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ECHIDNE of the Snakes has written an excellent post titled “Eight Anti-Woman Principles of The Most Extreme Types of MRAs.”
It goes through a number of standard MRA arguments and offers pretty persuasive rebuttals of most of them. Among the topics covered: life expectancies of men and women and why this actually isn’t a feminist plot; higher rate of on-the-job accidents for men and why this isn’t a feminist plot; the higher rate of male death in wars and why this too is not a feminist plot; male prisoners; homelessness; and stay-at-home dads. The post also comments on child custody and domestic violence, but without providing real rebuttals on those two issues.
I’m adding this link to my “further reading” post on general critiques of the MRM.
>Fair and balanced opposing view points: The Misandry Bubble Sexual Utopia In Power Researching The Rape Culture of America What's Happening to Women's Happiness Article Review: The Fate of Empires Is There Anything Good About Men? No Country for Burly Men The Campus Rape Myth Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship
>Hmm, I think one of my comments may have been caught by your spam filter.
>Actually, the rebuttal is not very persuasive. I won't go into detail, cause frankly I don't think this is the right place for an honest debate. Anyway, reasonable MRAs don't blame feminism for the lower life expectancy of men and all the other points addressed (a classical straw man btw). They critique feminists, cause they pretend to care about gender equality, but only see the problems of women. As long as the prevailing gender roles negatively affect women, feminists will address the issue. If they don't affect women or even favor women feminists will stay silent. Of course there are some rare exceptions, but these people often wonder if they can still call themselves feminists.
>1. Men's health/mortalitya. There is no commission on the status of men, but there is a commission on the status of womenb. Women get more health-related government assistance compared to menc. The author did not cite any evidence at all that men's earlier mortality rates are due to biological factors, although he speculated as suchd. The author blames masculinity, rather than the absence of it, for men engaging in riskier behaviors earlier in life. He then taunts MRAs — not men in general, and clearly excluding himself — by calling on them to mentor kids rather than ensuring that intact 2-parent biological families provide the biological fatherly influence for which there is zero substitute. Feminism claims that fathers are not necessary, and the resulting feminist-inspired family law policies reflect that harmful belief. Attributing violent and negative aspects to masculinity is bigoted, because masculinity is the distinctive quality of being male. To lampoon masculinity as the problem is to attack males as the problem; the feminist's solution is for men to cast of their sexual distinctiveness and become more like women (which is not a viable or male-desirable solution at all).
>2. Gender gapThe feminist claims that men who occupy more dangerous positions don't earn more than women because of the danger, and speculatively asserts without citing evidence that if women did that same work, there would still be a pay gap: "If we reallocated men and women across industries so as to get a gender-neutral division in the most dangerous occupations, women would still earn roughly as much less than is the case today."Again, feminists try to suppress biological distinctiveness even as they claim gender distinctiveness in oppression against women; the result of this thinking is to privilege women.Notice also the inclination toward manipulative social engineering, which is typical of feminist policy proscriptions.Finally, the feminist at that link associates nurturing qualities by women with domestic violence related death, implying (again, without evidence) that women who care for their families are more likely to die by intimate partner homicide than women who aren't. But in fact, married women are less likely than single women to become victims of domestic violence.Again, later in his article the author states:"I didn't know that there are laws banning men from combining family and career or laws that state that men must work until they drop."It's not always about laws. Gender roles benefit and privilege women. The very fact that women are empowered by men with a choice between working a paid job vs. staying at home as a nurturer (which is paid through male-provided financial security and justified financially by the woman's privileged choice) indicates greater privilege for women than men in this area. Far fewer women than men opt to empower their spouses with such a choice; hence women are not only privileged to occupy the nurturing role (since it's a choice), but are more safe for having done so."It sounds as if the MRAs don't like the traditional male gender role. Feminists tend to agree. But while feminists would like to make gender roles less rigid, many MRAs want to see women put back into an equally rigid female gender role."Here's where the role of the law DOES manifest itself. No feminist, nor government policy, is forcing women to be providers for men. Rather, feminists only see work in a paid job as liberating, and therefore they're making a headlong attack on the traditional family. They're removing women's privileges by making it more risky for men to provide them if the men so wished (risky because of laws like spousal and child support, loss of custody, juryless restraining orders; women file 2/3 of divorces, setting all of these male obligations into action).
