Over on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit, cheester warns all of us dudes about an especially insidious form of anti-male oppression: the racks of women’s magazines that lurk near the checkout counters of grocery stores everywhere!
can I get some feedback on womens magazines at the grocery checkout? Every issue states “new tricks he doesn’t know in bed” and shite like that. It’s obvious porn for the gals but why is it so accepted by everyone that it has carte blanche to be within a two foot reach as I pay for my food? If a magazine for men had on the cover: “20 Ways To Make Her Squirm Like A Fish”….there would be a national outrage.
Yeah, it’s not like Men’s magazines ever run anything like that.
Church groups and womens rights would say it demoralizes women and have the publication banned or put behind censored racks in seedy smoke shops.
Yeah. It’s not like this ever happens to women’s magazines.
But the womens mags are right there as a last shop item in the flourescent lit, sterilized, family atmosphere where every mother parades her toddlers and kids right past the 3 letter word in big black block letters;SEX on the cover of every flashy colored womens mag that comes out each month.
Not only is this oppression of men, it’s oppression of all toddlers who can read and know what the word “sex” means.
Also, feminists have never criticized women’s magazines in any way. “Ten Ways to Make Him Squirm” articles are the distilled essence of feminism! And most of them are written by the ghost of Andrea Dworkin.
NOTE: Does this even need a “sarcasm” tag?
Moewicus
We have seen some of Dr. Palmitieri’s articles here on Manboobz before. Those of us aware of her do not have a high opinion of her.
Just wanted to show that Domestic abuse consists of man on woman abuse and woman on man abuse. Also that there are male and female advocates on both sides of the issue.
Just wanted to show that Domestic abuse consists of man on woman abuse and woman on man abuse.
I’m pretty sure everyone here already knows that.
I’m pretty sure some large chunk of Cosmo subscriptions are ironic, similar to how a large number of reality TV viewers watch it because “it’s so ridiculous!!!” Guess what, they deliberately cultivate the terrible-osity in order to attract people who “aren’t like those other people who take this seriously”. They are fully aware that there are people who consume this stuff with ironic detachment and they milk it for all it is worth.
I will LOL at Cosmo and other ridiculous magazines but I refuse to ever ever buy an issue, because I’m not giving them my money: money is the same to them regardless of whether I’m reading the magazine “seriously” or not.
I really loathe “women’s magazines”. They tend to be about almost exclusively about the care and feeding of men, knowing how to “please your man in bed” and being pretty for him or helping you worry that your not doing it right and giving you “help” to figure out if he’s cheating on you.
If anyone is oppressed by these abominations it’s women.
Kladle: I don’t mind paying them for the hours of entertainment they bring me. 🙂
SaruGoku
I really loathe “women’s magazines”. They tend to be about almost exclusively about the care and feeding of men, knowing how to “please your man in bed” and being pretty for him or helping you worry that your not doing it right and giving you “help” to figure out if he’s cheating on you.
If anyone is oppressed by these abominations it’s women.
Good Point SaruGoku. I feel the same way about Chivay. So many young men grow up in this culture to please a woman, and get the pretty girl. Also men are conditioned “not to cry”, to be strong so he could protect his woman.Men have been conditioned to seek woman’s approval from a young age. I guess we both are on the same page SaruGoku just switch the genders.
What;s Chivay, heroicman?
I did a googlesearch on Chivay, on Chivay magazine, and on Chivay men, and I’m finding nothing.
Most U.S. men’s magazines (I believe you said you’re in New York, heroicman?) that I’ve read are coming at men’s relationships with women from a different angle than what Cosmo and the like present for their woman readers. I wouldn’t say it’s the same page at all, actually.
heroicman, not all violence that occurs within the context of a relationship is dv. this is a thing mras chronically don’t understand when they try to talk about the subject.
dv is about one partner using violence to control the other. (it could be a man or a woman! all sane people recognize this, mras just like to pretend only theyve thought of it) if both partners act out violently against each other, that’s probably reciprocal violence, not dv. if one or both partners lashes out violently, but not in any systematic way, that’s probably situational violence, not dv.
it turns out that when you start to actually look at domestic violence, its a really complicated and hard to describe thing, but the gloss mras tend to put on it absolutely doesnt work.
Maybe he meant Chimay? He feels the same way about fancy-ish beer as SaruGoku feels about Cosmos. He thought she meant the drink, you see.
Bee I meant Chivalry
I’ll repost my reply to SaruGoku
I really loathe “women’s magazines”. They tend to be about almost exclusively about the care and feeding of men, knowing how to “please your man in bed” and being pretty for him or helping you worry that your not doing it right and giving you “help” to figure out if he’s cheating on you.
If anyone is oppressed by these abominations it’s women.
