MOD NOTE: Please note the following part of the forum rules:
The initial OP posted below covers it well enough: the premise of this thread is that men's issues exist. Don't bother posting if you don't believe there is such a thing.
Here's hoping this isn't considered too redundant. I've noticed that our existing threads about sexism tend to get bogged down in Oppression Olympics or else wildly derailed, so I thought I'd make a thread specifically to talk about discrimination issues that disproportionately affect men.
No Oppression Olympics here, okay? No saying "But that's not important because women suffer X which is worse!" And no discussing these issues purely in terms of how much better women have it. Okay? If the discussion cannot meaningfully proceed without making a comparison to male and female treatment, that's fine, but on the whole I want this thread to be about how men are harmed by society and how we can fix it. Issues like:
- The male-only draft (in countries that have one)
- Circumcision
- Cavalier attitudes toward men's pain and sickness, AKA "Walk it off!"
- The Success Myth, which defines a man's desirability by his material success. Also The Myth of Men Not Being Hot, which denies that men can be sexually attractive as male beings.
- Sexual abuse of men.
- Family law.
- General attitudes that men are dangerous or untrustworthy.
I could go on making the list, but I think you get the idea.
Despite what you might have heard about feminists not caring about men, it's not true. I care about men. Patriarchy sucks for them as much as it sucks for women, in a lot of ways. So I'm putting my keyboard where my mouth is and making a thread for us to all care about men.
Also? If you're male and think of something as a men's issue, by golly that makes it a men's issue fit for inclusion in this thread. I might disagree with you as to the solution, but as a woman I'm not going to tell you you have no right to be concerned about it. No "womansplaining" here.
Edited by nombretomado on Dec 15th 2019 at 5:19:34 AM
Their motto does seem to be "Any stupidity feminism can do, we can do bigger and stupider". But they're not like the spearhead so I guess they could be described as respectable.
I'd pay to see a parody of "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" written about AVFM out stupiding the worst of feminism.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Well, there is this infamous article
from the founder of A Voice For Men.
I don’t mean that in the sense that they are literally asking men to rape them (though this clearly does happen outside the context of this post). What I mean is, do women who dress and act provocatively; who taunt men sexually, toying with their libidos for personal power and gain, etc., have the same type of responsibility for what happens to them as, say, someone who parks their car in a bad neighborhood with the keys in the ignition and leaves it unlocked with the motor running?
Obviously, we still blame the car thief for the actual theft, but don’t most of us turn to the person who owned the car and at least want to ask, “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Wouldn’t the insurance company take a dim view of paying a claim in the midst of such stupid irresponsibility?
We should, though, also remember that at least the guy who set himself up to have his car jacked wasn’t doing anything sinister to begin with. Stupid, but not sinister. We can’t say the same for some of these women.
In that light, I have ideas about women who spend evenings in bars hustling men for drinks, playing on their sexual desires so they can get shit faced on the beta dole; paying their bar tab with the pussy pass. And the women who drink and make out, doing everything short of sex with men all evening, and then go to his apartment at 2:00 a.m.. Sometimes both of these women end up being the “victims” of rape.
But are these women asking to get raped?
In the most severe and emphatic terms possible the answer is NO, THEY ARE NOT ASKING TO GET RAPED.
They are freaking begging for it.
Damn near demanding it.
And all the outraged PC demands to get huffy and point out how nothing justifies or excuses rape won’t change the fact that there are a lot of women who get pummeled and pumped because they are stupid (and often arrogant) enough to walk though life with the equivalent of a I’M A STUPID, CONNIVING BITCH – PLEASE RAPE ME neon sign glowing above their empty little narcissistic heads.
Yeah, A Voice For Men has some pretty huge issues.
What's precedent ever done for us?
Moar and Moar and Moar
The problem is that large swaths of both the MRA movement and the modern Feminist movement (I refer to it as the Social Justice Warrior movement to differentiate it, and to be precise) both take the identity politics view of these things. The result of that is to turn pretty much everything into a battle of the sexes, the fight a war between the genders.
They're two sides of the same coin, fighting the same battle on different sides.
A battle I want NO part of. A battle that I think causes a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering in our world, and only serves to perpetuate the issues that they claim to want to fix.
