Apparently we feminists simply can’t understand the Men’s Rights Movement, because
feminist ideology is still stuck in the 19th century concept that women are second class citizens when objectively they are in a better position than men. … The[y] just cannot grasp that in modern western society men are second class citizens.
Luckily, the good fellows at the Men’s Rights subreddit on Reddit are here to put us straight.
Oh, and while they’re at it, they would also like to explain to us at great length why the whole Slutwalk thing is so silly. I mean, telling women to not dress like sluts if they don’t want to get raped is just good common sense! And obviously dudes have a much greater understanding of the topic of rape and personal safety in general than silly ladies with their silly lady brains and their silly tendency to get drunk on silly lady drinks.
Because Reddit Men’s Rights is not completely dominated by retrograde MRA misogynists, there are actually some decent comments mixed in with all the patronizing nonsense. Enjoy?
So, wait. We don’t understand feminism. We don’t understand the MRM. So what exactly are we allowed to understand?
I’m guessing this is what is meant by “mansplaining.”
Ya know, I read through the main post (the image) on the OP’s second link. In it was a column on the left of a guy giving a bunch of advice on how to stay safe in various situations. On the right is a woman agreeing. The guy gets to talking about how to dress during a party, and the essence is “avoid dressing like a slut.. you can’t control what kind of attention you’ll get from normal men and rapists alike.” Punchline? Woman goes into a spitting rage.
Alright, number of things here: as has already been stated, how a woman dresses is not correlated with how likely they are to be raped, most rapes are done by someone the woman knows, etc. So, the advice is bad. However, if the man were to somehow give good advice to the woman, and thats all? There wouldn’t be a problem. For practical purposes, if there are things a woman can do to avoid getting raped, she should do them. But the exact wrong thing to do if a rape happens is to dismiss the problem by saying “well, you could have done X Y Z and you didn’t, what did you expect to happen?” Why is this? Don’t we say that if people act stupid in a bad neighborhood, they share some of the responsibility if they get mugged or attacked?
The problem is that the argument focuses on a woman’s looks. Beauty standards vary wildly across the population, and there is no universal “style” that is considered slutty. What one man might find immensely attractive, another might find it average, or possibly even ugly. Unlike objective things like how easy it is to steal a radio (one of the comparisons made), how you appear to a rapist is not something you can control, since it is a subjective judgement by the rapist. Therefore, they are not valid comparisons! Of course, the stats say this line of reasoning is faulty in the first place, since what a woman is wearing is not correlated with how likely they are to be raped, but even if it were… Grah…
tl;dr: beauty standards are subjective, therefore how a woman dresses cannot and should not factor in to whether or not they share responsibility for a rape.
Why This Line Of Reasoning Is Stupid: A Logically Valid Syllogism.*
Premise 1: If a person looks at a person s/he finds attractive in skimpy clothing, that person is turned on.
Premise 2: Being turned on is pleasurable.
Premise 3: There should be more pleasurable things in the world.
Conclusion 1: There should be more attractive people in skimpy clothing in the world.
Premise 3: Being raped is bad.
Premise 4: Being told that being dressed in skimpy clothing will get them raped will make some women believe that they will be raped if they wear skimpy clothing.
Premise 5: If one believes doing something will lead to a bad thing, they will not do that thing even if they want to.
Conclusion 2: Some women will not dress in skimpy clothing even if they want to.
Premise 6: This piece is telling women dressing in skimpy clothing will get them raped.
Conclusion 3: This piece is reducing the number of women in skimpy clothing.
Conclusion 4: This piece is reducing the amount of pleasure in the world.
Conclusion 5: This piece should go die in a fire.
*Probably. The last time I took logic was in eighth grade…
@Ozymandias:
Agreed, 100%. Anything that reduces the amount of sexiness in this world is doing a horrible disservice to human beings everywhere!
GAH! I got through maybe half of the first response on the first link before I had to ragequit. Men are the assumed default person. Until that changes I’m not ever going to believe that middle class white men have it sooo much worse than everyone evar.
