…because feminists, or indeed women in general, have never had to deal with angry, potentially violent men before. They really live in their own world, don’t they?

i’ve been lurking reading this blog for a while, this one’s prompted me to sneak out of my hidey-hole and comment because of that last quote.
he wrote that to a child. a kid. sure, they’re likely to be in their teens, but still – he wrote to a child pretty much telling the boy to use emotional blackmail against his own mother. who the hell does that? how bitter and twisted do you have to be to tell a kid that they should ‘punish’ their mother – and for what? for saying something negative about her ex? that’s it? that justifies ‘showing her she will suffer if she doesn’t do what’s right’? ugh.

Men’s Rights aren’t civil rights…blah blah blah.

MRAs: nothing but violent, hateful pieces of trash. Their writings (particularly Jerimiah’s spiel) are like Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto, except that may or may not have been satire while MRAs are 100% serious.

I actually really do hope to see a legitimate men’s rights group that tackles the issues men face today rationally that actually helps men rather than encourage them to stew in anger, resentment and hate.

bored mags?

@Joanna

To an MRA any activism is not activism unless they are hurting women or making them suffer. For example if men don’t have a service such as a birth control pill or a shelter they don’t take to the street and march to demand for one, of lobby the government and pharmaceutical companies, they just try to restrict or take the ones away that are available to women.

That’s activism the MRA way!

I’ve actually seen some positives changes within the men’s rights movement in the last few years. There’s been a gradual shift away from “feminism, Grrrr!” and a gradual movement towards a more issues centered discussion. At least on the men’s rights subreddit, there has. I don’t know about MGTOW forums.

I don’t understand highlighting the worst of the worst within the men’s rights movement and then presenting it as if it’s somehow representative of all or even most MRAs. One could just as easily present a collection of equally vile quotes from radical feminists.

For the record, I’m not a big fan of Paul Elam. His rhetorical ineptitude is an embarrassment and a hindrance to the MRM ever gaining any mainstream credibility.

I believe the foundations of the MRM should be this: men have legitimate issues, men are not universally privileged in relation to women, and some strains of feminism do have their ideological excesses.

I think most reasonable people can agree on those basic tenets. We can debate the details.

Ah yes, Things Are Bad. That time he posted a picture of himself was absolutely precious. He really did argue that he was better looking than David, so that makes him automatically right, or something. I think he left genuinely baffled at the lack of swooning and panty throwing that ensued.

Good times, good times.

@boggiedwurns

uh, thank you.

for a bunch of people that believe MRA’s are ineffective, you spend bunches of time obsessing about MRA’s and nashing your teeth.

@Mags

MRAs will often claim that feminists are stupid, illogical, overly emotional cunts and literally incapable people, yet they still believe we’re destroying society and have infiltrated every single organization, institution and form of government.

So why do they spend so much time obsessing over people who are apparently so worthless?

MRA’s know the power of the feminist movement. No serious MRA think feminists are dumb. They think they are fundamentally dishonest, that they advocate for one demographic no matter what the equities, and that they use under handed methods such as advocacy research and indocutrination in schools…but, most MRA’s are actually in awe of how a corrupt and abjectly unfair pro-women policies get past and continue despite the basic unfairness.

naw hellkell, yer purty much obsessing

I’m so glad you kitty is feeling better, David!

*your, of course.

“The Men’s Rights Movement likes to pretend that is it a civil rights movement. But threats, harassment, hate speech, and emotional blackmail aren’t the tactics of a legitimate civil rights movement. These are the tactics of angry narcissists clinging to retrograde prejudices, who have given up on the war of ideas because on some level they know that history is against them, and that they will never win.”

De-lurking briefly to say that this is the best description of the Men’s Rights “Movement” ever. I love this site!

The focus on feminism is often misplaced and lacking in specificity.

Second wave feminists were pretty instrumental in passing some of the unjust legislation and policies that now disadvantage males, but feminism is not a monolith and most of men’s issues have arisen quite independently of feminism.

3rd wave feminists are genuinely interested in real equality, and generally don’t subscribe to the racism, classism, transphobia, and misandry of the second wave.

Everytime Mags posts she always manages to overlook the complete douchebaggery in the shit David quotes. So yeah, she must be trolling. Which reminds me why I never really respond to her in the first place.

I guess I’m just really bored tonight.

“But threats, harassment, hate speech, and emotional blackmail aren’t the tactics of a legitimate civil rights movement.”

Nevermind the fact that all the “legitimate” civil rights movements of the past had elements that engaged in these tactics.

Or are you not aware that feminists in 1960’s Britain frequently engaged in acts of vandalism and death threats?

I was taught the same thing.

Apparently wanting to end violence is bad because it means all men suddenly are women. *rolls eyes*

@ Quackers

I think what they’re objecting to about the “Don’t hit girls” admonishment is the sex specificity of it. The implication is that hitting girls is somehow worse than hitting boys. When really the rule should be: “Don’t hit anyone.”

