MRAs and Feminism

ExpendableOne · 2015-06-11T15:40:52+00:00

By definition "men's rights activism" only claims to advocate for the rights of men, and that they are a complementary part of an egalitarian mindset(which would include both men and women's rights activism). Feminism, however, claims itself to be about the equal treatment of both genders despite not only doing nothing for men but actually harming men in countless ways for the benefit of women. They are trying to build themselves as a monopoly for "equality", all while actively being completely unequal in practice. It's like having a big energy company saying it's all about free choice but then spending millions of dollars into insuring that only fossil fuel ever makes it to the consumer.

EvolvingRedneck · 2015-06-11T14:47:36+00:00

I think because most of the hard left feminists want equality of outcome. While most MRA,s want equality of opportunity.

KrisK_lvin · 2015-06-11T16:58:20+00:00

Why then is there so much hate between the two movements when both want the same thing?

There are likely many answers to this but mine are:

A considerable number of the more vocal and prominent advocates of Feminism hold that all men as men have unjustified and unearned advantage over women as women - and many of these would maintain that men's privileges are specifically gained at women's expense through exploitation.

In contrast, MRAs (IMO) would argue that men are not universally advantaged as a class as this suggests, but propose a more balanced view of something like costs and benefits - so for instance, men on average do have higher earnings than women on average, but that this is not a result of discrimination (as Feminists assert) but that they work longer hours on average, overwhelmingly occupy more dangerous jobs and so on. Unlike women, men will never have to make a decision about whether to have an abortion or carry a child to term - but that cuts both ways. They may never have to make that decision, but they will have to live with it despite legally having absolutely no say in the decision.

Such a position - that every so-called privilege or advantage is 'bought and paid for' through time and effort as well as through corresponding disadvantages - e.g. working longer hours means more money but also less time spent with children for instance - is unpalatable to Feminism's basic assertion that women are systemically oppressed by the shape and structure of society.

The suggestion that men's advantages are balanced about their disadvantages suggests a system that, more or less, functions for the benefit of most people most of the time.

Feminists are social revolutionaries at heart and the Revolution cannot take place unless people believe the system is oppressing them - therefore they cannot countenance the very concept of a Men's Rights Movement, let alone the actions of any individual MRAs.

Edit - addition of more money but also

khal534 · 2015-06-11T16:53:49+00:00

IF you wanna see why? look at both postings side by side and the results they produce. you currently have a 0 karma on fem. and 15 on here. Look at what both groups are blaming and why? is it ethos, logos, or pathos. this really tells you the mindset of the groups in general. its like oil and water, they wont mix together because its not in their nature to.

Godspiral · 2015-06-11T14:22:19+00:00

Feminists use equality as a banner, but they don't want it. Rather, they want women to dominate the political and economic landscape as much as possible. If every member of the UK parliament were female, there would still be feminists calling for more power - this is the nature of power itself. For example, women have now overtaken men in many facets of society, but feminist still call for more powers and access in those areas.

To achieve dominance, they don't need equality - rather, they need to engineer a society that makes it easier for women to succeed than men. In turn, to achieve this, you need an endless supply of help that enables those women to achieve things, and you also need to put the breaks on male success to eliminate competition.

Please note that when I say "feminists", I don't mean "women". Actually, many of the biggest operators of the feminist machine are men, who have an internalized, misandrist world view - and many of whom, having achieved success already themselves, have no interest in increasing male competition for their position.

MRAs, in my experience, want those breaks on male success to be lifted - they don't want to stop helping women. However, since lifting the breaks on male success means increasing male competition in the marketplace again, feminists fight tooth and nail against it.

Once you realise that equality is a nonsense that no one is actually working towards, it becomes much clearer.

shinarit · 2015-06-11T16:50:27+00:00

Because feminists base their whole movement on something that doesn't exist, and they defend it with aggressive shaming and censoring.

Workchoices · 2015-06-11T14:40:18+00:00

MensRights isnt really an association or a school of thought, its a very loose collection of people who want equality, and are pointing out some of the issues men face and trying to get things changed.

