No means no, Feminists.

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and getting pregnant to get out of deployments.

Now, that is some bullshit. I don't know how you could properly enforce it so this wouldn't happen, though. I mean, it almost seems like birth control would need to be required for women in the army (unless there is a legitimate medical condition that prevents them from it). But maybe that's too far and is unethical. This is a difficult one.

It is too damn easy to get pregnant and then claim it was an accident. It sounds easier than shooting yourself in the foot to get sent home. They court-martial people for that, don't they?

I always hold the opinion that it's better than many criminals go free if it keeps one innocent man out of prison. That has to apply here, regardless of how shitty it is that women can do this as a Get-Out-of-War-Free Card. I don't think the military should have the right to force it's people to take medication. I guess the only thing that can be done is to interrogate the Hell out of pregnant women who have been discharged because of the pregnancy. But even that makes me angry to think about.

The army does consider it's men to be property of the US government, so I suppose I am just thinking about this from too much of a civilian perspective. Just makes me damn happy I've never thought about joining the army. And even damn happier that we don't have a draft right now.

Still makes me livid to think that women are exempt from Selective Service, though.

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If the real shit hits the fan and we were fighting an all out war on roughly equal footing with opponents, then there would be a whole hell of a lot of people trying to get out of fighting through manipulation. The Army wouldn't have the luxury of just writing off everyone who manipulates the system as just weeding out the bad soldiers.

Under the current situation I don't think women should be forced to take birth control to serve in the military, but if women start to make up a substantial portion of our combat troops and an all out war breaks out, then I damn well think such an emergency would justify requiring all female soldiers to have an IUD. If we ever have a reversible form of birth control for men, then you could make the male soldiers get it too.

It would just be too easy to manipulate such a system since it's very easy to claim you accidently got pregnant. If it's constitutional to demand people risk their life during times of war, then I sure as hell don't get why it's a big deal to ask them to get something like an IUD.

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So I'm going to respond to some of the stuff you brought up.

If the upcoming deployment is known about in advance, as they all are at this point, there are indeed provisions for action against service members getting pregnant. It's just rarely enforced and ultimately a slap on the wrist. The decision to punish or not to punish is held by the company or battalion commander most of the time. If you're company is as small as mine you likely are close to the commander. I shouldn't need to tell you that people who are close to you have a more difficult time punishing you than someone who doesn't know you.

The military can and does force it's members to take meds. ALL. THE. TIME. "Going on deployment, take these pills while I shoot this in your arm." "It's flu season, everyone go get this fluid shit sprayed up your nose." Other than possible religous reasons they would have no problems forcing females to take birth control, but there are cheaper alternatives. Like the bowl of condoms kept at every TMC I've been in.

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right, i agreed with the statement that in reality a lot of the time "feminist" is unfortunately associated with the extremist, "femi-nazis" in another comment. it does seem like the most default value to have but i think on a subconscious level a lot of people don't have it. we might say we think men and women should be equal in every instance, but still question women in politics when they're competing with men. we may think we believe in equality, but still tend to side with women in custody battles, when the father may clearly be a better choice in the situation. it's one thing to say you hold a position and an entirely different thing to actually act on it obviously. and of course agreeing with the definition doesn't mean you have to join with it, as i said, if you don't wanna be called a feminist i'm not gonna call you one, even if you believe everything it technically stands for. happy cake day btw!

[–]CisHetWhiteMale7 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

"then you're a feminist" is technically a correct response to someone saying "I'm not a feminist but I believe in gender equality"

You're doing exactly what this post is mocking. No it isn't "technically correct". It isn't necessarily correct at all. People do not need to associate themselves with feminism in order to believe in equality and you should probably stop trying to tell people what they are because it is incredibly patronizing.

If I reject tenets of feminism like The Patriarchy<sup>TM</sup> or "rape culture", then why would I choose to call myself a feminist? You can point to the dictionary all you want, but it's a meaningless argument to someone who looks around and sees that the actions and beliefs of many feminists are not in line with what the dictionary says, and really.. which is more important, a definition devoid of real world context, or stuff that is actually happening around me and affects my life?

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couldn't you say this about anything though?

No.

The NHRA really does promote drag racing and hot rods.

The NRA really does promote gun ownership and gun rights.

The UAW really does fight to get higher pay and more privileges for their workers.

Feminists do not really fight for gender equality.

unfortunately there are some outliers and extremists who are gonna go above and beyond the ideal goal that was originally feminism

This isn't an accurate description. There are very very few self described feminists who are fighting to find and remove female privilege.

There are a great number of feminists, who are completely accepted by the community, who want to stomp all over men's rights anyway they can.

but they aren't bad because they're feminists, they're bad because they're insane.

I think feminism very much encourages and supports the bad sort of feminists, whatever the percentage may be. They certainly empower them in a way that they couldn't dream of without the movement.

i feel like this happens with most groups of people, there are extremists no one likes in all groups.

It's not fair to paint them as extremists when they are well accepted by the mainstream.

i consider myself a feminist but would love to somehow stop the batshit crazy people that want to strip away men's rights and belittle them.

You can't have both, and you really need to look and see if that label is worth the allies that come with it. When you count yourself as a feminist, you lend strength and prestige to the people you profess not to like.

all of the other feminists that i know are the same and have the same goal, just equality of the genders.

There's a minute chance that this is true for the feminists you know in person, though I don't believe it for a minute, but it's patently false if you include feminist leaders and authors.

[–]stacym253 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Feminists do not really fight for gender equality.

your statements are quite bold and broad.

what i meant by "couldn't you say this about anything" was that people will often associate themselves with a certain group, but not follow all the "rules" of that group. so these "feminists" are calling themselves feminists, but are more like misandrists.

This isn't an accurate description. There are very very few self described feminists who are fighting to find and remove female privilege.

i think they'd be more apt to do this if other areas of discrimination were fixed first. as a MRA are you going to first and foremost actively fight to remove male privilage? no, i would think you would worry more about the areas where men are discriminated, and work on those. i'm not saying this is the right way to go about things, but i think our own internal biases are going to generally push us to act this way.

There are a great number of feminists, who are completely accepted by the community, who want to stomp all over men's rights anyway they can.

just like there are a great number of feminists, who are completely accepted by the community, who want total gender equality and don't agree with stomping on anyone else's rights in any way.

You can't have both

you can have both. you can be a sane, respectful feminist that wants gender equality.

it's patently false if you include feminist leaders and authors.

i was only talking of people i know in person. i obviously don't really hang out with any misandrists so it is true for the people i actually know. i can't speak of every single feminist leader and author though, so i can't disagree with you about that part.

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A project started by politicians, and if you read it, you will see it is gender neutral.