@magdelyn: let’s forget dumb feminazis for a second. What is it about the MRM that make you think “this is a movement I can get behind”. Whose ideas do you like so much? What accomplishment can they be proud of, which group are they helping or trying to help? Don’t you have any problem with the permanent misogyny? What do you think about this narrative of violence? (do you think it’s not real, that’s it’s ok,…)

I’m sorry, that’s a lot of questions. The reason I’m so curious is that most MRAs who come here are men whose reasons to be on board are quite obvious. The women on the other side… not that I can’t see plenty of reason to get there (the rationalization, the self hate, the desire not to be like these other women,…) I need to here it from yourself.

PFKE-
Yeah, I mean, I know that. I’m worried that he might not take just me seriously, though. That’s why I’d love to set him up with a just-as-glossy/professional-looking but less ideologically failful alternate resource. (Also, unfortunately, he’s a grad student in a fairly intense program — and fear of academic failure from, in my opinion, unfairly high parental expectations is another component of the depression — so he doesn’t have a lot of flex time. I really hope he’ll get to be less shy around the people in his department, as a start.)

@Roberta

I don’t particularly understand where this “dont hit girls” message is so saturated in society. Domestic violence is a problem and the studies that MRAs like to site even say women get injured more, die from it more and feel fear from it more.

Aside from that what really bugs me, as usual, is how hypocritical and inconsistent MRAs are on this subject (among others) On one hand they think women should get hit back if they want equality, on the other they often claim women are physically weaker thus would fail in the military and fail at jobs like firefighting. AVfM has two articles degrading women who do both those things. So which is it? are women so weak? if they are weaker than men then it’s not a fair fight for a much bigger man to beat the shit out of a woman who slapped or shoved him. Bare in mind I’m not saying this to condone or excuse women who hit men. No one should hit anyone.

Also the “don’t hit girls” message is perpetuated by men as much as it is women. In my personal experience I was always raised with the message that violence against anyone is wrong. My experience does not mean less than an MRAs experience that they are taught not to hit women but its ok for women to hit men.

MRA’s know the power of the feminist movement. No serious MRA think feminists are dumb.

Yet they associate most if not all women with feminism, and spend all of their time online talking how women are inherently stupid, weak, shallow, incompetent, worthless, and deserve punishment for not “knowing their place”

They think they are fundamentally dishonest

Unlike MRAs who are very honest, so honest they have no interest in gaining progress for men with “debate and reason”.

So far as my experience has told me, MRAs come in many flavors, none of which rely on honesty:

There are pretentious, bad writers like ChristianJ and Roissy who try to sound like great authors and intellectual heavyweights, but really are vile, stupid nutters who use their writing to obfuscate information with purple prose rather than communicate anything meaningful.

There are angry, bitter old bigots as dumb as a pile of bricks, like Meller and Owlyslave. They literally have no ability to critically think or comprehend what they read. They can’t eve comprehend what they write.

There are the pit bulls like Antzy and MRAL, who derail topics with some screaming and call us bigots. They repeat this process a few times and then call it a day.

There are sophists like Manwomanmyth and Angry Harry, who use a mask of “reason” so transparent anyone can easily see the seething hatred and aggression beneath.

There are concern trolls and “Christian warrior” hypocrites like Erin Pizzey and MRAs who pretend to care about women and men but really don’t.

that they advocate for one demographic no matter what the equities, and that they use under handed methods such as advocacy research and indocutrination in schools…

Really. I didn’t even hear the word “feminism” once in elementary, middle, or high school. Never was a gender course offered to me either. Whatever I learned about issues dealing with gender was outside the curriculum.

but, most MRA’s are actually in awe of how a corrupt and abjectly unfair pro-women policies get past and continue despite the basic unfairness.

Name any specific examples? Because many MRA “arguments” are full of strawman tactics, poor research, superficial reasoning, and sometimes simple lying.

But really, the level of MRA bullshit Futrelle repeatedly points out is not just from a few fringe lunatics, but actually the mainstream opinion you can regularly find on The Spearhead or some other hornets’ nest. Why a woman supports a “movement” that repeatedly tells her she how hopelessly inferior she is beyond me.

Roberta, Quackers,

I would quite agree with the better rule of “don’t hit people” replacing “don’t hit women” – and in fact it turns out the MRM often tend to be supporters of the widespread meme of toxic masculinity that men should be able to cope with being hit, or are at least to be viewed as effeminate or wimps if they do complain about it.

(And hey, being gender queer I can be legitimately hit as a target if the rule is “don’t hit girls” and a transphobe wants to assert, contrary to appearances, that I’m not a girl. Umm, yay male privilege?!?)

Roberta–nice bit of False Rape Society apologism here: http://resistingthemilieu.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/the-so-called-false-rape-society-attacks-me/

Because men are totally like a marginalized group that has difficulty having a voice through other means, or who are underrepresented in institutions of power that are used against them. Only 83% of the current Congres, every president in the history of the US, 70% of state and federal judiciaries, approx. 66% of the current US Supreme court (and even higher percentages of past courts), over 480 of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, approx. 90% of all corporate officers, about 88% of police officers, around 90% of major film directors, 70% of professors, virtually all generals, 70% of doctors, etc. however will men make their voices heard if not through “fringe” resistance tactics? How? It must be so very, very hard for them to find alternative means.

Well, that didn’t work. bugger!

@felix

Did you actually read the comments I left on that blogpost? If you have a specific objection, name it. Because I stand by everything I said there.