I’ve been following the Men’s Rights Movement for some time, and I’ve never been quite sure exactly what the major injustices faced by men are. I haven’t really noticed much to speak of in my own life, but evidently there are some and they are really, really bad.
Luckily, in recent days A Voice for Men has begun to clarify the issue for me. For example, AVfM Radio’s new theme song points out two of the worst injustices of all:
- Men having to hold doors open for ladies.
- Ladies wanting to marry us.
But these are not the only important men’s issues out there. In a recent post titled “A hard rains gonna fall: how hard is up to you” (clearly a reference to the famous song by Carly Simon), AVfM head dude Paul Elam spells out the most important issues of all in a set of bullet points. To save the beleaguered men of the world some important man-time I will summarize them for you here. Bullet-time!
- Thomas Ball’s suicide isn’t mentioned on Wikipedia because feminism.
- The Obama administration urged colleges to use the same standard of proof used in most non-criminal cases in their non-criminal disciplinary proceedings dealing with rape cases. Because feminism.
- Australia. Something about Australia. Ok, here’s the deal: Australia is very, very far away from me, like literally on the other side of the planet, and my eyes sometimes glaze over when reading about it. I’m sure whatever Elam is mad about is really bad. It might involve Koalas. Feminist Koalas. But that’s just speculation on my part.
- In India, where women are routinely harassed in public and groped on train cars, there are a tiny number of women-only train cars set up to cut down on the groping.
- In Sweden, a small group of feminists did a theatrical production based on/dealing with the writings of Valarie Solanas. It was performed in some schools.
- “Men constitute the lion’s share of combat deaths[11], workplace deaths[12], suicide deaths[13], and are afflicted with almost every known human malady and disease more frequently and more severely than women.” Obviously, the feminists are to blame, for their staunch opposition to women serving in the armed forces, and for their secret program of giving men girl germs.
- There are agencies dealing with women’s health issues. Clearly, men need to have just as many of their own agencies to deal with such male health issues as not being pregnant.
I hope my summary of these issues has been fair. As Elam has pointed out on a number of occasions, I am fat, so really nothing I do or say has any value. Plus, of course, I am a mangina. Just, you know, FYI.
In any case, these injustices have Elam plenty mad:
I am truly curious as to what festering, morally atrophied deviation of humanity could look at anything approaching this level of discrimination and suffering without becoming angry.
So mad that his metaphors all get up in each other’s business:
Whether it becomes a wave of social change, or a violent tempest of indignation and fury, the pendulum will continue to swing.
So there you have it. Naturally, Elam’s readers are grateful for his efforts to bring justice to the world by yelling about it online and trying to get people really, really mad at certain specific ladies without explicitly advocating violence against them. That’s pretty much how Martin Luther King did it, only with fewer references to “bitches” and “cunts” and not so many threaty remarks.
As Alfred E puts it:
Well said Mr Elam. May the harpies finally get a clue about their complete lack of compassion for men and boys all the while living in a gold box carted around by the prince.
Justice and compassion for all, except you harpies in your gold boxes! And also the rest of the bitches, cunts and manginas.
NOTE: That bit about Carly Simon above was a joke. Obviously the song in question was written by The Bangles.
You know, just like with that “small dick” thing in your comment last night, nobody here is accusing the guys of AVFM of being “momma’s boys”. And no one has a problem talking about male suicide and homelessness.
Some of us actually do things about male suicide and homelessness. What do you do about? I mean, besides posting online and projecting phrases like “small dick” and “momma’s boy” into the discussion?
MRAL, leave women out of it. What should be done to encourage men to be less violent towards one another?
@Nobinayamu
Plus, mother”s boys actually love their mothers, and would not running around ranting about the inherent evil and worthlessness of women.
Wow, that sentence was a hot mess.
Come on, dude, when he makes an effort not to be a tool, let him hang out. There’s no incentive for him not to improve if we bag on him whether or not he does so.
Violence against women is a special kind of violence: it often occurs in the home, from which the victims have trouble leaving, or the victims have children, again making it more difficult for them to get the help they need. It also occurs within a culture in which women are expected to be submissive and in which, until very recently, domestic violence against women by men was expected and condoned. So this isn’t just about individual acts of violence, it’s about an entire culture of unequal privilege.
Meanwhile, while “chivalry” may seem to you like women are more valuable than men, to me, as a woman, the message I hear is that I’m weak and can’t accomplish anything on my own. Chivalry is benign patriarchy. It’s anti-feminist.
In fact, both the problems you just mentioned–women being “protected” (as long as they are the right class and the right race and never talk back) and men being viewed as available for violence–are the result of patriarchy.
Shadow, maybe, but I think it’s just as common that it is a belligerent woman attacks a reluctant man as the other way around. The sexes are socialized not to fight, that’s all. Both of them- women because they are told/they know they’ll get the snot beaten out of them, men because they’re just taught that it’s wrong. True, the reality of the situation is that women are, generally and relatively speaking, so weak that they usually cannot inflict any level of damage whatsoever without a weapon, but that’s indicative of biological reality, not cultural reality.
