Here’s a suprisingly candid comment from an MRA in the Men’s Rights subreddit, challenging the misogyny within the movement:
Oh, wait, that’s not from the Men’s Rights subreddit. HalfysReddit did originally post this to the Men’s Rights subreddit, but the mods deleted it, and so now the only reason it’s still available is that there’s a bot that automatically reposts all self-posts to the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Before it was deleted, HalfysReddit’s post did inspire some discussion amongst the Men’s Rightsers. Well, it was “discussion” only insofar as a bunch of comments telling HalfysReddit to stuff it counts as discussion. Here’s one thoughtful comment:
Sorry, did I say “thoughtful?” I meant “delusional.”
Though I’m pretty sure he’s right that feminists aren’t going to fight for anonymity for rape defendents or the “right of paternal surrender.”
Oh, and here’s a guy comparing Men’s Rightsers to the Black Panthers.
The Men’s Rights subreddit, where the notion that MRAs should tone down the misogyny a bit is too radical to even debate.
@Fibinachi, we certainly can’t all be expected to know all words, all histories, all slangs and all things! (I’ve only just learned how to spell “successful,” and today I explained to a smart, qualified medical doctor that conjunctivitis (pinkeye) is contagious.)
@Historophilia: In a formal context, sure; referring to a specific individual as BME would be… a bit odd.
@MKlein
I think there isn’t a consensus. Although this may be one of those places where I disagree with most other mentally ill people/people with mental illness. I think it depends on how the person feels about their mental illness (a term I don’t really like, but don’t have a replacement for so is better than nothing). I wouldn’t be the same person if I weren’t bipolar. I am bipolar. So, since bipolar is a “mental illness,” I am mentally ill. I, personally, do not have bipolar disorder the way I have fibromyalgia. The first is central to who I am and the latter is something that affects me. But not everyone sees their mental illness as central to who they are and do experience it more the way I experience fibromyalia.
I don’t really have a problem with anyone using people with mental illness, but I disagree that it really describes me as well as mentally ill. Since my answer is different from another poster’s, I am going to say there is no right answer, but maybe there is a “community” answer that is different than mine.
(I think that the “with mental illness” formulation is considered the more “healthy” way to view mental illness, but I think that’s bullshit anyway.)
@Some Gal
My personal one is similar to yours – how much of it is integral to my personality/self and how likely it is to go away. I have two different neuroatypicalities and one physical condition.
I am diabetic – it will never go away and has a profound effect on my life.
I have diabetes – it’s not intrinsic to myself and I see it as something imposed on me by my damn malfunctioning lazy-ass pancreas.
I don’t have Asperger’s, I am Aspie (although if you’re going to use it as a slur you better damn well not say ‘Aspie’) – my Asperger’s and me are sort of symbiotes, we don’t have a separate existence (and damn is that a weird sentence. I need my own language that includes pronouns for ‘part of me but I’m speaking about it as a separate entity’, some form of cross between first and third person?)
I have Borderline Personality Disorder, I’m not Borderline Personality Disordered – partly because it’s a recent development (about 2/3 years active stewing, a few more building, and I was only diagnosed a month and half ago) and because all the websites and people say I should be able to get it under control with a few years hard work and support, and then it will be like it was never there unless something goes horribly horribly wrong and it flares up again.
@Creative Writing Student
We really need better language to address these ideas. I just have no ideas.
If you don’t mind, how do you feel about “mental illness” to describe your BPD and Asperger’s? I figure that it technically encompasses DSM categories, but I don’t like it. Does it seem accurate or lacking? To me it seems…overly negative? …too metaphorical? …just not good enough?
(Also, LBT, if you read this and don’t mind asking, how do you feel about the term? I’m asking you specifically just because it came up on a thread you’d already left and I would hate to use it to apply to you a second time if you have a problem with it.)
I’m speechless about the recent threads, so I’m quibbling over terminology. /coping
*don’t mind me asking or don’t mind answering
My brain went in two different directions and I followed both.
I also feel that being mentally ill is often sucky (I have mixed schizo/bipolar-symptoms – never got a “label” from any shrink, but guess the closest one would be schizo-affective), but it’s also integral to who I am. I have no idea what I’d be like without it – I just end up picture some other person in my place, if that makes sense.
