Science proves the Men’s Rights subreddit to be totally not (completely) misogynistic
So apparently I’m way off base with this “misogyny” thing. For example, I have been under the impression that I have been finding misogynistic stuff in the Men’s Rights subreddit, like, all the time. With upvotes, and everything. But evidently I’m wrong.
Because now ignatiusloyola, one of the subreddit mods, has done a very scientific study that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that, well, whatever misogyny is there is officially not a big damn deal.
Ig explains his protocol:
I did a quick scan of the first 400 comments on the list (100/page, 4 pages in). I scanned for words like “cunt” and “whore”, and read the context of these. I looked for the words “woman” and “women”, and read the context of these. I looked for “suffrage” and “vote” also.
I found two comments that used the word “cunt”, one of them was used to describe men, the other to describe a specific woman. The only instances of “whore” were “attention whore”.
There were two comments involving the word “woman” that generalized women with negative stereotypes.
“Suffrage” and “vote” instances did not involve any context that suggested that women did not deserve the right to vote.
How a person defines “hatred of women”, either loosely (suggestive from context, rather than explicit) or strictly (explicit statements), it is pretty clear that out of 400 comments, very few are misogynistic.
Does misogyny exist? Yes. But it does not seem to be a significant contribution to r/MensRights. At best, people are seeing a few comments and focusing on their existence while ignoring the rest.
It’s a lot like that time Michael Richards did that standup routine, and everyone focused on that one word he said, totally ignoring all the other words he used that were totally not racist slurs. I mean, yeah, he said that word a bunch of times, but it still made up a very small percentage of all the words he used that evening.
So that’s that, then. Misogyny, officially not a problem!
Or that would have been that, had Ig not actually posted about his experiment to the subreddit he had just proved was, like, totally non-misogynistic:
Because it turned out that a couple of the fellas had an issue with Ig’s methodology. In particular, that stuff about female suffrage. Because, apparently, you can totally be against women having the right to vote and still not be a misogynist. As zyk0s put it (garnering upvotes in the process):
[T]here’s the matter of female suffrage. I really don’t see how suggesting women should not have been granted the right to vote is misogyny. It might be motivated by it, but not necessarily so, and treating it as such is akin to criminalizing holocaust denial: it’s censorship, pure and simple, and if [1] /r/MR wants to keep calling itself an open space where ideas are not silenced, that attitude has to change.
Our friend Demonspawn went even further(and got a few upvotes himself):
Suggesting that the government works better without the women’s vote is not misogyny. It’s an analysis of the facts and the consequences of allowing women’s suffrage.
Suggesting that women retain the right to vote without the corresponding responsibilities that men face is misandry.
So there you have it. The Men’s Rights subreddit doesn’t have a misogyny problem; if anything, it’s a hotbed of misandry.
Posted on August 10, 2012, in antifeminism, I'm totally being sarcastic, it's science!, misandry, misogyny, MRA, reddit, the c-word, whores, woman's suffrage and tagged antifeminism, feminism, men's rights, misandry, misogyny, MRA, reddit, women’s suffrage. Bookmark the permalink. 934 Comments.
What is misandry, anyway? You know misogyny is more complex than the hatred of women, right? it comes from the systemic oppression of women. Misandry really can’t be men’s version of misogyny because there is no systemic oppression of men. You get that, right?
Um, Falconer, ALL of Padua’s students should know what suffrage is! WTF is the schools excuse for not teaching it to them?
Perhaps you should ask the school rather than asking us? As far as I know nobody here works there.
WRONG.
You are confusing sexism with misogyny. Oppression of one sex by another is sexism. It isn’t necessarily based on hostility, but on chauvinism.
Vitamin D thinks there’s no systematic oppression of men. Here’s a referenced 164 item A to Z of discrimination and inequalities faced by men – interpersonal, cultural, and structural inequalities of opportunity and outcome:
http://sexismbusters.org/ref1.html
Oh yeah, because what this country needs, is more tribalism.
