I swear, sometimes I wonder if the entire Men’s Rights Movement is an elaborate hoax. Our old friend Fidelbogen weighs in today with a typically pompous post on the cutting-edge issue of women’s suffrage, posted with the almost-too-good-to-be-true headline: Women Couldn’t Vote.That Was “Oppression?” If I didn’t know better, I’d be tempted to dismiss it as half-baked satire – except that FB is serious, deadly serious. (And deadly dull, too, most of the time, but I’ll try to keep this snappy.)
Fidelbogen’s thesis:
It annoys me to hear the feminists say that women were “oppressed” because they didn’t have the voting franchise in olden days. Excuse me. . . oppressed? I would take exception to the semantics in this case, for is not a bit clear to me that what was happening ought to be called by such a heinous name.
While most people are either for or against women having the right to vote – though I’ve never met any of the latter group outside of MRA blogs – FB bravely declares himself “a third way thinker upon this subject.”
Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen, because Fidelbogen is going to get all philosophical on us:
I would submit that women’s historical lack of voting rights was neither a good thing nor a bad thing. Rather, it was a morally indifferent state of affairs, based on a cultural consensus that was shared by men and women alike in the past.
Hey, it was the olden days. People wore silly hats and watched silent movies and no one had iPhones.
Our ancestors lived in a very, very different world than we do, and their cultural norms were very, very different from ours, yet undoubtedly befitting to their world — a world mysterious and unknown to us nowadays. Who are we to judge?
I mean, really, how dare we offer any sort of moral judgment of anything that happened in the past. The Holocaust? Stalin’s purges? Hey, it was the mid-twentieth century – people were just into that shit back then.
Well, FB doesn’t mention either Hitler or Stalin, but he definitely considers women’s former lack of voting rights to be just one of those things that, hey, people were into back then:
[W]as it really, inherently, such a horrible thing after all, that women could not vote? … Why should it even matter? Did the average woman in those days honestly feel that voting was “all that”? Seriously. . . who are we to judge the men and women of past times for their very different way of life which we can no longer entirely fathom?
And besides, most men had been denied the vote earlier, so even if it matters and it totally doesn’t, what’s the big deal if the dudes in charge decided to deny the vote to the ladies for a while longer? As FB puts it:
[W]as it really such an unspeakable crime that the female population couldn’t always go to the polls during that comparatively trifling span of years?
Or is that entire concept nothing but feminist historiography, meant to wring pathos out of history for present-day political purposes by the device of retrojection? That would certainly conform to standard feminist tricknology, wouldn’t it?
Seriously. Those feminologicalnists are totally retrojecting the fuck out of the pastological period using their standard sneakyfulogicalnistic tricknology.
And besides, even though we’re not supposed to judge the past, and even thought that whole denying-the-ladies-the-vote thing was totally a “morally indifferent thing which ought to concern us very little,” FB thinks that maybe it was actually sort of, you know, cool.
I believe a case might be constructed that it was a positive good in the context of those times.
FB decides to leave that case unmade, and returns to the whole “who the fuck cares” argument.
Once upon a time, women didn’t have the voting franchise because societal norms found nothing amiss about such an arrangement. Then times changed, norms changed, and women were admitted to the franchise. That’s all. And women were never, at any point along that general story-line, “oppressed.”
Besides, the whole idea of “rights” is, well, just like, an opinion, man.
Furthermore, women were never at any time deprived of any rights. You see, women’s “right” to vote simply did not exist in the first place — or not during the period when the so-called deprivation occurred. I mean that “rights” are only a figment. Only a mentation. Only a notion. Only a construct. Rights do not exist in their own right. They are not some mystical pure essence which hangs in the air all by itself — they must be conjured into existence by a strictly human will-to-power, and fixed by law or custom.
And so, if the dudes of the world denied the ladies these “rights,” well, uh, it was “morally indifferent” yet also probably good for some reason.
In conclusion, shut your pie holes, ladies:
So in conclusion, I wish that second and third-wave feminists would shut the hell up with their dishonest, self-laudatory rhetoric about “the vote”. They need to quit tooting on that rusty old horn. It is getting really, really old.
Well, unless they’re this lady. She’s actually pretty good at tooting a horn.
