So: many if not most of you have probably heard about the whole #INeedMasculismBecause thing. For those who aren’t: a bunch of Men’s Rights Redditors and other MRAs, inspired by a post on 4Chan, decided to swarm Twitter with #INeedMasculismBecause tweets in response to the #INeedFeminismBecause hashtag. Feminists responded by outswarming the MRAs, flooding their new hashtag with often quite hilarious parodies of MRAspeak, as well as some just plain ridiculousness.
Today, on r/mensrights, MRAs are surveying the damage in a host of different threads, with some plaintively wondering “why is everyone so hostile towards the idea of men having issues,” and others claiming that the hashtag really “started as a caricature of Men’s Rights, in order to lure out the real life caricatures of Radical Feminism.” Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Jezebel has already chronicled some of the funniest parody tweets. And I was thinking of doing the same. I mean, these are pretty good:
Ok, that last one was just a dumb joke about someone ordering a watermelon-flavored drink. I “favorite” a lot of things.
Anyway, catching up on the whole thing last night, I found myself thinking that the parody comments – as funny as some of them were – couldn’t really compete with the loopiness of the real MRA tweets.
So here are some #INeedMasculismBecause tweets by some of my new favorite Twitter MRAs. (I only started going through these really late last night, so a lot of my examples come from the Indian MRAs who were posting prolifically at the time.)
Let’s start with Average Man, who opened a new Twitter account just for the occasion:
Uh, maybe they gave you “less marks” because you don’t know the difference between “less” and “lower.”
Alexander shared these somewhat perplexing thoughts:
The prolific SaveIndianFamilyNGO had all sorts of interesting opinions:
I found myself often perplexed by wnnbl, but I don’t think his troubles with English were the main problem:
I assume these last two are jokes, but honestly, who knows?
I have no idea what Virag was going on about with these tweets:
But this one at least was pretty clear:
Atit seems to have a rather strange idea of what “equality for men” means:
Warrior for Justice also doesn’t seem to like women very much:
Martin Clausen ramped up his largely dormant Twitter account to post these gems:
I don’t quite know what to make of Jackson here, but he seems to be a real MRA.
This is just a theory, but maybe women look at you strangely when you pick up your kids because of that uncontrollable boner you mentioned earlier?
MRAs show once again that they’re beyond parody — or at least indistinguishable from it.
I’ve always found it a tad suspicious that most MRA complaints are dating/sex related. And I’m not talking about rape or sexual assault here.
Are they legit activists, or are they just whining about “nice guys” and the friendzone?
The NCFM (National Coalition For Men) is mostly focusing on custody issues, and they seem relatively sane if we ignore the fact that they tried to get Rhianna to admit that she abused Chris Brown and thus “deserved it”, supported the Republican version of VAWA, and think that Obamacare is specifically screwing over men by not adding new goodies for them. (The goodies women got were lower insurance prices, because now being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition.)
Now I shall retreat back to the Vocaloid side of the Internet.
The Kittehs’ Unpaid Help
Are you aware you’re a sexist? You’ve made positive generalizations about women in your post by giving women the benefit of the doubt and justifying it by pointing out the horrible things that apparently all men or MRAs do.
The whole “I need masculism because” trend sucks – mostly because 90% of the people making it trend are joking, trolling, or parodying their misguided view of feminism. However, that doesn’t change the fact that there are inequalities and discrepancies that men have to deal with and prejudices that we encounter that affect how we live our lives and the choices we are allowed to make. You can laugh and brush it off and convince yourself that I’m joking, but that makes you no better than a guy who would ignorantly tell you “go back to the kitchen.” Male problems don’t have to be in greater quantity to be problems that need to be addressed. They don’t have to occur on a larger scale and they don’t need to be objectively more sever.
Feminism is supposed to be about equality of the genres, but sometimes (not all the time, but sometimes) feminists get caught up in the assumption that since women face more discrimination across the board, that men must not have real issues since they are better off. If someday women are truly equal to men and get to live without special prejudice, they’d still be raped in prisons, they’d still have judgments placed upon them due to traditional family dynamics, they’d still have expectations placed upon them for their gender, and they’d still be persecuted for breaking them.
Why don’t we raise the bar together instead of trying to push up one side at a time and bickering anytime anyone tries to get it to move, huh?
Men have problems, too? This is something that’s never been discussed or acknowledged on this blog before!
