Quick question: How do I properly explain to someone that Men's Rights isn't satire?

Turtle_Color_Accents · 2015-01-25T01:36:35+00:00

Ask her if she supports forcing women to sign up for the draft in order to make the genders equal. She'll either get mad, which means you win, she'll say she opposes a draft for everyone, which means you win, or she says something like "war is men's work" which means she's a bigot, and you win.

undoxablealt · 2015-01-25T03:19:49+00:00

You really can't. 95% of people don't give two shits about mens' feelings. Its just how people were raised.

GunOfSod · 2015-01-25T00:25:51+00:00

Ask them how funny suicide, fatherless children and mutilated babies are?

chocoboat · 2015-01-25T04:06:46+00:00

Below is how I would phrase it if talking to someone like that:

A men's rights activist is someone who recognizes that there's a lot of problems caused by sexism and discrimination and old-fashioned outdated ideas about gender roles... and that less than 100% of those problems happen to women. An MRA wants to fight discrimination against BOTH genders, because solving women's issues and ignoring men's issues does not lead to equality.

You're probably unaware of the problems that men face, if you think this is some kind of a joke. Here's a short list...

1) Women have the right to bodily integrity, and men do not. Adult women can't be forced to carry a pregnancy, baby girls cannot undergo FGM, but the law does allow for baby boys to undergo ritual genital cutting.

2) All across the board, men receive longer prison sentences than women for the same crimes, much in the same way that black people receive longer sentences than white people.

3) Men can be forced into legal parenthood against their will, while this can never happen to a woman.

4) Young girls today are now 40% more likely than boys to become a college graduate, and that number is rising.

5) Underage male rape victims can be forced to pay child support to their rapist once they reach age 18.

6) Some airlines have a policy of not letting a child sit next to a man they don't know, under the assumption that men are all potential child molestors.

7) The majority of homeless, prisoners, and suicide victims are men. 90% of workplace deaths happen to men.

These things are not OK, these are serious problems that are worth addressing. If you believe that MRAs want to treat women as inferiors, want traditional gender roles, and want to ban abortion... you have been lied to. This is not a "male power over women" group, it's a "hey let's not forget about men's problems while we're working on gender equality" group.

InBaggingArea · 2015-01-25T02:02:51+00:00

Jeez. I've been coming here for years and now you tell me it's not satire?

atheist4thecause · 2015-01-25T09:05:52+00:00

I use topics that everybody cares about so that either they want to carry on the conversation or they look like an ass. For instance, "I'm not a misogynist for caring about the homeless" or "I care about the homeless -- I guess you don't" or "I fight for the 50% of child sex trafficking victims that are boys in NYC that don't have resources to help them because the resources are geared specifically to women. If that makes me a misogynist then I guess I'm a misogynist, because I won't accept the abuse of those little boys." Stuff like that. It works surprisingly well.

iainmf · 2015-01-25T08:40:32+00:00

Do you think everyone should have equal rights?
Where someone doesn't have equal rights, do you think they should be able to freely raise the issue and advocate/lobby to receive the rights they don't have.
Do you think it is important to have groups to focus on different issues?
Hypothetically, if there was an issue that significantly affected only men negatively, would you want to see it addressed?
So you'd support the idea of a movement to address the hypothetical issue?
So theoretically you support the idea men's rights movement to address men's issues?

If they say that feminism is addressing men's issues, then ask them if men should be able to address there own issues, in their own way, in addition to feminism.

WhatWouldHitchensSay · 2015-01-25T05:27:42+00:00

You need to remember that on public forums, one of the best ways to discredit someone is to accuse them of trolling. It implies that their argument is so stupid, no one could actually think that. Some people may be doing this to make others ignore you. When I get accused of trolling, I point this out, then restate my case.

Also, a lot of people don't give a shit about feminism or men's rights. They don't pay attention to it. But, they buy into society's narative that women, exclusively, are victims in our society. They hear Men's Rights Advocate and they think, it's either a joke or women haters, b/c, "what rights could men possibly need? They have all the power in society. Everyone knows that."

I advise two things: 1. Never identify as an MRA. Anyone trying brand you with that label is doing so, b/c it gets others to take you less seriously. point out that debating vague labels is pointless, and move things back to the facts. 2. Link to homeless population by gender, homeless shelters exclusive to one gender, male violent crime victimization stats, workplace deaths, suicide rates by gender, etc.