Feminism isn't just a social movement, there is a foundation of academic "research" and theories and sociology behind it. It isnt enough to say " I believe men and women should be equal" you have to believe in patriarchy theory, and rape culture and wage gap and all these other wacky tacked on theories that have no basis in reality. A lot of it is based on faulty or bad research that is easily refuted, but still persists.

Now whilst gender isnt always a zero sum game, sometimes when you beleive wacky things like "all men are rapists" you are going to push laws that seriously hurt the 99.9% of men who are not rapists. Like when the feminist organization NOW pushed back against lobbying to change the law so you cant publish a mans name in the paper as an acused rapist until he is actually charged. Not convicted, just charged.

Kuato2012 · 2015-06-11T20:15:21+00:00

I'm opposed to feminism because I used to be a feminist. "Apostate's zeal" is usually dismissed as emotional knee-jerking, but there's also some truth to the idea that an apostate has had a good inside view of whatever institution they've departed. I hung around on very feminist-leaning forums and blogs for years and years before finally getting fed up with the general lack of intellectual honesty.

Intellectual dishonesty is kind of a blanket accusation, but I think it covers all the bases:

misuse of statistics,
reliance on dogma rather than data,
twisting facts to fit conclusions rather than vice versa,
censorship,
routinely marginalizing men's issues while claiming to be the pro-equality movement for everyone,
and of course, the naked hypocrisy of all the misandrist sentiments that are so generously sprinkled throughout feminist literature, forums, and blogosphere.

More recently, you could add to that list the utter failure of so many feminists to even attempt to understand the MRM. At the time of this post, there are four top-level comments in the askfeminists sister thread to this one. The top two say that the MRM blames feminism as the source of all gender equality. The next one says feminism wants to abolish the idea of gender, while MRAs want to keep it. The last one accuses us of uniting out of hatred and bitterness toward women (this one is followed with a "+1" type of reply).

To rebut: 1) Feminism does sometimes make things worse, but many of the inequalities facing men are much older than that movement. And feminist hypocrisy can get so aggravating that it makes a ripe target for derision.

2) I'm not sure whether the MRM really cares about abolishing gender or not. At any rate, it seems like a relatively minor point of contention.

3) Does the last one even warrant a rebuttal? Perhaps she has confused resentment toward inequalities men face with resentment toward women themselves. When a woman gets a super-lenient sentence for the same kind of crime that would put a man away for life, the outrage isn't because we're projecting sexual frustration and bitterness onto women. You'd think that was obvious... In fact, you might think it's kinda ~~sexist~~ bigoted to reduce justifiable moral outrage to petty resentment over an inability to get laid (which itself is another ~~sexist~~ bigoted trope and a gendered insult! Did I mention the hypocrisy yet?)

edited to add: just a reminder, don't post rebuttals or replies in the askfeminists sister thread. That's their place to express their own views. The last thing we need is to become the next sub in the banhammer queue.

SporkTornado · 2015-06-11T14:23:12+00:00

Feminists believe that sexism is a one way street that unilaterally benefits all men in every situation and disadvantages all women in all situations.

MRAs believe that both men and women are advantaged/disadvantaged in different ways. Men have advantages in jobs, women have advantages in healthcare.

remembz · 2015-06-11T17:09:52+00:00

You got too many facts wrong.

What is a feminist? The common definition used by feminists is that a person who support equal rights for both genders. But is that how the word is used in reality? No. Currently most feminists who control the power of the "conversation" (and get media exposure) are purely advocates for women's achievements. At best, some of these people are purely advocates for women's legal rights (like abortion).

When Bill Clinton was accused of sexual harassments, almost all the mainstream feminists like Gloria Steinem throw their entire integrities to the wind in defense of him. But hey, women never lie about being harassed!

You should know Camille Paglia.

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2008/01/camille-paglia-thinks-hillary-clinton.html

"After the great victory won by my insurgent, pro-sex, pro-fashion wing of feminism in the 1990s, American and British feminism has amazingly collapsed backward again into whining, narcissistic victimology."

