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| MRAs: Bigger Drama Queens than Batman |
Drama queens: so annoying, but so, so entertaining. Tammy Wynette, singing about failing marriages with that little choked-up quiver in her voice. Chris Crocker, begging us to “leave Britney alone!” Emo kids whining about whatever it is they’re always whining about. Cats, being cats.
And, of course, Men’s Rights activists, seriously in the running for biggest drama queens of all.
Over on A Voice For Men, guest blogger “Tom Snark” recently wrote about a little incident in his life in which he heard the woman who lived next door to him yell at her husband because she didn’t like the way he was trimming some branches.
Not much of a story, you’d think. But Snark, showing considerable ingenuity, stretched it out into a 1200 word post. The woman didn’t just yell; she “yapp[ed] at him like a menopausal Chihuahua.” The man wasn’t just embarrassed to have a neighbor overhear the exchange; he
know[s] that their facade of marital bliss was now forever shattered in my mind. … Is this his terrible secret, hidden from the world: that he is continually disrespected behind closed doors, by the very woman who said to him “I do”?
Needless to say, Snark answered this question with a resounding “yes.” And then decided that all marriages are like this — ultimately concluding that the women of the world are quite literally nagging their hubbies to death:
One needlessly stressful incident after another is sure to raise the blood pressure. But actually living with a person who does this, combined with the stress of full-time work five days a week? The origin of the life expectancy gap [between men and women] becomes clear.
Never mind that married men actually live longer than unmarried men, as approximately two seconds of Googling will show. Snark was just getting going:
marriage has no benefit at all for men. It is not even a stretch to say that, in this day and age, marriage is systematically abusive for men. While women can up and leave at any time they like, with minimal resistance from the law, family courts, or society as a whole (we continue to suffer from Eat, Prey, Love syndrome) – men cannot leave women without paying the price.
Yes, he did say “prey,” not “pray.” But wait, there’s more:
Married men are literally trapped, stuck supporting the poisonous predators that will eventually kill them. Plenty of women know this; perhaps this is why they are so keen on the idea. A little legal tweaking was all it took for feminists to remake marriage in their own image: men are now the dehumanised tools for women’s personal use. Sex roles have not simply been reversed, because men continue to do most of the work. What has changed is that the paycheque is now handed directly over to the wife, and his time at home will be spent completing endless ‘honey-do’ lists.
Oh, the terrible tyranny of the “honey-do” list! Hitler had nothing on these foul shrews and their endless branch-trimming demands!
Now, I don’t mean to make light of verbal abuse. It happens, and it’s real abuse. I once had a neighbor, an elderly Italian man, who was continually yelling at his wife. Most of it was in Italian, so I don’t know exactly what he was saying, but every sentence or two was punctuated by what was evidently his favorite English word, “asshole,” a word he delivered with so much contempt it was chilling. In between these verbal barrages, I could hear his wife softly responding, trying to placate him. I don’t think he physically abused her – he was in a wheelchair – but this verbal abuse was constant. I doubt there was a single day I didn’t hear it. Had I known then what I know now, I would have called the police.
But not every overheard argument is a sign of abuse. Snark has heard one nasty exchange in the ten years he’s lived next to this couple – and he’s concluded from this one data point not only that his neighbor is being abused but that virtually all married men are prisoners to “poisonous predators [who] will eventually kill them.”
Naturally, the regular commenters on A Voice For Men found this conclusion eminently reasonable. Indeed, in one heavily upvoted comment, Barbarossaaa managed to out-queen Snark’s already impressive drama queenery:
All one has to do is to observe these married men, i mean really look at them… dont let them catch you looking, observe the married man is his natural habitat, and if you look close you can see the dulled eyes of a man simply waiting to die.
he is the fly caught in the spider web, that has accepted its fate and stopped struggling. he now waits for the black widow to climb down and consume him slowly but surely…this is not freedom it’s subtle servitude … you are dancing her dance, she is the initiator you are the reactor, and SHE decides whether you pass or fail she is in complete control.
Yes, married men are all dead-eyed puppets in the hands of their evil wives. When I read this last bit, I couldn’t help but think of this little scene in Ed Wood’s perplexing bad-movie masterpiece Glen or Glenda, in which Bela Lugosi, himself a drama queen of considerable ability, shouts out “pull the string!” for no apparent reason:
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>Golly, can't imagine why Mr. Snark is still single – and I doubt it's because he truly believes all women are harpies.