Make sure to link the data, from the most reputable sources possible, preferably federal websites. Keep the focus on the issues where men are victims and society doesn't care. If they bring up 77% or 1 in 5, you're more than happy to debate those. If you've spent more than 15 mins on this sub, you can tear that shit apart.

AloysiusC · 2015-01-25T09:17:17+00:00

I'd bring up boy suicide. It's many times more frequent than girls.

Now some feminists will retort with "patriarchy" etc. but then they've already lost because you're only arguing for why it is a REAL problem to be taken seriously. This puts them on the defensive and they'll have to explain why it's a joke to them that boys commit suicide so often.

And then don't let go or back down. Once you've cornered them into that, accept no attempt to sidestep, goalpost shift or any other attempt to get out of it. They must explain why they think that would be satire, or accept and agree that it is indeed very serious. Anything else is unacceptable.

Correctrix · 2015-01-25T10:22:14+00:00

All you can do is calmly point out that there are gender-specific problems faced by men and by women, and that as an activist you recognise both rather than merely the latter.

The incomprehension is generally because of zero-sum thinking, where they assume that because you recognise men's issues you must believe that women never face sexism.

jimmywiddle · 2015-01-25T00:22:09+00:00

It seems to me like you are going to the wrong places to talk about the issues you care about if you are getting those types of responses.

DougDante · 2015-01-25T03:42:22+00:00

KISS.

Say, when a man gets assaulted by his girlfriend in New Jersey, the cops arrest him for being hit. That's wrong, which is why I tried to stop it:

Action Opportunity: End USDOJ Support for Illegal Discrimination against Boy, Men, LGBT, and Minority Domestic Violence Victims in New Jersey

freemale101 · 2015-01-25T07:51:08+00:00

Easy. We're REACHING for satire BUT its bizarrely ended -or ending-in REALITY! There are men (a developing number) who have been murdered or robbed of almost everything on the whim of a woman--who remains 'unaccountable'. Strangely too many men (white knights, manginas, betas and sex addicts) are in DENIAL about this; too weak to carry on. So this tiny community of MRAs is forced via conscience and Reason, to step up.

hmlaasanen · 2015-01-25T08:56:01+00:00

I find it difficult to explain word "rights", which could mean anything from chauvinism to equality. Even Saudi-Arabia has "rights" for men.

He in Finland we speak about "equality for men". It's easy to explain that we want equality for men in every part of the life.

-Fender- · 2015-01-25T14:25:48+00:00

This might be another approach: there was this post on /r/Tumblrinaction, which is about a "Women against Feminism" member's perspective on Feminism. So all you need to do is post this, say that Men's Rights Activists are the people supporting these views and also fighting for equality, and that, specifically, many of the issues you're fighting against are contained in the bullet point that starts with "Denying that females sometimes get a benefit in this society [...]".

This is some of what Men's Rights Activists do. And the post should do a good job at arguing why being against Feminism is not being against equality.

MRSPArchiver · 2015-01-24T23:40:24+00:00

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paracog · 2015-01-25T01:57:26+00:00

A lot of potent ideas and powerful movements have started out being laughed at. Pick your battles and your people.

wateryouwaitingforq · 2015-01-25T04:29:05+00:00

The bottom line is the label. The label itself, 'mens rights' implies the same thing as 'feminism', and less intelligent people may take leaps of imagination with it and assume it means that they strive for an advantage over another.

The solution is extremely simple, call it equality for all. I am part of the 'equality for all' movement, nobody can assume it means anything other than exactly what the phrase states.

Corn-Tortilla · 2015-01-25T05:32:58+00:00

You don't. You just tell people that are that far gone (brainwashed) to fuck off and then continue on with your life and keep trying to be a decent person.

Imnotmrabut · 2015-04-21T07:57:55+00:00

Review of medical Research shows that for every peer reviewed study on Men's Health there are 23 on women's health - that is a 2300% bias.

Do feminists seriously believe that this skewed research is caused by greater need by women who are so unhealthy they live longer than men or bias and sentiment towards the ladies?

http://np.reddit.com/r/MensRants/comments/33bzq9/bias_in_your_hospital_bed/

Title	Quick question: How do I properly explain to someone that Men's Rights isn't satire?
Author	NaughtierLink
Upvotes	38
Comments	46
Date	January 24, 2015 11:40 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2tk92m/quick_question_how_do_i_properly_explain_to/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/quick-question-how-do-i-properly-explain-to.989776 https://theredarchive.com/post/989776

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