Contrast that with my abnormally dry skin. Okay, this isn’t a huge disability, but since I was a baby I’ve needed to put on really fatty lotions several times a day, or I’ll break out in a rash. I often get little rashes on my hands (since, obviously, you wash them the most) despite this. Although it’s not a huge disability there’s no question in my mind that it’s a DISability, not a different ability. It might not be VERY negative, but it’s PURELY negative. If I could wave a magic wand and have my skin become normal, I would without hesitation. Waving a magic wand to become mentally normal… probably not, despite all the trouble it causes me.
@ Dvärghundspossen
Perfect sense. My fibromyalgia is also a DISability. I certainly think about things differently because of it, but just differently not better. My bipolar, on the other hand, makes me who I am and so is better than the stranger I would be without it because being me is better than not being me. (If that makes sense. I don’t mean that bipolar is better than not!bipolar just that me is better than not!me.)
Dusty, “twat” is a. an insult and b. a word that literally means “vagina”. I’m genuinely curious as to how you’ve convinced yourself that calling someone a vagina as an insult isn’t gendered.
BTW I’m Scottish and lived in London for 6 years, so if you’re trying to pull some kind of yeah well I’m the real British deal so the Americans can STFU gotcha you’re out of luck.
I love the way dusty’s little rant opened on the assumption that I’m American – nice touch of doing what zie was supposedly so pissed off about.
Plus, if you’re somewhere where you know a given word is insulting, what’s so flaming difficult about not using it? If I’m among American friends I’m not going to talk about a MoC as a nice-lookig boy or refer to an abuser as a thug, because they have loaded meanings for a USian that they simplyl don’t for an Australian.
Mind you, you lot have got to learn why Ozians snicker when you talk about fanny packs! đ
@SomeGal: I think the point is that I prefer to exist rather than being replaced. That doesn’t have to imply anything as to whether I’m better or not than some hypothetical other person.
@The Kittehs’
Well if you wear them low and in the front…
Re: people with mental illness versus mentally ill —
1) this isn’t an attempt at a community consensus, just my opinion
2) seeing how I can’t remember not being depressed, yeah, I have a think against “people with mental illness”. People with long hair (trivial, I know) would make more sense for me — I grew my hair out within the last decade, I’ve been mentally ill at least two. (Fuck, my first psych was just about 2 decades ago)
3) YMMV etc, but I, for one, use crazy for myself. Clearly using it for anyone else without being told the other people feels similarly would be real shitty. Idk, mentally ill makes it sound like I’m missing something, and since my crazy is a major part of what formed me as meâŚcrazy feels more like an additional part of me. Am I making sense?
@Dvärghundspossen
I think me existing is better than being replaced, but maybe this is a different way of saying the same thing?
I think that I, personally, am better off being bipolar. For me, the upsides outweigh the downsides. So, for me, being bipolar is better than being not bipolar and, since I like myself, being me is better than not being me. It is a better way (for me personally) to be, not that I am a better person.
Is that more clear? It is like imagining changing other parts of me like my sense of humor or parts of my body. I like them the way they are and, if I had a choice, I would pick exactly what I have because it feelslike the best fit, the better fit, of all the options.
@ katz
My guess is that dusty already knows that there are people everywhere who find that particular word sexist and insulting but wants to keep using it, therefore zie is attempting to resolve hir cognitive dissonance by making it a Brit vs American issue.
@Argenti
I like crazy more than mentally ill too, but I know that a lot of people really dislike crazy so I try not to use it for other people. However, it always feels a little, idk, hypocritical? to use mental illness for other people when I dislike it so much. It seems safer (less likely to hurt anybody), but always makes me a little cringy.
The few times I’ve encountered a “community” “consensus,” I never seem to agree with it. đ /oddball
I meant Kittehs, sorry. Trying to do too many things at once.
I always feel a bit confused in conversations about mental illness as a disability because I have (fairly mild) OCD and thought I don’t really think of it as a disability because it is fairly mild, it’s definitely not the sort of “this is part of what makes me me and therefore I wouldn’t want to change it” thing that Dvarg is talking about*. The overall principle seems pretty simple – people are allowed to define their own experiences for themselves, so if it doesn’t feel like a disability or a form of illness to you, then you’re not going to want to call it that, which is fine – but where things get muddy is when, say, I do feel like my OCD is a Bad Thing that I’d be happier without, and Dvarg feels like her schizo-affective symptoms are just part of who she is and not something she’s want to change, and we’re trying to find the right words to communicate with each other without causing offense or implying that the other person can’t feel however they feel about what they’re experiencing.