A project started by a feminist politician, Joe Biden. And is still being enforced as if the Duluth model were valid.

Replaced by "best interest of the child"

The best interests of the child still, by a large margin, favor women. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_years_doctrine

Start working on a model for women perpetrators then?

If we can get past the feminist gatekeepers of domestic violence issues.

Suffrage? What was wrong with it?

The responsibility that came with the vote for males, but was not enforced for females. IE enforced consrcription laws. (selective service) That feminists didn't press for the ERA when it became clear that women would loose those kinds of priviliges if the laws were gender neutral.

What was wrong with it?

Male blaming. "He has... He has... He has...". These could all have been portrayed as grievances against the state, but were all worded as grievances against Men.

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Well sure, you can say that all feminists secretly hate men, which I suppose can be kinda supported by some evidence maybe. But then any feminist can say that the men's rights movement is just distilled hatred for women, given that so many supposed MRAs spend their time shitting on feminism rather than actually advocating for real issues pertaining to men. But then such MRAs only claim that they hate feminists because feminists just hate men and we're back at the beginning.

It seems to me that the biggest issue facing gender rights as a whole right now is that instead of reasonable people discussing gender issues in society, acknowledging that women are disadvantaged in many ways and so are men, we have frustrated (and often immature) people arguing about how feminists just hate men and MRAs just hate women. It's setting everyone back and, ironically, just fostering further sexism on both sides.

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[–]RatherAdequate-3 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I agree that this should be true, but it really only tends to work in theory. Much like people saying that they hate Christianity but not Christians, the two should be considered different but in general they aren't.

People see some misandrist spouting nonsense hiding under the feminism banner and say "Yeah, fuck feminism." Or they see a sexist idiot who shoots up a sorority because girls don't like him and say "God, the MRAs are a bunch of violent assholes." Then the generalizations begin and soon whenever people think of feminism they think of teenage girls who don't know what they're talking about, or they think all MRAs are lonely losers who just hate women.

So yeah, we maybe we should be further emphasizing that our opinions of ideologies shouldn't equal our opinions of their followers, but in the real world it doesn't come out that way.

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[–]SnickerSnak25 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Feminism is as feminism does.
Let's look at some of the accomplishments of feminism and see if they've been detrimental to the rights of men.

Universal suffrage for women, conditional suffrage for men
Outlawed FGM, dropped the ball when it came to MGM (some feminists even argue for MGM on the grounds that it helps protect women)
Tender years doctrine for women, child support for men
Debtors prisons re-instituted for men
Abortion for women, child support for men
Duluth model of DV = innocent men arrested, guilty women go free
Successfully crushed presumed equal custody laws proposed by father's rights groups
Weakened the standard for conviction for sexual assault on college campuses
Attempting to make sexual acts between college students illegal in California (it's in the California Senate now)

Looks like feminism sucks pretty hard at the whole gender egalitarian thing.

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This is absolutely ridiculous.

Yes, in the same way that those who assign themselves to a religion unintentionally give power to the radicals within their ranks

Then absolutely every movement, every religion, every collective group with a common goal is awful. Even MensRights, when taken to an extreme, becomes clear and stark misogyny. There are always going to be radicals and that fact is out of every movement's control, this is frankly one of the silliest notions I've ever heard.

Words aren't something you can just change the meaning of to fit whatever you want it to be. Therefore, you can't go around and simply decide on your own that you want feminism to be something different, that's not how language works.

This is amazing. You say that you can't just change the meaning of words to be what you want, and you do EXACTLY THAT. What dictionary defines feminism as this, unless you want to decide that your authority usurps those of the hundreds of dictionary writers and editors? Merriam-webster defines it as "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities, organized activity in support of women's rights and interests", oxford dictionaries defines it as "The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.", dictionary.com defines it as "the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men."

You decide the meaning of a word without providing any kind of reputable evidence or dictionaries or use in a modern context, then you have the gall to tell me that I'M trying to change the meaning of it? You must be blind on an insane level to not see the hypocrisy there.

[–]Mylon7 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Extremism is a problem in a great many groups. But generally a well meaning group will understand their own extremist elements and distance themselves. This is the entire reason there's a million different denominations of Christianity. They want to make it clear what their stance is and that they're not like that other denomination because they don't believe in those radical elements. But if they don't make this distinction they might hear a radical person say something and just nod their head because they wear the same label.

I cannot respect people that don't educate themselves or passively support these radical elements by remaining associated with them.

If you want to talk about radical elements in MRA then there's Red Pill as a key example. Many people here are quick to say that they're not representative of MRAs.

[–]Flashbomb7-2 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]DoctorWelch4 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

To address your first concern, as soon as a movement becomes defined by its label and not by the ideas it is fighting for then it inherently becomes corrupt. Therefore, by simple attributing a label to a movement you are producing the ability for it to be corrupted. The important thing should be to fight for logic and ideas that are sound, not a movement defined by its label with the ability to be skewed.

Secondly, your quotes prove my point. "organized activity in support of women's rights and interests" as well as "advocacy of women's rights on the ground of equality of the sexes" is a very clever way of appearing unbiased, while at the same time including inherent bias.

These definitions assume a sort of unequal playing field heavily stacked in favor of men at the expense of women. It is fighting for equality, but it is not fighting for it on an equal playing field. A good way to look at it is as if men and women hold certain advantages or cards in society. The definition of feminism paints reality as if men hold all the cards in the deck, while women only hold a select portion of the cards. The goal is then very obvious: to fight for women to hold just as many cards as men by giving woman all the cards men have that women don't have. The actual reality of the situation is much different.

Men hold certain cards and woman hold others. Now, the truth may be that women have had a history of holding significantly fewer cards than men, and many places in the world women hold almost no cards, but the fact of the matter is men and women hold different cards. So, while a true movement of equality would fight for men to gain cards women exclusively hold while women gain cards men exclusively hold, feminism fights from an inherently biased point of view in favor of women. This is obvious even within the very name of the word itself.

So, although the definition includes equality, the nature of the perspective through which equality is trying to be achieved is skewed in favor of woman and against men.

[–]Alzael-1 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Then absolutely every movement, every religion, every collective group with a common goal is awful. Even MensRights, when taken to an extreme, becomes clear and stark misogyny.

There are two flaws to this.

1.Yes, every group or ideology will have extremists. However not all extremists are equally dangerous. It depends on the nature of the group and ideology. There is a world of difference between an extremist Jain and an extremist Christian. Jain extremists are so dedicated to non-violence that they'll cover their mouths with cheesecloth to prevent accidentally inhaling a bug. Extremist Christians.....well we all know what they're like.

The fact that an ideology will have extremists is inevitable, but the nature of the ideology determines what those extremists will do.