Lovely idea. Tell you what, you go get together a load of men happy to push upwards from your side, without bickering, form a movement and get back to us when you’re ready to help. ‘cos women have not got the energy to spare to do YOUR heavy lifting for you.
In the mean time, we’ll keep pushing upwards from our side while mocking the bickering, misogynistic idiots trying to pull us down.
Tell us sexists more of your many troubles, Keegan. Please.
@Keegan
Chances are that if you bring up something like the unfair patriarchal expectation of stoicism imposed on men, you’re going to find a lot of sympathetic feminists. But if you say that feminists are being oppressive to “nice guys”, that female hypergamy is a thing, or that all women are selfish, of course you’ll face ridicule. So no, your judgment is wildly inaccurate.
No, there are two reasons feminism doesn’t focus on helping men:
1. Women are systemically oppressed by the patriarchy, whereas men are not
2. Feminism is about reducing the inequality that women face as an oppressed group
Of course you can be a feminist and also focus on alleviating the consequences of male privilege that impact men, such as helping male abuse victims, men who have been sexually victimized, men who are gender non-conforming, and so on. But feminists, who focus on the patriarchal oppression of women, are under no obligation whatsoever to make helping men an equal part of their movement. It’s simply not their primary concern as feminists.
Viscaria, condescension and sarcasm doesn’t discredit me, help your argument, or make you look superior. Debate with respect or you just give everyone else trying to a bad name.
Titanblue, we’re trying. Legitimately, we’re trying. There are a lot of guys that are doing their best to support subjects like homosexuality, gay marriage, and guys who want to be stay at home dads. Breaking gender stereotypes is important to a lot of people and guys bullying other guys for not fitting masculine gender roles can be (note *this didn’t say always is or even usually is*) just as debilitating as the sexism women face on a daily basis from people who have a poor sense of humor or a legitimately sexist lack of respect for women.
The problem* is that our society has been male dominant for a long time, and most of the gender roles for men are thought of as positive so a lot of the other guys who haven’t thought twice about this stuff talk without thinking based off a diluted idea of what being a man is. This whole “#INeedMasculismBecause” thing is NOT from people who are more than willing and glad to work with feminists to change things for the better. Most of them are insincere trolls with a hurtful sense of humor and the rest are the same type of ignorant that we are trying to address.
Absolutely, keep mocking the bickering, misogynistic idiots. PLEASE. PLEASE mock them. They are a hindrance to us both. BUT PLEASE don’t lump ALL men, or ALL people who want to talk about male problems into that category. Don’t mock in bulk – mock in particular. When you have this blanket assumption that any guy who wants to talk about gender problems he experiences is making fun of you, it discourages legitimate conversation and leads him to make assumptions about you and your movement and what you stand for or don’t.
For example, Alexander up there? Not the most articulate fellow by any means, but he’s got a decent point. While uncommon, female on male domestic abuse isn’t reported very often, and when it is, instead of sympathy and support, many times the victim is shamed for being beat up “by a girl.” That shouldn’t be the case. You really can’t fight for gender equality by only talking about one gender; it is a phenomenal barrier to empathy and understanding.
I get why it wouldn’t be on the feminist “to-do” list to tackle these issues. I wish it were, but I get it. I’m not asking you to do it for us, I’m asking you and others like you to not try to undermine people who are sincerely trying to work towards that goal. I’m asking you to not making blanket assumptions about men just like you ask for people not to make blanket assumptions about women. I’m asking you to help when you happen to have the energy because wasting the energy on mocking anyone who tries helps no one.
*And yes, I’m fully aware that this “problem” is far from tragic. Poor us right? I get it. I and people like me have been dealing with an utter lack of sympathy for a while, and I’ll be genuinely surprised if I don’t get a comment here calling me out on how that’s not a real problem because women have it so much worse. I hope I don’t, but I’ve just got a feeling. The thing is that it doesn’t have to be the biggest problem in the world to be one worth addressing. A patriarchy impresses gender roles on everyone. Men may appear to get the better end of the stick, and you know what? Maybe we do, but that doesn’t mean it’s dipped in chocolate and covered in sprinkles for everyone.
emilygoddess I was addressing one user specifically because it was a sentiment expressed by many of the other comments. I don’t frequent this website so I wouldn’t know what has or hasn’t come before. Doesn’t really matter as it was the user I was referring to. I didn’t much like the article, but my comments still weren’t directed at it.
