I found this hilarious faux-MRA rant on the Tweeter. I don’t know where exactly it’s from, but kudos to lordsteve, whoever he is.
My question today: Are MRAs inherently misogynistic?
I mean, obviously the people I write about regularly here are, but are there a significant number of MRAs out there who are actually well-meaning souls who’ve been taken in by MRA talking points? Or do you have to be a bit misogynistic to begin with in order to be swayed by MRA-logic?
Oh wait, my bad. It was BLACK men she was helping so that won’t count for the MRA, who are only interested in straight, white, cis men.
I’m raising a glass (of tea) to Ida B. Wells. She WAS awesome.
I know, I had to read about her for my most recent Seminar and it was hella interesting.
In fact all the reading for that seminar was great as it was primarily about women social reformers in the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries, very appropriate as the seminar was the day before IWD.
I don’t don’t even that reading list was set deliberately for the week of IWD but it was very appropriate!
Also raising a glass (apple cider) to Ida B. Wells.
All that “they raped our wimmin” shit – so what was their excuse for lynching women?
Hey everyone,
This off topic, but I was wondering if anyone here knows of any reliable sources on domestic abuse allegations. In particular, I’m curious about false accusations of domestic abuse and the rate of reports to the authorities.
I’m wondering because all I’m finding about false domestic abuse allegations are websites like AVfM and other terrible MRA websites.
Can’t help, mxe – I don’t even know the sources here in Oz. 🙁
I wonder if the paucity of sites is because false allegations are so rare, same as the “false rape allegation” bogeyman of the MRM?
@mxe354
This might not be helpful, but I’m gonna see if I can tease out some kind of rate using these numbers from Wikipedia
and this number from the (really biased-sounding) RADAR.
3-4 million women * 6.9 physical assaults per year per woman = 20.7-27.6 million incidents of domestic violence (just counting male on female DV)
21.7-28.6 million incidents of domestic violence, real and falsely reported
1 million/21.7 million = .046
1 million/28.6 million = .035
That would put false reporting at 3.5-4.6% of total domestic violence incidents and that includes far fewer domestic violence incidents than actually occur and possibly an inflated number of false reports. I couldn’t find the number of reported DV incidents each year, which would be good to know. BUT I think it is safe to say the percentage of false reports of DV is not substantially higher than the percentages of false reports of other crimes.
That’s for the US.
Speaking of cis-centrism, I recently argued with an MRA who kept spewing MRA talking-points, and because I was getting tired of him, I decided to get a bit trollish and tell him how much of the MRM marginalizes trans* people because of its rampant transphobia and misogyny. He got really confused, telling me that I was just trying to force my trans* “agenda” on him just by saying that trans* men should be accepted by cis male MRAs.
Somewhere in that exchange with him I mentioned that I am a trans* girl. And in response, he psychoanalyzed me constantly, asserting over and over again that I’m only trans* because I’m averse to men as a result of being bullied for being a “feminine male.” He never listened to my explanations.
He was a real asshole.
Yup, you found yourself a champion asshole, mxe354! Not hard to do amongst the MRAs. 😀
@Some Gal Not Bored At All
That’s very interesting – thank you! I’m not surprised that RADAR is blowing everything out of proportion, given that it’s clearly in favor of the MRM and agrees with its main talking points.
@mxe354
He sounds like a real asshole. His idea was men bully a “feminine male” and this forces the “feminine male” to “become” trans*, thus it is okay for men to then turn their back on the trans* “feminine male”? (Or was he okay with trans*women, but just apalled by trans* men?) I am unsurprised that even when they try to make their hatred sound reasonable, it makes no fucking sense.
@mxe354
I figured it was actually better using an inflated false report number because then, when the rate is still small, it shows (just like with the false reports of rape bullshit) how ridiculous freaking out about false reports of domestic violence, but not false reports of theft, is.
You never hear anyone going on about how they won’t be left carrying a woman’s purse becauae what if she accuses them of stealing her wallet.
mxe – I swear, if there were an Asshole Championship among the MRM, they’d all be getting medals.
He iss one of those people who deny that they are being transphobic yet defend transphobia anyway. And he has low views of both trans* men and trans* women. (Not sure what thinks about non-binary trans* people).
