The Rights of Men

[warpus]

Issues be complex.

Sure, but the question was easy and has an easy answer.

There's no contradiction in admitting that sexism is sexism, while at the same time admitting that it's often a complex issue and that not forms of sexism are equal.

 

[brennan]

Gosh, that makes it a completely valid criticism.

DAMMIT, IT'S NOVEMBER AND BLOODY CHRISTMAS IS CONTAMINATING THE SMILEYS!

 

[Manfred Belheim]

How can someone claim to be for male rights and then proceed to ignore the vast majority of males in the world?

I don't know how not to sound rude about this, but this is such a childlike level of reasoning and a childlike question to ask.

Think of if this way - if someone is interested tackling issues faced by men in their own society, possibly because they faced those issues themselves or know people who did, is that a bad thing? If they are mostly concerned with the rights of men in their society, does that not explain why claiming to be for male rights makes an incredible amount of sense? If you then decide an incredibly broad definition of "for male rights", which is based on the words alone and ignores all the aforementioned context, is that a logical or reasonable thing to do? (The answers are "no", "yes" and "no" respectively btw)

As has already been said, the problem is not that feminism rarely addresses cases of actual systemic oppression of women in Africa and the Middle East or wherever else. The problem is that they frequently claim to when it suits them to try and play a trump card that nobody can argue with, but rarely if ever actually live up to their own professed standards. The same thing happens when they claim to actually care about men's issues or that feminism is about equality or whatever else. They only claim these things when challenge on the legitimacy of the ideology, but when left to their own devices they never live up to these ideals.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Weird. The monolithic single entity of Feminism can both be criticised for addressing small problems locally, and allegedly not acting internationally. Whereas for others it is ok.

But this double standard is ok because ???

Because of the detailed explanation given in the very post you were quoting here.

It almost seems like you don't read the words in front of your eyes...

 

[Rashiminos]

i don't actually really have much to say about men's issues. ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

That is to say that an existence proof is hard to come by if all possible issues can be slotted into the other bin by decree.

have people talk about the latter instead of the poppycock that is the former.

A more sincere, devoted expression of this sentiment is to coerce people into talking about the latter.

But it is people like you* who are making that association (to a non-existent group I might add).

Patriarchal and authoritarian groups do exist. The more worthwhile question is to what extent authoritarianism is compatible with modern feminism (even if feminists may have trouble making the connection to 'internalized MISOGYNY' because of a preference to find patriarchy instead of authority, see what they want to see and so on).

I too can create strawmen but i won't.

In regards to AVFM (a designated hate site by the SPLC), writers for that site have engaged in death threats, bullying, harassment, doxing, etc.

I'd love to see why you think Jack Barnes' constant attacks on anyone he percieves as being a feminist is acceptable, especially when it so often veers into death threats and harassment.

Let's hear from the man himself:

It's not, but a more thorough examination of the immediately preceding response can begin to explain why an organization like AVFM can both, have issues with remote readers taking quotes out of context, and have writers disseminate corrupt messages that impede the movement and require later retractions (if so inclined). If you want to have an argument on the finer points of tone-policing, I have no personal objection. Next time try to make it past the post...

I'm sure one day we will find the answer to that.

And yes, i do believe there are rights that men can and could have, but i don't buy into this belief that they are somehow downtrodden wholescale by women.

Is it your intent to conflate women with feminists in this post?

That's true, but I think there's also a difference in the quantity and aggression of online anger directed at women compared with that directed at men.

I think the difference being noted is the difference in thresholds between the two general recipients, as in one side is more tolerant of language that makes no pretense of geniality. My response to the 73% figure in one of the studies cited by the cyberviolence panel was something along 99~100% of males by that standard.

I'd consider someone, unwarrented, coming up to me, be it physically or through social media and insulting me everyday to be harassment.

Would you deem your presence in this thread to be harassment?

And sorry, just because the threats have yet to result in actual concrete action doesn't make them any less evil or insidious.

I find no need to disagree with this.

My hopes for this thread have dwindled. Part of it my fault I suppose. My OP should have been meatier (and probably not beginning with the concept of male privilege) to sustain a better discussion. By the end, if 10% of the posts were good serious posts on men's issues, then I wouldn't consider this thread a waste.

