My Man Boobz staycation continues. Here as promised is an interesting video.
I’d also like to take the opportunity, while I’m off, to as you all, dear Man Boobz readers, some questions that I’m really interested in seeing your answers to.
The first one: Are MRAs right about anything?
My answer to that is “no,” but there are some issues they bring up that a real, non-misogynistic men’s movement could focus on. These are:
1) Prison rape. A troubling new survey suggests that it’s far more common than previously thought, and that the number of people raped inside prison (overwhelmingly male) is by some estimates nearly as great as the number of people raped outside of prison (overwhelmingly female). (Trying to break down the numbers to make clean comparisons between prison rape and rape outside of prison is difficult; Stephanie Zvan digs into the numbers here.) Of course, MRAs don’t seem to want to do anything about the problem except use the issue of male rape to attack feminists. And of course if they focused on prison rape they would have to acknowledge that female prisoners are also raped, and that LGBT folks are much, much more likely to be raped than straight cis men.
2) Disparities in prison sentences between men and women. Even after controlling for assorted relevant variables, men tend to get longer prison sentences than women for the same crimes. (I don’t have a citation handy, alas.) This is not driven by feminism; female judges tend to be harsher on women than male judges. And of course there are gigantic racial disparities in sentences as well. MRAs again have done nothing about this except use it as an excuse to circle-jerk about evil women getting a “pussy pass.”
3) Domestic violence against men should be taken more seriously. Needless to say, though, most of what MRAs say about this issue is repugnant nonsense, and they have done nothing to actually help men, instead trying to get resources taken away from women.
Thoughts, on these or on any other issues MRA might be kind of, sort of “right” about?
I love how the dog is all “What just happened? Hey, person, you saw that too, right?”
MRAs are trivially right about the fact that traditional gender roles put a lot of pressure on men to be materially successful, which is distressing to men who don’t feel comfortable in such a role, who would feel comfortable in it if they could manage to fulfill it, or who have fulfilled it and structure their entire identity around continuing to do so.
But if they actually supported dismantling gender roles, they would have to oppose the idea that they are entitled to women as unpaid domestic servants and fucktoys. Hence, it’s a no-go.
I’ll throw one out, here: Cosmetic Infant Male Circumcision.
The problem (as so often is the case with MRAs) is that they are generally horrible human beings, and thus taint the issue to the point that it’s difficult to even want to stay on the ‘right’ side.
CIMC is not equivalent to FGM. Period. The harms done, while real, are also fairly minor and limited. The practice is a bad one because it is a violation of the principle of personal bodily autonomy (a feminist issue), not because it’s ‘destroyed hundreds of millions of men’s sex lives’ (ugh).
And, really, this tends to be the rule any time MRAs are ‘right’, as you note as well. Most of their issues would actually be addressed in a society which was more feminist in nature. (Another one might be disparities in custody, though I’ve yet to see a study that properly controlled for variables, like whether or not the ‘losing’ parent even wanted custody–it’s far more likely for the father in a divorce case to want to walk away and not contest custody than the mother, though this is met by counter-claims that this is because fathers are told, “Don’t fight for custody unless she’s got a criminal record, because you’ll lose,” so it really needs more concrete study period and this is a helluva run-on-sentence for a parenthetical, don’t you think? Anyway, again, if this IS the case, feminism would solve the problem.)
If an MRA said “It’s Tuesday” on a Tuesday, I’d check the calendar.
Like David and Freemage said: even when they are right about “X is a problem” they invariably screw up what’s wrong, why it’s wrong, what would help or fix the problem, and, usually, its relative importance compared with other problems.
Their whole attitude is “women should be returned to slavery, raped and beaten” and everything they say is steeped in that poison. It nullifies anything useful they might accidentally say.
+1! This is one of the many examples of cognitive dissonance among the MRA bro-ternity.
Here are some tattletale dogs.
As far as I can tell every time mras come close to being right about something they get distracted from the topic and focus on blaming feminists for the problem even though its usually impossible for feminists to be responsible and most of the time feminists are actively working to solve the problem.
By the way I think you misspelled Stephanie Zvan’s name.
Love those videos! 😀
The first time I ever heard about a “Men’s Movement” I actually thought, hey that could be a good thing. And then I saw what was actually out there: open misogyny and racism, calls for violence, the undermining of other groups’ efforts to fight discrimination, etc. Now I think that while there are some real issues there, there is absolutely no chance that the actually existing MRM will ever be right about what they are and how to address them.
I think that their wrongheaded presuppositions mean that, even if they’re superficially right about one thing or another, they’re still going to be wrong on every meaningful level. (Basically what Kitteh said.)
(Side rant: Conservative Christian apologists have totally ruined the word “worldview.” It’s great for cases like this, but then
…but then you post a half-finished sentence.
