[Serious Question] Is this movement polluted with misogyny, or are the extremists just sticking out?

oneiorosgrip · 2014-01-11T03:45:44+00:00

Neither - it's not that the movement is polluted or misogyny sticks out, but that you wrongly interpret disagreement with false feminist claims as "misogyny" and are attempting to use the term to shut down open discourse.

Opposing feminism isn't misogyny. Feminism doesn't represent women - it only represents its own political view, and contrary to your claim, the established, funded, mainstream of the movement is a hate-spewing, anti-male lobbying collective.

Beyond that, let's look at your wage gap claim, which you've "supported" with a page that doesn't offer a source for its claims.

This comment is full of links to information that debunks the feminist line on the wage gap.

Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information, particularly on gender issues, because the site allows political bias in editing via popular vote.

This 1996 DoJ study a prevalence of 25% of the accused exonerated by solid evidence - meaning 25% of accusations were false.

RADAR found the McDowell study and the Kanin study to both be credible.

Regardless, even if the most extreme feminist claim - the belief that only 2% of rape allegations are false - were a proven fact, it would not make the issue any less of an issue any more than it would reduce the importance of addressing rape if only 2% of rape accusations were true.

It is not that addressing this serious issue - false accusations and their impact on the accused - is misogyny, as it does not take away from also addressing the serious issue of rape. Putting a thousand falsely accused men in prison will not stop one rape, because you're not incarcerating rapists when you do that. On the other hand, advocating against dealing with false accusations absolutely is misandry, because you're arguing for the state to sacrifice the falsely accused for no better reason than because you don't want to admit they exist.

AmbitiousApe · 2014-01-11T04:38:04+00:00

I think most of your objections are due to your misunderstandings. First of all, what you think are facts, such as what feminism constitutes, the wage gap, and the prevalence of false accusations, are simply wrong. There is ample evidence to support that claim over on the sidebar. Very briefly:

Overt expressions of contempt and hatred for men are extremely common among contemporary feminists. One simply has to search for #misandry on tumblr or twitter to find it. And even feminists are starting to admit that being a feminist is much more than simply believing in equality.
The wage gap is real but it is much smaller than feminists claim when comparing the same work with the same experience.
Many feminists do indeed want to be "more equal" than men, as they deny that men can be disadvantaged as men or that men can suffer sexism. A powerful institutional example of this bias can be found in the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report, which literally does not count any disadvantage suffered by men when computing the index.
No one actually knows how many rape accusations are true or false, how many real rapes go unpunished, or how many false accusations go undetected. Any claim to the contrary, such as most rapist go unpunished, is a reflection of biased thinking rather than fact.

A few words on false accusations: Any intelligent discussion about false accusations must treat all rape accusations as unproven until either proven true (a rape occurred) or false (a false accusation occurred). The fact is only a small percentage of accusations can be proven either true or false and most remain indeterminate. Feminists use a double standard when confronted with this evidence: they claim that the small number of accusations proven true (a rape conviction) is proof that most rapist go free, while simultaneously claiming that the small number of proven false accusations is evidence that most accusations are true. But based on the same evidence one could claim that very few rape accusations are true given the low conviction rate, but a huge number of false accusations are made with impunity.

The fact of the matter is this: no one knows how many accusations are true but don't result in a conviction, nor does anyone know how many accusations are false but are not proven so.

The stories about false accusations that are related here are intended to demonstrate several things: 1) false accusations do occur 2) the motivations for the false accusations are often astonishly trivial 3) the false accusations are often made with little or no consequences to the accuser 4) the accused often suffer severe consequences despite their innocence. These facts are rarely discussed in the mainstream media and are not commonly known.

transsisterradio · 2014-01-11T03:43:58+00:00

Op it falls into how you feel about situationl ethics and moral relativism. MRA does not have a canonical doctrine, being an MRA has many valid and varied opinions. The sidebar is about as clear cut as it stands on finding an MRA ideology but that is even disputed. Of course idiots stand out in any group and always bring negative scruitiny. If you are concerned you have two choices turn around and leave (I hope you don't) or get involved. Allow me to help reframe your mind set; you are at the start of a journey that will question your core beliefs, it often is uncomfortable for many who become an MRA. I did not like some of the answers MRA gave me I accept it but at least the answers where honest. I would prefer harsh honesty than false fantasy.

