Feminism: It’s like letting your kids stay up eating ice cream

Don’t believe I’ve ever posted here, but in case Nerds is still lurking, this is the reason I, personally, treat all MRAs as enemies.

1) BY DEFINITION, they do not call themselves feminists* or womanists or hell, even that “egalitarian” BS they throw at us every time we try to have a discussion. Feminism has been around for a long, long time. At this point, if there is a person who has, at any time in hir life, had access to the internet, and still believes feminism is about “female” superiority or treating men as second-class citizens, there is nothing that will convince them otherwise. So they know what feminism is about, in an abstract sort of way: social and legal equality, rejection of enforced social roles, rejection of kyriarchy in all its forms, etc. MRAs have taken a look at that and said, “nah, not really my thing”.

2) BY DEFINITION, they reject the idea of male or masculine privilege as a thing that exists. They see all the horrible shit non-men go through, and how much work it would take to even come close to breaking free of it, and rather than working with the only group that seems to give a damn and using their power to make the world slightly less terrible for people not like them to live in, they form their own movement to re-center the discussion on men. At best, they focus on the ways the patriarchy hurts men (because feminists merely discussing it isn’t enough, see) and minimize or outright deny the ways it hurts everyone else. At worst, they take individual situations and personal anecdotes and use them as “proof” that men are the REAL victims of society. Their very name is a privilege denial; what would you think if someone calling hirself a Hetero Rights Activist starting attending rallies against discrimination or persecution based on orientation, holding up a sign that said “THINGS SUCK FOR STRAIGHT PEOPLE, TOO”?

Now, I don’t assume they’re all rapists and abusers. But I can only judge people by what they do, and what they say, and everything they do and say works to both deny and further their own privilege, at the expense of everyone else. That is what it means to be an MRA. Because of that, talking with them, and befriending them, and including them in discussions is not worth my time or effort. It will never go anywhere, and there’s a very good chance that they won’t be one of the “nice” ones who pat me on the head for using critical thinking, but one of those who believe I am subhuman and that merely existing in a way that does not allow men to use me at their leisure makes me unworthy of life.

*It should be noted that I do know of a few men whose ideology would be considered feminist, and yet they do not call themselves such because they worry about unintentionally co-opting the movement, due to their privilege. I have all the respect in the world for such men and do not wish to undermine their choice of labels, but I think we can all agree this is not the mentality driving MRAs.

Okay, well I’ve done a fair bit of reading now. Let me see what I can answer and what I honestly can’t.

@pecunium:

I gave the source already, but here’s a direct link: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors293.pdf

Officially, false allegations stood at 8% in that 2005 report. The report later mentions a false allegation estimation between 3% and 9%, but under the original rules, the sample was at 8% for false allegations – keep in mind that 8% doesn’t mean with admission.

[QUOTE] “Also, how in the name of fuck do you get off saying that rape isn’t a violent crime?” [/QUOTE]

I used the term generic violent crimeto separate between generic violence and sexual violence. After all if I use two sources of statistics, I need to separate generic violence from sexual violence to avoid accidental confusion.

[QUOTE]”Look at your, “sourcing”: you infer that the rest of the world must work like the UK. Guess what, in the US they aren’t required to give paid maternity leave to anyone.” [/QUOTE]

I gave examples of privilege based on concrete examples I already knew existed. Also, the US would be the exception there, not the rule. By the sounds of it, feminists have a lot of work to accomplish there, I’d consider paid parental leave a human right and the one time I can say “for the good of the children” without sounding ironic.

@heidihi: I give. I really can’t find a single prominent result for an MRA that hasn’t at one point or another said something which may be interpreted as hateful.

@titianblue: I was merely using those stats to explain that there are different issues affecting different sexes; not that risks of generic violence against men are greater than the risks of sexual violence against women.

@katz: The Good Men Project is added to the list of content to devour

@Shiraz: (Yes, I know you guys misinterpreted what someone else said and then misattributed it to me…but for the sake of clarity…) I don’t do false equivalence. For example, looking back at history, one can definitely say slaveowners views shouldn’t be considered equally alongside the views of the slaves (who were victims and deserved their freedom); but thanks for the example 🙂

Imagine if Feminism was referred to as Women’s Rights Activism and activists were called WRAs. The name in of itself wouldn’t be a denial of specific circumstances in which women have privileges, nor should it be. So I don’t see how Men’s Rights Activism would be any different in terms of name.

Except you’re still ignoring entrenched male privilege in patriarchies when you make that comparison.