2.These MRA people are not members of an ideology. They're members of a movement, which alters the chain of causality. You can't hold a movement or informal group to account in the same way that you can an ideology. Because an ideology has teachings, structures, commandments, philosophies, etc. all working together to influence behaviour and effect change. So when someone uses those teachings to do bad things you can point to exactly what it was that was taught which made them do that.

Movements or less informal groups have no such structure or set of teachings, it's just a bunch of people all kind of moving in a single direction for their own reasons that happen to have some overlap. There are no teachings present where you can say that this was a direct cause of this bad event. You can't connect causation in the same way that you can an ideology.

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[–]unbannable94129 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Ah yes, radical feminists.

Like social advocates and lawyers

"I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig." -- Andrea Dworkin

"All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman." -- Catherine MacKinnon

Authors

"I have a great deal of difficulty with the idea of the ideal man. As far as I'm concerned, men are the product of a damaged gene. They pretend to be normal but what they're doing sitting there with benign smiles on their faces is they're manufacturing sperm. They do it all the time. They never stop." —Germain Greer

My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don't even need to shrug. I simply don't care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don't matter." -- Marilyn French; The Woman's Room.

"The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race." -- Sally Miller Gearhart, in The Future - If There Is One - Is Female.

Celebrities

The more famous I get, the more power I have to hurt men."

Sharon Stone

Major feminist political organizations

"The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist" (National NOW Times, January, 1988).

But hey, don't let any of that get in the way of your intellectual backflips needed to cling to a decrepit ideological label.

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(Note- i am a woman and a(n intersectional) feminist)

Radical feminism is not necessarily detrimental to the movement. "Radical" is derived from a greek word that means "root". For radical feminists, the root of the problem of gender inequality is that men are inherently dominant and for this reason take up more social space. The solition radical feminists would propose in order to reduce gender inequality would be for more women to be included in the social realm by having more women in positions of power.

The tricky bit here is whether men are inherently more dominant- while I don't necessarily agree on a biological level, I do believe that men are socialized to dominate which works to the disadvantage of women.

That said, I don't consider myself a radical feminist, but it's important not to lump all the angry feminsts into the "radical feminist" category- there are some completely reasonable radical feminists.

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I seriously cannot stand this article. It uses the argument that all of male's problems are a result of the patriarchy. It basically blames men for having problems. And it states that feminism isn't against 50/50 custodial right but in that case, how in the hell did NOW successfully lobby against it?

This article is absolute garbage. It makes false statements like everything is a part of the patriarchy and rape culture. I have never in my life seen this rape culture which feminists constantly say is a fact. I have always been tought that rape is a terrible thing and I have seen rapists go to prison for many years just like every other crime. If someone commits a murder, it doesnt mean that there is a murder culture in the U.S.. Bad people commit crimes and you cannot broaden the definiion of rape so much so that all intercourse without a strict verbal agreement prior to it is rape because then everybody, man and woman, would be rapists, which is completely ridiculous.

This is a great example of feminist brainwashing and using terms like patriarchy to blame men for all problems in society without any evidence to support this so called patriarchy.

[–]cathurrn0 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Wat. The article does not blame men. The concept of patriarchy is that power systems exist and have historically existed that privilege men. There is NO branch of academia, save for feminism, whose major thinkers are women, for example. The first chemists, mathematicians, sociologists, historians were men; all these academic schools were founded when women were not allowed to study. NO art form prevalent in our society (save for embroidery) was invented by a woman. If you don't think history has any impact on culture, well frankly that's your choice. I however, choose to believe that those powers that have excluded women in the past, although legally a non-issue today, continue to exclude women now, and sexist attitudes remain engrained in the general population. I would agree with you if you said that things are far better for western women than they were historically. But there is a long road ahead; the problem of gender expectations underlined in the article emphasize that fact.

The definition of rape culture is something along the lines of "culture that legitimises sexual assault". Of course, we learn that rape is a crime and crime is wrong. But how much porn have I seen where the girl is saying "no" and some dude fucks her anyway and she ends up "liking" it? I've seen countless sex scenes in films or on TV that are portrayed as sex scenes but from the woman's perspective I'm not so sure. That is (a part of) rape culture. Why are film and TV relevant? Because filmmakers actively try to represent the culture they exist in in (realistic) films (Linklater has said this in Waking Life, it is accepted knowledge among film/culture theorists). We, as a society, get ideas of how culture operates via mass media, and portraying sexual assault as consensual is a problem. Behaviours are learned.

Edit: Obligatory response to "murders on tv dont make for more murderers": It's about how its framed. Very rarely, if at all, are murders portrayed in a way that the viewer might be hazy on whether a murder did or did not happen. It is always presented as a violent crime because murder results in death. Rape is in a different ballpark. People have sex, a lot, far more than they murder. Without proper sex ed, if they learn that people have sex without asking for consent, by pressuring, by continuing if their sex partner says no, then they might act out these behaviours irl. Which is not cool.

[–]MrAwesomo921 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I however, choose to believe that those powers that have excluded women in the past, although legally a non-issue today, continue to exclude women now, and sexist attitudes remain engrained in the general population.

There is a very important distinction between what you choose to believe and what is fact. If you choose to believe that the melting of glaciers in Antarctica is an act of god instead of global warming, you are 100% allowed to continue to be retarded. Patriarchy is the most ridiculous hypothesis I have ever heard of and it is used as a fact and justification of almost all feminist action. Everything is a result of the patriarchy that hasnt been proven. I could just as easily come up with a hypothesis about the matriarchy where women dont die in wars unless they want to, women make up the majority of all students in higher education, women have lower unemployment rates, women win custodial battles and in addition recieve child support, women recieve significantly more money for the funding of studies depicting their problems than men, a homeless woman can go live in a shelter while there are 3 times more male homeless that have to live on the streets => there is a matriarchy and a culture of misogeny. Notice how wrong it is for me to make the statement of a matriarchy into fact because I havent proven shit about it in my whole argument. Just because males are disadvantaged in society doesnt mean that a matriarchy exists and I can use it as a justification for any future action.

But how much porn have I seen where the girl is saying "no" and some dude fucks her anyway and she ends up "liking" it?

It is a very common fantasy by men and women that a man overpowers them (notice the female popularity of Fifty shades of grey). It isnt mostly men watching this and learning from it, it is adults watching their fantasy played out. There is a distinction between fantasy and real life actions. Just because I might have watched a film about a prostitute and pimp relationship doesnt mean that I will go out and sell my girlfriend because I was using it to satisfy a fantasy (it is just my example not my real fetish). Just because people have fetishes, you cannot conclude that patriarchy must exist or that men will start engaging in this behavior anymore than you can conclude that an adult playing GTA5 will go on a killing spree or an adult watching The Wolf of Wall Street will steal from others and start using drugs. If you want to prove that there is a relationship between the two, compare the sexual assaults that occurred from a time before these movies where made and compare it to the amount that happens currently. You will see that crime rates have lowered and that there is no correlation.

