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Science proves the Men’s Rights subreddit to be totally not (completely) misogynistic

So apparently I’m way off base with this “misogyny” thing. For example, I have been under the impression that I have been finding misogynistic stuff in the Men’s Rights subreddit, like, all the time. With upvotes, and everything. But evidently I’m wrong.

Because now ignatiusloyola, one of the subreddit mods, has done a very scientific study that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that, well, whatever misogyny is there is officially not a big damn deal.

Ig explains his protocol:

I did a quick scan of the first 400 comments on the list (100/page, 4 pages in). I scanned for words like “cunt” and “whore”, and read the context of these. I looked for the words “woman” and “women”, and read the context of these. I looked for “suffrage” and “vote” also.

I found two comments that used the word “cunt”, one of them was used to describe men, the other to describe a specific woman. The only instances of “whore” were “attention whore”.

There were two comments involving the word “woman” that generalized women with negative stereotypes.

“Suffrage” and “vote” instances did not involve any context that suggested that women did not deserve the right to vote.

How a person defines “hatred of women”, either loosely (suggestive from context, rather than explicit) or strictly (explicit statements), it is pretty clear that out of 400 comments, very few are misogynistic.

Does misogyny exist? Yes. But it does not seem to be a significant contribution to r/MensRights. At best, people are seeing a few comments and focusing on their existence while ignoring the rest.

It’s a lot like that time Michael Richards did that standup routine, and everyone focused on that one word he said, totally ignoring all the other words he used that were totally not racist slurs. I mean, yeah, he said that word a bunch of times, but it still made up a very small percentage of all the words he used that evening.

So that’s that, then. Misogyny, officially not a problem!

Or that would have been that, had Ig not actually posted about his experiment to the subreddit he had just proved was, like, totally non-misogynistic:

Because it turned out that a couple of the fellas had an issue with Ig’s methodology. In particular, that stuff about female suffrage. Because, apparently, you can totally be against women having the right to vote and still not be a misogynist. As zyk0s put it (garnering upvotes in the process):

[T]here’s the matter of female suffrage. I really don’t see how suggesting women should not have been granted the right to vote is misogyny. It might be motivated by it, but not necessarily so, and treating it as such is akin to criminalizing holocaust denial: it’s censorship, pure and simple, and if [1] /r/MR wants to keep calling itself an open space where ideas are not silenced, that attitude has to change.

Our friend Demonspawn went even further(and got a few upvotes himself):

Suggesting that the government works better without the women’s vote is not misogyny. It’s an analysis of the facts and the consequences of allowing women’s suffrage.

Suggesting that women retain the right to vote without the corresponding responsibilities that men face is misandry.

So there you have it. The Men’s Rights subreddit doesn’t have a misogyny problem; if anything, it’s a hotbed of misandry.

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Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

And as a bonus, here’s a vampire squid.

Monsieur sans Nom
Monsieur sans Nom
12 years ago

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaNH56Vpg-A]

ShadetheDruid
ShadetheDruid
12 years ago

How about this friendly chap?

(Also, I found this while looking for the other one. It was too wacky not to share. 😛 )

Monsieur sans Nom
Monsieur sans Nom
12 years ago

OOPS! Wrong one….mah bad. 🙁

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw8zl5vrAu8]

Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

Okay, the octobearshark needs to be a D&D monster like, yesterday.

Monsieur sans Nom
Monsieur sans Nom
12 years ago

That octopus in the video I posted is the largest octopus in the world. That’s right, even the giant pacific octopus(found in the puget sound, just 3 miles west of my pad) is only a fraction of the size of that behemoth. The largest of the haliphron live at the bottom of the Ocean and may grow to gargantuan size…………..Up to 60 feet across!!! O_O

Thae86
Thae86
12 years ago

@ Dracula, tons of fun watching that “octopus steals my camera” video. Think he was trying to eat it? lol

pillowinhell
12 years ago

Here’s another totally not misogynistic screed:

http://no-maam.blogspot.ca/2012/06/woman-most-responsible-teenager-in.html?m=1

Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

Yeah, I think it mistook the camera for a crab or something.

burgundy
burgundy
12 years ago

Here is a wonderful April Fools octopus video:

Tom Martin
12 years ago

Douchetrelle said:

So that’s that, then. Misogyny, officially not a problem!

