source

This is an observation I keep making. Men's Rights Activists seem to think that they are fighting against feminism, that feminists are the enemy responsible for every injustice they oppose. They couldn't possibly be more mistaken. Feminism and Men's Rights is the same cause!

no, feminists aren't the only enemy. they are an enemy. they are not responsible for every injustice, they simply need to take responsibility for those injustices to which they contribute.

MRAs seem to think that when men lose, women win, and the reverse. For that reason, much of their rage seems to be directed, if not towards women, then at least towards feminists.

Sometimes. Not always. In zero-sum situations, yes, it's true that if someone takes 50.000000000000000000000000000001% thatleaves less than an equal share for the other persons.

Don't you realize, feminism and men's rights are two sides of the same coin?

yes, I do.

And the coin is gender equality, and when it is achieved, everybody wins. Yes, I do.

A loss for male equality is also a loss for feminism.

Ultimately True.

We aren't sitting here cheering every time a guy gets screwed out of 18 years worth of paychecks because a court demanded child support for a child that isn't even his.

maybe your part of we isn't. but there are a lot of men with ex-wives who have done that.

We don't justify and defend women who falsely accuse men of rape. We aren't the ones "doing this to you".

Again, maybe your part of we isn't, but there are men sitting in jail due to fraudulent rape allegateions.

The enemy is an outdated, patriarichal court system, and to maybe a lesser extent, the ignorance of a culture which hasn't yet moved on from some outdated traditional roles and mindsets.

that's one enemy. Another is the matriachal norm that would replace it.

And you fight it by demanding legal reforms, by publicizing and giving loud bad press to every injustice inflicted by the court system until there is a loud enough public demand from voters to do something about it.

yup.

And you fight it by speaking up every time someone says something sexist or limiting to either men or women.

yup.

You don't fight it by demonizing feminists.

you don't. I do. As I said, feminists aren't the only problem, but they are a problem.

They're fighting the same battle, just while emphasizing a slightly different aspect of the same cause.

indeed. THe wrong one, imo.

But there's a few trends I've noticed. The trend of equating "feminist" with "anybody you disagree with" is much more longstanding.

I have many disagreements that are against things and people other than feminism. They're not directly related to mens' rights, so I don't take the argument there.

I've noticed that anytime something happens which sets back the movement, everyone describes it as "feminists barged in and passed laws saying that..." or "a feminist judge sentenced him to..." etc etc. Closer examination almost always reveals that the actual people who did this have no ties to feminism whatsoever and in fact don't have feminist beliefs at all.

So who issues the I B A REAL FEMINIST cards?

But the simple fact that they're against you, means that you're going to label them a "feminist".

Not necessarily. I got a cold-call the other night from some snale oil sales jerk. I hated the product, hated the uinterruption to my evening, and hated the insult of being told to buy junk from a jerk. Feminism, however, didn;t entered into it.

This is a problem because it reduces the term "feminist" to nothing but a derogatory slur to be used to dismiss something as unfounded or just plain wrong.

I'm sure fire ants have their good qualities too. But I've not yet trietd to pet one that didn't try to bite and sting me either.

And recently I've also noticed a backlash, probably as we all have become more aware of this very unfortunate mentality among MRAs...and it is for us to be guilty of the reverse. We've started to use the terms "MRA" and "misogynist" interchangeably.

only recently? I'm glad you finally noticed. but it's been happening far longer than the /mensrights reddit existed.

I'd argue that this is a more understandable mistake simply because at least here on reddit, many of the individuals who go around describing themselves as MRAs, are in fact, frequently vocal misogynists.

I, personally, was much less vocally misogynist in the beginning, but I was bombarded with hit-and-runs- that called me a misogynist andd isappeared that I began with that mentality. 'call me a misogynist but . . .

But they don't represent the cause.

Just one guy and about 10,000 that have different takes on mens' rights.

As long as men are not equal, women cannot be equal either. And the reverse.

oh-oh. we may have an agreement here,

It's the same battle. And the more we wage civil war against those who really are on our side, the more we discredit the entire cause of equality.

HOld on, we're almost agreeing again wait, we're all supposed to rally behind the feminists? let me think about this one.

And, the easier it is for patriarichal authorities to continue running society the way they always have, and the more ineffective we become to do anything about it.

oh damn. we all have to bomb DA PATRIARCHY!!!!

PHMT shortcut for the loss.

EDIT: I need to clarify that Men's Rights and r/mensrights is NOT the same thing. When I refer to Men's Rights or the need for MRAs, I am NOT referring to kloo's little misogynistic hatefest. Just because they claim to be about men's rights doesn't make it true, they are using the cause of "equality" as an excuse to be openly and blatantly misogynistic. Instead, when I say MRAs, I mean people who are actually interested in promoting equality, with a focus on ways this affects men.

oh darn. all them hominids to attack.

Secondarily, I thought I would mention that r/equality is a much better alternative if you are looking for a subreddit that is interested in actually discussing men's rights issues in a helpful way.

it would have been . . .

try faq13 and kloo's conspiracy theory