Edit: For me one of my light bulb moments was feminst in media saying men and women are the same. The only equality I want is equality before the law. I'm not an idiot we are not the same this kind of dishonesty got me thinking..."The unexamined life is not worth living"--Socrates

unexpecteditem · 2014-01-11T08:22:50+00:00

It may be a serious question, but it is also a leading one.

Consider: Do you still beat your wife, or is that all in the past now?

TheyCalledMeMad · 2014-01-11T03:46:55+00:00

My advice is: Don't accept either answer, and instead remain skeptical of both of these ideas.

I think that one of the best things you can do for the topic of inequalities is refuse to attach yourself to any identity group (in this case, MRAs) and instead remain an individual who cares about the topic at hand. Identity politics is toxic, and a complete waste of time.

Specifically regarding the idea of MRAs having little to no sympathy for alleged female victims, I would guess that this has to do with over-saturation of the topic. Personally, having seen an abundance of situations where women and girls are said to be victims of something, it is difficult for me to get worked up over it any more because it is just too regular. My emotional bandwidth is now quite low. Compounding this is that it often feels as though men and boys in similar situations are being ignored or dismissed, having their pain be minimized and rationalized away, which adds a bit of a sting. To summarize, I do not think that some MRAs have a lack of care about female victims because of hate, but because of pain and weariness.

dejour · 2014-01-11T04:52:53+00:00

The wage gap isn't real in the sense that "women earn 77 cents on the dollar for the same job".

This website says that politicians making that sort of statement are saying something "mostly false"

http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2013/jul/15/terry-mcauliffe/mcauliffe-says-women-earn-77-percent-mens-pay-same/

It's real in the sense that women earn less money than men, because women do different jobs, work fewer hours, take less risky jobs, have less years of experience, work less overtime - which tends to have a higher wage, etc.

Discrimination by employers likely accounts for relatively little of the wage gap. Maybe as much as 5-7 cents, but if I had to guess I'd say 2-3 cents.

How you interpret the stat makes a big difference. Do you insist that women be paid 30% more on an hourly basis (which would be unfair to their male counterparts who do the same job)? Or do you work to change the culture so that women work longer hours? Maybe giving more men custody of their children would reduce the earnings gap because divorced men would need to work less and divorced women would be able to work more.

Anyways, if you interpret someone disagreeing with the wage gap as misogynistic, then you will see a lot of misogyny. But if you start to understand where MRAs are coming from, the seeming misogyny will evaporate.

That said, there do exist some misogynists in the world and the MRM probably attracts more than it's fair share. I don't think that misogynists are anywhere near the majority in the MRM and I feel they've become a smaller and smaller portion over the past few years.

Lastly, I think there is confirmation bias on the part of many people. Many people decline to identify themselves as MRA in real life or in internet forums. There's too much negative associations with the label, so people hope to make MRA points without using the term. When these people come off as reasonable, people don't realize they are MRAs. When these people come off as angry and unhinged, people assume they are MRAs. Recently, I've made an effort to mention that I'm an MRA when I comment at Slate.com. If I state that I'm an MRA and make a calm, reasonable point then people will hopefully start to change their opinions about MRAs.

unexpecteditem · 2014-01-11T08:25:36+00:00

Question. If body does not determine "gender", how does there come to be a bipolar scale of gender in the first place?

Mitchell78 · 2014-01-11T10:19:52+00:00

The wage gap is a myth and being called a misogynist by feminists these days is basically a compliment, certainly not something to worry about.

Nomenimion · 2014-01-11T12:31:53+00:00

Any suggestion that there is more vitriol in the Men's Rights Movement than in feminism or even in mainstream politics is pure ignorance. If you want to see real hate, just read the comments section of any newspaper.

2014-01-11T15:11:43+00:00

People vilify feminists because the movement spreads hateful misinformation about men, and legislates to the detriment of men.

The majority don't hate men

Not consciously, but they typically believe anti male hate propaganda fed to them by the movement they follow.

2014-01-11T15:17:54+00:00

(every false report is a very big issue, but statistically speaking, [it is not common]

There is a significant % of men in the men's and fathers rights movement that have been falsely accused of rape, child abuse and/or domestic violence.

Then there are unofficial false accusations relating to rape and violence against women that feminists level at us constantly.

Warren Farrel, mild mannered, fair - not to feminists, they falsely accuse him of being pro rape and child sex abuse.