To refresh a more local issue in the wake of this thread: You have run into the frequent pitfall of attempting to direct the discourse of an issue by resorting to call for civility (RD designation). This amounts to only a change in tactics and weapons if various factions seek a mutual engagement. RD is effective when it subtly persuades certain posters not to participate. It's negated if the value of the battlefield is deemed to be high enough.

The question is who is constantly pushing the discussion in that direction.

I wouldn't disagree with this either, whether it be feminist discussion towards men's rights, or manosphere discussion towards radical feminism.

All you ever hear from the likes or AVFM is vitriol and complaining about feminism and women, what have they accomplished? Nothing.

This is a fairly rear-oriented view if one is not putting the cart before the horse. Thought and conversation precede action. Although in this case it may be more relevant to cite inaction: Community Organized Compassion and Kindness: MGTOW (articles)

And by god did those privileged people fight hard to keep those freedoms exclusive to themselves. There have always been reactionaries to the advancement of equality.

Ironic in the light of spit and muscle.

How can someone claim to be for male rights and then proceed to ignore the vast majority of males in the world?

I'm pretty sure there's a lack of internet access problem that either party can remedy at their leisure in there. We need not just rely on pamphlets being dropped out of unmarked planes.

Let's apply this to MRAs, why aren't they in Africa or Saudi Arabia?

They're finding more headway in India.

The people who do should meet on neutral ground, not try to pull people into the blob of ideological ideas that is feminism as a prerequisite to tackle existing problems.

Meeting on neutral ground in this debate is a lot like no man's land during WWI. The price of fence-sitting can be to receive twice the hostile fire.

And who decided they couldn't go on the battlefield? Let's take a minute and think about it...

Men.

A little more seasoned explanation is that militaries screen out unfit recruits and a side effect of this process is that women are more often excluded by those standards even if not strictly prohibited from enlisting in the first place. The MRA-style criticism of feminism in relation to military standards is the belief that feminists don't push women in general to meet those standards. Rather, they agitate for the military to lower the standards (supposing that by doing so, the competence of that nation's military as a whole is degraded, rather than supposing that the former standards reflect an all-male military that is not necessary {any longer}). I await the experiment on this one.

Spoiler :

I suspect we have a degree of collective amnesia on this topic owing to the Fall of Rome and the Dark Ages. The answer lost to history may have been, "We'd rather not run the risk of war directly equating to genocide by exterminating the enemies' mothers."

about the rates at which we drug little boys into compliance during primary school? Is this an appropriate adaptation to inculcate growing boys into an increasingly sedentary society where physical prowess and energy is not only unnecessary but perhaps also unwelcome? As in, it's dangerous(the physical energy level)? Or is it not appropriate(the drugging)? If it's not appropriate, what do we do with little boys? They need to move more than state curriculum builds in time for, often enough. There's multiple choice tests to prep for and funding to be earned. And we know better funding yields better lifelong results!

The goal of compliance is not targeted specifically at boys, but it's easier to target boys through "toxic masculinity" than an alternative approach of mental healthcare. Direct instruction and another youth-specific medical treatment are also employed in that part of the spectrum of dominance. When it comes to instilling young minds with "basic human decency," feminists are useful tools in the endeavor.

***

If men are really not privileged now and need their own special advocacy then I'd like to know the crossover point. If people could indicate the best disposition of gender privileges on the scales of Saudi Arabia ---> Sweden and pick a year 1800 to present in an English speaking nation, that might be kind of helpful.

What does an equal society, or our closest approximation of, look like?

First attempt: 1980s Canada.

Spoiler :

Any English-speaking country during or after 2001 is most assuredly too late.

 

[Bootstoots]

Moderator Action: Just a reminder that this is an RD thread. No spam please.

 

[useless]

I think we should look at the toxic masculinity that allows men to feel that they cannot come out and talk about their mental health and experiences with it, lest they feel like they are "lesser men". A change in culture needs to occur, hence why i think the MRM should work with feminists and change societies perception of "masculinity" and gender roles in general.

 

[Samson]

Happy International Men's Day everyone.

WRT drugging schoolboys, does anyone else think it is a consequence of the banning of corporal punishment in schools these days? As in back in my day the boys would have played up, got canned and not done it again. Now they do not cane kids, so they keep on acting up and so end up getting drugged?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I'm starting to realise that my main problem with this line of thinking is that trying to solve problems by attempting to engineer a grass-roots restructuring of how people think and feel is not only a rather sinister and insidious solution, but also surely a remarkably inefficient one. If step one of your plan is essentially "achieve utopia" and/or "make everyone behave nicely to everyone else" then it's clearly just never going to happen and, even it it would be nice to achieve, is kind of overkill.

