My two cents on this subreddit.

sibqm_lmvm · 2013-07-20T15:34:40+00:00

Why are extreme feminists not "true" feminists, and why did you not grant MRAs the same clarification?

Radical feminists are still feminists. They still want rights for women, but their way of achieving that usually entails harming the rights of men (or decimating the male population). Radical MRAs still want equal rights for men, but they simply hate women. They don't necessarily want to take their rights away (some do, though. U/demonspawn believes that women should not have the right to vote, but no one else here has advocated for it).

The difference between feminists and MRAs is that MRAs do not pretend that the undesirable parts of the movement do not exist, unlike feminists. We do not run around shouting that not all MRAs are like that. Instead, we acknowledge that our movement is still young and lots of people are still really angry about having their rights infringed upon. Surely feminists were angry and misandric at some point in their very long existence. (Rhetorical statement. I know they were like this)

saint2e · 2013-07-20T16:25:07+00:00

Because unfortunately "Feminism" has the monopoly on human rights, and they aren't representing men well.

Seriously. Explicitly tell people you're not a feminist. I'd be willing to bet a large part of the reactions will be questions like "Why don't you support equal rights?"

Feminism, contrary to what they claim, do not have men's rights in mind, which is not necessarily a bad thing in an of itself. It's disingenuous when they claim they DO have men's rights in mind, because I haven't seen anything to support that claim yet.

2013-07-20T21:28:27+00:00

Why can't we drop the gender and fight for human rights and equality?

That's pretty much what this sub is all about. Sure, we're looking at the Men's Rights aspect, but there's very few people here (note: PEOPLE, not MEN) who believe in taking away women's rights or don't support the concept of equality for ALL.

Examples:

We want 50/50 shared parenting time to be default when a case is started.
We want all forms of infant genital mutilation outlawed, not just for girls like is currently the case. We agree that FGM is bad, but argue that MGM is equally as bad and thus deserving of the same scorn and censure.
We want attention drawn to (and assistance provided, which it currently isn't) male rape and domestic violence victims and to those falsely accused of rape
We want male suicide and depression to become common knowledge, to normalise talking about it in order to remove the stigma so they can get the help they need

Why we're so anti-feminist is that feminism fights against these forms of equality and still claims to be fighting FOR equality. NOW has actively fought against shared parenting, citing "best interests of the child". Feminists cry that FGM is worse than MGM, and that MGM has "benefits" (all of which are achievable by other, non-surgical means). Any time male victims of rape and DV are brought up, it's brushed off as such a small percentage as to be irrelevant (and they ignore the fact that ~ 1/3 victims of DV is a male). Any time male suicide rate (currently 4x that of women in Australia) is raised, the "but women attempt it more often!" is cried. If it were truly about equality, why isn't feminism stepping in to HELP US?

These are the kinds of things we're talking about in this sub. And it's personal. The majority of folk in this sub are men. I'm pregnant with a boy, and happily married to a man who suffered abuse at the hands of his mother, leaving him with depression and PTSD. These things affect my husband and son, and through them, me.

And for supporting their rights, I have been ridiculed, mocked, insulted and dismissed over and over and over again by feminists. So much for "we're for equality".

oneiorosgrip · 2013-07-20T15:32:23+00:00

Why can't we drop the gender and fight for human rights and equality? When we pit the genders against each other, we become divided. That is where human rights and equality falters.

Sounds good. Are you taking this message to /r/feminism ?

2013-07-20T18:46:58+00:00

As far as I have seen (and I have indeed looked), "true" feminism does not seek equality, only privilege. NOW, the largest feminist organization in the US, regularly fights against any legislation that would give equal custody rights to fathers. Femimists have fought to allow women in all branches of the military, but not to accept equal responsibility for registering for the draft. Feminists like Mary Koss shout loudly about ending the rape of women while denying that men can be raped at all. The whole rhetoric of rape prevention paints men as little more than immoral animals.

Feminism fights to be the only voice in the gender debate. That is why your post was deleted from /r/feminism and that is why feminists protest any talks concerning men's rights (look up the Warren Farrell Toronto protests if you aren't aware).

The definition of feminism that most seem to go by hold that men are actively and intentionally oppressing women. Yes, around 70% of the government and corporate heads are men. More relevant than that is that they are rich and powerful.

I dont deny that feminism has done some good deeds and had useful contributions to gender rights. Unfortunately, when they had completed the majority of their goals, they chose to make white men scapegoats and all men enemies, rather than evolve the movement to encompass the rights of all people.

Edit: grammar

Aaod · 2013-07-20T17:11:33+00:00

Because both genders have been hurt by people of the other gender. Look at the recent link to a AMA by a ex radical feminist. Lots of the people here are still seething in pain or anger over what they dealt with especially in cases where the system failed them. We tend to accept them but we point out when they are wrong or are being misogynistic simply because we know we have to police ourselves.

