:12+00:00

I'm going to just leave this here, simply because there is so much bad info and conflation of different topics when it comes to discussions of trafficking that it really needs some clarity.

2014-07-03T17:54:51+00:00

Well, it's certainly possible that the women's organization that you work for is truly egalitarian and fair-minded. My guess is, nobody on this board has any means of knowing.

However, at the same time, you have to fully expect a degree of skepticism coming from men in English-speaking countries, because we know a lot more about how things work here.

There is a push from female-oriented NGOs and activists in English speaking countries to adopt the so-called "nordic model" of criminal prosecution with regard to prostitution, where consumers of sex services are prosecuted, but willing prostitutes who profit from the sale of dangerous services are assigned zero culpability.

In countries such as this, definitions of "sex trafficking" have become so expansively loose as to render them more or less meaningless, and to include a lot of economic activity carried out by adult prostitutes that is voluntary and, frankly, more profitable than the more ordinary economic activities such people would engage in.

Many sex trafficking programs provide an alternative avenue for prostitutes to avoid criminal prosecution, and instead to be diverted to social programs that offer services, housing, and free education. This of course creates incentive for claims of trafficking in many cases to be exaggerated. In essence, this can be a way for organizations to implement treatment of prostitutes akin to the "nordical model" of prosecution, in jurisdictions where prostitution remains statutorily illegal.

Like I said, I have no direct frame of reference as to what is going on in South Korea or many other parts of the world. However, this is generally known to be the case in a great many countries.

Recent newsworthy articles, I sure you are aware, on the subject of Somaly Mam have been discussed on this reddit before.

http://www.thenation.com/article/180132/sex-trafficking-lies-money-lessons-somaly-mam-scandal

SwanOfAvon22 · 2014-07-03T00:31:50+00:00

No one here is against women's rights, nor are we against women's rights organizations, least of all one dedicated to stopping human trafficking or providing shelter for victims of it. Rock on.

Feminism/feminist theory is another issue entirely. Not sure there's any conflict here.

nicemod · 2014-07-03T00:36:55+00:00

Well, that's all very nice that you want us to listen to you.

But have you ever listened to us?

Have you ever read our FAQ, or any other links in our sidebar?

Do you actually know anything about us at all? Because I can assure you, we know a lot more about feminists than feminists know about us.

You should get educated yourself, before trying to offer "education" to us.

2014-07-03T22:08:57+00:00

ethanator84 said:

You do realize everything you posted except GAO was written by either by media or independent minor research organization. Gender Wage Gap is recognized, empirically (with statistics), internationally.

..

You challenging me with CBS when I provided stats from WEF.

...

Woman earning 77 cents per dollar a man makes is not bogus. For example in Canads, a woman has madr 73 cents per dollar a man has made doing similar work. (Check World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Report 2013)

This is your area of expertise, isn't it?

You are incorrect. The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report 2013 is here:

http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2013

The data for Canada is listed on page 160, “Wage equality for similar work (survey)”, with a score of 0.71.

How did you get the figure “73 cents per dollar a man has made doing similar work” from this report? Not even the score of 0.71 can be interpreted to mean 71 cents on the dollar.

Why not?

Data sources for the Gender Gap Report 2013 are shown on page 5. Here, the source for “Wage equality between women and men for similar work (converted to female-over-male ratio)” is listed as “World Economic Forum, Executive Opinion Survey (EOS), 2013.”

What is the Executive Opinion Survey (EOS) you might ask? A description is available here:

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/CSI/2012-13/GCR_Chapter1.3_2012-13.pdf

.. basically, this is an opinion survey of corporate executives from around the world, who are asked to answer a series of questions, to which they are allowed to respond with a number on an arbitrary scale from 1 to 7.

This isn't an actual measurement of wages and salaries. This is an opinion survey. A sample of the actual survey (2010) is here:

http://www.eu.gov.hk/eos/EOS_2010_English.pdf

Question 9.13: “In your country, for similar work, to what extent are wages for women equal to those of men?”… with possible responses ranging from 1 to 7 on an arbitrary scale. (Notably, respondents are only allowed to respond that women make less than men for the same work, never more, but I’m willing to let that slide.)

So how did the Gender Gap Report 2013 convert this arbitrary 1 to 7 scale response to a score of 0.71? They don’t say, but it seems likely that they just took the average score of the respondents and divided by 7. That's their score. Pretty stupid, isn't it?

The previous link also provided data on how many respondents there were. I have trouble interpreting it, but it seems that for 2013, there were either 98 or 201 respondents from Canada. That's all. The response rate is not given. For all anyone knows, they could have sent out 1000 surveys to Canadian executives, and received back 98 responses from a small subset of very motivated ideologues.

That’s the origin of your “data.” It’s not even data that can say how many cents on the dollar a woman makes for the same work. It’s an opinion survey. Of 98 people. Who probably all make more than $200,000 per year. Only asking a general question, without respect to actual salaries. Responding on a arbitrary scale from 1 to 7.

So I don’t know really what you are talking about. You claim that all this international data is somehow conclusive and wonderful and authoritative.