Because filmmakers actively try to represent the culture they exist in in (realistic) films (Linklater has said this in Waking Life, it is accepted knowledge among film/culture theorists). We, as a society, get ideas of how culture operates via mass media.

So filmakers are now the absolute gods in knowing what the current culture is? Should we ask a filmmaker if there is patriarchy and then accept it as 100% the truth because he is a filmmaker? Does Kill Bill represent a culture of females trying to kill men or at least hold them down significantly because females are better fighters. This was just all in all a terrible argument.

Edit: Obligatory response to "murders on tv dont make for more murderers": It's about how its framed. Very rarely, if at all, are murders portrayed in a way that the viewer might be hazy on whether a murder did or did not happen. It is always presented as a violent crime because murder results in death. Rape is in a different ballpark. People have sex, a lot, far more than they murder. Without proper sex ed, if they learn that people have sex without asking for consent, by pressuring, by continuing if their sex partner says no, then they might act out these behaviours irl. Which is not cool.

Keyword here is they might act out behaviors. And Grand Theft Auto 5 does glorify murder. You are making no better arguments than the anti-GTA 5 grandmas that argue that it results in mass murders. You havent based it on a single study and you use the vague term that it might result in more rapes.

If a woman says no and then actively resists even tries to stop the man's advances but the man continues, it is rape. But think about the situation where a woman just doesnt want to be deemed as a slut by the potential lover and says no to begin with. The man continues 15 minutes later when the girl is more turned on and the girl doesnt say no or in any way signify that she doesnt give consent. They then have sex. The next day, she regrets the sex because of how she has always been taught to not have sex because it is very slutty. She then, in effort to try to save face, says that she was raped. She had all the power to get out of the situation, the guy wasnt restraining her in any ways but she chose to stay and have sex. It doesnt make the guy a rapist, it doesnt make the girl a victim of sexual assault, and it doesnt mean that there is rape culture. What it does mean is that it does make her one of the 6 women that claims that they were sexually assaulted. You cannot take consent back after the fact and if you can prove that there was rape involved, for example bruising from where she was restrained from getting away, etc. the man will go to prison deservedly.

[–]cathurrn0 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]MrAwesomo921 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]cathurrn1 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]MrAwesomo921 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Kill bill does not feature mainstream characters, and neither does gta 5. Nobody is watching kill bill thinking "yeah i get into epic sword fights with dudes" or playing gta 5 thinking "man all these dudes i'm shooting plays out so much like my everyday morning". However, people do watch porn thinking they could find themselves in that situation.

You are making quite a strong claim here without any backup evidence. How did you come to this conclusion? The truth is that you dont have any supporting evidence and are making baseless claims. Surely, you can see that you havent thought of the subject critically enough, right?

I'm not citing studies because I'm on my phone, so i'm sorry about that. The framework I work from comes from a four year bg in soc (which basically just means i've spent years researching this shit and this is why i think the way i do). People might blindly believe in god, but theologists are some pretty great/renound thinkers. And the only reason envt sci gets discreditted is because people who make money off oil have a lot of money to fund bogus studies/scientists, comon man. But, i digress, if you're coming at this issue from another perspective then again this conversation is mostly useless because we wont agree.

I disagree completely in this regard. If you had cited credible studies and identified flaws in my counter-arguments, I would start actively trying to spread the message you are trying to spread because I would believe you and to me, equality between genders is a very important topic. When you find the sources, please inform me because I will not just take your word on the subject because you studied it for four years.

That is like me saying that I studied business for 4 years so trust me Google, I can become your CEO. Trust me USA, I can become president because I know business. I have no idea whether you have dropped out of school after 4 years, are biased, barely passed your subjects and even if you were the best in your class, you still would need to back up your arguments.

And just because theologists exist, this doesnt mean that god exists until they prove it.

[–]MrAwesomo921 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

It's not a hypothesis, its theory. All liberal arts function on theory, which people come up with, study, think about, write papers on, do studies on, ask people for personal opinions, do ethnographies etc etc and come up with new theory based on that. Its still rigorous, but studying people is not scientific. Not everything that is useful is science.

It is more like a highly funded conspiracy theory. There is so much money being spent to research female problems as opposed to gender problems on both sides, it is quite likely that they will come up with something as ridiculous as a patriarchy theory.

One thing that I hope that you will realize in order to see this point is about how easily I came up with a matriarchy theory that is completely the opposite of the patriarchy and yet I found so much supporting evidence on the topic.

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I think you're right in some ways, but I wouldn't give up and say it's getting too bad. I think right now the movement is in it's infantile stages and it is basically being born out of the realization that men have issues, but also the realization that feminism isn't what many people think it is.

So, as the movement gets bigger I think the tension between the two will only get stronger, and it will seems as though the movement is simply becoming anti-feminist, but I think that is only natural to see as it grows. I think there may be cause for concern, and one day the movement might change into a evil beast of its own, but I think for now it hasn't lost sight of fighting for what makes sense for equality for men and women.

At the same time though, I think having a Men's Rights movement is great, but eventually it will come to a head and all the rational people will have to create a new movement not defined by the label of men's rights or women's rights, but simply equal rights without any bias inherent in the name of the movement itself.

[–]petrichorrr1 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]DumpyLips5 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]Mild1112 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

where do you think men's issues come from?

Do you think that shitty treatment of fathers just magically happened overnight because of some oversight?

it happened because of that fucking "Patriarchy" message. It happened because the same trolls have the government and media believing that it's not possible for a woman to act as shitty as a man.

To not point out the fallacious context of the same people who are responsible for giving society this shitty stereotype of men, is asking for it to continue.

Sure, there may be a majority who will turn off simply because of appearances. Fuck the majority. The real issue here is where the thinkers lie. Thinkers see through bullshit. Especially when bullshit is called out.

The problem is that Feminism is a catch-all term that has been hijacked by the extremists.

Much like 5 years ago "Tea Party" was anyone who didn't like a lot of taxes, then it became the whackjob faction of the Republican Establishment. Sane conservative activists had to abandon the term.

We need to continue to expose the extremists of feminism until the "equality" wing of women's rights abandons the Tumblr wing and dismisses the new Feminism rhetoric.

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[–]AloysiusC7 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

No, feminism is not synonymous with gender equality.