People who laugh at other, less-educated people because of the difference in education are dicks. Why is this hard to understand?
I feel like we need a variation of the Bra#$%n rule that prevents Tom from constantly trying to drum up business for his blog.
Oh yeah, let’s just overlook the fact that you practically demanded that we laugh at some young women who didn’t know what a word meant.
Let’s also talk about how you get to decide how the school teaches. It could very easily teach about “the right to vote” without using the word “suffrage.” It would have to not talk about “suffragettes,” but it could talk about people like Susan B. Anthony as “advocates for women’s right to vote.”
” MSN- Aaahh, so there’s your problem right there- any useful academic definition of misogyny includes the understanding that particular form of hatred comes from systemic oppression. Unless you are looking to dictionary.com for feminist theories you really ought to know that. But now that you do you ought to know why no one accepts misandry- it really can’t exist as the flip side of misogyny.
@ Tom- you know gender oppression isn’t a catalog of bad stuff that happens to women, but bad stuff that happens as a result of maintaining current power structures with women in a powerless position relative to men, economically and politically. Yes, bad stuff can happen to men as a group, but not a s a result of their relative powerlessness to women.
Okay, let’s look at some of the ways Martin thinks men are oppressed. First twenty on the list.
Obviously bullshit on the face of it:
Academia – typically conforms to patriarchy-adherent male-blaming dogma.
Alcohol – a man can be prosecuted if a woman gets drunk then cries rape.
Anonymity – after rape/DV claims, men publicly named without evidence.
Anorexia – blamed on male gaze. Death-rate inflated 3000 fold by victim-fems
Anti-male shaming tactics – typical ways men demanding equality get attacked
BBC bias –world’s largest broadcaster uses male-blaming victim-femalism
Birth certificates – father’s name not legally required to be listed
Boxing – men must fight 12×3 minute rounds, women, only 10×2
Campus rape hysteria – yet funded ‘hotlines’ receiving virtually no calls
Charities – often exaggerating female victim statistics for financial gain
Childbirth – its risks exaggerated (as excuse to block men’s equality debates)
Civilization – 90% of patents awarded to men, yet men portrayed negatively
Not obviously bullshit:
Addiction – men suffer more than women, partly due to extra stresses face
Aeroplanes – only men are not permitted to sit next to unaccompanied minors (although, dude, that was ONE airline, and they’re reconsidering the policy).
Alimony – disproportionately targets men, even when women main earners. (Caused by patriarchy, also, bullSHIT women get alimony when they’re the main earners).
Cancer – men with cancer treated less effectively than women (although are we sure the higher rate of men’s death by cancer is sexism and not biology?)
Child abuse- men typically shown as perpetrators – women kill & abuse more (you know who about that? bell hooks, a FEMINIST).
Child custody cases – 7% of UK fathers allowed to live with their children (that’s caused by patriarchy, also, bullSHIT most fathers can’t live with their kids).
Chivalry – men placating women and dismissing men’s equality issues (you know who’s against that? FEMINISTS).
Circumcision – only legal when males are being mutilated.
Uhhuh. You poor baby. It must be so hard for you.
Misogyny is the specific kind of sexism that is systemic in our society.
Misogyny leads our nation’s leaders to argue against women being admitted to combat units because of menstruation.
Misogyny leads our employers to pay women less than men because it’s assumed that the women are less skilled and less competent than men, and that they won’t be in the position long because they’ll have to take FMLA to have a baby and then the employer will have to hire someone else.
Misogyny leads our employees to see women-dominated fields as less-skilled than men-dominated fields. In the 19th Century, most secretaries and clerks were men. Today, most people answering telephones and taking dictation are women. Most teachers were once men. Today, most teachers are women. It is not a coincidence that these fields pay substantially less than jobs that are coded male.