>3. Male-on-male violenceThe author states that MRAs "don't address" male-on-male violence "as far as [he] can tell." But MRAs legitimize and prioritize intact nuclear families whereas feminists consider this to be merely one option among a buffet of equally valid others. However, male-on-male violence is highest in fatherless communities, and anecdotal evidence from violent males attributes their disposition specifically to fatherlessness. Single motherhood is a choice, and it is legitimized by feminist ideology — to the detriment of male victims of male-perpetrated violence. There is a dire need for positive masculine influence in fatherless communities, and MRAs assert that such influence should come principally from the biological father, and from his father, and on up the line. Single motherhood breaks this delicate line of generational fatherly influence.
>4. Male war deathsThe feminist, typical of feminists, paints female privilege as a burden. What he considers a "ban" on women entering combat roles, I call an "exemption." Women aren't exactly banging down the doors to obligate themselves to become hamburger on a battlefield, are they? But then, feminists always portray female privilege as a burden. Always.
>5. Male homelessnessThe author states:"The male-homelessness argument is used [my MRAs] to defend the idea that the men at the top of the society are balanced by the men at the bottom of the society, and that therefore the overall patriarchal society is a fair one."No evidence is cited; again it's just speculation. But show me the tribal culture that equals our rate of homelessness, if you can. Intact families — especially intact extended families — are patriarchal. Now I will speculate: if we had more intact families, we would probably have less homelessness than we do now.Furthermore, the author compares greater female "poverty" with male "homelessness." This is a terrible comparison. If I were a homeless man, I would trade places with a sheltered-but-poor woman any day. But that's me.
>6. Domestic violenceThe author links a father's loss of his parenting rights with domestic violence, presumably implying that the father who loses his child must have been an abuser. But more than 30 years of compelling, published evidence reveals that women attack their partners just as often as men do, women unilaterally attack their partners far more than men do, and only in the realm of incurring injuries are female victims primarily more vulnerable than male victims. I'll go toe-to-toe with any feminist who wants to argue the evidence on domestic violence; where are these studies that the author says that MRAs are "ignoring?" Furthermore, it is the scientific method confers legitimacy to a study, not the quantity of studies. We should evaluate studies on domestic violence based on their scientific merits, examining whether they reliably collect their data and whether they validly explain the phenomena under measurement. That said, the studies that reveal gender parity in female perpetration dwarf those that would suggest the opposite.
>John, it's a losing battle here. They will say that since women only slap their boyfriends/husbands around a bit it's not near the problem of the small minority of women who are hospitalized from domestic violence.May I direct you to this comment:http://manboobz.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-have-come-to-view-women-as-elegant.html?showComment=1294058091812#c1030217327534056216"The breathtaking stupidity of not seeing the difference between a woman slapping her boyfriend round the face and her boyfriend retaliating by putting her in intensive care for a month with four broken ribs and a shattered jaw." So they believe it's OK for women to slap men around. I guess it's OK for men to slap women around so long as they use the LOVE side of their hand?"The extraordinary, mind-blowing insistence that male domestic violence and female domestic violence are equally dangerous and commonplace. I feel there may be a few hundred shelters for abuse victims that would beg to differ. "And then have the audacity to offer up the fact that there is more funding/support for female victims (with little to no support for male victims) as proof that male on female domestic violence is worse.Ironically, the more support women get and the less support men get has a snowball effect as they can then be used to garner more and less support for each gender respectively.Homeless man eating from garbage (useless male). Welfare mom popping out babies from different dads (poor little thing!)