Nomenimion · 2014-01-11T17:22:30+00:00

False rape accusations are very common. This is why prosecutors cover them up: they don't dare draw attention to the issue. There are too many skeletons in the feminist police state's closet.

If people ever learn the full extent of the fraud being perpetrated against men, 'victims' won't be able to accuse a fly of landing on shit.

http://suite101.com/a/false-allegations-a21219

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/05/02/false-rape-accusations-may-be-more-common-than-thought/

guywithaccount · 2014-01-12T00:50:30+00:00

What I see most often from this movement (not just this subreddit) is the vilification of women and feminists.

Attacking feminism is not the same as hating women. Attacking women's privilege is not the same as hating women. Most of the accusations of misogyny made against the MRM are made by people who don't know what misogyny is.

I see a lot of misinformation about what feminism actually is. The majority don't hate men

The majority of society hates men. That includes feminists, who frequently create or perpetuate sexism against men. It's just that this misandry is so utterly normalized, and so little attention has been paid to it with the purpose of identifying and exposing it, that most people can't see it.

What you see here isn't "misinformation"; it's another perspective on feminism, just as valid as yours, which you are dismissing.

women still face wage-based discrimination

There is no evidence that women as individuals are systemically discriminated against, which shows that women as a class are not systemically discriminated against. The DoL data isn't really indicative of anything wrt gender-based wage discrimination.

why isn't anyone talking about how white women make more than people of colour

Good question. Ask a group that advocates for racial equality. Our scope is deliberately limited to men, men's rights, and men's issues.

some MRAs think false reports are a statistically big issue

If false rape reports happen at all, they are a statistically big issue. All the more so when women alone have the power to make false accusations that will be taken seriously and do real harm to the innocents they accuse, and when those making such accusations often receive no punishment for making them.

Pecanpig · 2014-01-11T03:52:48+00:00

I had a really long comment, but someone else made a better post.

I'm pretty sure you're just a troll.

GunOfSod · 2014-01-11T04:42:00+00:00

Here's a serious answer. Are you really dishonest, or just naive?

2014-01-11T03:17:19+00:00

This sub is home to two distinct "movements" "Men's Rights", and "men's Rights". Men's Rights is anti-Feminist, men's rights isn't, that is, capital-M "Men's Rights" vs. lower-case-m "men's Rights". This is the fundamental distinction that needs to be drawn, the two-fold nature or tension present at the heart of the entire thing, it's the cause of all the disagreement and haranguing about this, and if anything, at the present moment, this is not only a men's rights issue, but the issue facing the whole "movement".

"men's Rights", little-m, is a social justice "movement" that seeks to insert itself into the existing firmament of social justice "movements", to take its rightful place among them, to make men into another group oppressed by "Capitalism"/"Patriarchy"/etc. "men's Rights" is about turning men into victims. Period. As the proletariat has the bourgeois, women have men, sexual minorities have straight people, gender minorities have cis-people, racial minorities have "white people", Islam has Christianity etc. These social justice causes are Marxist derivatives, which is why it feels so much like "Cis" is a pejorative term and not simply a innocent, taxonomic category like some would have you believe. But who do men have? That's where things get interesting.

There's been this insidious transvaluation of values that's occurred since the 1960s and the beginning of the so-called "New" Left. Being a victim, being oppressed, being marginalized, those things have become desirable characteristics to possess, they confer social and political benefits in the same way that we're told being white once did. This is why, when you go to TiA, you see so many young people flailing around trying to create minority identities for themselves, because the minority is the new majority. Let me repeat that:

The minority is the majority.

Neo-Marxism is predicated upon a rhetoric of revolution, of putting itself into a position of rebelling, of rising up and overthrowing an establishment class of rulers, and they did, and America is, culturally, Neo-Marxist, economically socialist, and politically fascist, and the oppressed have become the oppressors, while the whole time slyly masking their take-over behind a language of racial and gender grievance. "Intersectionality", that is, the mutual understanding between the different branches of Neo-Marxism (Feminism, Post-Colonialism, Queer Theory, etc.), has created a single oppressor identity, the Straight, White, Western European, Christian, Bourgeois, Adult, Cis, Able, Psychologically "Normal", Thin Male.

Where is there even one person who falls into that group though? The oppressor identity, in reality, is completely and utterly empty, Neo-Marxist "theories" have become so granular, and particularized identity so badly that there's noone left who isn't part of a minority. In our "Society" we are a majority of minorities all revolting against a group of people that we're all a part of. The actuality of it is becoming completely unhinged, it's collapsing, falling apart into a dross of infinite, nonsensical subjectivity.