Feminists identify areas where girls are disadvantaged compared to boys. Even when I was in high school, in the mid 90s, the girls’ basketball team was less important than the boys’ basketball team. The boys’ team got more turnout, and the pep band attended every home game and some of the away games for the boys, while it gave a token appearance at one girl’s home game every season.
And some people think Title IX gives girls the power to deny boys sports programs. Hah. As if.
Vitamin D, you appear to be labouring under the illusion that only women are systematically oppressed.
You do know for instance that only men between the ages of 18 and 45 can be forced to fight on a front line?
That men have to retire five years later than whorez?
And that circumcision of males is allowed but not of females?
Or that in the UK, mothers are entitled to an average of 26 times more parental leave than fathers?
Or that nowhere in the world is a paternity test yet a legal requirement?
Pfffft HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh. My. God. Women have been trying to fight the same as men for yeeeeaaars!! Seriously?!
Lots of whining here tonight from trolls. What would you guys do without this site? Are the posters in the manosphere so tiresome that you come here for fresh air? Admit the posters here are charming and stimulate you — ’cause it gets boring to be surrounded with people who argee with everything you say all the time…..especially when they’re so hateful.
Falconer, the reason women’s sport is regarded as less important than men’s is because women regard women’s sport less. Most viewers of women’s soccer on TV for instance, are men.
I played table tennis for Scotland at under 15 level. At the national tournaments, maybe 250 males of all ages would show up, and around 15 females. All you had to do to get in the girls’ team, was show up regularly.
There is no conspiracy holding women back in sport, or employment. Take comedy for instance. We often hear social commentaters claiming female comedians get a hard time in a very ‘male dominated’ profession.
The Daily show got criticized for not having enough female talent on screen. But then, the creator of the show, a woman, did an interview saying that when they put the call out for political comedy writers, they got hundreds of applications from men, and three from women.
Here’s how UK female comedy double act French and Saunders got started:
They answered a 1980 advert in The Stage newspaper looking for female comedians to perform at The Comic Strip, which until that point, only had male performers.[1][3] When they walked into the audition they were immediately told “You’re booked. When can you start?”.[4]
According to LSE’s Dr Catherine Hakim, the reason women don’t get ahead in the workforce, is because white and Asian UK women express half the paid work ethic of men or of black women.
(Subsequently, men earn more than white women, and black women earn more than white women too).
The lynch pin of victim-feminism, is the “glass ceiling” myth.
Women who think there is a “glass ceiling” are more likely to earn less, leaving the wage-earning to their men.
If you on any level think you’re interested in equality, you’ll have to drop the victim stories.
@ Tom- you realize feminists have been fighting for years to get women in the infantry in the United States. Further, the draft is not an issue for men- want to know how I know- the only time I’ve heard anyone talk about it (except on a Vietnam movie) is when they bring it up like it is a terrible burden men must bear. Seriously, institute the draft and see how many feminists march against it. Also, I am fairly certain most prostitutes retire far earlier than that, what with all the disease, murdering and whatnot, but most people wouldn’t consider being pushed out of gainful employment an advantage. And the circumcision of males, while objectionable, is simply not medically comparable to female genital mutilation in actual physiological harm caused. A paternity test as a legal requirement is a sign of oppression? Are you high? And is this additional parental leave because women breastfeed?
@Vitamin D: YES SERIOUSLY they all try to say that women not being allowed to do things equally with men is actually men being forced to do all kinds of dangerous stuff while women stay safe and snug at home.
DID YOU REALIZE that in Saudi Arabia, women have so much power and control that they don’t have to drive themselves anywhere?
@Tom Martin —
Move to the United States. We don’t have a draft. I don’t know about Great Britain, but I think it’s a voluntary military. On the other hand, if you enlist, you have to accept the fact that you may be assigned to a combat unit. Your enlistment is taken as consent to be sent into a combat zone. Women aren’t legally allowed to serve in combat units, but practically speaking they’re on the front lines and have been for some time. They don’t get hazard pay like the men do, though.