Why do we fight against feminism? Because the current iteration of feminism has advocated for things against men and is little more than a empowerment movement even when that comes at the expense of men. Pushing to get more women into college despite 60% of college students already being female for just one of many examples. Or feminist organizations fighting against stuff like laws for male domestic violence victims.

Overall most of us have no problem with equality but feel that feminism both blames us for all the worlds problems tells us it will help us and at the same time stabs us in the back every time we ask for help. At the very least we get told by them waaaahhh what about the menz most of the time which how would you feel if you had serious issues and were told that? Obviously our response due to it happening so many times is to tell feminism to go to hell.

Alzael · 2013-07-20T18:26:51+00:00

I am not clear why this is a reoccurring issue with my post.

Because you sound exactly like a feminist. You have the same blind spots, the same limited knowledge, the same misconceptions etc.

Examples

Well, I said true feminism, not true feminists.

I personally believe that there was a time for feminism, and that time has pretty much come and gone.

I'm just basing it off what you've said so far, but I seriously doubt you actually believe in gender equality. Or more precisely, I believe you think that you do, but I don't believe you have enough knowledge to understand what that means and its implications. Which is likely why you're not being taken very seriously.

rightsbot · 2013-07-20T15:24:17+00:00

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TheMightyCheng · 2013-07-20T21:56:21+00:00

Have you ever heard the term Internet Backdraft?

I'm guessing you wandered in with the best of intentions but it might have come across as "Why are you all doing this? Stop it."

As you've probably worked out by now, any suggestion that mens issues can be solved by or through feminism tends to put people's backs up.

Why can't we drop the gender and fight for human rights and equality?

The flippant answer is, "They started it."

DavidByron · 2013-07-23T17:54:08+00:00

The extreme side of this community tends to lean towards misogyny

example?

Yeah feminism is a hate movement - it's not symmetrical at all, and hatred of men is something publicly applauded within that movement not any sort of "extreme".

Why can't we drop the gender and fight for human rights and equality?

Like saying why don't we drop the issue of racism while we fight the KKK.

When we pit the genders against each other

That's the goal of feminism. So are you against feminism or not?

I am being downvoted a great deal just for trying to discuss human equality.

That is sad (although to be fair you did make an unfounded accusation of a very nasty kind of the members here). This forum gets a lot of feminist "trolls" although I would welcome them too. However some get tired of them.

4man · 2013-07-23T22:31:20+00:00

Feminism != Women, ergo dislike of Feminism is not misogyny.

Willravel · 2013-07-20T23:35:25+00:00

The extreme side of this community tends to lean towards misogyny in the same way that the extreme side of feminism (not true feminism, mind you -there seems to be controversy with this statement. I was under the assumption that feminism is the equality of men and women, but many seem to disagree-) unfortunately leans towards misandry.

Asking MRAs to define feminism is like asking Republicans to define Democrat.

Your heart is in the right place, LO, but you're not the first to try the "can't we all just get along" thing here or on /r/feminism. The problem is that the MRM is largely anti-feminist (all you have to do is call yourself a feminist here with no other information, people will assume they know everything about you), which makes feminism by necessity anti-MRM. They're cross purposes, which suggests that setting aside differences simply isn't an option. The posts in this thread and the myriad others like it are ample evidence of this.

The problem is that the MRM resents feminism because they believe it to be gender specific, and then they themselves become largely gender specific because they see it as a counterbalance. Interestingly, there's a parallel to be drawn with mainstream journalism in the US in the 80s and 90s. There's a tendency for journalists to be more politically progressive, something about an inquisitive personality and all that, but there was never a left-wing conspiracy in journalism. Fox News, seeing liberal (American liberal, so world conservative) viewpoints represented more, assumed there was an conspiracy and agenda at work and created a network based to counter this with a conservative-agenda network. The thing is, though, there was never a left-wing Fox News. Conservatives misunderstood what they were seeing, and reacted to that phantom instead of what was actually happening. The MRM does not understand feminism, thinking at the very least feminism is a women-only equality movement, and is reacting to a phantom of feminism by creating a men-only equality movement. It's quite bizarre.

2013-07-20T19:08:48+00:00

Because not only is the system currently slanted against men and in favor of women because of feminism and traditionalism, but also because of evolutionary human tendencies towards gynocentrism.

Why would I advocate for groups of people who are already better off than my group? Women have very single sympathy for them. Men have nothing but this movement.

giegerwasright · 2013-07-20T15:56:26+00:00

not true feminism, mind you

No true scotsman, eh cuntyballs?

When we pit the genders against each other, we become divided.

As soon as feminists stop obstructing equal access to social and legal rights and opportunity, then I'll stop having to defend myself against their incursion on my access to equality.

Funny how the national dialogue right now mirrors this. Guy attacks another guy. Second guy defends himself. Everyone criminalizes second guy for defending himself. More marching toward gelding.

Title	My two cents on this subreddit.
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	0
Comments	76
Date	July 20, 2013 3:22 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1ip4g0/my_two_cents_on_this_subreddit/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/my-two-cents-on-this-subreddit.1168356 https://theredarchive.com/post/1168356

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