But in fact, the international data is shit. As is most that is associated with international community of NGOs and so forth — filled with vapid ideologues who parrot around half-baked survey-based statistics that they hardly understand or care to understand. Just a lot of commissioned reports from shadowy ideologue-controlled NGOs containing tables and tables of intricate data, country by country, but reporting using made-up and mostly nonsensical "indexes." Most of the data originates from opinion surveys. Which is shit. They assume that everyone will be so impressed by their tables and tables of data that has the superficial appearance of being authoritative, that nobody will bother to trace down the original sources and methodologies, if a source is provided at all.

So, I guess you’ll just have apologize to everyone now for floating out your crap statistic on Canada. But that’s okay. We’re a forgiving bunch.

Maybe in the future however, instead of just parroting what your work colleagues and “international conference” colleagues are nattering on about, you should actually try to use your brain.

You’re welcome.

Crimson_D82 · 2014-07-04T18:17:33+00:00

Because men aren't trafficked for sex normally, they are trafficked for LABOR.

anonlymouse · 2014-07-03T00:50:52+00:00

99% of victims are women here.

Bullshit. Tell us the country and show us where you got your statistics from.

FreedomCow · 2014-07-03T06:32:42+00:00

I love this post but MRA is an enormous echo chamber and it won't go well that your voice isn't shouting in unison with theirs.

What you're doing as far as human rights is really cool, though. How did you become involved in it?

2014-07-03T15:21:15+00:00

Wow, anecdotal evidence from an anonymous redditor who claims to have worked for a woman's rights group and never met a misandrist. Great thread :golfclap:

lazernerd · 2014-07-03T00:56:00+00:00

I have never met a single woman who was a misandrist.

Do the women you work with believe family violence is male lead?

Of course, globally there are men who are victims under this category but I have been to field and 99% of victims are women here.

They are lying and erasing the male victims.

You work with extremists and misandrists.

WomenAreAlwaysRigh · 2014-07-03T04:49:15+00:00

"We need to talk."

I am not here to start shit.

majority of human trafficking here are for sexual exploitation.

gtfo

TheRedderPill · 2014-07-04T21:36:06+00:00

I'm guessing you haven't had much experience in western, particularly American, feminists.

oneiorosgripwontstfu · 2014-07-03T02:04:15+00:00

Okay, I'll bite: What makes you think that you, as a single observer involved in a single organization the name of which you have not disclosed, have any credibility as a spokesperson for women's rights?

jpflathead · 2014-07-03T05:56:39+00:00

"...we need to talk"

ie you are here to start shit.

If you weren't here to start shit, you would have listened, participated, and offered your experience, not told us we need to talk.

Also, fuck off.

levelate · 2014-07-03T01:36:30+00:00

I am not here to start shit. I am here to clarify few things about women's rights. Particularly those that are seen as "radicals" in society

don't tell us, tell them.

it is not for us to police their movement, we just poke fun at it and point out their hatreds.

I am interested in human trafficking in my country and majority of human trafficking here are for sexual exploitation

is trafficking for sex worse than trafficking for labour?

I have never met a single woman who was a misandrist. 90% of women working here were married

firstly, i simply don't believe you, i think you are lying.

secondly, what you say implies that a married MRA who loves his wife is not and cannot be a misogynist. is this what you are saying? or will you try some mental gymnastics to tell me that this is not so?

jpflathead · 2014-07-03T05:58:08+00:00

I didn't come to your house to poop on your couch, but I felt the need to take a dump and didn't bother asking permission to enter.

But I'm not here to start shit.

Mein_Tarnaccount · 2014-07-03T11:19:11+00:00

I don't get it. Do you think the Men's rights movement is advocating human trafficking..? You should judge this subreddit by what is being said here, not by what other subreddits say about it.

Also, most people here come from countries where human trafficking is illegal. That makes it a law enforcement issue, not a woman's rights issue, since women, like men, already have the legal right to not be trafficked.

Edit: good argument, ladies.

librtee_com · 2014-07-03T02:35:29+00:00

The problem isn't Radical Feminism. The problem isn't most naive self-described Feminists.

The problem is the ideology of Feminism itself.

The problem is the idea of patriarchy, which implies that all men are responsible for our social problem and all men benefit at the expense of women.

The problem is latent encouragement of violence towards men in media as some sort of twisted 'female empowerment'.

The problem are mainstream journalists and academics who uncritically report bogus statistics such as 'women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn' or '1 out of 4 women will be raped in college.' that get a lot of social equity poured into non-problems (the so-called 'wage gap', not college rape).

The problem is that feminists simply do not have the empathy to see that being falsely imprisoned for rape is a hugely damaging and traumatic thing. I've never talked to a Feminist who could even admit that being put in prison for years and forever branded a rapist might be at least as traumatizing as rape itself. They just aren't able to put themselves in another person's shoes enough to even conceive of this.

The problem is that almost all Feminists will stick their fingers in their ears when any discussion of governmental discrimination against men comes up.

The problem is a media sphere that tries to make women feel constantly afraid and perpetual victims.

The problem is Feminist promoted views that men initiate virtually all violence in society and female violence is rare as hen's teeth.

In short, as is so often the case with human society, the problem is false and destructive ideas and thought patterns.