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” - C. S. Lewis

BTW you got downvoted to oblivion in /r/AskFeminists lol

bluehorseinvincible · 2015-06-11T14:12:27+00:00

Simple, Feminists don't actually want equality whereas MRA's do, and that pisses feminists off.

DavidByron2 · 2015-06-11T16:47:06+00:00

Why then is there so much hate between the two movements when both want the same thing?

Because feminists are lying.

This may be a surprise but the KKK also claimed to be for equality. Hate movements like feminism tend to cache their views in terms of the left a lot, even as they are politically on the right. The KKK was considered a progressive organization in it's day.

I am also asking the same question to feminists on reddit

They will ban you.

Look people lie. Don't trust what people say, look at what they do. I guess that includes what they say when they don't think you're looking too. Like the way feminists have supported their leaders calling for men to be exterminated (genocide). Like the way feminists have a long history of lobbying (successfully) for laws that discriminate against men. Like their support for segregationism. Like their support for lynching both back in the day and the new kind of extra judicial punishments which feminists push for.

Feminism is an anti-male hate movement and they want the exact opposite of sex equality. They want a Sex War between men and women with women the good guys and men the evil brutish thugs that must be destroyed. Like the Nazis they make up stories about how the world is secretly run by men ("Patriarchy") instead of Jews ("Zionist Occupation Government"). They make up conspiracy theories ("wage gap" or "Jews run all the banks") to make people fear and distrust the hated minority group.

L0gic1o1 · 2015-06-11T16:56:30+00:00

Because all feminists do is whine about trivial issues that happen to men and women, while saying said issues are evidence men are somehow 'privleged'. They then advocate to push bigoted laws forcing women into things, because women already had equality but simply didn't want to do it. Whenever they are pointed at issues a everday american man faces that they would never experience in their lifetimes, they dismiss it and even manipulate the evidence. Manspreading was pushed by feminists to make a gender-neutral non-issue in to misogyny. Yet they ignore the legitimate suffering of women they don't like them. They rally to continue the concept men should be manly, but think that the concept of being 'ladylike' is literally worse than slavery.
They manipulate male domestic violence and rape statistics, minimize male genital manipulation, encourage the draft and then have the audacity to call men privileged and demand they get special rooms and affirmative action.
They don't just excuse injustices against men, they caused them. The white bird was made by feminists to mock men who did not want to be forced in to the bloody and useless first world war, called out against gender neutral or men's domestic violence shelters, encouraged the notion men can't be raped and more.
They've hailed murderers and rapists, worked with the KKK and Mussolini Italy, downplayed the atrocities of Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot, and than call us sexist and racist for wanting fair standards.
They don't even try to hide it, talking about 'male tears' whenever they realize that they have ruined yet another man's life with a faux sense of equality.
They've hijacked movements like atheism, liberalism and women's rights to gain even more power.
They've attacked video games, movies, books, male sexuality and everything that a man could possibly live for.
I am against feminism because I believe in the fundamental well-being of all humans on Earth, and feminism is the greatest threat to that I've ever encountered. They posses the racism of the KKK, the groupthink of Nazi Germany, the blatant lies of the tea party, the failed economics of Communist Dictatorships, the anti-intellectualism of creationists, the shaming language of cultists and the sexism of the very people they claim to hate. They are one of the most dangerous philosophies of all time, poisoning everything in existence and destroying all those who dare to not comply.
I am against feminism because I believe in equality, and that is what they are fundamentally against.

Blutarg · 2015-06-11T14:55:15+00:00

Feminists say they want equality, but then create and push programs that disadvantage men (the Duluth Model, for instance), and campaign the government to treat men worse than women (campus rape laws, as an example), and demonize men for harmless behaviors (see "mansplaining" or "manspreading", god I'm tired of those words).

azazelcrowley · 2015-06-11T15:25:12+00:00

It comes down to who you think has it worst.

Feminists say women have to suffer from worse effects as a result of sexism, and any time men suffer from it, it's just a backfire from sexism against women.