>A friend of mine (well really a colleague) got a divorce after 30 years of marriage from a woman who was and is unfortunately mentally ill. He was devastated by the divorce (and not too happy with her attorney for driving up fees) and yet, he is not bitter about all women. Just the ex-wife's attorney, and even then he acknowledges she was just doing her job. I guess that is what we call "maturity" and "common sense."
>observe the married man is his natural habitat, and if you look close you can see the dulled eyes of a man simply waiting to die. Reminds me of a Sunday School teacher I had as a kid. He said something like, "Ever see someone who isn't Christian? They're always angry and depressed."And I thought, "Uh… no, not really."But I guess some people will accept even easily falsifiable descriptions of reality if it supports their ideology.
>and yet, he is not bitter about all women …I guess that is what we call "maturity" and "common sense." nb4 an MRA calls you a hypocrite because feminists are totally bitter about all men.
>"marriage has no benefit at all for men. It is not even a stretch to say that, in this day and age, marriage is systematically abusive for men. While women can up and leave at any time"You would think that more men would have discovered this universal truth! And yet what I personally have observed is that many men HATE being alone and will jump into another relationship immediately as soon as the old one is over. "men cannot leave women without paying the price."Smart enough to write such entertaining purple prose, but baffled by the idea of a prenup.
>It's not really Eat, Pray, Love for us married seahags – it's BEAT, PREY, LEAVE!We had a funny old couple for neighbors once; my husband was talking to the husband and his wife stuck her head out the windowand yelled, "Hey asshole! Your movie's on!" The old guy just laughedand laughed, but I'll but he was sobbing on the inside!Yeah, right.
>And yet what I personally have observed is that many men HATE being alone and will jump into another relationship immediately as soon as the old one is over. Actually a lot of serial husbands are conmen who get married over and over in order to rip off the women in question.It's yet another one of those things that MRAs pretend women are constantly doing but is actually more common with men.
>It's yet another one of those things that MRAs pretend women are constantly doing but is actually more common with men.Projection: it's not just a river in Egypt.
>"Golly, can't imagine why Mr. Snark is still single – and I doubt it's because he truly believes all women are harpies." You don't understand, it does not matter if women what a woman's character is. Marriage is not about men it is about commitment and bearing liability to a woman and her children. By law men are not members of the matriarchal family. This is why women passed no-fault divorce law because they wanted access to men's resources after they initiate 70% of all divorce. Older men who are from the post feminist generation have warned me. "You want my advice..never get married" Men know…men know how independent women are.
>Feminism was never about women's "independence" it is about diverting resources to women in both the public and private realms of society. Look at all the laws women advocate for including ones they have passed such as "women first" Affirmative Action policy etc etc etc.
>Go your own way ladies…go enjoy yourselves. Get a sperm donor or something. Get your male genes from a male gene farming facility. You can even select your male specimen by what Hollywood celebrity he looks like.Human genes are sold through the mail. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IU3iQnIt6Nc/Sp4hZFh26dI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/7VS50L6EIPM/s1600-h/ScreenShot022.jpg Want your own Brad Pitt?: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IU3iQnIt6Nc/Stj4D_yVsZI/AAAAAAAAARU/zU6OtfvY3GQ/s1600-h/ScreenShot003.jpgGo..have fun…http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IU3iQnIt6Nc/TQsU8ZTuT4I/AAAAAAAAAfw/5bhYbzlmpHM/s1600/ScreenShot032.jpghttp://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IU3iQnIt6Nc/TQncO8NIqBI/AAAAAAAAAfQ/aXNTNOxfshs/s1600/ScreenShot027.jpghttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IU3iQnIt6Nc/TQndY7MWVKI/AAAAAAAAAfY/SpRFZAl1C88/s1600/ScreenShot028.jpg
>These self-made losers are convinced that all married men are miserable because they need to believe it. Otherwise they'd have to start looking in the mirror for the source of their problems.