Feminism is so deeply convinced that being born a man in society is only an advantage and being female only a disadvantage, that when they think of 'equality' they think that the only valid actions to promote this are those that help women. Males have it made already. They don't need any help.

This makes it really hard to work together with the Feminist for the betterment of humanity. Remember, in mainstream Feminists thought, men can only be 'allies,' and the most important thing we can do as men to promote Feminism is to sit down and shut up. Male advocacy is openly and widely mocked, even in prominent mainstream publications.

Feminism, as a movement, might (might) not hate men, but Feminism as a movement is certainly not at all concerned with the issues men face or what can be done to help them.

Feminists talk about caring about men's issues, and occasionally they might help men as a side effect of helping women, but when it gets right down to it, they spend 0% of their time advocating for issues that primarily affect men and boys.

2014-07-03T06:30:25+00:00

South Korea is a fairly different place than countries like the United States, Australia, UK, Canada other English language places where most of the people on /r/mensrights hail from.

I'm not sure there is even a single men's rights activist here from the Republic of Korea. If there is, I've never seen any posts from him.

So I don't see why you would expect what we're talking about here to be necessarily relevant to your experiences in the Republic of Korea. If you think that when someone here is talking about "feminists" they are talking about people from women's organizations in the Republic of Korea, I'd say that's unlikely to be the case, because 99.9999% of the people posting here have no experience or knowledge of women's groups in the Republic of Korea.

Maybe if you went to a Korean language forum for men, you might find out more about what guys are dealing with over there.

Good luck.

ghebert001 · 2014-07-03T02:34:20+00:00

How often do we talk about women's rights groups here vs feminism? And yes, they are mutually exclusive. Women's rights groups (for the most part) care about equality and rights for women...feminism cares about keeping the money flow and funding strong and steady for things like VAWA, Title IX, etc.

2014-07-03T09:22:20+00:00

[permanently deleted]

greycloud24 · 2014-07-03T01:32:53+00:00

how many women (what percentage) from your best guess knew exactly what they were getting into in the sex trafficking chain, and chose to do that because it was the best option they had? how many repeat victims have you had? how many victims were advised by friends and family who were previously trafficked to enter into the human trafficking field? how many victims were brought against the will? how many knowingly put effort into being trafficked?

i am under the belief that a large number of trafficked individuals knew exactly what they were getting into and chose to be trafficked. i am under the belief that many human trafficking victims become financially stable after a while and actually recommend this as a course of action to people they care about. i am under the belief that the number one way to reduce trafficking is to combat poverty.

MRSPArchiver · 2014-07-03T00:28:33+00:00

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DavidByron2 · 2014-07-03T16:04:35+00:00

Well in most countries prostitution is also about men and so-called "human trafficking" doesn't exist but is simply feminists trying to make a bunch of victimry about female prostitutes. So from my perspective you seem to be spreading lies in this story, which would certainly fit in with the idea that you are coming from a woman's rights (feminist) perspective.

I have never met a single woman who was a misandrist

You come across as a misandrist so do you really think you'd be the best person to notice it in others?

for example, women's only library

Gee I wonder how that got started to begin with since obviously it couldn't have been feminists, eh? But I really doubt that what you say is true about this women's rights group complaining about a female-only service when they themselves of course, were such a service. Did they complain about themselves too?

Peter_Principle_ · 2014-07-03T18:09:46+00:00

and I don't know where or how they found these radical ones that are obviously borderline insane.

You just have to look for the largest feminist organization in the US.

http://www.glennsacks.com/campaign.php?id=8

http://web.archive.org/web/20070708213232/http://michnow.org/jointcustody507.htm

anobaith · 2014-07-06T16:05:24+00:00

I honestly do not believe you, and I feel this is an attempt by white feminists to co-opt the MRM as they are being driven out of the feminist movement.

You have to understand that most feminists in this day and age are perpetual revolutionaries and draw their identity form it.

Combined with the fact that feminists will be fielding a candidate in the next election, they probably don't want to repeat the same mistakes Hillary made in 08(alienating male voters).

Combined with that, the MRM/manosphere is a huge unknown. Coupled with our zeal, we could be a pain at any attempt for a feminist candidates online campaign system.

That and the MRM is an untapped potential political resource. Plus the MRM views feminism as a hate movement, and has enough evidence that such claims could easily be backed up in court.

That especially makes feminists nervous as they become increasingly irrelevant. So until I see more proof I simply cannot believe you when everything I have seen in my day to day life, as well as the life experiences of other men, and the basic news of how organizations like the one you claim to have interned for routinely promote discrimination against boy's and men.

Until your provide more proof, no MRA in their right mind should indulge you.

guywithaccount · 2014-07-03T02:20:41+00:00

If this was an AMA, it'd be deleted. Downvoting.

Title	I am a male and I was an intern for a women's rights organization for a year. We need to talk.
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	13
Comments	128
Date	July 3, 2014 12:28 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/29p5qp/i_am_a_male_and_i_was_an_intern_for_a_womens/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/i-am-a-male-and-i-was-an-intern-for-a-womens.998437 https://theredarchive.com/post/998437

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