MRAs take the approach that either both sexes suffer from sexism, and the MRA is the movement to combat sexist against men, or that men suffer more from sexism.

Feminists claim that not believing women have it worse is the same thing as hatred toward women. MRAs do not make such a claim.

Basically, feminism = women have it worse. MRA = Everyone who doesn't think that, and some people who do. (Since they believe women have it worse, but that mens issues also need to be worked on from an MRA perspective.)

cymrich · 2015-06-11T15:41:30+00:00

lol... if you asked this on their sub too then I think you'll soon find yourself banned from there.

they don't want equal treatment for all... they want preferential treatment for women at the expense of men. for examples of this just read through the stories and articles that get posted here.

we want equal treatment for all, but focus on the areas where we are discriminated against quite badly simply for being male.

Francois_Rapiste · 2015-06-11T21:27:51+00:00

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TomwaIvory · 2015-06-11T19:24:58+00:00

Men's Rights Activists and Feminists both claim the same thing

I didn't know MRAs claimed that men were the source of all problems, I also didn't know that MRAs believed in Patriarchal theory or Rape Culture. I also didn't know that MRAs silence opinions in disagreement with their own by pulling fire alarms, assaulting people, calling them misogynists or blowing trumpets in a peaceful assembly.

Strange Feminists have done all those things and Feminism is built on patriarchal theory.

I guess maybe it's because Feminists aren't for equality at all? Maybe..just maybe...the Feminist movement is full of bigotry and hate?

Juan_Golt · 2015-06-11T18:08:49+00:00

We use different premises to define equality and different criteria to measure equality. Ergo we advocate for different policies. There is also the effect of the loudest voices tending to be the most extreme.

A feminist premise is that societies are setup to disenfranchise women and benefit men (patriarchy). The criteria they use for equality is generally comparisons between male and female performance in a given scenario. Their policy advocacy tends to try and narrow the measured gap in a direct manner.

e.g. Men are paid more on average than women. We need stricter laws to close the wage gap.

MRAs premise is that society is more of an emergent phenomenon that in the past had certain gendered expectations of both men and women. Our criteria is more about opportunities than outcomes. We pay attention to gender disparities, but we don't see every statistical difference as something inherently something one gender has imposed on the other. Our policy advocacy is more about removing legal and procedural biases against men.

e.g. Parental rights should be automatically granted to mothers and fathers, not just mothers.

There is superficial similarity in our goals but our policy advocacy could easily be in opposition due to our differing perspectives.

ThePigmanAgain · 2015-06-11T22:28:41+00:00

Feminism is not about equality. Feminists are trying to increase gender privilege, we are trying to decrease it. That's why they hate us.

iMADEthis2post · 2015-06-11T22:51:53+00:00

If the dictionary definition of feminism was true I'd probably be fine identifying as a feminist but it's a movement with men haters in every corner. I find feminisms idea of equality as quite frankly disgusting. Men are in the obviously less than equal place they are now because feminism doesn't stop at equality.

Not all like that? Sure, totally but those that aren't give credence to those that are by minimising and denying their existence. 3/4 of women refuse to identify as feminist for a very good reason. The more I see of feminism the more I dislike it.

Feminism is also an ideology not a rights movement, My ideology and the ideology of many here is egalitarian, /r/Egalitarianism would also be an interesting place to post this question.

xNOM · 2015-06-12T00:38:55+00:00

Why then is there so much hate between the two movements when both want the same thing?

LOL because we don't.

Elvick · 2015-06-12T05:51:03+00:00

Feminism is an ideology, as such it refuses to accept any evidence that would contradict it's foundation. It's a belief system built on the patriarchy theory. Ideologies are ripe for biases.

MRM isn't an ideology, it's as the name says. A movement advocating for men's rights. People have different ideas of what that means, and it's debated here often.

If you contradict the feminist ideology, you are no longer allowed to be feminist. Just as Christina Hoff Sommers, she says she's for equality and what she says outside of that claim actually proves that she is. Which is the difference between her and the people who call her a rape apologist, misogynist, anti-feminist, etc. Those people say they're for equality, while doing nothing to prove it and while saying things that prove otherwise.

