Great post by Ozymandias on her blog on the subject of “Who cares about men’s rights?” (Answer, Ozymandias, for one.) She offers a devastating critique of the Men’s Rights Movement and a critique of feminism I think I half-agree with as well. (She critiques feminists for not caring enough about men’s issues and responding to them with “but what about the menz” mockery; I think she’s got a point, but the fact is that lots of feminists do in fact work on behalf of men and men’s issues, from feminists involved in fighting for men and women falsely accused of sex crimes to feminist shelter workers who work on a regular basis to help male victims of abuse.)
Anyway, you should pop on over and read it.
It’s being discussed all over Reddit as well.
The post also inspired a debate on the old “chicks only want to date jerks” thing, which she’s broken out into a separate post.
EDITED TO ADD: And now The Spearhead has noticed the post.
What happens after that? After being horribly burned exactly because they took women seriously, do you think those men are going to be more likely to support women’s rights? more likely to listen to what a woman has to say on any subject? more likely to appreciate a woman’s point of view on any situation? Don’t count on it.
That’s right, ladies, better start putting out or men will *never* take women’s rights seriously.
Christ, I hope MRA’s never go away. They’re the funniest thing to hit the internet since fundy Christians.
The way I see it: feminism is a movement. It’s not like a MMORPG when suddenly you have hit level 80 and like, whoa, I have followed the official internet guide and now I am the purest, most distilled form of feminist there is, so, game: OVER.
Movements are made up of people who generally agree on a basic premise. Enter the classic quote, which I will here paraphrase awesomely: ‘women, they are, you know, people.’ Substitute pretty much any other broad movement and you’ll uncover the same basic idea which, I think, would be something like a grammar exercise, ‘I matter, you matter, we matter, etfuckingcetera’.
I think a good way to judge a movement is to look at which way it’s trying to grow. If the majority of its growth is aimed at inclusion – by which I mean “How many people can we do good for, even if they don’t like the uniform?”, not “How many people we can we win to our cause?” – then, well, they tend to be pretty okay. Like, say, nursing.
So there’s never going to be some kind of Ultimate Feminist, or Ultimate Fucking Anything (except in like the Olympics right before the world implodes or something, I guess. This is not an exact science, people.) because people simply aren’t perfect. I mean, sure, sometimes you feel like you’ve levelled up and now, omg, you are so WAY much more badass at this being-a-person shit than you were a minute ago, but most of us know we’re never even going to be half as splendid as we’d like to be at all the things we admire about all the people we admire, ever, because that’s, like, what, a LOT of people for most of us, if we count them all up, right? Being utterly perfect is a JOB of WORK, let me tell you!?
Inclusivity happens all over the place in feminisim. There are a handful of really extreme ‘WIMMINZ RULE 4EVS people’ and a handful of ‘wellll, a very specific type of woman is also probably a person’ people, but most people who count themselves feminists are just.. you know, people. They’re somewhere between ‘sometimes tolerable’ and ‘almost entirely awesome’. Sometimes they’re feeling tetchy and want to get all up in your face about how you need to STOP BEING A DICK AAAHHHHHHH. And sometimes they are more like ‘Dude. Party foul; I have a clue to offer you but it’s cool if you just want to go to the cinema or whatever because we are mates.’ and all sorts in between.
Feminism, at its best, is about everyone is a person and that SHIT: IT MATTERS. which makes it UNLIKE, an ideology SUCH AS being hitler which is like a) how few people are acceptable to hitler and his personal definition of his own neurotic ideology and b) how many people we can force to be acceptable to hitler by being as massive a jerk as possible towards them until they capitulate and get a metaphorical haircut.
IN CONCLUSION: Feminism is about how everyone is a person. Men’s Rights Activism is about how dudes are so incredibly equal to everyone that they get to receive presents on your birthday and also to win every game of monopoly else they throw the pieces everywhere in an epic tantrum and you’re the one who has to pick them up.
Hair! My hair is blue like in my icon! Well, ok, it’s not quite that bright because I haven’t done it in a month or so so it’s kinda faded. Hmm, maybe project for this weekend 🙂
The comments on that “chicks only want to date jerks” thread are hilarious.
I don’t actually care that much about “funny” – wouldn’t make my top 10. Silly though, I totally dig that. I guess silly is a type of funny? Sorta?