Lesbians until the early 00s had full rights to have sex at any age in the UK, there was no age of consent; therefore lesbians were technically granted more sexual rights by law than straight people. This means that although there existed straight privilege, there also existed privileges for lesbians that straight couples did not have. (A form of female privilege too, women being legally able to have sex at any age if it’s same sex.)

Not necessarily. If you read Surpassing the Love of Men by Lillian Faderman you’ll see a case from c. 1800 where two women were put on trial for “tribadism”. They were the owners/teachers of a girls’ school and one of the students claimed to have heard them in bed together. They were acquitted, but lesbians weren’t as free and clear as that.

The fact also remains that when marriage was the only real career path for middle-class women, being lesbian was anything but a privilege unless you were in the fortunate minority who were indpendently wealthy. It’s not a privilege to have to marry someone you do not want to marry at all; even less so when you are not and cannot be sexually attracted to them.

You’re also overlooking that lesbianism wasn’t so much given blanket approval as simply overlooked, erased. The tale that Queen Victoria refused to outlaw it because women couldn’t do anything sexual together is apocryphal (I can’t imagine Victoria talking to her ministers about that sort of thing, let alone them raising the subject) but it illustrates prevailing attitudes and ignorance.

Martyn (are you Word of the Nerds?) it isn’t “can’t align YET” – did you take in what Sid and everyone else said? The MRM is opposed to the very idea that women are human beings. They don’t just hate feminism; most of them hate women, full stop.

It’s exactly like asking PoC if they think they’ll eventually align with the KKK. (And, btw, the MRM is massively racist, as well: when you see a USian talking about “thugs” it’s a code word for coloured men.)

Yeah, I am WarOfTheNerd. Auto-fill keeps putting my real name in, plus I don’t mind people knowing it; so I might as well just use it.

@Martyn

Lesbians until the early 00s had full rights to have sex at any age in the UK, there was no age of consent; therefore lesbians were technically granted more sexual rights by law than straight people

The right to abuse children? That isn’t giving them more rights so much as it is creating a loophole allowing child abuse. As The Kittehs’ said, it is erasing them, refusing to see them as existing, rather than granting them anything.

This isn’t a “right” any good person would want.

(I don’t really know how the coding works here, so I apologize if this looks like crap ;-; Also, thank you, Kitteh.)

[quote]I’m kind of assuming you’re using the name Sid to avoid any “but you’re a woman” arguments, or am I misreading this part?[/quote]
I use the name Sid because it is my name 😛 Or a shortened version of my name, to be exact. I don’t really care what internet people assume about my gender. I do identify as a woman though, for future reference.

[quote]If you’ve read all the other comments, I’m pretty sure you’ve noticed the challenge others have informally issued to find examples of MRAs online that aren’t hateful or misogynistic.. well, I failed there. It doesn’t surprise me you find MRAs hostile given what you’d typically find on many MRA forums, so I guess I understand (or rather agree that your position there is natural and forms good common sense =]).[/quote]
Oh, I don’t find them hostile, not as a rule anyway. Hostility doesn’t really mean much to me; I live in an area renowned for both its hospitality and friendliness, and its extreme bigotry.

Though, I feel I should mention that if I do assume MRAs to be hostile toward me, it may have something to do with the company they keep; my introduction to the “movement”, when I didn’t know what it was and assumed it was to feminism what Men’s Studies classes are to Women’s Studies, was a celebration of one woman’s brutal murder and another’s attempted assassination. And there were pretty much no voices of criticism.

[quote]Imagine if Feminism was referred to as Women’s Rights Activism and activists were called WRAs. The name in of itself wouldn’t be a denial of specific circumstances in which women have privileges, nor should it be. So I don’t see how Men’s Rights Activism would be any different in terms of name.[/quote]
Except that the two are not equivalent, because men have enormous privilege over women in our culture. Even those cases where men seem to get a raw deal are largely due to misogyny: women have some advantage in custody cases because we’re viewed as born “nurturers”, men hitting women is viewed as worse than men hitting men because women are assumed to be weak, rape laws/attitudes that protect women and not men are based on viewing women as property and sex as theft, and so on. My point is, the term “feminism” is inherently transgressive, because it centers a group that is usually Other’d, and brings said group’s issues and concerns to the forefront when they would otherwise be pushed to the side. Men’s Rights activism, or “masculinism” as I’ve seen it a few times, centers the group that is already seen as the default human, and frames men as an oppressed group, whose “rights” are in need of protecting. That’s what I meant by denying privilege.

[quote]Lesbians until the early 00s had full rights to have sex at any age in the UK, there was no age of consent; therefore lesbians were technically granted more sexual rights by law than straight people. This means that although there existed straight privilege, there also existed privileges for lesbians that straight couples did not have. (A form of female privilege too, women being legally able to have sex at any age if it’s same sex.)