>1. No fault divorce is shown to reduce spousal abuse by 30% (because women just leave their abusive husbands) and a drop in the suicide rate of women by a good 8 – 16% depending on nation.2. Fault driven divorce is the reason for courtroom shenanigans.3. What you are complaining about is Alimony. Alimony rules have changed, if you and your wife are both earn roughly the same amount of money then your wife does not receive alimony. I find it's good reason to marry someone equally intelligent so that if divorce occurs I keep my money. 4. I agree child support is biased in favour of women. I agree that child support should be placed in relation to visitation rights unless in cases of abuse and crime, as currently even if granted visitation rights the woman can simply prevent you from physically seeing your children with no recourse to the law bar another custody hearing. 5. Divorce rates go down if Joint Custody is utilised allowing both parents equal access to the children. This means that you usually don't have to pay child support since you are still bearing the child support load physically.6. 95% of divorces are mediated. Only 5% reach the stage. I am pretty sure if you have been sensible you can mediate a divorce.7. If you are so scared sign a pre-nup. There is an option. I would intend to use one myself. 8. Yes there is a bias to women in custody battles, but MRAs aren't arguing for equal custody, they are arguing that you do not want to pay child support. Here's a hint. Date smart intelligent women who have careers. They are less likely to be in it for the money (Yes I have dated someone who has pulled that "stunt" on me. I had a metric tonne of hang ups about women after that. I was 18 and she said I got her pregnant. The child was born white with blonde hair. I am tamil.) I am no stranger to such shennanigans, but the response is common sense rather than all women are evil. There are crazy people in both genders and inbetween. I cannot judge all women by the actions of my second girlfriend, that would be insane.
>Why not simply divorce and take care of yourself and your newly bastard fatherless children. Why have men support independent women?
>@Avicenna I like your points. You sound reasonable. This is the first time I have heard such things from a woman. However I disagree with: #1 No fault divorce is shown to reduce spousal abuse by 30% (because women just leave their abusive husbands) and a drop in the suicide rate of women by a good 8 – 16% depending on nation. Where did you get these statistics? What variables were measured. This must have been hosted on a feminist site."but MRAs aren't arguing for equal custody, they are arguing that you do not want to pay child support." Not trying to sound angry because I feel you are trying to be reasonable here but this is an outright lie. I spend time in men's circles, men's forums and with male family and friends who want nothing more than to be with their children. Feminists will tell you that men only want "control". This is filthy and disgusting. MEN LOVE OUR CHILDREN AND WANT TO BE A PART OF THEIR LIVES. I've seen the sleepless nights, the lost weight, the inability to eat, the tears and sorrow. Feminists officially do not support shared custody. This is the official stance of mainstream feminists organizations.
>Lol ok….just reviewed the last lines…you are a man…lol now your reasonable tone makes sense.
>I am a guy. Avicenna is the latin for Ibn Sina a famous classical doctor and the father of the clinical trial. If I was a woman and was accused of getting someone else pregnant I would be extremely stupid to wait till the end. 1. The figures are from the University of Pennsylvania. It's an actual paper of the business and public policy department. 2. None of the MRA's have argued for custody, they have argued against payment of child support. Joint custody invalidates the payment of child support as long as both sides agree to pay 50% of the child's bills and share in the rearing of the child. 3. Feminists do support shared custody. Which is why 95% of divorces tend to have joint custody. No seriously. The American Law association states that only 5% of divorces are contested by court. The remainder are solved by mediation. Most courts actually enforce joint custodies unless there is gross negligence on the part of one parent. The issue being that there is no follow up resulting in cases where the mother can terminate visitation rights without the father having any recourse to the law. Simply not paying child support after that results in the father being jailed. Hence I feel visitation rights should be linked to payment (If not once a week then the child should atleast be sent over for school holidays of an equal time period.)4. Divorce has dropped a fair bit due to fewer people marrying and a lot more cohabiting. Not gone up. No fault divorce has dropped the rate of divorce simply because a lot of divorces actually occur in the first 5 years of marriage where annulments are easy to get.5. The stance of feminists is for men to do their share of the parenting. Joint custody is what they want in cases of mutual divorce. Not in cases of faulted divorce (divorce does occur with fault. AKA someone cheating or abuse).
>"None of the MRA's have argued for custody, they have argued against payment of child support." I'm not sure if you are serious or not but you are obviously not an MRA or have lost your children. Go to ACFC.org and sign the shared parenting petition or take part in a shared custody protest. They take place every year at state legislatures. MRA lobbyists, many of them women are in Washington D.C. Women are overwhelmingly opposed to fatherhood and shared custody. It's sad what they have done.