And, again, I have to ask what your role, specifically, has been in helping to create shelters for men who are victims of domestic abuse? Because everything that you’ve written indicates quite clearly that you have little to no idea how any of this actually works.
Residential programs that actually provide good and valuable service are budgeted to the hilt. They cannot simply divide resources in half and provide the same services to two populations that may require near constant physical separation with any reliable efficiency and/or efficacy. If a program is not in a position to purchase a brand new building that can meet all of its very specific needs then it cannot simply wave a wand and bippety-boppety-boo a new facility with appropriate gender separation into existence. Even rehabbing an existing facility requires a great deal of money.
Raising money is work; really hard work. Have you ever managed a capital campaign? What are the chances that any given shelter’s in-house development director (if it has one) is equipped with the tools and HR support to raise a few million dollars at the drop of a hat? How do you take a staff of people who are already working 60 to 80 hour weeks and tell them that on top of everything else they’re doing, an entirely new fundraising project is going to take place and everyone is just going to have to dig a little deeper?
Involve people familiar with treating male victims? The word you’re looking for is “hire”. Counselors are professionals with degrees and they’re hired, often via contract, for the services they provide. They also need to be researched and vetted. All of that takes time and work. A new budget would have to be created with new money raised. New schedules for sessions would have to be arranged especially if group sessions will need to be segregated. And if those group sessions are taking place in a common space that was previously closed off for counseling for two to three hours a day, now it will need to be done for four to six, effectively changing the routine of the program and the way it provides service. It can be done but, again, it isn’t something that will just happen by wishing it so.
Involve more volunteers to help address men’s needs? Spoken like someone who has never done volunteer outreach and coordination. How often do you volunteer? Have you offered your services to a program that deals specifically with victims of domestic violence while stipulating that you were primarily concerned with male victims? What services did you offer? When SYG “…asked people to politely voice their concern for Avon supporting what they feel is a biased policy,” did it also include a list of shelters for men that need volunteers and tips for creating volunteer groups and opportunities?
There’s so much more. So much more.
You don’t know what you’re talking about; that much is clear. But for whatever reason, you think that it makes more sense for a residential program conceived and structured around helping female victims of domestic violence do a half-assed job of providing inadequate service to disparate populations, poorly then for members of the MRM to conceive and structure residential programs for male victims of domestic violence.
Unbelievable.
In addition to the totally valid comments above about how non-profits such as shelters actually work, I’m also rather confused as to why, after stating above that he thinks that exposure to the feminists who run the current programs would be non-optimal for male victims, he still wants those exact same feminists to be the ones to fix the problem of lack of services available for male victims. Is he expecting them to magically make the extra facilities etc appear and then retire, every last feminist working in the system, all at once?
(And then the shelter orgs have to hire more staff, probably at higher salaries, with whatever money was left over after renovating the facilities. This is going to work out great.)
You know if feminists spent 1/4 of their time and energy actually helping male victims of domestic violence as they did downplaying, ignoring, and denying male victimization and blocking efforts to create support services for men…
I wonder how the person who wrote this:
could also have written this:
Xtra:
If I ran the world I’m not sure I would have homeless shelters segregated, precisely so as to make those services more available to the non-cis homeless. Violence shelters, well, that’s more complicated, because in addition to non-cis people you have victims of IPV in same-sex relationships.
TS, I know other people have already pointed out how wrong this is, but I am still shocked you would say such a thing. The Freemasons are a fraternal lodge, as in for men only. There’s nothing wrong with that, either. It’s just a group of men that like to party and raise money to help children get medical care. I am glad you mention them, though, since it gives me an excuse to link the hilarious Ray Steven’s song, Shriner’s Convention.
CassandraSays, isn’t it mind boggling how TS kept griping that feminists aren’t helping male victims enough, and now he says feminists are too evil to be of any assistance for male victims? He doesn’t know what he wants. He just wants to complain.
Well, based on what he’s said here, what he doesn’t want is programs that can aid male victims of domestic violence effectively.