Yet feminists control the gender discourse and do not approve of anyone else, in particular men having their own voice in that discourse.

the reason the MRM gets such a bad rep is because its so critical of feminism.

You got it backwards. MRM started off trying to work with feminists a long time ago and many MRAs were feminists. Feminists are doing the fighting and MRAs are defending themselves - albeit with some new found courage (much like the new atheism movement). At least on the internet, it's no longer off limits to criticize feminism.

Of course its not true, but from the perspective of any outsiders, it will almost certainly look like that's the case.

Ok, but there's nothing we can do about it. If the only way to not look anti-women to the lamestream public is to abandon equality and subscribe to male disposability, then that price is too high. Besides, more and more people from outside are starting to see the truth.

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[–]unbannable94124 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

From a comment I made and saved a while back.

http://np.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/25fnnf/because_fuck_having_a_real_discussion_from/chh4f24?context=3

The racism, and intolerance that was innate within the suffragette/early feminist movement and their contribution to prohibition.

In that same vein the white feather movement.

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/151/the-white-feather-campaign-a-struggle-with-masculinity-during-world-war-i

And of course the violence they used to achieve their goals which was dusted under the rug.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F5081FF63D5B13738DDDA90A94DA405B838DF1D3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Davison

http://www.johndclare.net/Women1_SuffragetteActions_Rosen.htm

http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/articles/suffragettes.html

One of the more famous American Suffragists who wanted better custody, divorce, property, wage, etc rights for women and was against giving black men the vote and thought that women should have the right to divorce a man if he drank and was a big proponent of the Temperance Movement

At that time labor unions proposed and advocated for full adult suffrage, no stipulations about race, or sex, yet for some reason suffragettes are remembered as the vanguards of voting rights.

[–][deleted]3 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Lot's of interesting info about the UK I never learned here in the States. The Suffrage Movement is very white-washed in our history classes.

Re: Stanton, she wasn't against blacks voting. She just was afraid if black men got the vote first, it would harm women's rights further. from her wiki:

"Disagreeing with Douglass, and despite the racist language she sometimes resorted to, Stanton firmly believed in a universal franchise that empowered blacks and whites, men and women. Speaking on behalf of black women, she stated that not allowing them to vote condemned African American freedwomen "to a triple bondage that man never knows," that of slavery, gender, and race.[55] She was joined in this belief by Anthony, Olympia Brown, and most especially Frances Gage, who was the first suffragist to champion voting rights for freedwomen."

[–]rincewind4x22 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]AustNerevar28 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

They absolutely should. I wish they could. But every attempt that this subreddit has made to reach out to any of the feminist subs has been met with less than friendly or rational responses. Hell, most of the feminist subreddits (at least the big ones) are so hostile toward the MRM in general that it's impossible to have any kind of civil discussion. And subreddits like SRS aren't even worth the effort, anymore.

I mean, most of us here acknowledge that women are still discriminated against (though a fair portion of feminists would have you believe that virtually nothing has changed since before women's lib) and we are totally willing to be reasonable about that. Granted there are crazies in every group and every once in a while someone bashes women here or says something that's actually misogynist, but in most cases the majority downvotes those people and buries their comments, as well as calling them out on their bullshit. If you so much as mention anything about discrimination against men in a sub, like, /r/feminisms they will delete your post and ban you outright. Not to mention they literally have an unwritten rule that visitors cannot disagree with a member of their sub. They will ban you for that. Doesn't matter if the member is claiming that the sky is purple, they will still ban you if you argue. It's ridiculously zealous and is an indication of the feminist movement today as whole.

There are plenty of young men and women who say "Of course, I'm a feminist" without knowing the lengths to which to radical extremists have directed the movement. Second wave feminism (the feminism movements from the 60's ad 70's) is very much a good thing. It was a great movement that did a lot of good for women, men, and the country. But third wave feminism is very much transphobic, homophobic, and hostile to the MRM and even men, in some cases, that it can be difficult to not become bitter and cynical about the prospect of reaching out and trying to reason with them anymore.

Thankfully, a lot of the old-school feminists and activists from the 70's and 80's have distanced themselves from feminism and have taken up with the egalitarians or even the MRM.

The MRM is far from perfect, and one day I don't doubt that we will be as corrupt as modern-day feminists are, but for the time being the movement is headed in the right direction, overall.

TL;DR: Nothing would make me happier if feminists and MRAs could actually work together, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

[–]rainbowsforall2 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

It seems to me from looking at this sub and looking at other women's/feminist subs, is that this whole thing is just a viscous circle of horribleness. Yes we have reasonable people on both sides but as in most things, they're only slightly visible in the sea of hate and generalizations.

The unfortunate thing is that because the feminist movement is much larger, we see a lot more crazies running around in the name of feminism than we do in the name of MRM which, while growing, is small in comparison. Understandably, this means many MRAs feel constantly threatened and react accordingly (ranging anywhere from simply dismissing feminism to completely hating anyone associated with the movement). Which in turn causes more defensiveness from feminists and then from MRAs and so on and so on. It's all just a terrible mess at this point IMO.

I care about both movements but because of this awfulness, I simply cannot bring myself to label myself as a feminist or MRA as a primary title, they both too often leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.

[–]SchalaZeal011 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]bluedude1423 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Shouldn't both feminists and MRA's exist to fight for equality together?

Hard to do when feminists have created a zero-sum game between the genders since the 60s and refuse to give an inch to men. Imagine gender issues are Israel-Palestine and imagine that the males are the Palestinians and the females are the Israelis. This graphic sums up the problem and why there is no "working together" when the much more powerful side makes it their mission to steamroll the weaker group that gets little to no government funding, public or mainstream media support, or any support from any influential political group or lobby. Feminists have millions upon millions of dollars behind everything that they do while men's groups get next to nothing and their problems are ignored, trivialized, or dismissed.

Men and women are fighting at times for a slice of a big pie/Israel-Palestine land yet the feminists eat just about all of it and leave nothing for the males and their advocates to survive on.

[–]rabbitspade18 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]AustNerevar12 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

The MRM is compatible with egalitarianism, but feminism is not. At least, not without an overhaul of its central theory... but then would that still be "feminism"?

Just to clarify that modern-day feminism is not compatible with egalitarianism. Second wave feminism definitely was. And all the young kids who claim they're feminists without being aware of the direction the movement is headed, in general, are usually more similar to second wave feminists than the third wave we see today.

As someone who identifies himself an MRA, I am very much interested in furthering the rights of men, women, and the homosexual and trangender communities. Those last two, most feminists won't even treat with respect. I've seen a few feminists on Reddit claiming that transwomen aren't real women and don't deserve the same rights or respect as cis-females, as well as feminists claiming that homosexual men are just straight men with repressed misogynistic attitudes.