So no. We need to push back against gender tropes, roles and stereotypes in our society, because they affect everybody. And none of this Oppression Olympics stuff either.
We're all both the oppressors and the oppressed. Simultaneously. And until we recognize that, there's never going to be any progress.
Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve
As good as that sounds, it won't quite work that way.
For example, reproductive rights and justice. Due to sexual dimorphism, there's not going to be an equal conclusion to that argument. Either a woman will have sovereignty over her body or she won't. Either a man will be able to have a say in whether his child lives or dies or he won't. There's no middle ground there.
The only other option is to make everyone transgender or start utilizing artificial wombs.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
This only applies to pregnancy and related topics like abortion. Yes, we won't have equal reproductive rights because men and women are inherently different in that regard. But that shouldn't stop us from making the situation more equal than it is now, with men having barely any reproductive rights at all.
I didn't say we shouldn't make things better.
And I can't help but notice that you still made it solely about men in the end.
HmmmHmmm. Parents: it takes two to tango... and fuck... up. 
As a group, we need to get better at picking up the pieces and make both sides quit blaming the other for stuff that just happens.
What's the point of pointing fingers and making blame stick point by point for each and every grievance (both real and imaginary)? All it serves is to engorge self-righteous back-patting that you weren't to blame and so you can "punish" the other — honest.
Like that helps the kids. <_< Parenting: it should be about kids' rights, not just yours.
edited 19th Apr '13 7:02:09 AM by Euodiachloris
Waste of Time
Could that possibly be because this is a thread about Men's Issues and, on the topic of reproductive rights, there are a lot of issues that face men? And that Besserwisser was, I dunno, addressing those specific issues from the view point that males are the disadvantaged ones in terms of reproductive rights since women already have far more of them?
I would comment, but already said everything.
scratching at .8, just hopin'
Moar and Moar and Moar
In a thread about men's issues that's probably pretty appropriate.
I agree that in some cases (for example reproductive rights) a gender dimorphic view is probably necessary, but ideally this would be seen as the exception rather than the rule.
Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve
Something strange...
@6404: Why does that make it "AVFM has issues" and not "Paul Elam has issues"? They have other contributors after all.
For that matter, Elam himself has posted things that seem reasonably sane lately.
"So... the time has come for you to meet your demise..."
Manboobz is about on the same level as Paul Elam on the respectability front.
Edit: ... Possibly lower, actually. While Paul does occasionally post a thought-provoking and non-confrontational piece, all Manboobz does is rant.
edited 19th Apr '13 8:07:44 AM by Guest1001
Waste of Time
Manboobz trying to offer any advice to AVFM is laughable when much of their own content is ranting, raving or general misguided idiocy.
scratching at .8, just hopin'
Are you denying the activity of AVFM regulars listed on that link?
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
That wasn't what he said. If he'd left it at "making things more equal than they are now", I wouldn't have had reason to comment. But no, he added the part about men barely having any reproductive rights, which is what I pointed out. Because when you look at the topics of reproductive rights and reproductive justice (which was actually what I said, not just one) it's a hell of a lot less simple than that.
edited 19th Apr '13 8:52:38 AM by KingZeal
But men barely have any reproductive rights. What is wrong with that statement?
Waste of Time
"Making things more equal than they are now" already suggests inequality, doesn't it? And with every inequality there has to be one group that comes off worse overall - the last line was just a clarifier.
η β π
I'd dispute that: large parts of the US are currently trying to make sure that neither gender has any reproductive rights.
Women having less chance to control both contraception and abortion: men having less say about whether they want to pony up for the resulting kid, whatever Mom or they wanted. This is not a win-win, either way you slice it. Or, however you wish contraception to be controlled, and by whom.
edited 19th Apr '13 9:13:32 AM by Euodiachloris
As I said, it makes it all about men.
But you know what, I'm not actually doing any good with that. So let's genuinely discuss the rights that men should have.
Custody, Visitation rights, paternity validation, and options for birth control outside of condoms are the toppers, as far as I'm aware.
I didn't say anything about women having it better.
It makes it all about men in a thread about men. What the hell is the problem with that?
Because mens' issues are not all about men any more than womens' issues are all about them.
Umm, does A Voice For Men count as a respectable MRA source? 'Cuz, uh, I've seen some criticisms.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.