But that’s not really what the MRM argues. They argue that misogyny is a problem, but that there probably isn’t as much around as v-fems pretend, there being rather a lot more misandry, misogyny not happening in a vacuum, but rather exacerbated by unchecked misandry – and misandry does go unchecked.

Remember, the spellcheckers still don’t recognize misandry as a word, even though it was first used in the 15th century, and is in relatively common use today:

134,000 web pages on ‘misandry’ listed on a google search,

versus

1,094,000 web pages for ‘misogyny’.

So if we’re using the word ‘misandry’ seven times less than the word ‘misogyny’, then that’s still a lot – and it is more than odd that v-fems don’t like using the word (until of course you actually meet a few).

I mean, Douchetrail managed to participate in a 35 minute debate, where they mentioned ‘misogyny’ dozens of times without mentioning misandry. But then of course, the two issues are entirely unrelated, right. Yeah.

Exhibit D.

Unimaginative
Unimaginative
12 years ago

I live in a heavily conservative area, with a conservative-ish roommate (he doesn’t actually give a crap about politics much, but he’s a gun-nut, so he votes conservative). I consider it my civic duty to go out and cancel out his vote.

(Also, there frequently isn’t a candidate worth voting FOR, so I often vote AGAINST.)

Sharculese
12 years ago

none of what you just said even kind of made sense tom, but the more important point is that whatever is being done to fight ‘misandry’ you’re not the one doing it because you can’t even put together a youtube video

Freitag
Freitag
12 years ago

…managed to participate in a 35 minute debate, where they mentioned ‘misogyny’ dozens of times without mentioning misandry.

So contact a news outlet and/or organize a debate on misandry. Do something to combat the notion that MRAs couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery. Do something positive.

Freitag
Freitag
12 years ago

Also, octopus.

clairedammit
clairedammit
12 years ago

v-fems

I read that as Violent Femmes, thought of their cover of “Crazy,” stopped reading and went to youtube to listen to it. So, uh, thanks?

Tom Martin
12 years ago

Sharculese said:

none of what you just said even kind of made sense tom

So, Sharculese using the old “I don’t understand what you’re on about, therefore you are stupid” chestnut.

On the off chance that anyone else following this debate isn’t stupid, maybe Sharculese might like to address an argument, given the law training and all. Maybe not though.

Sharculese
12 years ago

no tom, that was the whole ‘you posted a poorly-worded, incoherent slurry of petty grievances, therefore i can’t follow a word you said’ chestnut

the jab at your total incompetence was tangential

Freitag
Freitag
12 years ago

@Sharculese, I’m not very good with word salad, but let me see if I can get close to a rational translation. I think what he meant was that misandry causes misogyny because teh wimminz started it and how dare Futrelle participate in a debate about misogyny without derailing it onto the topic of misandry like Tom would like him to have done.

Ow. My brain hurts. I’m going to go soak it in beer and see if that helps.

Tom Martin
12 years ago

Freitag said,

So contact a news outlet and/or organize a debate on misandry. Do something to combat the notion that MRAs couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery. Do something positive.

Okay Freitag, I debated the Women’s Officer of the National Union of Students, with an audience of 200, whilst three crews made documentaries. I also appeared on Irish news radio chat, BBC Radio 4s Woman’s Hour, Press TV’s Woman’s World (not broadcast as the station lost its license), debated Kate Smurthwaite, filmed by three crews, was interviewed for a BBC website article, a New Statesman article, a Forbes magazine article, two men’s movement radio shows, etc – wrote an article for the Guardian, and shot a youtube video, which has had 28,000 views and has been copied or featured by five other youtubers. I’ve also conversed with manboobzers, the intransigent blockage itself.

Don’t pat yourselves on the back too much.

Freitag
Freitag
12 years ago

@Tom, hey, good on ya mate. What results did you get?

Tom Martin
12 years ago

Sharculese said,

the jab at your total incompetence was tangential

Sharculese, Tangential interjections are used as a tactic to establish dominance in lieu of a dominant argument.

Read Men and Women in Interaction – reconsidering the differences (Aries, E. 1996, Oxford) for meta analysis of the experimental psychology on the subject and get back to me.

Hank
Hank
12 years ago

Tom – do MRM’s argue that misogyny is a problem and if they do, a problem for whom?

Tom Martin
12 years ago

I now have a platform, as one enormous loser – which is not unworkable.

Freitag
Freitag
12 years ago

@Tom.

Okaaaaaaay…

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