Obviously, not all feminists hold this opinion, just like not all MRA's are standup, rational people. But due to the No True Scotsman fallacy, we can't say that these extremists aren't true members of their respective communities.

[–]rabbitspade13 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Just to clarify that modern-day feminism is not compatible with egalitarianism. Second wave feminism definitely was. And all the young kids who claim they're feminists without being aware of the direction the movement is headed, in general, are usually more similar to second wave feminists than the third wave we see today.

I think the compatibility of feminism with the MRM until the third wave gets a bit overstated. To provide a some examples...

British suffragettes of the "first wave" were also actively involved in white feather campaigns against men who did not sign up for the WWI draft. That is, they actively shamed men who defied their gender role as the disposable defenders of women and children. (source)

Also, in the "second wave", Warren Farrell (now a prominent MRM advocate) served on the board of the National Organisation for Women 3 times until the mid 70s when the organisation began to campaign against joint custody of children in divorces. (source)

These examples are not to say "everything has always been wrong with feminism", but rather everything hasn't been agreeable until the third wave.

late edit: I also wanted to add that the waves analogy of feminism gives the impression that it was always collective action of women who campaigned for equality of the sexes, but in fact Jeremy Bentham did so over a century before the suffragettes of the "first wave". source

[–]theskepticalidealist1 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]5lash3r2 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Just to ask for clarification here; isn't it possible, re: patriarchy theory, that a societal imbalance of power has existed between men and women that isn't completely binary? I think (and I fully admit ignorance on this for the most part, as I haven't read a lot of feminist theory/literature) that the idea of a 'patriarchy' is that it favours men for positions of power/authority, and subjugates women as a result. That doesn't mean that men have nothing but advantages and women have nothing but disadvantages--I think part of what feminism wants to do in dismantling patriarchy is to say that power and duty should be equal between sexes, which would deal with things like damaging masculine expectations, male disposability, etc.

With that in mind, it seems reasonable to me that the MRM and feminism could easily work together with common goals. However, I understand again that it's possible I'm unclear on this matter, and I'm espousing my opinion in a subreddit for one particular side of that dichotomy, so I'm willing to be told different. :)

[–]rabbitspade4 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I understand your point, and there are feminists who maintain the view that men hold most of the power, despite acknowledging a few exceptions, which are seen as not in contradiction to the overall analysis.

However, this is perspective is fundamentally flawed because the distribution and nature of that power is grossly misunderstood.

Firstly, "male power" is not a brotherhood of equality due to how we view agency. Men are traditionally charged with taking responsibility and acting in society, and while this produces a majority of male politicians and CEOs it also produces a majority of male homeless, murder victims, prisoners, and men working in dangerous, difficult and dirty occupations like trash collectors, miners and soldiers. The spread of life outcomes for men are on a far wider scale of success and failure than for women. However, feminists only put successful men in contrast with women in general and conclude an oppressor/oppressed dynamic. I'm yet to see feminists take the far higher workplace death rate for men, and express outrage that this isn't equal.

Secondly, the flipside of traditional male agency is female vulnerability and the root of these gender roles is not a patriarchal conspiracy, but pre-modern scarcity. For most of human history men and women have played complementary roles based on sex: men evolved towards strength requiring roles to provide for women who evolved towards maternal roles: there was no conceptualised alternative, besides perishing. It was only with industrialisation that wealth accumulation gradually emerged outside of historical class structures, and people began to find themselves with free time and the ability to explore defying traditional roles, and not only in terms of sex.

And now, while Western societies have almost completely achieved legal equality (for women excluded from traditionally male roles), feminism has taken to patriarchy theory to explain why this hasn't manifested in equality of outcomes, with a simplified view of history and power, which borrows much from its framework from cultural Marxism (but that's another topic).

edit: I wouldn't argue we're trapped with gender essentialism, but I'd rather leave it up to the individual as to whether they want to live by traditional roles or not, but such freedom of choice is apparently heresy to feminists.

[–]fkdjsa17 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]MrAwesomo9212 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

When you are an active MRA, 99.9% of the feminists reply in a similar manner. They almost always use the same fallacy of logic arguments/ insults to get their point across. MRA's often make fun of these arguments that feminists use because they are sometimes absolutely retarded and almost everybody has experienced the same retarded argumentation during debate.

For example, this post makes fun of the no means no principle. While no does mean no, feminists often argue that once a woman has said no during the proposal of sex, this means that she does not consent in the whole day. No means no, so dont bring it up anymore, they say. Many guys persist until the woman finally says yes. Feminists deem those men as rapists.

In order to highlight how stupid this is, let me give you an analogy. If person 1 asks another for his/her car and person 2 says that no, he cannot have his car, and then person 1 proceeds on taking the car anyways, that is stealing. If person 1 keeps persisting on asking person 2 for his car and finally after the 6th time person 2 gives in and says yes and then person 1 takes the car, it is not stealing anymore.

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[–]MrAwesomo921 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Your answer is the first reasonable response I have come across. I understand your argument very well and it is a very good one.

But there is one major difficulty with making the definition of rape broader. Where does it cross the line? If a movie star wants to have casual sex with a girl who wants a relationship, after intercourse did the movie star emotionally manipulate and rape this girl that wanted to have a relationship? If there is a natural ladiesman and he convinces a girl to have sex with him, is he a rapist too. Where do you draw the line between manipulation and convincing? If a girl says no but later gets turned on enough to have sex and then later regrets it, is the guy a rapist as well. You have to draw clear boundaries, otherwise everybody is a rapist and then people who are truly forcibly penetrated or manipulated wont get justice because even small misunderstandings are now rape as well.

[–]SnickerSnak10 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

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[–]SnickerSnak10 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

If you can't see the individuals that comprise a movement as just that -- individuals, then you might be guilty of the same crime of which you accuse the evil "feminists".

I see the individuals that comprise feminism. I see them as people that looked at what feminism had already done and said to themselves "I want to be associated with that!". They apparently thought that lobbying against presumed equal custody was grand, that lowering the standard for conviction for sexual assault on college campuses was a great idea, and that the Duluth model was a great way to handle domestic violence.

Feminism is what feminism does, and feminists support what feminism does. Otherwise why bother calling yourself a feminist? It's like calling yourself a Boy Scout when you don't agree with camping, survival skills, good deeds, tying knots, or merit badges.

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Feminism, much like any other belief system, includes many demographics of people with many different worldviews.