>You are confusing father's rights advocacy for Men's Rights Movement. Father's advocacy is a minefield since there is a huge grey area to overcome. Men's rights? Less so.
>"Which is why 95% of divorces tend to have joint custody." I can't find this information anywhere. Every man I know has lost his children and the rights to his own body and thus the fruits of its labor. Please help me find out what you are talking about. Joint custody is something new. The idea is that women will have some sort of obligation, liability, responsibility and some sort of commitment in a marriage. Currently the legal status of women is that of children. 90-95% of cases the woman is granted the status of dependent upon men and also given primary custody. Father's groups are desperately lobbying for the ability to have more time with their children and to be a father. Again, please go to ACFC.org and sign the shared parenting petition. "When women anticipate a clear gender bias in the courts regarding custody, they expect to be the primary residential parent for the children and recipient of the resulting financial child support, maintaining the marital residence, receiving half of all marital property, and gaining total freedom to establish new social relationships. In their detailed analysis of divorce rates, Kuhn and Guidubaldi conclude that acceptance of joint physical custody may reduce divorce. States whose family law policies, statutes, or judicial practice encourage joint custody have shown a greater decline in their divorce rates than those that favor sole custody." "The stance of feminists is for men to do their share of the parenting. Joint custody is what they want in cases of mutual divorce." Where are you getting this??? I follow all the feminist news feeds and they are definitively against men and children having fathers.
>"When women anticipate a clear gender bias in the courts regarding custody, they expect to be the primary residential parent for the children and recipient of the resulting financial child support, maintaining the marital residence, receiving half of all marital property, and gaining total freedom to establish new social relationships." (with their last male provider slave sending them what money is left over so that men can never again form another family nor be a father to their children). You are saying this is changing and maybe it has but only in some areas. Considering men as human beings is not yet the norm. It is a new idea. I've spoken about this topic many times and women laugh in my face. They think the pain and suffering is funny. Do you understand? I know a man personally who could not eat, could not sleep and he lost so much weight I was worried about him. All he could think and talk about was his baby and I mean ALL he could think and talk about was his baby. Men don't want "control" like women's groups say, men want the person they care about most in the world in their life. The person they would die for without a second thought. That's all men want. My own father was taken from me. He would drive an hour and a half many a day to see me in the summers. It felt special because I knew my father was not supposed to see me during other than 4 days a month. My brother was accused of sexual molestation of his new born infant, his son kidnapped and after emptying HIS LIFE SAVINGS OF $120,000 he was granted 51% custody but still has to pay child support, back payments of alimony when he was out of work WITH INTEREST while his ex takes European vacations and gets her nails done at the spa. In my experience and that of many if not most men they have been hurt beyond words, they suffer and some commit suicide. Women will take everything that means anything to you. This is the story men tell if you pay attention. Spend more time…talk to them. According to Los Angeles divorce consultant Jayne Major: "Divorced men are often devastated by the loss of their children. It's a little known fact that in the United States men initiate only a small number of the divorces involving children." I know feminists will tell you that men don't want shared custody they want control and to hurt people but please understand that this is a lie. Men know what happens if they divorce. The feminist revolution has removed men's rights and done tremendous damage to men, children, the prospect of family and marriage.
>Avicenna, I disagree with 4 and 8. Child support does not go to women, it goes to children. Child support goes from the non-custodial parent to the custodial parent to support the child. Women who are non-custodial parents actually tend to be treated far more harshly in regards to child support than men if the issue goes before a court. On a related note, if the person paying can genuinely prove that the other parent is improperly using the support before a court, they can get a guardian ad lidem appointed controller of the child's financial interests. Actually proving their claim instead of just saying "all those bitches who recieve an average of less than $5000 a year to feed, house, and raise a kid are fucking living it up" does result in an actionable legal issue. And, it is as a matter of fact virtually impossible to deny visitation where support is paid due to court order. Violating a court ordered vistitation order is a crime that, if brought before a court, is often punished with far higher penalties than failure to pay support. The issue is that most people have an out of court agreement, so when one stops paying or stops allowing visitation, the other party has to start at the beginning with a court procedure to get an official order. As to 8, there is actually no reliable statistics on disputed custody results cross states (on a national level). People who work in the field in some states and areas report that courts almost never fail to give joint custody, some report a bias in favor of women, some report a bias in favor of men. The best evidence we have suggests that this is an issue that varies wildly across states and even across areas within some states. On the second number 5, avicenna, I do not consider fault divorce alone to be a factor in who should have custody unless the fault involved some factor of violence or some issue which would cause a danger (violence against spouse or child, conviction or commission of a violent felony, certian drug abuses, etc). Then again, I am from a state where women (but not men) who had affairs were affirmitively barred from being granted custody in a custody dispute until the mid-70s. If you look at it from a best interest of the child standpoint, the fact that the mom or dad had an affair is not overly relevant to the parent's skill or safety. Also, people who technically have no fault divorces can have severe problems in the marriage, including drug abuse and violence. In states that have no fault divorce, the fact that such divorces tend to happen more quickly and the fact that the victim does not have to deal with police and community involvement often makes these highly appealing to those who are in fact in dangerous situations. A large portion of no fault divorces factually qualify for fault divorces, but are more convienent.