@mxe354
This always seems to me like failing a class with a 25% instead of a 0. Like, it is great that you know that transphobia (or racism or homophobia, etc.) is bad enough to deny being it, but you have no idea why it is bad and don’t care. I mean, it is better than going “I’m transphobic and proud of it” like a 25% is better than a 0, but at the end of the day, you are still failing.
Sounds to me like he’s one of those men who thinks only straight, cis, and probably white, men are people at all.
Idk, I’d consider failing with a 0 to mean they’re transphobic, denying that or not means little when it comes to perpetuating stereotypes. Think about all the people who say rape is bad, or even that they’d beat the shit out a rapist, but cheer when their buddy “gets a drunk lay”…like, that’s rape pal, not some notch in the bed post.
You can claim to be anti-whatever til you’re blue, it doesn’t mean much if you are actually whatever.
If that’s failing with a 0, then failing with 25% would be more like “I have no idea what transphobia is, mind educating me” — yes, the “educate me” is annoying, but as I said recently, I don’t mind it if the people honestly wants to be educated so as not to continue making the same mistakes.
Versus the “I’m not X, I just perpetuate X” — they think they’re right and will never learn. Being unteachable bothers me more than being wrong but open to correction.
Oh and idk about MRAs in general, but Owly insists I don’t exist, I have to pick a gender. I doubt he’d be pleased if I picked anyone besides my apparent and assigned at birth, gender, but fuck, androgyny does not exist in his tiny world. Tangentially, my timbuk2 bag has shipped, I await my messenger bag / man purse (fuck using man purse as in insult, I need to carry shit! And using it as an insult implies purses, a traditional woman thing, are lesser -> misogyny)
mxe — I had a haircut idea for my own head, but you had asked about not obviously female haircuts right? The bob / bowl cut might work, ymmv of course, but it looks fairly androgynous to me.
@Argenti
On my scale, the “educate me” would be a D. Not passing, but not an F anymore at all. But, that is the scale I use in my head for feminist issues, etc. that affect me. (I have probably been talking too much grading with my sister and ways to set the curve and given this too much thought. I mean, all this depends on where most if the grades fall and who we want to benefit from the curve…)
Oh and I hope
isn’t accurate long-term (short-term, yes, I completely agree) because that really would mean giving up on my mother on a number of different issues and I’m not quite ready to do that. FWIW, she’s always been and still is a “I am not homophobic, but…” person, but she is getting (very slowly) better about it. IDK if my sister coming out had anything to do with it or years of arguments or just time, but her anti-gay marriage arguments have dwindled over the years and many of her other anti-gay talking points she has completely abandoned.
@mxe354
Sorry that guy was being an asshole to you 🙁
Esmay is preaching the, “Paternal Racism”. The idea that the South was all protective of, “their blacks”, and the only people who had problems were, “troublemakers”.
Whereas “The North” was all hostile to black people, because racism is normal, and the North didn’t have the saving grace of Jim Crow to keep the more pernicious aspects of it check; combined with the blacks who went North being more troublesome in the first place.
It’s a really shitty set of theories, but it’s not the first time I’ve seen them.
@pecunium, Yeah I know, I’ve seen it a lot too, and I want to call them the fuck out on it every time they do it. It just shows that their allergy to facts extends way past just women.
Some Gal — way late to this, but yeah, that can be a D, just barely passing, sort of (my college you needed a C or better for it to count as passing, was interesting). As for “will never learn”, I may’ve been a bit hasty in using never. More like “not without more effort than I’m ever putting into a troll”…I keep slowly trying to convert my mother to less conservative thinking, with moderate success. Idk, two steps forward, one sequester backwards >.<
The one MRA I know who doesn’t hate women (also the one MRA I know personally) has pretty much given up on the larger MRA community. As far as internet MRA’s, Robert Franklin at Fathers and Families does not seem misogynist or even unreasonable most of the time. Sometimes his facts are wrong, especially on the subject of domestic violence, but he overall seems like a decent and thoughtful person. It’s very telling that pretty much the minute he took over the site from Glenn Sacks he shut down comments on the site completely. Seems he knows the base of the movement all too well.