Sexism and Men's Issues

Wait, so feminists are men-haters when they point out misogynie but when men hate all women it's justified.

No, it's when whenever a legimate issue is raised, first reaction is "YOU ARE MISOGYNIST!".

Whenever any sort of discussion is attempted, there is always a wave of feminist coming in, to derail and attack anyone daring to consider that men have issues and might need help.

Because only women have issues and fixing women's issues magically fixes everything wrong in the world

It's almost like these groups are made up of bigoted hypocrites, imagine that.

Why does a discussion of men's issues have to be a zero-sum game between the imagined radical feminist conspiracy on one hand and MRAs on the other? I'm happy to discuss men's issues; but this thread seems to be precious little of that, just bashing feminism and trying to elevate MRM to the level of official representative of men. They certainly don't speak on my behalf.

If you're going to defend people like MRAs - the same people who dox women on the internet and who pen the usual apologia for rape - then don't expect people not to call you on your bullshit. Losing the argument is not the same as losing the right to argue.

While it is true that feminism in general has a problem with accepting trans people and the like, it's not that hard to find groups that go out of their way to accept that kind of thing. I'm not so sure if there is a MRA group that does the same.

Is there any Men's Rights group that isn't really awful?

edited 2nd Apr '14 7:26:06 AM by DrStarky

"Feminism" is not an amorphous movement; second-wave feminism certainly has a big problem with trans people - look at Germaine Greer, Julie Burchill, and Cathy Brennan - but movements can't be judged by their washouts. A big part of modern social justice thinking is "intersectionality"; the idea that the various ways people are disenfranchised feed into each other.

There are plenty of very intelligent writers on men's issues out there, like Ally Fogg of the Guardian and FTB, but most don't claim the MRA label - for an excellent reason.

edited 2nd Apr '14 7:28:38 AM by Achaemenid

I understood it more in a way of being afraid that women could hurt you and get away with it. If divorce means you lose a lot of money, the easiest way out is not getting married, to mention the most prominent MGTOW position.

Because stating gay activists might be doing harm to homosexuals in some way and being worried about that just screams homophobia. You can disagree with his opinion here but I find it hard to construe it as opposing gay rights.

Is there any Men's Rights group that isn't really awful?

Let me help you there. I'd place a caveat on the ManKind Initiative (several of its high-ranking members have been involved in some very misogynistic stuff, even if they're merely sponsors and trustees these days), and the Good Men Project had a serious outbreak of Hugo Schwyzer (a walking incarnation of the 'creepy male feminist' stereotype), but everything else is pretty solid.

Those are simply feminist groups who put men at a distant second priority, I assume.

Basically, the biggest obstacle to gaining those men's only shelters and support for male victims is that the men's rights movement doesn't spend enough time advocating for those things and instead focuses all it's energy on demonizing women. That's the big issue.

As a result, they don't make progress on the actual issues because they're trying to hard to put women back in the kitchen.

In order to make a real difference, the movement needs a housecleaning and a refocusing.

As we say in Glasgow, get tae fuck. Actually read the damn article, and look at the groups, and you'll find that a lot of them are bloody good at what they do. I would have given anything at some points in my life to have known about groups like CALM.

They do excellent - real - work for vulnerable men, and they deserve a lot better that your uninformed nonsense.

The main reason why men's shelters aren't up and running already is feminist opposition, from presenting the issue as only affecting women to death threats for advocates of such shelters. That MR As need to oppose feminists (not women) is a reaction, not some hateful action with no prior incidents.

OK, so no good MRA groups then.

@Antiteilchen: No. Denying the possibility of men having problems that need to be solved is sexist. And judging by this thread, it's a very common position.

If the ones we have aren't acceptable from the perspective of a movement which has done much, much worse, then yes, I guess not.

Well, he explains at length why he won't support gay rights, and seems to consider the effects of respective efforts to be

So I don't see him especially sympathetic towards them, especially because he believes that the gay rights movement allied with the despised feminists.