>@Discount: I'm glad you know everything about how EVERY man feels. Saying they just want to be with their children. My parents divorced when I was small, and my sister and I would visit our dad every other weekend and alternating holidays. Do you think he really wanted to be a father to us when he would just go upstairs and be on the computer all weekend while we were playing by ourselves downstairs? (he has gotten more interacting with us, which leads me to believe he didn't really want kids, but now that we're adults, it's different). And did my cousin's dad want to see her and be a part of her life when he gave up all rights (and thus didn't have to pay child support)? "MEN LOVE OUR CHILDREN AND WANT TO BE A PART OF THEIR LIVES." Do you think this applies? I'm not saying ALL men are like this; I realize many do want to be fathers for their children, but you're acting like every single woman is out to get money from a man via divorce and that is just not true; my parents divorced because my dad was abusive towards my mom.
>I know that the money is meant to go to the child's well being in order to "maintain the child's lifestyle at the same level as pre-divorce".Even on an equal basis courts tend to rule more in favour of women because of the assumption that single fathers are worse at child rearing than single mothers. The number of children with their mothers rather than their fathers seems to be in excess of what it should statistically be. Surely if we are for equality men would also take an equal share in the child rearing? The issue being that a lot of the data is compiled by father's justice movements (and I am too lazy to trawl for an unbiased source). Faulted Divorce is a terrible procedure. It's extremely difficult for women to go through. The idea of no fault is that this saves abused women the horrific nature of going through the trial (which often scared them off) as the end result is usually the same. However there aren't many provisions for men being the one initiating the divorces. The issue with custody seems to be that the parent with the dominant share of custody can shaft the one without since custody is poorly enforced. My big gripe with the system is that custody is not linked to visitation rights and to child support. A lot of cases exist where the parent with dominant custody simply bars the other from contacting the child. Very little is done to police this because no one figured it was an issue (IMHO). Visitations need to be treated in the same way that child support is. That the agreed time tables are binding within reason. Obviously saying "I am going on a vacation, I am not taking the kids this week" is acceptable. Saying "I am moving to Paris, good luck!" is rather unacceptable. You wouldn't enjoy having to pay for your children who you almost never see to live away from you. You stopped being a parent and started being just a source of income. I suppose something can be worked out like "holidays are with the parent with the minority visitation" but again that would require a legal pressure on visitation rights to be enforced appropriately.
>I think it's so weird to see men gripe and moan about "honey do" lists while their wives are busy grocery shopping, cooking meals, vacuuming, changing the baby's diapers, and folding laundry after working all day. Maybe some women nag because they are angry to have so much work to do and too little help from their husbands. I learned one way to deal with this issue is to hire someone to help you with those honey do lists, like a handyman or a landscaper. If the wife is lazy, the man could hire a maid or nanny. Then the unhelpful spouse will learn that if they want to save money, they need to pitch in and do their fair share. Hopefully you have married a reasonable person that doesn't want to lay around watching TV while the other person never gets a break. It's a good issue for a couple to discuss before getting married. If your fiance wants to spend all of his or her free time on video games while you do all the work, you should reconsider if you really want to get married. My grandma waited on my grandpa hand and foot while he spent all of his time watching baseball on TV. Anytime she was sick, he was helpless and couldn't take care of himself. I saw an episode of Hoarders where a widower let his house become a squalid pit because he didn't know how to pick up or clean his home after his wife passed away. I would think most people would want to know how to run a home and be independent.