: The hotel vouchers are not bought by the men; the shelter pays for it, and they or the state establish the terms of how the vouchers can be used. I did not change my comment. I stated before, “According to The Family Place site, they generally service male batterers, not male domestic violence victims” and linked to the same page I linked to above. This is why it is so important to read things before you comment. And for the record, legislation includes the process of making a proposal or bill a law. I am sure most people who get subjected to a boycott do not like it or know why they are being boycotted, but that does not mean the boycott is without merit.
The reason I am commenting here is because feminists unfortunately block efforts to help male victims. The best way to prevent that is by correcting the problem where it starts, which is with people like you. I do not want feminists involved in dealing with these issues, however, it is hypocritical for feminists to claim they support all victims, and then refuse to support male victims. I am simply holding feminists to their own word.
Since shelters already exist, and are capable of providing the assistance that male victims need, there is no reason for them not to provide assistance to men. Creating separate services is a good idea, but it is not a requisite to provide support.
And I presented proof sexism and malice several comments ago. Please go back and read the links I listed to feminist groups refusing to help male victims of rape solely because they are male.
You know if Toysoldier spent 1/4 of his time and energy actually helping male victims of domestic violence as he did downplaying, ignoring, and denying domestic violence volunteer opportunities and blocking efforts to create support services for all…
Hershele Ostropoler: You know, most buildings have these things calls rooms, defined by four walls and a door. If a building has several of them, one could place a man in one room and a woman in another, and therein provide space for both. But I am sure you knew that…
thebionicmommy: It is so important for you to actually look up information before you claim something is not true.
cynickal: You know, if you spent 1/4 of your time and energy actually helping male victims of domestic violence as you do attacking male victim advocates for challenging sexism against men you might actually do some good rather making it look like you support denying male victims help.
Congratulations, you have managed to contradict yourself in the same sentence! Very impressive! You don’t want feminists to help male victims, but you are holding them to their word and expect them to build shelters for male victims. You also want male victims to have their own private spaces staffed by men that are sensitive to the needs of men, yet you want the existing womens’ shelters to admit male victims even though the buildings are not set up for gender neutral housing.
I’ve read the links you provided, and they didn’t prove malice on the part of feminist groups. It was notes from a Scottish Parliament where they passed a bill setting up a hotline for male victims of domestic violence. How did that prove feminists block anything? Your other link was a comment from a guy named Mark, and again it proved nothing about feminists acting in malice. You just throw links of random stuff out and expect us to take your word for it that they prove what you say. I actually followed your links and saw they did nothing of the sort.
I think the SYG members act in malice when they pass around RADAR releases urging MRA’s to contact random Avon salespeople and gripe about VAWA. That’s a heck of a lot different than them boycotting Avon. MRA’s don’t have to buy Avon products, and they don’t have to give a reason for their boycott. It’s just rude of them to “politely voice their concerns” to total strangers that don’t even know what VAWA is, but are simply selling makeup.
TS, the Order of the Eastern Star is a separate group from the Masons. They’re related to each other but they’re not the same thing. That’s like saying that She-Ra, the spin off cartoon of He-Man is the same show as He-Man. Your own link says,
The rules are clear on this. This is a tradition that will not be broken, just like how women will are not allowed to be Catholic priests. Whether or not women might have joined the Freemasons in the 13th and 14th centuries is irrelevant to the fact that they are not permitted to join today.
I don’t see how non-segregated shelters would help non-cis. I believe it is the attitude of the people staying in the shelter and staff that cause issue. When I stayed at a homeless shelter, there was one trans woman there. It seemed like most staying there tried to interact with her as little as possible. I was mus-treated myself at times as a black woman. I don’t see how adding men to the shelter would change that, I think it could possibly make it worse in ways.
On another note, before I was able to stay at that shelter, I called all over town trying to find help. The shelter I ended up in gave me an appointment a few days out. Too bad before that I had to leave as I was being evicted. My brother had a friend he could stay with but could not take me and 5 kids.
To get a place for me to stay until the appointment, my brother went to a women’s homeless shelter and pretended he was a gay man in a DV situation. They gave him a hotel voucher which he gave to me. The hotel was much nicer than the shelter I ended up staying in by the way and it was a double bed room. It would seem at least that day the male victim was able to get help when the woman with children was turned away from every shelter in town because they did not have room.