On the plus-side. He doesn't hate gays for being gay and thinks that only very few MRA do so.

edited 2nd Apr '14 7:58:35 AM by blauregen

He criticizes gay right's activists which, if this thread's attitude towards men's rights activists, isn't enough to be considered anti-gay. Only a small part of the article is dedicated to harm that is supposedly done to people other than gays with the rest speaking of concern for them. So yes, I do think he comes of as very sympathetic towards gay men at least.

I read it more as him being very symphatetic towards men, which isn't that surprising, and thinking that gays as a minority should stop making annoying demands which make people bully him. Oh and stop being feminists.

Now don't get me wrong. I sometimes read radfem-blogs for their entertainement value and they can sometimes reach levels of excentricity that rival anything I ever read fom MRA, and I can't speak for the USA, but over here the number of male gay radfems is rather low.

The idea that behaviour of gay activists justifies bullying them is some rather unfortunate reading on your part. That cooperation with feminists wouldn't give them any plus points from the MRM shouldn't surprise you and isn't really an argument for them being homophobic.

The MRM sees a problem with a much higher percentage of the feminist movement than radfems and mainstream feminists do tend to pride themselves as allies of LGBT groups in increasing numbers.

This reminds me of that Jezebel article (who don't consider themselves to be radfems) about how the problem with gay men is that they are still male, in a matter very symmetrical to the AVFM article we talk about here.

Relations between gender-rights activists and the transgender community is a tricky animal. This goes for both feminism and MRA.

Where the advocacy groups - when not slinging mud at each other - are focused on trying to tear down the artificial restrictions of the gender binary, transgenders are trying to live on the other side of the binary line. It creates a very confused relationship.

Where the transgender community sees a man wearing a dress as a woman, the activist groups see a man in a dress as a man wearing a dress. A gender rights approach to the matter is to argue that it's okay that a man is wearing a dress, because men should be allowed to wear dresses and feel pretty just like women are. A transgender approach to the matter is to argue that it's okay that a man is wearing a dress, because he's actually a woman, so wearing a dress and feeling pretty is justified. And then the gender rights people are upset because the transgenders are implying men can't wear dresses, and the transgender people are upset because the gender rights folks are trampling on his right to be treated with a female gender role, and it's a whole big mess.

edited 2nd Apr '14 9:01:40 AM by TobiasDrake

No no. I read it as Paul Ehlam feeling bullied on behalf of gay people and other minority groups. And no, it doesn't surprise me, but if he already feels unduely harrased by things like for example ENDA, which is one of the few recent initiatives I can imagine him to allude to, I can't really see him as an LGBT ally.

That's the very tame version.

edited 2nd Apr '14 9:14:06 AM by blauregen

I don't think the cooperation with feminists and problematic actions of the gay rights movement are really seperate issues for Paul Elam. He does support gay marriage, just not marriage how it is today, and inclusion in the military, he isn't just very pro-military overall. That he opposes ENDA is just again a rather unfortunate interpretation on your part.

It's really rather annoying how you can't talk about men's rights without preceding that with the declaration of how women have it worse and then have the ridiculous expectation of not being called a misogynist. And from what I've heard that's a similar issue for LGBT groups.

That's the impression I tend to get.

You should have tried reading some discussions on certain freethoughts blogs in the last two years. Everything controversial had a good chance of being misuse of your privilege which you are supposed to check for at least two weeks before you should dare to speak again.

Mind you, for an echo chamber that's a reasonable behavior. Their purpose is to reaffirm the groups identity and views. The forums here though don't strike me as one.

You can get feminists who can't stand your affiliation everywhere. You can as easily get LGBT-people who will call you a damned transphobe if you disagree about certain aspects of trans-politics. And I am sure we can find other invectives for other minorities. It's not nice, but unless they gang up on you and can silence you unopposed, it is, in my opinion, within limits.

edited 2nd Apr '14 10:07:25 AM by blauregen

Any chance of a source on this?

Achaemenid, CALM look like a bloody good group, that's the kinda stuff we need.