For example - the immediate solution for the lack of men's shelters for domestic abuse is to provide the funding for the creation of the shelters, NOT to re-engineer human behaviour to stamp out all the root causes of domestic abuse. Sometimes you just need to patch up the problem. If you're in the middle of the ocean on a sinking ship then the best course of action is to get all hands to the pumps and to try and patch up the hull as best you can, it's not to sit on the bridge poring over the blueprints and complaining about the design flaws.

This isn't really a direct response, just a thought.

More relevant to what you said - how would you propose the MRM goes about working with feminists in any capacity, given the amount of hostility and mistrust between the two camps? Why would this even be a good thing?

 

[Farm Boy]

I'm starting to realise that my main problem with this line of thinking is that trying to solve problems by attempting to engineer a grass-roots restructuring of how people think and feel is not only a rather sinister and insidious solution, but also surely a remarkably inefficient one. If step one of your plan is essentially "achieve utopia" and/or "make everyone behave nicely to everyone else" then it's clearly just never going to happen and, even it it would be nice to achieve, is kind of overkill.

For example - the immediate solution for the lack of men's shelters for domestic abuse is to provide the funding for the creation of the shelters, NOT to re-engineer human behaviour to stamp out all the root causes of domestic abuse. Sometimes you just need to patch up the problem. If you're in the middle of the ocean on a sinking ship then the best course of action is to get all hands to the pumps and to try and patch up the hull as best you can, it's not to sit on the bridge poring over the blueprints and complaining about the design flaws.

This isn't really a direct response, just a thought.

More relevant to what you said - how would you propose the MRM goes about working with feminists in any capacity, given the amount of hostility and mistrust between the two camps? Why would this even be a good thing?

That is a good post. And I think a good example is the relationship of when interracial marriage became "mainstream acceptable" to when it was recognized as unconstitutional to prohibit, and when homosexual marriage became "mainstream acceptable" to when it was recognized as unconstitutional to prohibit(here in the US). Which process had things in the right order, and which one did it in the wrong order?

 

[useless]

Who seriously here is asking for a utopia? That's a strawman.

In regards to working with feminists, the first thing the MRM could do is not be a counter-reaction to the gains made by females, they could desist in their attacks, they could acknowledge that masculinity, toxic masculinity, hurts both man and woman, if you think that the hostility between each of these groups is productive to each of their end goals then that is your perogative, but it isn't mine.

 

[Farm Boy]

I wouldn't call it utopia, but I'd call it theory. It took theory to drive marriage equality in the US. It eventually did when the theory won out in populist acceptance and drug policy into line. We should, however, have done what we did with interracial marriage. Apply the theory at the policy level and let the lack of fire and brimstone and rampaging hordes of raping mulattoes drag populist acceptance into accord with where we wanted to be in the first place.

 

[Ryika]

Who seriously here is asking for a utopia? That's a strawman.

In regards to working with feminists, the first thing the MRM could do is not be a counter-reaction to the gains made by females, they could desist in their attacks, they could acknowledge that masculinity, toxic masculinity, hurts both man and woman, if you think that the hostility between each of these groups is productive to each of their end goals then that is your perogative, but it isn't mine.

So in other words the first step for MRAs to work with feminists is surrendering to feminists and accepting feminist dogma.

I have another idea: How about both sides just meet on neutral ground and leave things like "toxic masculinity" out of the equation for now, to fix some of the immediate problems (working on providing shelter for homeless people, working on fixing the unfair trials when it comes to domestic abuse) and see where things go from there?

As long as you insist to see things from a feminist perspective - which is a perspective that not even people on neutral ground (like myself or any other skeptic person) accept - you are actively blocking any solution to this nonsense that both sides are wasting their time with.

 

[useless]

How do you intend to fight such issues without changing how masculinity is viewed? It's no secret that men are essentially told from birth to act in a certain way, it's no secret that this in turn hurts men, especially when it comes to domestic abuse and rape, what im proposing is a logical alliance based on a mutual desire to end said problems resulting from that problematic masculinity, but if that's "accepting feminists dogma" you can go about it alone, let's see how well the MRM does when it's so wrapped up attacking feminism.