I wasn’t making an argument. I was asking a question. You wrote a relatively long comment about how feminists/women ignore the Important Issues, but you didn’t actually mention any issues specifically. There was nothing to work with there.
Now that you have mentioned some specific concerns, I see they are divided between things feminism is already concerned with and complaints about not being specifically excluded from criticism of male power structures.
We lump all men with MRAs? We think female on male DV isn’t a thing?
This is very much news to me. Pecunium, I’m sorry but apparently you’re an MRA and thus I’m obligated to hate you, I’m sure you understand!
I apologize for making an assumption about this community. I walked in, read a bunch of comments, and got the impression that here the idea that the idea would be received without sympathy. The comment about laughing and brushing it off was a bit snarky to start a conversation and you’re right, it wasn’t the way to come into the discussion.
Additionally, I don’t think feminists should dedicate half their time to addressing male concerns. Frankly I think that the problems men face by virtue of being men compared to problems women face by virtue of being women is probably closer to 80/20 and that might be low on the women’s side – it’s just a ball park. I completely understand why it’s not a focus in the stream of events and actions that the feminist movement would try to make. There’s only so many hours in the day and to spend half of them trying to deal with men’s issues just seems like an inefficient distribution of time to me. I’m not asking you to carry our torch, just don’t make blanket assumptions and comments over the whole group of men who make comments like these. Obviously a lot of people were joking and being very rude about it, but I guarantee that there were quite a few sincere tweets in there that were people conveying legitimate points. Maybe you disagree with them or think they are too simplistic, but the blanket ridicule just seems really unnecessary. I mean, to put it another way, doesn’t feminism already deal with the “straw feminist” portrayal of the movement? Why help create a mistaken and perverted portrayal of men’s rights so that anyone who is ever seriously trying to adjust the male side of the patriarchy has to deal with that barrier too?
I don’t know. I appreciate your thoughtful and calm response and hope I cleared up what I was trying to say a little bit. Also, I apologize for how long my posts are – I don’t do well expressing myself briefly in text and don’t like being misunderstood so I write far more than is necessary to somehow ensure people “get it.”
We aren’t trying to undermine the goals of people who want to support male victims of abuse, challenge rape culture myths that marginalize the sexual victimization of men, oppose gender norms that encourage men to shut off their emotional side, and so on. We’re just trying to undermine the goals of MRAs (who sadly make up the overwhelming majority) who make the primary focus of their movement attacking feminism and demonizing women.
Also, if there any blanket assumptions being made, they are directed at MRAs, not men as a group. And if you have hung around this blog long enough, you should be able to understand why we tend to make blanket statements about MRAs. One of those reasons is that the major figures in the MRM are horrible people, like Paul Elam and Karen Straughan (GirlWritesWhat).
So, just to be clear, apparently it’s everyone here’s fault that tl;dr dude couldn’t be bothered to do a bit more reading before leaping to the conclusion that nobody here cares about violence against men or eliminating toxic gender roles?
Viscaria, glad we cleared that up. I thought I mentioned a few problems in my original post, but I may not have.
Argenti Aertheri to be fair the title of the article is “nothing is funnier than MRAs sincerely trying to explain their dumb beliefs to the world.” Very blanket, very dismissive, and very condescending. Then there’s The Kittehs’ Unpaid Help’s original comment that I was addressing when she said “MRAs aren’t interested in custody, they’re interested in ownership and punishment – ownership of children they’ve frequently paid no attention to, or actively abused, and punishment of the woman-property who’s dared to leave them.”
I haven’t gone back and read all 200 some comments on this thread, and if I missed something crucial then by all means point it out to me and I’ll correct myself, but last I checked the abbreviation “MRA” stood for “men’s rights advocate/activist” and making assumptions about the people who would advocate for men’s rights is lumping them together. I mispoke when I said that blanket assumptions were being made about men and that was my fault. I was referring to the general vibe I was getting about MRAs and the lack of distinction between trolls (Orion Cooper), sexists (Warrior For Justice), and people who are making legitimate observations about men’s rights (Alexander).
Well, that was calm and reasonable and I will now proceed to laugh at you, because my blinkered ideological perception does not allow me to respond in kind.
Only derision and snark.
Wait, no. That’d be rude.
