Hi everyone,

I wanted to make this post because it's thoughts I've had for a while that I felt would be really beneficial to share. It might end up being a bit of a long read, so there'll be a TL;DR at the bottom, but hopefully it'll be worth reading through in full.

Perception

I've been subbed to this subreddit for a few years now, just as a lurker, and one thing that I never like to see is when a post gets upvoted that paints MRAs as exactly what a good amount of people think - angry, sexist, women-haters. THAT IS OBVIOUSLY NOT TRUE , but for lots of people who aren't as well informed on men's rights, that is what they think of and it does not help when posts confirming that reach the front of the subreddit.

I will not be linking to specific posts directly, as I do not want to single out anyone specifically, but I will describe a few that fit into the mold of what I mean.

  • Putting hate toward "the feminists" and other women because of some anti-men rhetoric they might say at some point

  • Presenting a huge victim complex in situations where it's really not about them

  • Blaming women in general for the actions of some construct they have in their head of how "all women" act

I'm going to quote from the r/MensRights FAQ here:

IS THE MRM ANTI-WOMAN?

No, Many women support mens rights. and actively participate in this subreddit.

Being pro-equality does not mean being anti-woman or anti-man. Many prominent members of both r/MensRights and the MRM in general are women. Many of these women come to the movement through their experiences with their own sons, husbands/partners, fathers, brothers, friends, or other male relations, who they feel either have been or are in danger of being discriminated against by society.

Blaming "women" or "feminism" for any problems you face as a male is not a good look. How can you expect anyone to listen, much less take you serious, when you sound like an angry incel? Rhetoric like that is why r/MensRights gets grouped together with actual women-hating subreddits like r/MGTOW.

Rights Are Not A Zero Sum Game

In order to advocate for better treatment of one group, you do not need to bring down or disparage another group. I don't think I can say it more clearly than that. We should be focusing on drawing attention to the inequalities that affect men without blaming anyone or anything, because that will not progress anything.

  • Unequal treatment in courtroom settings, for both criminal sentence length and divorce/custody cases

  • Social ostracization for men working in child-centric fields such as teaching or child care

  • High rate of male suicide

  • Sexual assault inequalities - both the ignorance shown to male sexual assault victims and the ease of which false accusations can ruin a man's life and reputation

  • High rate of male homelessness compared to the relatively low amount of services to help homeless men

  • Forced circumcisions

These are some of the largest male-specific issues men face today, and do you notice something they all have in common? Not a single one is the product of some large group of evil feminists trying to put men down - these are all intrinsic societal issues, and therefore have nobody secretly behind them pulling the strings and causing all of this.

You can advocate for increased suicide resources for men without advocating for reducing suicide resources for women. You can call someone out for a false sexual assault accusation without vilifying their entire gender. Issues like this do not need to have a villain we all point to and hate, because that is exactly the kind of thing that makes people not take the MRM seriously.

When you blame feminism for the amount of resources homeless women have compared to homeless men - you make people tune out and decide that MRAs are just a bunch of raging women-haters. That is the problem. When someone presents the MRM in a way that makes people not want to be associated with it, it loses momentum and will make it so that the actual change we seek will never even be considered because nobody bothers to listen.

Closing

If you're reading this and are thinking about commenting some rude insult to me about how I'm some feminist man-hater and need to go take a long walk off a short pier, don't bother - you are the problem. I want just as much equality for men as you do, but if you're thinking of insulting me (or others) because I'd also like equal treatment for everyone else at the same time, you are why people may not take the MRM seriously. More rights for men does not equal less rights for anyone else.

This extends far beyond anti-women arguments too. For example, whenever I see posts or comments getting political, being anti-liberal or anti-conservative, it boggles my mind because this should be a bipartisan issue. I have my own views, as does everyone else, but they shouldn't be playing a part here. There are liberal men and there are conservative men, neither is any less than the other.

TL;DR/Final Statement:

My point that is if we want to actually make change and make the real issues men face more visible and known to the general public, we need to both stop the vilification of other groups and begin to call people out when they do so anyway, because the way people perceive the MRM is very important if we want ourselves to be taken seriously.

Thank you for reading.