Says who? In the US, the age at which you can start to draw social security benefits is the same for everybody. What’s Great Britain like?
Did you know that if you stew oranges like collard greens you don’t get anything that looks like watermelon? Seriously, these are not the same thing. I will grant you that I don’t think parents’ control over the bodies of their children extends to surgical alterations, but then we get to circumcisions as a religious ritual. Are you prepared, Mr. Martin, to tell the Jews to go jump in a lake?
In Sweden, both parents have plenty of parental leave.
The percentage of births in which the father challenges the paternity of the child is not high enough to justify the expense of administering a test to every newborn as a matter of course.
And anyway, Tom, did you know that if you want to correct problems, whinging about them online and staging big show trials at which you get nailed with a bill for 37,000 pounds is less effective than actual activism?
Whine harder, Tom.
Vitamin D et al, you don’t sound very interested in equality.
Well, I engaged Tom’s points at length and now I’m in moderation. Should I heed this warning sign? Fuck it, YOLO.
For Hellkell, and many others:
Charge of Hypersensitivity (Code Blue) – The Crybaby Charge
Discussion: The target is accused of being hysterical or exaggerating the problems of men (i.e., he is accused of playing “Chicken Little”). Examples:
“Stop whining!”
“Get over it!”
“Suck it up like a man!”
“You guys don’t have it as nearly as bad as us women!”
“You’re just afraid of losing your male privileges.”
“Your fragile male ego …”
“Wow! You guys need to get a grip!”
Response: One who uses the Code Blue shaming tactic reveals a callous indifference to the humanity of men. It may be constructive to confront such an accuser and ask if a certain problem men face needs to be addressed or not (“yes” or “no”), however small it may be seem to be. If the accuser answers in the negative, it may constructive to ask why any man should care about the accuser’s welfare since the favor will obviously not be returned. If the accuser claims to be unable to do anything about the said problem, one can ask the accuser why an attack is necessary against those who are doing something about it.
Tom: Now I want you to think to yourself and wonder why so many women aren’t stand-up comedians, hmm?
I’m sorry, my babelfish must be acting up, I thought I heard you say “you don’t sound very interested in letting me win this argument.”
You’ll notice, Tom, I called all your points bullshit *before* I sarcastically called you a “poor baby.” That is why my argument is an argument and not an ad hom.
(The thing I am attempting to prove, incidentally, is that you’re TERRIBLE at talking about how sexism disadvantages men and should STFU.)
ozymandias42, please clarify.
@ Tom- Oh, I am very interested in equality. But since my understanding of why we have inequality is based in reality, I disagree with everything you have said so far.
Keep waving those palm fronds around, Tom Martin! Eventually you’re bound to discover the proper signal that drops your 10-round male boxing rules in your lap!
No one should bother trying to seriously engage Tom after the “yay child prostitution” thing. He was born to be a chew toy for people who aren’t idiots. His ideas don’t deserve the courtesy of being taken seriously.
@CassandraSays: His ideas are bullshit. I didn’t think I was taking them seriously. Still, I’m probably only encouraging him.
Fuck, it’s after 11 Eastern. What’s the hour in Murrie Olde Blighty, Tom? Shouldn’t you be in bed? Don’t you have gotcha videos to film and then bias tomorrow?
Tom, instead of taking the time and energy to color code your perceived injustices against men, why don’t you do something real?
By real, I mean something other than frivolous lawsuits that put you 37k in the hole.
Tom, do you really expect to convert people here? What’s your real motive? To prove you’re the center of the universe and should not be questioned? It’s not working, dude. *snicker*
@ Cassandra- woa, yeah, I forgot about that thread. I kind of just can’t believe a person like this exists.
Cassandra attempting to herd a few sheep on the back of a false allegation.
Cassandra, I said child prostitution should be illegal. It’s not that complicated.
If you can’t engage with the argument, then go read a book.