Good Point SaruGoku. I feel the same way about Chivalry. So many young men grow up in this culture to please a woman, and get the pretty girl. Also men are conditioned “not to cry”, to be strong so he could protect his woman.Men have been conditioned to seek woman’s approval from a young age. I guess we both are on the same page SaruGoku just switch the genders.
Bee, the various mens magazines that I have read like Details, GQ, or Esquire I do not have much to say how it compares to Cosmo.I am not familiar.
My point Bee was that men have been conditioned to seek woman’s approval in this culture. Chivalry is an outgrowth of this. Bee there is a great book “Fire in The Belly” by Samuel Keen which explains this.
DKM [email protected]:
“I don’t–and never wanted to–”blame the victim in” in DV cases! I simply offer a commonsense application of the old saying, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.If a victim can be saved by a fairly simple and easily straightforward action–which may improve the relationship as well–why shouldn’t she? It won’t work in every case, but then, what does? You have had several decades to work with jail, women’s shelters, and anger management “therapy” and levels of success for the feminists are, to put it charitably, problematic at best.
True to form of couples who seem to “need a good fight before a good night”, how many victims go back to the abuser, or to someone just like him at the earliest opportunity? Maybe there is nothing that can be done about this, but if there should be,isn’t everyone better served by looking at these relationships realistically, rather then engaging in empty moraliizing of “woman good, man bad”. This may make the journalist, family court judge, or social worker “feel good”, but it doesn’t , and cannot, do anything for the issues at hand!”
You just blamed the victim again. If you think the answer to domestic violence is teaching women how to be better sexual objects you are even more daft than I thought you were.
Anything feminists can do about this problem will be stop gap measures and picking the pieces. The damage has already been done. What’s really needed is for abusive men to stop being abusive, power hungry arseholes and the only way that will happen is when decent men make it clear that violence against women and children is unacceptable. We can provide shelters, counseling, medical and psychological help, financial assistance until the trump of doom but that won’t stop abusers doing their thing. Only when men stop doing it will the problem be solved so stop trying to blame us because the things that we can do are only bandaid measures.
Sharculese commented to me:
heroicman, not all violence that occurs within the context of a relationship is dv. this is a thing mras chronically don’t understand when they try to talk about the subject.
dv is about one partner using violence to control the other. (it could be a man or a woman! all sane people recognize this, mras just like to pretend only theyve thought of it) if both partners act out violently against each other, that’s probably reciprocal violence, not dv. if one or both partners lashes out violently, but not in any systematic way, that’s probably situational violence, not dv.
it turns out that when you start to actually look at domestic violence, its a really complicated and hard to describe thing, but the gloss mras tend to put on it absolutely doesnt work.
Sharuclese I do not understand what you mean when you state about MRA”s putting gloss over DV issues. If DV is as complicated a matter as you indicate, such as different types of violent scenarios, than you cannot solely blame MRA’s for any confusion. You must blame feminists as well. DV is a serious issue that consist of male on female violence and female on male violence
Ithiliana:
Thank you so much for your statistics post. It’s great to have all the figures together in one place and from such carefully unbiased sources. *bookmarked*
At manboobz, we mock. In real life, feminists in general are less interested in blaming people for problems, and more interested in solving them.
A lot of the time, the first step in alleviating a problem is getting people to acknowledge that it is a problem. MRAs have an unfortunate tendency to get all defensive, and interpret that acknowledgement as blaming.
So where feminists look at DV and say, hey, this is a problem, and looky here, the vast majority of the problem seems to be caused by the male person in the relationship. Perhaps we should organize some kind of education or counselling sessions so that these abusive men can learn to not abuse their partners. Oh, and women can also be abusive. By all means, let’s educate and counsel them as well…
…MRAs say, I’m not abusive, how dare you call me abusive, men are abused too!!!1!1!!
If MRAs would instead say, hey, yeah, we also want to put a stop to DV, and we’re going to concentrate on helping men escape from abusive relationships–we’d help you do that.
[email protected]:
“READ THE INFORMATION YOU SLITHERING CESSPOOL OF MALIGNANT MISOGYNY…and then we’ll talk.”
That insult was absolute awsomesauce!
Seeing these magazines in grocery isles when I was 13-14 had me convinced that sex was a complicated jigsaw of genitals and acrobatics, and when I first engaged in it I would fail spectacularly when I didn’t manage to properly balance on my nose or something.
MRAs say, I’m not abusive, how dare you call me abusive, men are abused too!!!1!1!!
this seems to be true of any feminist discussion really…whether it be about rape, street harassment, unfair beauty standards, etc…
The fact of the matter is, there are some men out there who do shitty things to women. There are also some women who do shitty things to men too. Why we can’t both just sit down and acknowledge this without getting all defensive and making enemies out of each other is beyond me.