>They will just keep dehumanizing males to make things look harder on women. Our suffering invokes not one iota of sympathy so long as there is one woman anywhere in the world with a black eye or a hang nail to compare against. You cannot even use their own approach of supporting equal rights because to them it is like comparing the suffering of a human (female) to that of a sub-human (male).If they can look inside themselves and say that 93% of the homeless as males is outweighed by welfare moms, then there is seriously something all fucked up about the situation.Feminizing poverty just means more taxes to support baby mama while baby daddy is eating out of the trash.
>@witman:"So they [feminist ideologues] believe it's OK for women to slap men around. I guess it's OK for men to slap women around so long as they use the LOVE side of their hand?"Women initiate violence more often than men in mutually-violent couples. If a man's size and strength advantages are not legally considered a valid means to deter such female-initiated violence, then all he has is the justice system. Of course, he is less likely to be granted any request for a restraining order against her than she is against him — because he's a man. Yes, that's right: because he is a man. Since restraining orders do not legally require substantiation or proof — but only the assertion of the victim's fear — it is implausible to many judges that a man might be afraid of a woman's existing violence, or a woman's violent potential. Not only is a male victim of female-perpetrated violence less likely than a woman to obtain a restraining order, but he is less likely to effect her arrest if he calls 911. That's because of "primary aggressor" laws. Suppose he calls the police to report that his wife has been slapping and kicking him. All she has to do is say that he too, was slapping her — even if this is a complete lie. From the officer's perspective, this is now converted from a case of unilateral female-perpetrated violence, and has now magically become a case of mutually perpetrated violence. The only question now, in the officer's mind, is which "aggressor" is more dangerous: the male, or the female? Obviously the male can impose more damage. So the officer arrests the male "perpetrator," who in fact is a victim of female-perpetrated unilateral violence. Unilateral violence is the distinguishing characteristic of battering. Hence, the male victim is more likely to be arrested simply for reaching out for help — and like you said, witman, the resulting arrest data will then be used as evidence of a supposedly higher rate of male perpetration!The issue comes down to authority, i.e. that of the State vs. that of the head of the family. It pains me that the only non-feminist people who have really explored the topic of authority are the crazy Manhood101 people. We need a serious discussion (for once) about the reason why females perpetrate partner violence. It's because there is an astonishing lack of authority that can be brought to bear against female perpetrators. They are ridiculously considered to be victims (by the feminist-inspired Duluth Model of batterer intervention programs, as well as feminist ideology itself) if their violence is challenged by their husbands, who will then be required to take such brainwashing programs as punishment for their supposed patterns of patriarchal terrorism and dominance. And as far as female perpetrators being adequately challenged by law enforcement, see the paragraph above. There is too little authority in our culture that will effectively challenge a female perpetrator.
>John said:"and like you said, witman, the resulting arrest data will then be used as evidence of a supposedly higher rate of male perpetration!"This type of truth makes feminists teeth grind as it ruins their part of the demonization of men and threatens their precious victim status.Even if women attack in self defence by doing more damage to the man than the man did to the woman, she is likely to be cheered with the "you go girl" type of response. She is likely to get let off free or lightly by the courts. If the tables are turned, it's totally evil.I can remember reading an article years ago…it would have been back in the 90s. Anyway, it was about this woman who cut off her husband’s penis. Her excuse in the courts for this was because her husband raped her. (even that there was no proof). In this situation, this woman could have just simply left her husband. Instead, she drugged him and then cut off his penis.When the courts granted her no punishment for her crime, all these people cheered.Now let's say if the tables were turned here. If a woman raped her husband in any way including forced sodomy; then later down the track he drugged her and mutilated her vagina or breast. Would people cheer and look at it in the same way? Or would it be deemed as totally evil?
>Thomas Said:"Anyway, reasonable MRAs don't blame feminism for the lower life expectancy of men and all the other points addressed (a classical straw man btw). They critique feminists, cause they pretend to care about gender equality, but only see the problems of women. As long as the prevailing gender roles negatively affect women, feminists will address the issue. If they don't affect women or even favor women feminists will stay silent. Of course there are some rare exceptions, but these people often wonder if they can still call themselves feminists."I too wonder where feminists get the idea from that men are blaming feminism for such things expressed in the original post.What Thomas says pretty much explains it all. Feminists go in the guise of gender equality but their actions tell a different story. I am yet to find a feminist who can honestly care about male issues as much as female issues.