The MRA's list of victories and accomplishments will remain zero until they can get their act together, but given how so much of the movement is solely about attacking women and feminists i doubt they ever will.

 

[Rashiminos]

I think we should look at the toxic masculinity that allows men to feel that they cannot come out and talk about their mental health and experiences with it, lest they feel like they are "lesser men". A change in culture needs to occur, hence why i think the MRM should work with feminists and change societies perception of "masculinity" and gender roles in general.

The sharing of their experiences is happening, just not where you want it to happen. Some stripes of feminists got in the habit of turning men away at the opportune moments, so they went elsewhere. If feminists want the MRM to work with them instead of around them, perhaps the supposed productiveness of that approach needs to become more convincing.

How do you intend to fight such issues without changing how masculinity is viewed? It's no secret that men are essentially told from birth to act in a certain way, it's no secret that this in turn hurts men, especially when it comes to domestic abuse and rape, what im proposing is a logical alliance based on a mutual desire to end said problems resulting from that problematic masculinity,

Spoiler :

There's a red pill / blue pill conversation that useless is conveniently ignoring at the moment.

 

[Ryika]

How do you intend to fight such issues without changing how masculinity is viewed? It's no secret that men are essentially told from birth to act in a certain way, it's no secret that this in turn hurts men, especially when it comes to domestic abuse and rape, what im proposing is a logical alliance based on a mutual desire to end said problems resulting from that problematic masculinity, but if that's "accepting feminists dogma" you can go about it alone, let's see how well the MRM does when it's so wrapped up attacking feminism.

The MRA's list of victories and accomplishments will remain zero until they can get their act together, but given how so much of the movement is solely about attacking women and feminists i doubt they ever will.

This was once again just a "Submit to feminism or I'll oppose what you do."-speech. All of that is not required to fix some of the most immediate issues. That is what can be talked about later, but there are things that can be fixed by staying on neutral ground.

For example:
In cases of domestic abuse the man is assumed to be the perpetrator and the women is assumed to be the victim. We know this does not match reality where both genders can be perpetrator and victim and the percentages aren't that far apart from one-another.

So the solution is easy:
- Get rid of the current "protocol" and find out who is victim and who is perpetrator in each individual case.

What is there to oppose? It's an easy fix to an obvious problem. No feminism needed to analyze anything.

 

[useless]

There's a difference between working around feminism and actively attacking it, which i think you know.

If Men want to share their dislike of women and feminists as a whole on forums such as the Redpill on reddit, good for them but know this; people will look at that and judge them to be a bunch of misogynists because all they ever do is complain and hate and whine. That's the MRA's problem, their PR sucks because the people who head the movement and either genuinely vile or don't care and they think this sort of vitriol will help them in the long term, but they should really take a leaf from feminism's book and try to actually back up their rhetoric with actions, but they won't because it's easier for them to complain about the dreaded straw-feminists and watch the money roll in.

Rykia, maybe you should look into why the "protocol" exists in the first place before making rash, simplistic judgements to overhaul a system you haven't been involved in.

 

[Farm Boy]

Actually Ry, feminist theory would seem to view that situation as progress since things would have developed to the point where female agency(even in criminality and abusive behavior) as well as female victimization are being addressed as baseline norms. I suppose I could be wrong, but then you'd need to warp the theory somewhere and I'd need to be convinced it was appropriate.

 

[Ryika]

Rykia, maybe you should look into why the "protocol" exists in the first place before making rash, simplistic judgements to overhaul a system you haven't been involved in.

It exists because of the wrong assumption that women are victims and men are perpetrators, it's as simple as that. If you think this is wrong then provide evidence instead of just bringing such "If only you knew...!"-nonsene.

Actually Ry, feminist theory would seem to view that situation as progress since things would have developed to the point where female agency as well as female victimization are being addressed as baseline norms. I suppose I could be wrong, but then you'd need to warp the theory somewhere and I'd need to be convinced it was appropriate.

Well yes, proper feminism would. I was of course talking about that nonsense-feminism that useless is affiliated with.

 

[useless]

What brand of feminism am i affliated with? Please give me an official name of it, because i didn't realise i subscribed to any specific branch but im sure you will tell me otherwise!