In the real world the situation is far more complex. Even more interesting, when looking for shelters to call, in the listings it showed the number of beds. If you take into account that the men’s shelters have more beds and that women a lot of times bring kids with them, more homeless men can be helped at one time than women. All the shelters that turned me away stated it was because they did not have enough room for all of us. If I was a single woman they would have been able to help.
Something to think about.
How can you know this? Seriously, you went on and on about why and how the services needed to be separate and now you’re saying it isn’t a requisite. Do you want men to receive good services or not? Do they need to provide counselors with experience helping men who are victims of domestic violence, or not? Do they need to have a ready group of volunteers, experienced in helping men who are victims of domestic violence, or not? Which is it? Because offering poor support is exactly the opposite of providing support.
Yeah, if the program is at full capacity –and they usually are- then it’s really not possible to easily move people around. Resident programs can be both dormitory and barracks style with many variations and combinations in between. The notion that the women are all in private rooms and that accommodating someone of a different gender is as simple as asking two residents to double-up is just further proof that you have zero hands-on experience with these kinds of facilities.
So, you actually don’t want women’s shelters to provide services to male victims of domestic violence. You just want to point out the hypocrisy of their failure to meet up to your arbitrary standards of what constitutes help (when viewing the issue and help offered through non-jaundiced eyes and with some understanding of what programs go through to provide services, it looks a bit different) or lack thereof. To be clear, do you believe that pointing out this hypocrisy will prevent feminists from blocking efforts to establish shelters for men who are victims of domestic abuse? Is the purpose of this campaign to keep feminists from attempting to prevent the establishment of shelters for men suffering from domestic violence?
And, if successful, will you and other members of the MRM begin to actually work on creating shelters for men suffering from domestic violence? You’ve yet to list or explain what your personal involvement in establishing such programs is and has been. And you’ve said you don’t want women/feminists dealing with these issues. Once you have reasonable assurance that feminists won’t try and stop you, we should see a great deal of practical work being done on this, right? How many feminists have to agree that they won’t attempt to block your work?
I’m a feminist and promise, cross my heart and hope to die, that I have never and will never prevent any organization from establishing a shelter and program designed to help men who are victims of domestic violence.
@TS: You know, if you spent 1/4 of your time and energy actually helping male victims of domestic violence as you do attacking people you know nothing about you might actually do some good rather making it look like you support denying male victims help.
This is fun. Think we can make this a 1000+ thread?
@Xtra
I think you’re expecting too much.
Um, I could possibly be expecting to much, ya.
Men in a shelter with women, why all the sudden are MRA’s not worried about the.. gasp..false rape accusations that will obviously happen because.. well..all those lying bitches in one place!
I figured out why the Masons won’t allow women to join. It’s because the rule is SET IN STONE! Get it? Masons build things with mortar and stone. Now who says feminists don’t have a sense of humor?
All joking aside, complications arising as a result of sex, sexual misconduct, assault, etc., are some of the reasons that most residential facilities are segregated by gender. These things have been tried and quite often they don’t work.
If I ruled the world, homeless shelters wouldn’t be necessary anyway, come to think of it. If I were president of the world (administrative but not dictatorial powers), shelters would be adequately staffed and such problems would be
handwaved awayeliminated.Does the word “quarters” mean the same thing as “room”? I’d think it’s closer to “facility” in this context.
TS, I’m also curious about what you’re expecting from feminists anyway. You keep saying you’re holding us up to our word, but I want to know what word you’re talking about. Did some feminist organization promise to give you millions of dollars to build a shelter? I never made a promise about anything. I told you that if you want to build a shelter for men, I would wish you well. I never promised you I’d build it for you. I don’t have that kind of money.
This is what it boils down to, TS, and it’s the almighty dollar. Building shelters that can house men and women costs a lot of money. There’s no way around this fact. You need money to purchase land, money to hire a contractor to build the shelter, money to furnish it, money to staff it, and money to pay the bills and keep it running. There are women’s shelters that have barracks style sleeping. How do you propose they make that kind of housing suitable for male victims? If you want to add a men’s wing to such a shelter, that also costs money. Where are you proposing this money should come from?