Sure, but most of that diversity is in areas unrelated or only tangentially related to what MRAs criticize them for. I've often seen feminists argue with each other quite ferociously about pornography, (female) sex workers, trans women, racial issues, or whether this or that lifestyle choice or type of personal relationship is compatible with feminism. Misandry, on the other hand, causes far less controversy and discord- a prominent figure like Hugo Schwyzer can engage in stomach-turning rape apologism directed at preteen boys and it hardly raises a peep, but when a much less well-known figure like Charles Clymer is insufficiently respectful to a woman half of Twitter goes apeshit.

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i used to frequent a different forum, and i became interested in men's rights once the topic of a woman who worked for a prominent atheist group accused a coworker of sexual harassment came up (sorry, I don't remember the name of the parties). I was really curious as to what the nature of the harassment was, and if the workplace had sufficient guidelines and training so that all parties knew what is expected of them.

What I thought were basic questions were shot down with amazing vitriol. I got responses like, "you don't have to tell someone not to take a dump in the middle of a restaurant to know not to do it", and "if she says it was sexual harassment, then it was sexual harassment. end of story."

What I got from this shoutfest was: 1) the accuser hadn't told anyone what the harassment actually was, just that she was being harassed. Which immediately raises red flags for me. And 2) no one was about to compare the claimed harassment to actual workplace policies, or the law, to determine whether the behavior WAS harassment or not, as that would be "blaming the victim."

My point being is that in mainstream feminism today, a view contrary to the main chorus is not allowed. It's really hard to "work with" another group for equal rights, when you are immediately ridiculed and shown the door for expressing your opinion. MRAs are critical of modern feminism, in part, because of the hostile environment to free discussion they have created.

(Btw, I was in no way implying that the woman HADN'T been harassed, or that she shouldn't be believed: I just wanted to know what actually happened before running to the pitchfork.)

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Yes. The problem essentially exists due to a couple of factors. The first is equal outcome feminism. Equal opportunity feminism relates to granting women the same opportunities as men, which was essentially achieved in the USA from a legal setting in the 1960s. Equal outcome feminism tries to enforce a 50/50 ratio of women to men in certain fields of employment, university, boards, councils, etc. It actively harms men because it disrupts the allocating of the most suitable person to the job for another simply because of their gender, which disproportionately affects men due to the focus of equal outcome policies in fields where men dominate. The second issue is the statement sometimes said that feminism does fight for men, which is does not. Conversely I wouldn't rely on the men's rights movement to address women's issues. Or the NAACP to address Chinese-American issues. It's ok that certain movements only seek justice for certain people. The issue is when they become over emphasized, and when they state they fight for others when there is little to suggest this is the case.

Personally I don't think it looks that great that this is a top post in this sub however. I think the best look for men's rights stuff is to actively look at specific men's issues and addressing them, and when feminists do things which actively hurt men, to focus on that specific issue in the instance and fighting it, rather than making blanket statements against feminism. I just feel like like the movement is better than that, or it should be.

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The key point to focus on is who are the forward most advocates for the movement. Movements often start off tame and reasonable, but over time the extreme views start to push forward when the label becomes more important than the ideas being fought for. Feminist advocates are extreme, and the problem is the majority of people who call themselves feminists don't actually support the ideas being advocated for.

So here we have a problem of equivocation where feminism actually means different things within the same argument or conversation. When one person refers to feminism they are referring to the extreme ideas fought for by advocates, while the other person is referring to feminism as a movement in support of equality.

Feminism is corrupt. When is say that I'm not even talking about the movement, I'm talking about the word. The word has taken on so many meanings that it is effectively meaningless. This problem of equivocation is the source of all the problems being hashed out between people in this subreddit and many other places.

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saying Men's Rights is akin to the civil rights movement while Feminism is a vicious hate group doesn't make much sense at all

But that wasn't said. An analogy doesn't imply similarity of any magnitude. It could have been made the other way round too: "that's like the kkk not talking about the civil right's movement". The similarity is that they're in opposition to one another. That's all that's needed for the analogy to work.

The hate for Feminism and vitriol in this sub is just really disappointing

Well, perhaps you should ask yourself where it comes from. People don't hate for their health. It's caused by something. And just because you haven't been on the receiving end of feminist misandry, doesn't mean it's not very real and very upsetting. When you hear about feminist professors openly advocating for making it legal for women to murder their husbands, I think anger is not only acceptable, but a healthy and human reaction to a misanthropic hostility.

I thought this comparison was a little extreme

Like I said, it wasn't a comparison.

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Another comment states that fighting feminism is the same as fighting for male rights and nobody bats an eyelash?

The National Organization for women, A large feminist group, is against father's rights.

Mary Koss, a feminist researcher who has worked with the CDC has defined male rape as "unwanted sex" or "forced to penetrate" rather than what it is.

Why are men not allowed to criticize an ideology that is attacking their rights?

It's just statements like, "feminists want to tell you what to think".

Do you understand the context of this post? A new tumblr called Women Against Feminism was created, and has caused a shit storm of....wait for it... feminists telling these women what to think and that they're just too dumb to know the real truth.

This place doesn't want to hear anything but the sound of its own voice.

No. You only want to hear the sound of your own voice. And are perfectly fine ignoring people's opinions because you would rather demonize them because of their gender.

[–]Meta_Digital-1 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Ok, fine, I'll bite. Why do I want to demonize people based on their gender?

I was confused by the mention of Mary Koss. I tried to find her link to feminism. All I got were anti-feminism and men's rights sites. Her academic bios and wikipedia entry don't seem to link her to feminism anywhere.

Tumblr is how you're going to judge an ideology? Might as well use Facebook as a source to judge libertarianism, Reddit as a place to judge atheism, or a creation museum as a source to judge Christianity. Best to judge an ideology at its best than to judge it by people who identify under it, yet may or may not even understand it.

I can understand criticisms of NOW policies, and I think the debate over issues like father's rights are important. Even more important, though, is to understand that NOW (or any individual or organization) does not determine what feminism is, but instead, is decided by a diversity of members who self identify as feminists. That means that NOW may (and probably does) act against (or not entirely in line with) feminism. After all, feminism is a moving target and it has no central authority (that would be counter the entire project, as it would be hegemonic and potentially oppressive).

Of course, this isn't the sort of discussion I see going on here. All I see is oversimplification of complex issues and (largely misunderstood) philosophies down into simple "good" and "bad" and then waved away with emotional appeals.

[–]hereisyourpaper5 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Ok, fine, I'll bite. Why do I want to demonize people based on their gender?

I don't know why. Perhaps you have heard the lie that men are only evil and women are only wonderful repeated so often that it kind of just became ingrained?

Tumblr is how you're going to judge an ideology?

Where did I say that? Or are you once again making stuff up and willfully misreading what I typed? I judge feminism by the policy and ideology it promotes, as I have already shown with two concrete examples.

I was confused by the mention of Mary Koss. I tried to find her link to feminism.