Could the answer be…smash patriarchy?
You may think this, but can you prove it? What does the evidence say?
That’s not true at all.
Does it ever frustrate the commenters here that you’re never given a chance to debate an issue point by point? Pretty much all you get from the trolls here is projection and strawfeminist-bashing.
I confess it’s why I sometimes lurk more than comment when there’s a troll invasion. ‘Cuz I’m like “Meh. Why bother?”
I mean, when you essentially agree with a troll who complains about male rape… but you didn’t agree with him HARD ENOUGH or something, you gotta know these guys are not arguing in good faith…
MRAL, what can be done about the amount of violence perpetrated against men by other men. You said that men are more likely to be victims of violence. Most of that violence is committed by men.
What do you think should be done about that?
I guess I figure as long as these asshats think the main point of feminism is to hate men rather than to fight for women’s rights, well…that’s kind of a conversation-stopper, isn’t it?
@MRAL
so you acknowledge that on average women are physically weaker than men, that it’s not a fair fight, yet you think it’s a bad thing that violence against women is considered special or unique, and somehow attribute it to male disposability.
real nice dude.
Shadow, I caught the gist.
I’m over him, and I’m not going to reward him for being less of an asshole than normal. He should go hang elsewhere. YMMV.
I’d say men fear that as well. And me? I mostly don’t fight because I find it barbaric, uncivilized, undignified. If I want to inflict pain on a man, I’ll find a way to do it. Thing is, I would never want to.
Voip, well, I hate the term patriarchy, but I agree it’s a result of our current society, not the feminism boogeyman. But so what? In some respects, our current society is anti-male. The idea of male disposability, especially young male disposability, is one such example.
Frankly, I disagree that chivalry sends the message you say it sends A lot of feminists seem to think that their word on the subject is the last one. Sorry, I but I disagree. I think it sends the message that I’m less than you. I hold doors for people and shit, but I don’t and will never engage in the more in-depth crap, like walking on the right side of the street. It’s the principle of the thing.
Quackers, I think that there are men that are a lot weaker than other men- this is very common, actually, because bullies and assholes usually pick on people smaller and weaker than they- but it’s not (nor should it be) called “a different type of violence”. It’s nothing but violence.
Sadly, NO. It send the message are weak and need to be coddled.
That being said, I don’t give a shit if someone wants to hold open a door for me.
Good faith? Pshaw!
Zarat can’t even acknowledge a listing of groups actively working to help men with the issues he outlined in his initial post. He doesn’t even care about real activism. And forweg is too busy talking about “small dicks” and “momma’s boys” to recognize that the feminists in this discussion have been agreeing that suicide and homelessness are real problems for men.
“Good faith” is a standard that they’ll never achieve. I’d settle for any evidence of actual activism instead of pretending that homeless men can be made warm by the heat of a few thousand key strokes.
@MRAL
Everything VOIP said. Also, I’m not sure if you misunderstood what I was saying so I’ll clarify. When I say men are socialized to fight, I mean that we are taught, and expected, to be able to fight when the situation demands it, and to “take a punch/beating like a man”.. This is not the case with women, who are actively discouraged from fighting both men and each other, so the first time they get punched or something, a lot of women freeze or panic and this makes it even harder for them to defend themselves (this is going off of what my female friends have told me, so if this is an overgeneralization please correct me).
In my own experience, women very rarely get physical with men unless they trust the man not to hit them back. This is obviously a problem, but I haven’t found it to be a rampant one so I hardly think their needs to be a movement about it (again this is my experience so anyone more knowledgeable feel free to correct me).
“Whether it becomes a wave of social change, or a violent tempest of indignation and fury, the pendulum will continue to swing.”-
I haven’t had time to read the comments, but that really IS a great metaphor mix. Probably one of my favorites.
I also wanna see the teacup this tempest pendulum storms in… Oh, no wait, not teacup, Um… Manly Beer Mug?
@Nobinayamu… The saddest part? A lot of injustices men face would be solved with more feminism, not less.
Some of the stuff they have a beef with? Legit. And I’d certainly be willing to partner with men to address these issues. But let’s be honest: these guys don’t want that. They want us to give up.
Nobinyamu, you can’t take women out of the picture. Women are about half of society, and violent masculinity is mostly society’s fault. Yes, that means women are partially to blame, although that’s kind of a weird way of putting it, because no one is individually to blame.
@vacuumslayer
Granted I’m a fairly recent poster, but I’ve been lurking for a while, and it’s been my take that engaging with most trolls is just another way for commenters to bring their views on the topic forward, just as much to their fellow posters as to the trolls.
p.s. Season two starts in two months, are you excited?!!!!!!