You’re arguing against a hypothetical situation. You’re thrown your hands in the air and declared that if you tried to help male victims, feminists would stop you. It’s not true, but you’ll keep saying it hoping we’ll buy it. Feminists can’t block anything, because you’re not really doing anything.
thebionicmommy: There is no contradiction as not wanting feminists involved in addressing violence in society and holding feminists accountable for their own words are unrelated concepts. I never stated I wanted feminists to build shelters for men. I stated that it is hypocritical for feminists to claim to support male victims, and then turn around and oppose men’s groups’ efforts to help male victims. If you read the first link, and I admit it is long, you will see several Labour party members, particularly Lamontm refusing to support the policy, essentially holding up the process, unless a clause essentially stating that males are rarely victims was added. The second link listed several examples of the problem Marc faced in regards to the Woods v Shewry case. However, I noticed you dropped the ‘sexism’ part. Does that mean you agree those feminists behaved in a sexist manner? If you have a problem with the notion of a boycott, then do not participate in one. Nevertheless, what RADAR suggested is what most people who boycott a company do.
What I would like is for feminists to make clear their position on male victims, because this feminist flip-flopping makes Mitt Romney look like John Boehner. As for funding, a lot of this takes money, but there is plenty of that. There is a lot of money set aside for these issues, so why is it so difficult for women’s groups who apply for more funding to buy or build a larger space to factor in male victims?
If you think this is not a legitimate issue, I suggest to you talk to people who run services for male victims and find out what they experienced instead of assuming you know.
No, there is not plenty of money. You have no idea what you’re talking about, no idea about the costs involved, and I become more convinced with your every post that other than perhaps volunteering at a shelter on occasion you have never been involved in the nuts and bolts of creating, funding, or running such a program.
There is not plenty of money. The money that there is must be properly allocated. Annual reports must be submitted to ensure proper allocation. Outcome measures have to be collected to secure future funding. If a shelter says that it needs money to create another wing to accommodate male victims, and needs more money to hire more counselors who specialize in treating their specific needs, and needs to build an additional common space to deal effectively with time management then it had damn well better be able to prove, with data, that the population it’s building for is large enough to justify the expense. Otherwise, organizations and individuals will review the proposals and make their own decisions about what and how much to give, and provisions about how it should be used.
If there’s plenty of money, how is that the necessary programs and facilities have not already been created in numbers large enough to address the concerns of the MRM?
And how do you, even with your twisted logic, reconcile these two statements:
Do you sit on a board or something? What exactly is that you do that you have so little understanding of how this works?
I don’t think he does anything at all other than write angry comments about how feminism is stopping him from doing stuff on the Internet. If he did – hell, if he’d ever had any professional contact with even a vaguely related kind of organization, like a homeless shelter – he would never dismiss financial considerations as if they weren’t even a concern.
I do think it’s a legitimate issue. I’m just saying that the MRM isn’t being helpful for male victims, but instead belittling and bashing female victims. MRA’s would rather complain on the Internet than go out in the real world and volunteer, or donate money to men’s shelters. It’s easy to complain about how other people are dealing with a complex problem, but it’s not easy to deal with the problem yourself.
Did you read Xtra’s post, where she described being evicted with five children to care for? She couldn’t find any shelter that had space for her and her children. Her brother got a hotel voucher from a dv shelter and let her use it. Obviously, the shelters in her city were inadequate to meet her needs. In an ideal world, there would be plenty of money to build as many shelters as necessary to help everyone. Better yet, in an ideal world, there would be no dv or homelessness at all. The reality is there is more need than there is funding and help. This is why we keep saying that if you’re passionate about an issue, you need to roll up your sleeves and work to address it.
I can only speak for myself, and not for other feminists. My position on domestic violence against men is that is is terrible. Nobody of any gender should be in danger in zis own home. Everyone, men, women, LGBT, deserve help. Now that is my position. That doesn’t mean I personally can help all of the victims of the world. Like I said, I am one person with only so much time and money I can use to help people. My own personal cause I care the most about right now is helping other tornado survivors in Joplin. Nobiyamu already gave you her word that she would never do anything to stand in the way of any MRA that wants to build shelters for men. I will also add my own promise to not hinder any of your efforts to build shelters for men.