Kind, maybe, but I think I’d phrase it more like fair – I don’t want someone who’s a pushover and, as one of my many wonderful exes put it “sometimes you have to be an asshole”. As long as it’s only SOMETIMES 🙂
But smart? Smart is non-negotiable. Smart is like THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. And you can’t FAKE that. I mean, you can educate yourself and you can learn things but unless you’re the kind of guy who is inherently interested in geeky learning pursuits FOR REASONS OTHER THAN GETTING LAID I just ain’t gonna be interested.
Yeah, I’ve seen this happen, and it’s not pretty. And in general, I agree that all the work that feminists do does help men.
And I love my hair. It’s a pixie cut, red in the front and blond – platinum blond, almost white – in the back. It is totally awesome. I’ve also had it down to the middle of my back when it was plain jane brown, which sounds nice in theory, but because I’ve got baby fine hair, it gets all tangly and sticks to my shoulders. I might go shoulder length on the blond part though.
Oh, yeah, also. I think there are quite a lot of white, cis, etc, AS WE ALL KNOW WELL, most privileged versions of feminism in prominence right now and so I totally and completely am in line with ozymandias’s point about that because we all know about television, right? The ‘best of the worst’ get a spot and that’s about as far as we stretch, right? And the ‘best of the worst’ are.. well, if not writing for the Daily Mail then at least have ties to the Telegraph, to be entirely Anglocentric here. And that’s about as far from ‘dudes win if women are people’ versions of reality as can be achieved.
Ack! What I intended in that passage about feminism, which might not have come through, is that feminists ought to have the same relationship with the hypothetical non-misogynistic men’s rights movement as it does with trans activism or anti-racist activism: they’re allies, they work together on intersectional issues or really big things, but mostly they each do their own thing.
Also, that men’s rights activists are clearly falling down on the job, and SOMEONE has to do something, and feminism is the most likely movement out of which a real men’s rights movement can emerge.
What an absolute load of narcissitic self congradulatory feminist tripe her article is. It just reiterates and rehashes the same old manure heaped upon men for decades and decades.
Starting off with oh golly wolly weepy men are wonderful. It’s all good for men to act like women. You can wear dresses and make up and break those bad old patriarchy gender roles. Gee feminism wants to include all you sensitive guys into the holy LGBTQ…XYZ gang. Well guess what? We don’t care and heres a secret. We find it repulsive.
Then she goes on to yimmer about caring that men aren’t getting into college, of course when I mention Title IX out here, she’s starts screaming about how great it is. The great ozzy goes off on a tangent about pedophiles, yet fails to mention thats the LGBTQ doing the deed, the very faction feminism supports and loves.
She continues with her “caring” and I quote “I care about men who want to do their share of the child-rearing” As if men do nothing towards the child rearing. Ya know earning the moolah, taking care of the house, security. Plus all that fantasic horse play with the kiddies. Apparently it’s “known” women do more, because they say so.
Oh she just cares about everything it seems. Well guess what we know who lobbied for all the laws that gave women power over men in all social, political and economic realms of moren day society. Here a hint, it wasn’t men. She ever had the audacity to continue fostering the outright lie that men earn more than women for the same hours of the same job. C’mon, how many time must that lie be debunked.
She doesn’t give a flying fuck about any man as she types in men dying 7 years earlier yet she knows money is spent 2 to 1 on womens health. There are 10 federally funded health centers for women and 0 for men. You’re full of shit since no feminist group has ever done anything but lobbied for more.
The only comment that wasn’t the standard women are too kind and spiritual and moral to be on the same planet as men was demonspawn. And of course everyone instantly jumped all over his comment. I’m afraid your brand of world communism isn’t quite to mens liking. If you actually “cared” about men you would be grinding feminisim under your heel for the filthy, vile hate movement it always was.