Unimaginative wrote
If MRAs would instead say, hey, yeah, we also want to put a stop to DV, and we’re going to concentrate on helping men escape from abusive relationships–we’d help you do that.
Unimaginative do not lump all MRA’s together. I posted this before here http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-is-wrong-with-mens-rights-movement.html
but it is a good piece on the problems of The MRA movement. I would encourage feminists to read it when you have time.
There are MRA’s that do want to put an end to all DV not just women on man but man on woman just as well. Some MRA’s are more liberal than others. It is not a monolithic movement. Warren Farrell has some good stuff in my opinion.
Of course some sex is very complicated and acrobatic, and some couples and groups like to challenge themselves with new, difficult positions, and all of that can be very rewarding! But it’s not like, if you don’t buy the super-secret sex Bible that is Cosmo, you will make your partner want to vomit when you take your clothes off. “What do you mean, you can’t bring one leg up in and arc in front of you, the other leg up in an arc behind, and touch your toes together over your head? That’s how sex happens. You are terrible at everything.”
If MRAs would instead say, hey, yeah, we also want to put a stop to DV, and we’re going to concentrate on helping men escape from abusive relationships–we’d help you do that.
This, 1000 times this! If MRA’s did more of the above and less of the “women are the cause of every problem, tragedy, or otherwise bad thing all men in the universe will ever have to face” rhetoric, I might be inclined to see them as a legitimate social justice movement.
Demios wrote
If MRAs would instead say, hey, yeah, we also want to put a stop to DV, and we’re going to concentrate on helping men escape from abusive relationships–we’d help you do that.
This, 1000 times this! If MRA’s did more of the above and less of the “women are the cause of every problem, tragedy, or otherwise bad thing all men in the universe will ever have to face” rhetoric, I might be inclined to see them as a legitimate social justice movement.
Again Demios as I also wrote to Unimaginative MRA’s are not monolithic. These are some of the kinks the MRA movement needs to work out
Demios here is the link to the article I sent to unimaginative http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-is-wrong-with-mens-rights-movement.html
In the MRA movement you have extremes as you do in feminism.
Perhaps the MRA movement is still relatively new, there is a lot of growing pains.
Even though I posted the link. Here is an excerpt from the article which does a nice job of explaining some of the kinks in the MRM. I think the author nails it when he writes “The average men’s rights activist (MRA) is hostile to feminism. And yet he also agrees fundamentally with the feminist agenda”
What is wrong with the men’s rights movement?
The men’s rights movement (MRM) continues to grow in size, but politically is deeply flawed.
The average men’s rights activist (MRA) is hostile to feminism. And yet he also agrees fundamentally with the feminist agenda.
This leads to the odd situation of feminists arriving at MRA websites, liking what they read, proposing a grand alliance with the MRM, before being angrily chased away by the MRAs.
How has this situation come about? It seems to me that there are two major wings of the MRM. The first is a liberal one. There are now plenty of men involved in the MRM who describe themselves not only as “very liberal” but even as being radically left-liberal.
These men, understandably, don’t like the way that men are portrayed as being privileged oppressors (i.e. bad guys) on the mainstream, feminist left. Rather than rethinking leftist politics, they respond by pointing to areas in which it is men who are treated unequally.
There’s the usual range of liberal attitudes amongst these men. Some of the more right-liberal ones limit themselves to calls for procedural equality. But others are more radical and want to follow through more consistently with the liberal ideal of making gender not matter.
It’s therefore often assumed at MRM sites that masculinity is an oppressive construct; that the aim of the MRM is to liberate men from masculinity; that society should be strictly gender neutral, including in parental roles and in having women drafted into combat roles; and that feminist countries like Sweden are the models for the rest of the world to follow.
The second wing of the MRM are the male separatists (who call themselves “men going their own way” or MGTOW).
These are men who have grown up in an age of female individualism. Their experience is of a society which is geared toward maximising female autonomy, whether it’s in terms of education, careers or family.
They have been particularly burned when it comes to relationships. Some of them have lost out in the divorce courts. Some of them are men whose female peers have been “liberated” to waste their 20s chasing a few alpha guys. For these reasons they are not very trusting of, or sympathetic toward, women.
How do men react to female individualism? One way (the traditionalist way) is to criticise a radical individualism, for both sexes, as socially destructive. But the male separatists don’t do this. They respond instead by trying to imagine an individualism of their own.
How can men lead a more individualistic, autonomous life? How, in other words, do men “go their own way”? Above all, by not marrying. The male separatists vary a bit here. Some want to shack up with non-Western women (there is much hostility to white/Western women). Others promote the idea of occasional sexual encounters. Others don’t want any contact at all.
In order to persuade men not to marry, the male separatists push the idea that men are harmed by marriage. They also portray women in very negative terms (gold diggers, sluts etc).