The word describing this new state is "Post-Modernism".

"men", the "men" that "men's Rights" (little-m mind you) serves, they'll never be allowed into Social Justice club, because intellectually that would be to finally admit defeat, to uncouple Marxism completely from objective actuality and put the entire burden of the oppressor role unto a non-existent hypostasis. "men's Rights" is a waste of time, an oxymoron honestly within the wider world of Social Justice. To admit men to the oppressed would be destroy the entire ideology that allows Social Justice grievance groups to exist. It would be the end of Neo-Marxist Social Justice as an intellectual position.

"Men's Rights", capital-M, is about a solution to the philosophical problem of Modernity. The difference is between men and Man, as in Hu-Man. Post-Modernism is, intellectually, a very similar problem to the one that came at the end of the Enlightenment, the crisis of European sentimentality, the collapse of Rationalism. "Men's Rights" is a rejection of Social Justice, of Feminism, of Subjectivism, and of Neo-Marxism. It doesn't seek to place men within the fabric of oppressed peoples, but elevate all of Humanity out of Post-Modernism.

That's the difference, that's the distinction, the antagonism at the core of this sub. There are soft-Feminists, Leftists, and Neo-Marxist ideologues here that want men to become another minority, and then there are those of us who are here to completely dismantle Neo-Marxist identity politics intellectually. I completely reject the mRA, I'm not a part of it, I don't identify as an mRA and I never will. I will never consent to the mRA claiming to speak for me or representing me politically. Ever. I am an MRA and I have nothing but contempt for this sub so far as it's about the mRA. Whether or not the distinction is commonly recognized it exists all the same, and MensRights will diverge in these two different directions given enough time, at which point the MRAs will completely divorce themselves from the mRA once and for all and be done with them.

rightsbot · 2014-01-11T03:10:17+00:00

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SporkTornado · 2014-01-11T03:37:42+00:00

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EwogDPh-Sow this video help explains the gender wage gap.

I believe feminisists did manage to bring about lots of positive change in the 60's, 70's, 80's. but modern feminism today has become a hate movement. if you mention any men's issues like 80% of suicides are men you get branded a misogynist.

mustryhardr · 2014-01-11T03:50:48+00:00

I think the two options in your title are the same thing.

There is nothing inherently misogynist about men's rights but the movement is polluted by misogynists, who are by definition extremists.

One of the examples you give is a good one. Father's often are discriminated against in custody cases but this is because mothers are more likely to take responsibility for childcare in functioning relationships.

I know women whose husbands stay at home while they work. They know that if they split up they will be financially responsible for their exes because these men have sacrificed their earnings potential in order for them to build their careers. They know they are unlikely to get custody of their children because they are not the main carer now. (I am in the UK and this is how the family courts work here, I do not know how the US works).

So you can't have equality in the family courts for fathers (that is, fathers being as likely to be awarded custody as mothers) until fathers take equal responsibility for childcare (that is, are as likely to give up work and career earnings as mothers).

One of the huge mistakes some elements within feminism make is to identify what is wrong for women and with men.

A lot of men's rights activists fall into the same trap.

I wouldn't call all of them misogynists. I think all of us are prone to recognise injustices that we experience ourselves but can easily remain oblivious to those suffered by others. Or if they are pointed out to us we react defensively because it seems like we are being personally accused of something we haven't done when no such accusation is being made.

Some of them obviously are misogynists. If they think that mothers should stay at home with the kids and resent paying childcare and resent not getting custody, they're a self-centred whiny prick who probably does meet the definition of misogyny.

If they want to know why they can't get parental leave as easily as women, and why people think it is strange that they want to take time off work to spend with their kids, and why their employers won't accommodate that, then they are being consistent and I completely agree with them.

The way in which patriarchy restricts choice for women also results in a mirror image restriction of choice for men. I think men should speak out about the way in which their choices are limited too, but to do so is not opposing feminism, it is feminism.

Title	[Serious Question] Is this movement polluted with misogyny, or are the extremists just sticking out?
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	0
Comments	61
Date	January 11, 2014 3:09 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1uxn6t/serious_question_is_this_movement_polluted_with/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/serious-question-is-this-movement-polluted-with.1005004 https://theredarchive.com/post/1005004

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