*Part of the reason I feel that way may be that I didn’t always have OCD symptoms. I was always more fussy about hygiene and germ-avoidant than the average person, but I didn’t turn into anything that would meet the clinical definition of OCD until my mother developed cancer. So it doesn’t feel like it’s intrinsically part of me in that it wasn’t always there, and I know when and more or less why it developed.
@CassandraSays
On twat: It always seems a little special snowflake writ large to me like “we users of the word twat aren’t like all those other English speakers and have evolved enough to recognize that this inherently gendered term doesn’t have to be gendered.”
@CassandraSays
The boyfriend “suffers from depression” (his contribution) and I think the idea that I “suffer” from bipolar is a bit insulting and (it sounds like? apologies if I misread you) you would find “suffers from” to not be wrong so much as overstating it?
There just doesn’t seem to be one way to discuss this that doesn’t leave someone out. “Mental illness people” seems glib, but does side-step the mentally ill/with mental illness question. Doesn’t solve the problems that some of us have with “mental illness” itself, though.
I have to admit I find it quite hard to imagine someone with depression who could see it as an integral part of their personality that they wouldn’t be them without.
That’s not to say such people do not exist, of course, more to do with the limits of my imagination and understanding of these ‘human mind’ things, of which I only have experience of one.
Just to further complicate things… I think that maybe, if I (or the other Dvarg that would have existed in my place) hadn’t been mentally ill, I (or the other Dvarg) would have been happier with a simpler life. MAYBE. I’m not sure. My symptoms have been PLENTY sucky for me over the years. They’ve also given me some unique positive experiences and what I think is a unique perspective on some things, but I don’t think that outweighs the bad parts happiness-wise. On the other hand, they may have indirectly given me some positive stuff… I think the main reason I’m as unconcerned as I am about, for instance, weight, is largely because I was too psychotic during my formative years to pick up on all the diet propaganda in society (I used to think the reason was simply that I’m thin, so “you ought to be thin” messages don’t apply to me, until someone here on Manboobz pointed out that this was a plenty stupid analysis – society’s beauty ideals are impossible to fulfil and lots of thin people feel bad about the way they look).
BUT even if it could be convincingly shown that yeah, being mentally ill has been a net loss happiness-wise to me, I still wouldn’t want anyone to wave a magic wand over my head and turn me “normal”, for the reason that I don’t think I would really be me any longer then. So… for me, being mentally ill is often really bad AND an important part of who I am.
Terminology-wise, I keep using “sinnessjuk” in conversations in Swedish in an attempt to dedramatize it (uh, spelling check corrected “dedramatize”, so maybe that’s not a word, but I hope you know what I mean). I’m not sure if “sinnessjuk” is best translated as “mentally ill” or “insane”. One of those. Since my symptoms have caused me so much trouble I do think it’s properly described as being an illness, disorder or disability rather than merely being different, although obviously YMMV.
@morakaischosen
Well, you don’t have to wait very long đ I’m half way there. My depression does have loads of sucky-ness, but most of the time it’s pretty manageable. I’m not really sure who I’d be without it, and I don’t know if I’d take the opportunity to ditch it would that I could. I mean, it’s just my…me-ness. It also has a few good things (like somedays I’m really up and down moody, and I like the up moods.) but…idk if that made any sense. Just that I do think it’s a pretty big part of my personality, though I still hope I’d be me w/o it.
“However, it always feels a little, idk, hypocritical? to use mental illness for other people when I dislike it so much. It seems safer (less likely to hurt anybody), but always makes me a little cringy.”
Yeah idk either. I don’t want to hurt or stigmatize anyone, so mental illness seems safer, but I, personally would cringe a bit.
Dvärghundspossen — dedramatize is not technically a word, but it makes perfect sense anyways đ
I think that’s what’s important to realize in discussions on disability/different ability/illness is that “integral part of myself/not integral part of myself” is a completely different dimension from “would be fine to be this way unless there were prejudice/more or less intrinsically bad to be this way”.