Your reasonable conjecture is, in fact, reasonable. But there’s little to respond to it other than “Yes! Yes, unfortunately, most examples of activism for men I’ve seen just returns to the “I need masculism because the friendzone sucks!” and not “I need masculism because the expectation that manly means angry is insane”
Well, that is a valid reason, but it’s not the main one. The main reason is that feminism is about the inequality that women in particular face as a result of being oppressed by the patriarchy. Of course, there is room for discussing men’s problems – and there are feminist books out there (like this one) – but at the end of the day, feminism focuses on reducing inequality against women so that there is no longer any gender hierarchy.
Heh, I know what that’s like. I got that problem when I was about 15, and I still have it to some degree. I’ll just say in passing that one good way to be more concise is to get used to writing abstracts of long articles – that’s how I made my writing shorter, at least.
I think being somewhat concise is basic internet good manners, and failing to do so is a sign that you lack respect for the people who are going to have to wade through your teal deers.
But to David, “MRAs” isn’t short-hand for “Non-prejudiced people who genuinely care about helping men.” I think the problem here is that you just aren’t very used to this blog.
I mean I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t being snarky. I just wasn’t putting an argument forth. You came in and insulted a friend in a particularly ridiculous way. I expected your response to be mock-worthy. It was less mock-worthy than I had anticipated, but still.
Not calm, pretty cranky actually.
CassandraSays what is it with this forum and the condescending sarcasm? It’s very rude and helps no one. This is like the third time. Anyway, maybe you should have read more carefully. Considering the title of the article, the blanket assumptions made about MRAs, and the skewering of legitimate concerns in the article itself, I think I was pretty justified in my conclusion that this community has prejudices and bias towards people who advocate such things – given that the people who advocated such things were being ridiculed. I never said that “nobody here cares about violence against men or eliminating toxic gender roles” or anything amounting to as much. Your comment is a gross misrepresentation of what I said.
Ally S, in all *sincerity* can you explain why MRA is considered such a dirty term to you guys? Because I’m sure I could find people who are prominent in the feminist community that say things you object to in order to falsely justified lumping feminists together with them, but I don’t because I know that their beliefs – even if popular – don’t represent the whole of the movement. What is it about people who identify as MRA that makes you so certain the group as a whole is rotten? And is there some other label that you’d ascribe to those that who advocate the things we’ve agreed are problems, but aren’t misogynists?
Manners, dude. Why should anyone have to wade through a wall of text to get to the point that you’ve presumably buried somewhere in there?
(Oh noes, sarcasm again on a blog that’s centered around snark!)
For what it’s worth, I retract my label of “sexist” from The Kittehs’ Unpaid Help. Now that I know that MRA refers to, it’s clear that it was a blanket assumption of a particular group, but not of a gender entirely. I’ve yet to see what makes this group so certain that “MRAs” are so thoroughly and conclusively rotten, but like Ally S said, I’m not familiar with the community here. Calling that user sexist was judgmental and it really started the conversation off on the wrong foot. I apologize to you all, but mostly apologize to Kittehs’. I disagree with your tone, but calling names wasn’t the way to express that.
You should ask that question to the folks at the Spearhead, AVfM, and reddit: men’s rights. When the vast majority of MRA’s spend all their time bashing women and advocating for abuse and rape, people will decide the whole thing is toxic.
Kitteh’s Unpaid Help was just telling the truth.
Yes, they are called feminists. Male feminists like Michael Flood, Michael Kimmel, and the guys at NOMAS already help men hurt by patriarchy.
CassandraSays, valid point and it’s one that I continually try to work on, but I’m just not there yet. That said, considering I’ve been misunderstood about five times thus far, it hasn’t been ill-placed. If you find wading through a wall of text cumbersome, then you’re right – there’s no reason for you do so. I would just rather you don’t address a post you didn’t bother to right or summarize and argument you didn’t actually consider. I haven’t read a lot of the older posts here and I’ve personally been pretty careful not to make assumptions about the community, the website, or users in general beyond (excluding an insensitive moment of name calling that was unjustified and misinformed which I have since apologized for) what I have actually read.
Dude, spend a little time reading the blog and the comments before walking in, insulting people, and complaining about our tone.
This dude is seriously making my eyes glaze over. I know I said we needed new trolls, but I didn’t mean them to be of the wall of blah variety.