Would it be have been so unfair for a “Hetero Rights Activist” prior to the changes in law to campaign to get rid of the age of consent for straight people at a rally, since the government obviously saw sex at any age as okay for lesbians at that time? I would say it deserved attention just as much as reducing or even abolishing the age of consent for gay sex. Unfortunately, with the changes in law designed to benefit the gay community, lesbians lost freedoms they previously had and now can’t have sex involving penetration with any object until the age of 16.[/quote]
Kitteh answered this far better than I could, so I’ll keep my reply short. I would never claim there aren’t some upsides to being marginalized. Much has been written about how useful it can be for people to forget you exist (I once read something rather interesting on romantic relationships between women throughout history, and how in many cases, the assumption that women weren’t sexual and certainly not with other women meant they had more freedom in their relationships than straight couples). That does not mean privilege is not a thing. My point was that, while those who hold privilege have legitimate complaints that are worthy of discussion, trying to recenter the discussion on yourself, especially when those complaints are so minor relative to the ones you’re silencing in order to do so, is sabotaging the efforts of marginalized groups and is itself an expression of enormous privilege. Speaking as someone who holds a great deal of privilege in a lot of ways, oftentimes the best thing an ally can do is sit down and shut up.

@Sid

Welcome and I want to apologize to you because, while you don’t need my help, I had meant to call Martyn on the assumption about your name and forgot to. I’m also sorry he was an asshole about that.

@Martyn

This was an asshole assumption to make.

I’m kind of assuming you’re using the name Sid to avoid any “but you’re a woman” arguments, or am I misreading this part?/

Why would you make any assumptions about someone’s name let alone that the purpose was, as you’ve phrased it, slightly dishonest. This comes off as accusing Sid of attempting to get out of tackling a legitimate point. (If it were illegitimate, why mention it at all?)

Other than sock-puppeting, I can’t think of a single reason to choose a name that is really relevant to the discussion we are having. If Sid chose the name to be gender neutral or assumed male, so what? The only time that we would relevant is in a discussion of how differently men/assumed men are treated online.

Don’t act like an asshole like this, please. You’ve mostly been pleasant (if wrong), but this was out of line.

It’s essentially not our business to ask what someone’s gender is. Apart from anything else, it’s not just men and women; gender isn’t a binary. It’s up to people whether they want to mention it or not.

You don’t do false equivalency? What’s this?

“Imagine if Feminism was referred to as Women’s Rights Activism and activists were called WRAs. The name in of itself wouldn’t be a denial of specific circumstances in which women have privileges, nor should it be.”

Um, there’s an entire body of history that you seem to be overlooking — the part where women weren’t legally abled to be in charge of their own lives. That still goes on in varying degrees across the globe.

“So I don’t see how Men’s Rights Activism would be any different in terms of name.”

Errr, men have been in charge for a long, long time.

“[QUOTE] what would you think if someone calling hirself a Hetero Rights Activist starting attending rallies against discrimination or persecution based on orientation, holding up a sign that said “THINGS SUCK FOR STRAIGHT PEOPLE, TOO”? [/QUOTE]”

OK, a false equivalency arguement right there — extra points for invoking a scenario that’s never happened. Also, people don’t organize to limit the rights of straight people just because they’re straight.

Then you start to babble about lesbians and how cool it is that they can have sex with underage people…which is just frakking weird. Once again, you ignore history and try to characterize an entire demographic based on your strange assumptions.

“Lesbians until the early 00s had full rights to have sex at any age in the UK, there was no age of consent; therefore lesbians were technically granted more sexual rights by law than straight people. This means that although there existed straight privilege, there also existed privileges for lesbians that straight couples did not have. (A form of female privilege too, women being legally able to have sex at any age if it’s same sex.)”

What’s this, by the way?

“Would it be have been so unfair for a “Hetero Rights Activist” prior to the changes in law to campaign to get rid of the age of consent for straight people at a rally, since the government obviously saw sex at any age as okay for lesbians at that time?”

Not sure about your point of reference here, though maybe that’s because I’m U.S. Though you may be forgetting that lesbians weren’t mentioned in all the original laws because law makers basically assumed Lesbians didn’t exist in any way they had to legally recognize. Being invisible isn’t priviledge.

And this — what exactly are you implying?

“…with the changes in law designed to benefit the gay community, lesbians lost freedoms they previously had and now can’t have sex involving penetration with any object until the age of 16.”

Yeah…a little side-eye. I’m giving it the hairy eyeball. Weird.

It’s kind of telling, actually. The more moderate and attempting to be reasonable members of the MRM? Still pretty creepy.