Tom seems to thrive on any sort of attention, even negative attention, which is why I’m starting to question the wisdom of responding to him at all. If any of us engage him seriously that might give lurkers the impression that ideas like “98% of women are wh#$@s” are worthy of serious engagement.
Also he’s using this blog as a means of drumming up business for his various enterprises, so I’m not sure we should be helping him do that.
Oh lord, it’d be just like Mr Mybug from Cold Comfort Farm trying out his pickup line “Do you think women have souls?”
I think you’re right, Cassandra. Don’t feed the trolls. Well, I’m signing off.
Well, it’s either he’s trying to drum up traffic to his blog and maybe get a fiver through Paypal, or he’s trying to win over the people in the middle.
Lord knows I have no expectation that he’ll suffer some epiphany because of my bons mots and go and buy a chair cushion and bother us no more. I’m doing it because I hope that some people see the argument, and are persuaded that MRAs are whiny dicks.
It’s funny how manboobzers don’t seen to like ‘gotcha’ videos.
There must be some gotcha videos of men being badly or idiotically sexist somewhere, other than the ones of women looking like sexist idiots.
Tom’s motive here is basic attention, which he apparently can’t get anywhere else. He’s too cheap for a domme, so he uses us.
@ Cassandra- maybe tomorrow I’ll agree with you, but right now I have wine to drink and time to kill between fights.
Ninja’d by Cassandra.
That’s a funny way of saying “Children who are forced into prostitution should be punished, and those that pay to rape them should not.”
Tom, I’m sure a youtube search could find you the videos you’re looking for. A smart guy like you should be able to figure it out.
That’s right. You did.
And then you said that the child prostitute knew what xie was doing, understood the transactional nature of the act, and should be threatened with jail to get hir to go back to school.
And then you said the john was obviously sick, and needed to be treated.
And then we yelled at you. A lot.
And then you misrepresented what you said.
I hope the devil gives you the pointy chair at his table. But I will be disappointed, because I don’t believe in the afterlife or divine justice.
Yeah, call me a sucker, but I like poking the troll. :P
Tommy love, you’ll notice the bit where I classified the first twenty items of your nice shiny list into “bullshit” and “not bullshit”? That’s an *argument*. (Admittedly, I left out my reasoning, but I assure you I had it and would be happy to elaborate on any points you’re confused about.) The bit where I called you a poor baby afterward is an *insult*, as is the condescending tone in which this post is written.
Imagine! Soon you’ll be able to understand basic arguments!
That not exactly what you said, Tom.
Falconer said: “blah, blah, blah… whiny dicks.”
Falsoner, you are using a Code Blue anti-male shaming tactic you pin head. I just posted the analysis of it! It’s a polite nudge, so you realize you’re coming off as an idiot when you use it.
It’s not that complicated:
Charge of Hypersensitivity (Code Blue) – The Crybaby Charge
Discussion: The target is accused of being hysterical or exaggerating the problems of men (i.e., he is accused of playing “Chicken Little”). Examples:
“Stop whining!”
“Get over it!”
“Suck it up like a man!”
“You guys don’t have it as nearly as bad as us women!”
“You’re just afraid of losing your male privileges.”
“Your fragile male ego …”
“Wow! You guys need to get a grip!”
Response: One who uses the Code Blue shaming tactic reveals a callous indifference to the humanity of men. It may be constructive to confront such an accuser and ask if a certain problem men face needs to be addressed or not (“yes” or “no”), however small it may be seem to be. If the accuser answers in the negative, it may constructive to ask why any man should care about the accuser’s welfare since the favor will obviously not be returned. If the accuser claims to be unable to do anything about the said problem, one can ask the accuser why an attack is necessary against those who are doing something about it.
Aw christ, I probably opened that can of worms again, and borked the thread.
I got to go, so if the issue blows up again, I’m sorry, it’s my fault, and I’ll never engage Bony Arse again.