They don’t seem to realize that while it’s true they have lost some privilege, it’s just enough to bring them to “still slightly above the standard of women”. They see that and think “OMG look how far we’ve fallen!”. We read that and think “ya, can I get a hand up here? The ledge you’re standing on looks way more stable.”
(p.s. I’m a longtime lurker and also in Toronto, I wouldn’t be around next weekend, but am interested in getting information if there’s a meetup planned. flame_owl_kc at hotmail dot-com (keep the underscores))
I notice that when this kind of Just Giving Advice post goes around they are usually discussing a very specific kind of rape of a very specific kind of victim.
Children are raped. It’s not because they are out partying.
Old women are raped- it’s not because they are dressed in skimpy clothes with their orthopedic shoes.
Women are raped in their own homes- it’s not because they were taunting strangers by being out in public while female. Nuns are raped. Hospital patients are raped. Women in police custody are raped. Women alone with people they are related to by blood or marriage are raped. Soldiers in uniform are raped. Women are raped in their places of employment.
Clothing, attitude, state of/lack of inebriation of rape victims are variables when discussing rape. You know what’s consistently present at All. Rapes. Ever? One or more rapists. So how about these earnest advice-givers who demand someone do something differently to solve the rape problem focus on that for a change?
Oh wait- that’s man-shaming. Plus, you know, it doesn’t involve getting to say mean things about young women for daring to look pretty while having a nice time where some man might see it. Oh wait- I mean ‘just being realistic about what happens when sluts get drunk and tease men’.
Yeah, really. Don’t these guys get that this attitude will result in fewer women wearing skimpy clothing?
Of course, maybe their real problem isn’t women in skimpy clothing, it’s women, regardless of how they are dressed, thinking they have right to control their own sexuality.
Of course, maybe their real problem isn’t women in skimpy clothing,
UNPOSSIBLE!!!
But if women control their own sexuality, it leads to better sex! I still don’t get what their angle is.
well, they don’t get any sex anyway, so how would they ever discover that?
‘zall about control.
And not the fun kind of control either.
Perhaps it is jealousy, lookin at how all those beautiful women seem to effortlessly get laid while they’re stuck at home with Mr. Hand and Mr. Sock… Perhaps getting women to be afraid of going out to party, or of looking sexy when they do will make them feel less miserable.. Of course they’re only harming themselves more by all this ranting and complaining rather than.. oh I don’t know.. treating women as human beings who are as interested in sex as they are (just not all the time and with everyone)?
I wonder though, what do MRAs think feminists mean when they talk about “owning your sexuality?” Do they think its some sort of evil overlord thing, where women may demand sex of anyone they choose, and may deny it to anyone as well? Cause that would make some of their ramblings make a lot more sense..
They don’t see it that way, Oz. For them, women controlling their sexuality means women get to say no to them–alpha bitches spitting on them and such. Half are pissed that women get to say no before marriage (i.e, not having sex with them), and the other half are pissed that women get to say no after marriage (divorce, refusal to be beaten, etc.). That’s the long and the short of their concern over false allegations of rape and false allegations of DV.
Sorry, but I’m not feeling very charitable towards them right now. Maybe it’s time for a break.
@Ozymandias:
“*Probably. The last time I took logic was in eighth grade…”
It’s all good. The average eight grader has a better grasp of logic than the average MRA stooge does.
Completely agree with the quoted passage. In fact I want to dialogue with that guy. The MRA Reddit is my favorite MRA discussion board. I’m a little iffy on The Spearhead and In Mala Fide and the rest of the “hardcore” brigade, because you get a lot of real kooks there. I mean, I don’t disagree with everything they say or even most of it, but, I don’t know. They’re so militant it’s kind of hard to even talk to them, because you just get copypasta responses that are only tangentially related to the topic at hand. But the reddit is a place for intelligent and reasonable MRAs and to dialogue with each other and listen to each other and work on shaping their views on the plight of men in society. Along with Glenn Sacks’ site, it is, in my opinion, representative of the mainstream MRA movement.