You can say you want equality all you want, but if you still push things that wouldn't be equal then it's just words. It's the "I'm not racist, I have a black friend" of gender issues. Ask feminists how they feel about the right to vote for women. I bet you that the vast majority, if not all of them, won't say anything other than "it's great!" or something to that effect.

But in reality, it's inequality. Men got the right to vote with the obligation of conscription. Women got the privilege to vote just because they wanted to vote. That's not equality, and you can't argue that it is. Feminism may attempt to dismiss this claim as the "fault of the patriarchy" which is the problem with feminism. Everything is blamed on "patriarchy".

Let's say there's a leak in your walls. Feminism says, "It's the roof!" and they replace it. The leak is still there. So they say it's the roof, of course it is. Duh! So they replace it again. Someone comes to inspect and they tell feminism it's the pipes in the wall, but they say, "no no no, it's the roof!" So they replace it again. The walls still have water leaking in them, and the water damage continues to get worse and worse.

You are spending all your time on the wrong problem and refusing to consider that the problem is something else. You can't find the solution when the problem is wrong. Feminism thinks "killing the patriarchy" will solve every gender problem in society. That's absurd, even if we did live in a patriarchy [which we don't].

They have a narrow view of the problem and they refuse to consider anything else. They think everything is the fault of patriarchy. And you can't solve real problems this way. MRM is trying to address these issues outside the "patriarchy lens" that feminism uses. We try to use actual fact. And we reflect on our actual human history to say whether or not things are true about society, or if feminism is full of shit when it proposes that "men have always oppressed women" or whatever they want to cart out.

SilencingNarrative · 2015-06-12T11:39:02+00:00

Because of the widespread belief among feminists that men-as-a-group took advantage of women-as-a-group for the bulk of history. In other words, the belief that men are morally inferior to women.

While this belief is widely accepted among feminists, feminism amounts to female supremacy.

CivilEntgineer · 2015-06-11T15:45:14+00:00

I'm all for equal rights and equal opportunities, absolutely, and I think that is something all MRA's and feminists can agree on.

The problem arises when equal accountability is brought up.

If you want all the same rights and opportunities than you need to be able to deal with the consequences and responsibilities that come with them.

Trigunesq · 2015-06-11T16:28:30+00:00

I think there is a decent subset of ME as and feminists that would agree on enough to theoretically work together to achieve common goals. However the reason why they don't, in my opinion, is because MRAs and feminists have created this image of one another that isn't universally true but treat it as such. Ie: feminists see MEAs as whiney man children who dispise women and MRAs see feminists as borderline Nazis who couldn't care less about men. Hell that's why I stopped broadcasting that I believed in either movement,

2015-06-11T16:30:36+00:00

MRAs have a tendency to not believe in patriarchy. There is a strong stripe of anti-feminism as well so real surprise. That is all* heh

Arkazia · 2015-06-11T17:22:06+00:00

Honestly, this ties into one of my biggest problems with the sub. I compare it to the Muslim religion. The vast, vast majority of it's followers are cool people. However, you have the people who take it to far and end up participating in activities that harm others. This is a very small percentage of the religion, but they make the most impact and that leads to people who think the entire religion is based around terrorism, which is false.

This same kind of view is applied to feminism here and MRA's there. We don't pay attention to the vast majority of feminists who are actually pretty cool people and who have a lot in common with us. Instead we generalize and make statements like "feminists hate men" and "they use equality as a banner" because we only pay attention to the most attention grabbing cases. I'm sure there are a number of people who do the same thing with Men's Rights, where they believe it's a group based around hating women and "fighting feminism".

Alzael · 2015-06-11T15:14:55+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Title	MRAs and Feminism
Author	smiffy01564
Upvotes	32
Comments	105
Date	June 11, 2015 2:10 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/39g2t3/mras_and_feminism/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/mras-and-feminism.977896 https://theredarchive.com/post/977896

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