Are you requesting proof that shows Mary Koss is a feminist? "In fact, many feminist researchers such as ourselves..." p. 693.

That means that NOW may (and probably does) act against (or not entirely in line with) feminism.

No true scotsman fallacy, another common feminist response. Instead of taking criticism and attempting to understand where it comes from so it can be addressed (and potentially fixed) it is simply dismissed.

All I see is oversimplification of complex issues and (largely misunderstood) philosophies

Yup, there you have it, the same feminist response. If you dare disagree with feminism you're ignorant and too stupid to really understand how great feminism is.

[–]Meta_Digital-2 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I never claimed that women are better than men, nor would I.

You used Tumblr as an example of feminists telling people what to think. I assumed you were using Tumblr as a source for understanding feminism and implying that feminism tries to tell people what to think.

You've found a paper with the author calling Mary Koss a feminist. That's something, at least.

Saying that NOW isn't synonymous with feminism has nothing to do with that fallacy. After all, I didn't say that NOW wasn't a real feminist organization. It is a feminist organization. I also didn't dismiss the problematic politics in NOW. I just stated that those problems may be more inherent to NOW as a political entity than they are to feminism as a philosophical project. I personally disagree with their stance on father's rights, but that means that I disagree with NOW, not feminism as a whole.

Also, I never claimed that people were ignorant because they disagree with me on anything. You're putting a lot of words in my mouth. Apparently I am a feminist who hates men. This is all news to me. Instead, these sorts of statements show exactly what I was commenting on in the first place.

[–]theskepticalidealist3 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]Meta_Digital1 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I'm a little confused because I wasn't the one who brought Mary Koss up nor did I state that men couldn't be raped. I was just replying to the fact that when I did a Google search, nothing I saw on the first few pages linked her to feminism other than anti-feminism sites. I didn't ever claim she wasn't a feminist. I don't even see why it matters as it wasn't ever part of the anything I said. It just seems like people picking any examples they can find of feminists or feminist organizations to show that feminism-as-such as bad. Fine, I get that, but it doesn't comment on anything I've said nor is it any better of a tactic than arguing that communism is bad because of Stalin or Mao or that religion is bad because of the Westboro Baptist Church.

The fact that people are arguing against me when I haven't even claimed to be a feminist and are throwing people and organizations in my face that I haven't brought up shows how much I'm being treated like a bogeyman because I had the audacity to criticize the emotional appeals, personal attacks, and general vitriol in the posts here.

[–]theskepticalidealist2 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]Meta_Digital2 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I don't remember calling myself anything at all.

Now, I was an academic philosopher for a time, so I've read a decent amount of feminist literature and other writings by feminist authors or intersecting feminism in general. I feel I have a pretty good understanding of philosophical feminism. As a project, that hasn't been concerned with or much influenced by people like Mary Koss or organizations such as NOW. My knowledge of those areas isn't great (I did not major in feminism after all). I just know the theory behind the ideology, and from what I can tell, the criticism that I've seen against people like Mary Koss is, itself, a feminist critique. That's part of what causes my confusion. If you approach feminism as a philosophical methodology, then those who (successfully) critique and examine feminist activists and organizations are actually enlisting the help of feminism to do so. (This is an interesting dynamic that is not unique to feminism)

This is why I suppose criticisms of individuals and organizations, to me, aren't direct criticisms of feminism-as-such. As I said above, it's like arguing that communism doesn't work and citing Stalin as an example. Nevermind that communist theory has very little to do with Stalinism despite Stalin referring to his autocratic government as communist despite being the polar opposite. The same could, in theory, be said for people like Mary Koss. They may be associated with feminism or even identify with it, but that doesn't mean that they are acting in line with feminist theory. So, though you can refute the person, unless you come up with a more philosophical approach, it doesn't say much about the theory itself.

[–]theskepticalidealist2 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

When you said "Apparently I am a feminist who hates men. This is all news to me" I figured you were identifying as a feminist. Regardless, I still don't see why this helps your defense of bad arguments.

the criticism that I've seen against people like Mary Koss is, itself, a feminist critique.

There are things feminism claims to be and what feminists actually do and think. Even if "feminism" really was egalitarian, all of the MRM's points against feminists would still stand. Where are all the feminists against rape statistics and making a big noise against anti-rape campaigns like Don't Be That Guy?

You keep ignoring the basic point here. You hand wave Mary Koss as being irrelevant somehow, yet I know of no self identified feminists except someone like Christina Hoff Sommers that dont use rape statistics based on the work of Koss and those like her. According to your logic most feminists arent really feminists.

[–]Meta_Digital1 point 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I wouldn't say I hand wave her away. I'd say that an effective critique against her employs feminist theory. That's why I think it's strange to criticize people like Koss for being sexist while simultaneously criticizing feminism. For example, one of the major themes in feminist critique is that the feminist limits themselves to their perspective - that is, they recognize that an "objective" position tends towards being hegemonic. So, for instance, a white female middle class person versed in feminist theory would be very careful about making claims about other groups of people (such as men). Saying, "It's not really rape" to men implies that the (female) position is objective and speaks for everyone. This is the opposite of what feminism aims to do - give voice to those who find themselves oppressed under hegemonic systems. In this sense, feminist or not, Koss is acting counter to the stated goals and practices of feminist theory.

I think the major mistake groups like the MRA make is not recognizing this situation. When their criticisms are effective, they are employing feminist theory. When they resort to other methods, they fall into old models of oppressive behavior. I know you won't agree, and I know I'm only going to be rated down here, but I hope some of this at least makes a little sense. My intention isn't to make you agree with me, it's to share my point of view in the hopes it can be understood.

[–]theskepticalidealist2 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

This is the opposite of what feminism aims to do - give voice to those who find themselves oppressed under hegemonic systems

Feminism has always been a special interest group interested in the protections and rights for women. They care about other "groups" only to the extent that which something can be shown to negatively affect women in those groups. It has never been a truly egalitarian movement. Even linguistically there is no justification for the gendered word to be defined as such, making as much sense as proposing "masculinity" to be synonymous with egalitarian, or "Caucasianism" to be a word to refer to anti-racism.

But feminists can call themselves a ham and cheese sandwich for all it matters. Where are all the feminists that are against the rape statistics and against the idea that rape and DV is gendered? Not many about are there? Not sure you realise the extent of the influence of Mary Koss' way of thinking in the study of rape and DV and in the courts.

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Title	No means no, Feminists.
Author	TheThng
Upvotes	2293
Comments	356
Date	July 25, 2014 8:46 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/2bq3ye/no-means-no-feminists/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/no-means-no-feminists.1619563 https://theredarchive.com/post/1619563

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