Perhaps it is jealousy, lookin at how all those beautiful women seem to effortlessly get laid while they’re stuck at home with Mr. Hand and Mr. Sock… Perhaps getting women to be afraid of going out to party, or of looking sexy when they do will make them feel less miserable..
Sometimes I wonder about that… not for EVERYBODY, but there are some who rly do seem to be making this a sour grapes thing… the idea that there will be punishment for those they believe have a better life (kinda like how ppl like to believe that the person that somebody they like dates is a “bad person” who will abuse them or something).. it’s an extension of the idea of a “just world”, those who act unfavourably deserve to be punished… and therefore the corrolary must be true… ppl who are victims “asked for it”… >_>;;
“Completely agree with the quoted passage.”
Oh, of course you do, Mr. Al. You’re a mopey sad sack who gets off on imagining that his life is uniquely hellish. Of course you agree completely with someone who claims that your sex is one more thing holding you down, lumped on top of all the other tragedies of your existence.
The only surprising thing is that he didn’t specifically say that guys who are 5’8.5″ to 5’8.75″ are, like, third-class citizens at best, and yet here you are wanting to strike up a convo with him.
And Glenn Sacks is a foul-tempered coward. I’m still waiting to actually see an MRA who’s at all rational, intelligent, or moderate.
I’m getting pretty sick of seeing this “school favors girls learning styles” stuff, mainly because the crux of most of the arguments seems to be “boys don’t find feelings and literature interesting” and all that. I don’t remember the part of school (or life) where you could not do things just because they weren’t interesting. I don’t know. Does anyone else have anything substantial in terms of studies that I maybe haven’t looked at? Because it seems monumentally silly to say that school favors girls just because some (most? idk, many of my male friends are really into reading) male students do not like reading “boring, femmy lit stuff.”
sadfase: Men are far less likely to apply to college than women, and their applications are usually less strong. Therefore, SOMETHING has to be making men less engaged in school. I would bet cash money that the problem is not boring femmy lit stuff, though.
Since I rarely share my favourite scenes/songs… and I just shared one on the other thread.. and since we were talking about movies that make us cry… I forgot to list the ending to “But I’m A Cheerleader”, one of the sweetest endings to a movie evar <3
Okay, I actually do believe that people 5’9.5 and under constitute a “silent” second-class, and I say that with complete seriousness. Here’s a true story. I went to a party two days ago with my beta friend (I don’t normally get invited to parties, just got lucky I guess). Anyway, I felt like there were almost two levels of conversations- the tall guys and the short guys. There were “elite” groups of tall guys (5’11 and above, maybe a few 5’10ers, 6’0+ preferred) that talked and laughed and easily accepted taller men into their groups. However, as a 5’8.5 man it was very awkward and I felt like it was harder to gain their respect (made worse by the eye, I’m sure). Looking up at them I literally felt like an underclass- made more apparent because there were relatively few short men at the party. This is the norm at clubs and parties and shit, because the shorter man is looked down upon and made to feel as I previously described.
Maybe I should clarify. I didn’t mean to imply that the problem wasn’t real, only that of the arguments I’ve seen that’s the most prevalent. Is all.
@MRAL:
There are two possibilities. One, “short” (less than 5’9.5″) guys are systematically being opressed, and you are just another victim. The other is that you are terribly insecure about your height and looks (remember body dismorphic disorder?) and its affecting how you interpret social situations.
Given the vast diversity in height in movies, and in culture, there is nearly no chance of the former. I’ve known many “short” men in my life, and not one seems to have the same problem with it as you do. So heres the deal: stop complaining about your height and your eye. Go see a therapist, and discuss it with him/her. If he/she tells you that you actually are being discriminated against, I’ll eat my hat (if I had a hat anyway… At the moment it seems to be fire). If, on the other hand, he/she can help you with your body image problems, you will be infinitely better off in life. Your call.
Hey, folks, how about one thread without turning it into a Mr. Al shortcomings obsession?
Hey, I haven’t said nething! XD (& Kirby knows I wanted to xD )