My concern here is that this particular troll has figured out how to engage the media, at least in the UK. That’s exactly the kind of troll that we don’t want to feed. Plus he’s dishonest enough to outright lie about his interactions with people, what he said, etc. Basically he’s tailor made for the Daily Mail, and they’ll present him in a way that whitewashes all the really nasty stuff.
Giving it a clue little color code doesn’t make it false, Tommy.
You make a good point about how responding to Tom at all seems to feed his ego by giving him the attention he apparently so desperately craves.
But I’m not sure any lurkers are going to think that Tom’s ideas have merit just because some of us respond to them. I mean, this is the guy who thinks that female penguins are wh*res. I think that most lurkers are going to recognize that the ideas of anyone who seriously makes claims like that aren’t really worthy of serious engagement.
I don’t care if someone labeled it as “Code Blue”. MRA’s really are oversensitive about a lot of things, so us saying, “Get a grip” is just telling it like it is.
Don’t go Falconer. we’re still waiting for your personality to arrive.
I’m wondering if Wetherby will show up soon, and if so if his journalistic “this person could be used as a whip to hurt vulnerable people with” senses will be tingling the same way mine are. I can see how it might read differently to non-Brits – if you’re familiar with the British media and how it works it’s unfortunately very easy to see how Tom has tailored his approach to that audience and how it might actually work.
If nothing else he’s reminding me of exactly why I dislike a certain kind of British man, and why I’m happy I don’t run into very many of them in the US.*
*Though a friend of mine dated one for a while…that was unpleasant, and I’m glad she got away with nothing more than a few emotional bruises.
Anathema – thinks ex-communication the key.
Cassie: At least for me, Tom Martin’s presence in the threads managed to turn him, in my mind, from “mreh, extremist, but maybe some good points” to “OH HOLY SHIT NO.” The best thing we can do is ask him about his opinions enough that he has some rope to hang himself with.
@ cassandra- Look, this media trend of writing up the opinion of random sensational misogynists with the right accent and educational background is going to continue with or without me. Let me have my little chat.
@ ozy
But if anyone were to ask him about those interactions he’d just lie, and without the slightest trace of conscience. And elements of the British media will collude with him.
Hey, you can chat with him if you want. I’m entitled to my opinion that it’s not helping.
I think Tom has hung himself several times over by now. Dude has more lives than a cat. ;)
@ Cassandra- Oh, it never helps- you can’t reason with crazy. Fun to try, though.
End the draft and selective service. Or include women. Done.
Is there a default retirement age in the UK that is 5 years younger for women? That doesn’t seem fair. But referring to women as “whorez” is not going to convince the makers of public policy to sympathize with you.
All circumcision should be banned, imo.
Parental leave should be for fathers, too. Some countries offer it.
There, not so bad, eh?
That’s not really what I meant – clearly reasoning with trolls is pointless. What’s bothering me is that that particular kind of sneering, bullying misogyny is common enough in the UK that I think that if the MRM is going to achieve anything there, that will be the approach that works best for them.
I think any response or statement made by a woman can be construed as a shaming tactic by MRAs. The only exceptions are “Can I suck your d!ck?” and “Here are your clean underpants.”
manboobzers repeatedly losing the argument, so discussing plan B?
(rather than discussing how to effectively incorporate proper considerations of misandry in their gender discourse).
How very lame.
I don’t think it’s healthy for women to see manboobzers mascerading as feminists deliberately shooting their arguments in the foot to hobble gender-developmental progress.
Very lame.
Even the “here are your clean underpants” response isn’t entirely safe – remember the rant about skidmarks? A woman must be careful not to mention those even if she’s obediently cleaned them off. Because expecting grown men to know how to wipe their own asses is also misandry.
@ Tom
wut?
@Cassandra
Yes, but a good woman will clean them so well that every trace of skidmark will be gone. It’s all about the bleach. (When my husband left skidmarks, ONCE, he was very embarrassed, and we just threw the undies away.)