@ozymandias the difference tho in being allies (vs stuff like being allies w/ trans or queer ppl, where the privilege dynamic is more understood, or at least should be >_>) is that the MRM needs to acknowledge at the very least the concept of male privilege, and the screwed up gender roles that delineate “masculine” and “feminine and how the oppression of women can intersect with the issues they deal w/ (like a lot of the times, it has to do with pushing boys to prove that they’re not girls, like hitting for young boys in hockey, and keeping girls from being able to do things, like checking in hockey, whether they like it or not… and there’s an intersection there that isn’t just “feminists like to watch young boys get hurt that’s why this is” which believe it or not, I’ve SEEN as an argument, in a letter in the Toronto Star -_-) which isn’t to say “bow down to the almighty victimhood of women” or nething -_-;; (i’m not saying btw that this isn’t what you mean, I’m just elaborating on what you said that inspired thinky thoughts :] )
But like I completely agree with Leroy Brown in that, the problem is most of the time it turns into a zero sum game thing or a complete derail and “you have to drop everything, what about us?” I like the examples that Leroy uses about ways feminism can help and support ppl considered about men’s issues in that regard, and I also SEE these things in action in my work, b/c there is consultation and support and etc between mens’ and women’s shelters and services and working w/ the immigrant, PoC and queer communities on more inclusive and intersectional issues like trans inclusion policies :] ( In fact, I’m one of those consultants xD ) I know it’s not perfect, and there are still groups out there that can be close minded (like Vancouver Rape Relief -_-) but there is co-operation and privilege checking and acknowledgement of the awfulness out there by ppl who work in anti-oppression, for both men and women… so surely there can be on the internet too right? :]
I’m apparently a pedophile… possibly twice over one… which would … cancel each other out? make me like negative age ppl? o_O (by NWO’s logic I might be in love w/ zygotes xD I wonder if NWO adds 9 months to his birthday btw o_o )
Who else here is a pedophile? Raise your hand! xDDD
I’m curious about when the smileys cancel out my rodeo catness when it comes to NWO.. we’ll see wun we xD
*hears some buzzing noises, sees that is NWOaf and ignores it*
Ozy, it didn’t come through. At all.
If what you’re trying to convey is:
“feminists ought to have the same relationship with the hypothetical non-misogynistic men’s rights movement as it does with trans activism or anti-racist activism: they’re allies, they work together on intersectional issues or really big things, but mostly they each do their own thing,”
It got lost in this:
“Feminists? You know what you are, as a movement, right now? You are that’s not my department says Wernher Von Brauhn.* ”
Implying that FEMINISTS ARE ACTING LIKE NAZIS because they work to advance women’s rights does not advance the idea that that that men’s movements and women’s movements should be allies.
Follow David’s link and you’ll see that plenty of feminists care about and work on men’s issues. And plenty of feminists care about and work on women’s issues, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Hey Ami, how many millions of straight men would you trample to save just one of your precious transpeople or queer folk?
Lizzy don’t play coy I know you want some slave cock.
Hay XD The rodeo cat worked! :3 He did respond XDDDD
I love that I made him get over his thing of smileys just cuz he HAS to retort to me XDDD
And plz, what situation would that happen in? XD How many millions of everybody else would you trample to save just one of your precious zygotes? XD
“Hey Ami, how many millions of straight men would you trample to save just one of your precious transpeople or queer folk?”
None, I would imagine. What are you even talking about?
“Lizzy don’t play coy I know you want some slave cock.”
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I also love his idea that trans ppl can’t be straight xD
W
T
G
xD
“WAY TO GO, NWO” would be a great chant btw xD
Maybe this is like Goldeneye where I’m in a tank… or maybe I’m in an AT-AT! xD
No, no, no! The correct was to phrase it is “May I please offer you some slave cock, Mistress?”
Jeez, you’re not very good at this.
Who wouldn’t want a Bounty Hunter’s spaceship shaped like a rooster btw? 😮
THAT WOULD BE AWESOME xDDDD
Feminism, helping men with insults. Sounds like a hate movement to me and every other man on the planet. Keep up the good work Romes about to fall.
Yo NWO, so all gay people are pedophiles now? When did this happen? I know this point will be lost on you, but pedophiles don’t actually care all that much what gender the child is. They go for the age thing, you now, pedophile. Gay people men don’t prefer young boys any more than straight men prefer young girls.
“It’s all good for men to act like women. You can wear dresses and make up and break those bad old patriarchy gender roles. ”
So, to interpret your derision, do you think all men and all women should adhere strictly to “those bad old patriarchy gender roles?” Really? Why are you so damn interested what other people do with their lives (barring criminal activity anyway)?
AHHHH A TIME TRAVELER! Dx
EXTERMINATE!!! EXTERMINAAAAATE
@speedlines, I know right? Or maybe he’s just playing it better than any of us realize, trying to provoke Holly into giving some more much-needed verbal flogging. Can’t really decide which, actually.
It really is hard to tell, but if he were my slave I’d make him work a lot harder than this.
If he were my Slave, I’d hide him amongst the garbage dump until my prey thought they were safe to jet off xD
If he were my slave…
Well.. I dunno what I’d do. I don’t have a dom bone in my body… He probably would be rather miserable under my whip. “Couldn’t you like… punch me? Or something? Please?”
If he was my slave I’d sell him. Assuming I could find a sucker, of course.