But then someone comes along and is like “scientists only think dinosaurs lived millions of years ago because worldviews!”
Please go here: http://procatinator.com/ (But you might want to turn down the volume on your computer first. And click “Show me another cat” quickly if you don’t like the song.)
They brush up against right every now and again, but then bat it away from themselves like a cobweb they walked through.
Basically there’s lots they could be doing for men, but it’s easier for them to whine at the feminists to fix it. They’re pissed that mommy can’t take care of them forever.
I have a few:
*I agree with Freemage about circumcision.
*Also, male birth control. That would be awesome.
*Prison rape is a huge one, I don’t understand why it seems like such a minor issue to them. Others (not all) also think prison rape jokes are hilarious.
*Women should not be considered delicate little flowers. What they fail to realize is that it is a feminist demand, too. (But no, it’s not a call to go and punch out a woman… and don’t punch out men while you’re at it)
*Amazing sexbots that would render women obsolete (though they forget about our cock carousel tendencies… Alpha Male sexbot market will thrive)
*And on a related topic… MGTOW are right about going their own way. Now if they can actually go their own way without having to talk about women day in and day out, it’d be even better.
5 things, not bad…
Some MRAs manufacture an imaginary problem so that they don’t have to use much effort to make it appear logical that women and/or feminism are to blame for it.
Other MRAs take a genuine problem and then use a lot of twisted logic to explain why women and/or feminism are to blame for it.
It’s the latter group you’re concerned with here, but the two methods’ overall validity is equally preposterous.
Part of why they don’t realize that many of their problems would be addressed in a more feminist world is that they don’t actually know what feminism is. They think feminism is women asking for doors to be opened for them, but moreso, feminism for them is ALL about getting free meals and booze. It’s like they think Gloria Steinem and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were all just angling for perks at the local bar this whole time.
WHEEE my HandEze glove just arrived!
/derail
Oooh….Alpha Male sexbots. For some reason whenever I think of sexbots, I only think of fembots but Jesus…a guy who would stay hard as long as you want, with a programmable tongue and some sort of sensor that could map your heat signature and brain waves to tell what you were in the mood for even if you’re not sure yourself. And removable face plates so one day he’s Jason Bourne, the next he’s Spartacus. Excuse me. I’m going to go…uh…contemplate the future.
Just as long as the faceplates didn’t come off at an unfortunate moment and leave you with something out of Westworld!
Drat, html fail.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dY0nDJ9PaIE/TyszT0sMblI/AAAAAAAADE4/0G8lCRTHxMg/s1600/img222+copy.jpg
Many times MRAs express real frustration at real problems (there are notable exceptions of course). However, they often bewilderingly blame feminism for enforcing traditional gender roles. Occasionally, they will only say that feminists stop too soon so women can the best of both worlds.
A lot of this reminds me of cries about racism in Affirmative Action because people believe racism to be a solved issue.
People see their own problems and fail to see the problems oppressed groups continue to confront despite progress having been made. I hear people talk far too often about how the pendulum has swung too far for women and needs to come back.
I misread this
as not using Jesus as an intensifier but as the guy the phrase was describing. And I laughed.
I’m going to hell, aren’t I?
Nth-ing the comments above: MRAs are never right about anything.
They occasionally perceive oppression relating to men–but neglect to note that in most cases, the men who are most likely to suffer from the oppression are NOT the white/straight/cis/middle-class dudes–and most of them tend to have two or more of those areas of privilege.
They are also terminally exquisitively dipshit wrong about the causes of the oppression–and if one is wrong about the cause, then the problem can never be solved, because WRONG ABOUT CAUSES. Feminist are not the primary (nor even secondary, and I doubt tertiary) cause(s) of oppression against men–it’s mostly other men (who are in a more privileged position–see, draft).
So, no, they are not right about anything.
And they’re on my campus–flyers and a student paper editorial about the false accusations of rape against male students here popped up this year.
My dept. head was freaked out by what he found online when he went to the website on the flyer, and I had to ‘splain things to him. He’s a wonderful dept. head but totally clueless in social justice issues.
*exquisitively*
Huh. I guess that “exquisitely” and “positively” got together and produced that new coinage….
OOOH, Kittehs’, enjoy your Handeze! Just remember that they do take some getting used to. I also strongly recommend that you take them off for about 10-15 minutes for every 2-3 hours you spend wearing them.
Also, they are machine washable, but you should let them air dry. They loosen up with continual wear, but washing them makes the elastic tighten up again.
Thanks for the tips, ellex! I’m wearing mine now. It’s a pity they don’t come in pairs here (they do on the US site, I notice, just not on the Oz one – go figure). It’s very lightweight compared with all the compression gloves or general warming mittens I’ve worn before, and much easier to work with. (Well … “work” as in “use the mouse to keep refreshing Manboobz pages”.)
First thing the boss said when I put it on: very gothy! 😀