>I've dealt with some of these topics in greater detail, linking to numerous sources, in my "further reading" posts, listed in the sidebar.
>@David Futrelle:"I've dealt with some of these topics in greater detail…"Translation: Ampersand has opined upon these topics and usually you just link to his material.
>Uh, he's dealt with a lot of them I haven't, so, yes, I link to him often. What on earth is wrong with linking to other people? I'm not a one-man refute-everything-every-MRA-ever-says machine.
>You know? I've never met a feminist that hasn't been concerned with Men's rights as well. In fact I am a feminist and I am highly concerned with the rights of men. I have two sons..I want them to live in a world where they can be whomever they want without the man box rules. I don't think it's alright for -anyone- to slap -anyone- an d I am a feminist.So how do you reconcile me and the number of women like me that I know with your view of the man hating feminist?
>Her argument comes down to this: If women are get the short end of the stick, it's men's fault. If men get screwed, it's their own fault. As I've written before about the situation in schools. When women were doing less well, we blamed the system and passed Title IX. When boys are doing less well, we blame them and do nothing (http://www.fauxwhore.com/2008/05/boy-crisis.html). Same shit.
>@Magnolia:"I don't think it's alright for anyone to slap anyone and I am a feminist. So how do you reconcile me and the number of women like me that I know with your view of the man hating feminist?"The test is whether you support the repeal of laws that give female perpetrators a free pass.
>@John Dias,"The test is whether you support the repeal of laws that give female perpetrators a free pass."Which laws, specifically, actually give female perpetrators a free pass?
>"You know? I've never met a feminist that hasn't been concerned with Men's rights as well. In fact I am a feminist and I am highly concerned with the rights of men. I have two sons..I want them to live in a world where they can be whomever they want without the man box rules. I don't think it's alright for -anyone- to slap -anyone- an d I am a feminist."That's strange because I never see these feminists. And if some feminists do have at least some concern about some male issues, they certainly don't have EQUAL concern towards these issues as they do towards female issues.That's what's so laughable about feminism, feminists claim that they are all about gender equality and yet, I have never ever seen a feminist show as much passion and aggression towards male issues than they do towards female issues. That's not equality now, isn't it? In fact, a common response from feminists is the tired of sarcastic phrase, "what about teh menz"Feminism is really a "woman first" movement rather than a movement that's truly about equality. But they keep telling us it's about gender equality to make themselves sound valid under a false impression.
>Yohan, the fact that Amptoon happens to buy its web hosting services from a company that also sells web hosting services to porn sites does not in any way mean that he has sold his web site to pornographers. I have taken down your slanderous comment.You, for example, have a blog up on blogger, right? Well, guess what, some people put up adult content on blogger. That doesn't make you a pornographer does it?
>@Christine WE:"Which laws, specifically, actually give female perpetrators a free pass?"1. Primary aggressor laws. These laws require or coerce police to overlook the violence of one party in an allegedly mutually violent couple, and instead arrest the most dangerous, a.k.a. the primary aggressor. The criteria set forth for police to identify the so-called "primary" aggressor includes such factors as which party has the larger physical stature, which is code for "arrest the man." Female perpetrators thus avoid arrest this way.2. The Duluth Model of Batterer Intervention Programs (BIPs). In my state, California, BIPs are required to implement protocols that are modeled after the Duluth Model. The Duluth Model attempts to legitimize and justify female perpetration rather than holding female abusers accountable. It portrays female perpetration as a reaction to male-imposed dominance, i.e. self defense, legitimizing it. States that require BIPs to model programs after the Duluth Model reflect this bigotry against men, and they effectively perpetuate female-perpetrated partner violence. Violent women who are mandated to a BIP that imitates the Duluth Model get coddled as victims rather than perpetrators.
>To make sure I understand what Witman is saying:A woman who slaps a man's face is exactly equivalent to a man breaking a woman's jaw? There is no difference whatsoever? Do I have that clear?