It ends up sounding uncannily like the feminism of the 1970s, but with the sexes reversed. In the 1970s, it was feminists who thought marriage was oppressive to women, who promoted separatist solutions, and who therefore painted men in the most unflattering light possible.
The liberal and the separatist MRAs get along quite well, as both groups are committed to the idea of male autonomy or individualism. The separatists aren’t quite as motivated by the aim of deconstructing masculinity. Even so, they’ve managed to find common ground with the liberals here, since they believe that “manning up” means having to take on the responsibility of being a husband and father – which they fundamentally reject.
Both groups also react vehemently against the idea of chivalry. The liberals see it as being one reason why equality hasn’t been fully implemented; they believe that conservative judges treat women more favourably on chivalrous grounds. The separatists believe that chivalry encourages men to make sacrifices for women, which cuts right across the separatist aim of men living for themselves alone. Conservatives and traditionalists are blamed for perpetuating chivalry and holding back men’s rights.
Oddly, there are MRAs who are concerned about the presence of traditionalists within the movement. They believe that traditionalists will rob the MRM of respectability.
It’s more likely, though, that it’s the liberal/separatist alliance which will hold back the MRM from going mainstream. Just how mainstream did the radical separatist feminists become, even with the backing of the liberal establishment? Weren’t they correctly perceived by nearly all men, and by many women, to be man-hating types without a realistic political program?
Where does the current strategy of the MRM get men? What are those men who want relationships with women, and children of their own, to do? You hear MRAs talk about sex with robots, or hiring surrogates to have children without the need for a wife, or developing affectionate male companionship, or hiring prostitutes. It just sounds desperate and unrealistic.
And will the average man gravitate toward a movement which takes just as grim a view of masculinity as the feminists have done?
And consider this. For years feminists have complained that men haven’t gotten with the program. Feminists believe that careers are the ultimate in achieving female autonomy, but that women are restricted in pursuing careers by the fact that men haven’t abandoned masculinity quickly enough. Too many men, complain the feminists, are still working away in careers rather than accepting androgynous roles and devoting themselves to childcare and keeping house.
The feminist message has fallen on deaf ears. So the latest feminist strategy has been to get men themselves to spread the message. More and more it is male feminists who are pushing the feminist line to men.
But feminists needn’t have worried. Because it is now an “anti-feminist” men’s rights movement which is doing all the heavy lifting for them. It is the MRM which is getting men to accept the idea that being a provider is oppressive to men; that society should be gender neutral and accept the idea of men as nurturers; that men should reject masculine norms of behaviour and so on.
It’s a problem I’ve seen over and over. People feel the oppressive effect of liberal changes to society. They get motivated to act politically. But political clarity is lacking and so they end up trying to cure liberalism by adopting some more radical form of liberalism. And so nothing changes, despite all the expenditure of energy.
So what should traditionalists do? I think we have to accept, realistically, that the men’s rights movement is likely to go the wrong way, just like feminism did (maybe MGTOW should be renamed MGTWW – “men going the wrong way”).
But I don’t think we should abandon it. The MRAs are, at least, open to criticisms of feminism. So there’s an opportunity to make principled criticisms of feminism at MRA sites. And we will be the only alternative at such sites for those men who identify positively with masculinity.
We won’t be part of the mainstream, but we can put forward a different approach. I’ll outline some of the arguments I think we should be making at MRA sites in a future post.
Update: A reader has reminded me of some MRM sites which are not liberal/separatist politically. I do believe my post accurately describes the trends at some of the larger, influential sites, but perhaps I should have recognised the existence of a third, generally non-liberal strand of thought within the MRM.
Posted by Mark Richardson at 3:21 PM
Labels: men’s rights
250 comments:
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Jesse_7 said…
Mark,
DKM:
Why would one “accommodate” an abusive partner? Abuse is wrong and a crime, it shouldn’t be accommodated. Nobody should have to be afraid of or tiptoe around their partner for fear of a beating. Partners are supposed to be the person you can place your trust in and abuse is a deep betrayal of that trust.
heroicman, no one is interested in your crap. The MRM just wants to put women back in their place, that’s all there is to it. Its clear as day in their writing. This isn’t about concern for men, it’s turning women back into submissive little housewives who keep their mouths shut unless they’re sucking cock. You want to liberate yourselves from oppressive constructs of masculinity, but you call for oppressive constructs of femininity to return (ie female submission) for women. That’s exactly why you run to women in non-western countries. Do you really think female on male DV is recognized in very patriarchal countries? Its like I said before, MRAs are fine with the patriarchy when it suits them, but rail against it when it doesn’t (ie the “provider” role or fighting in wars) You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
You want feminists to take the MRM seriously? stop blaming women for everything and lose the misoginy, sexism and calls for women to get back in the kitchen.