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Men’s Rights Redditor: Doing nothing is our plan for victory!

Men's rights: Mission Accomplished!
Men’s rights: Mission Accomplished!

The feminist activists amongst you may have been a bit baffled by the peculiar activist strategy of the Men’s Rights movement. That is, doing absolutely nothing beyond yelling a lot online, flooding comments of newspaper articles with Men’s Rights rants, and sometimes harassing individual women.

But apparently this is all part of their super seekret master plan. A plan, moreover, which is going gangbusters, all appearances to the contrary. For, apparently unbeknownst to virtually everyone in the world, the Men’s Rights movement is poised for a gigantic mainstream breakthrough. Any moment now!

At least that’s how one enthusiastic Men’s Rights Redditor with the not-technically racist name nigglereddit explained it in a recent comment on the Men’s Rights subreddit that won dozens of upvotes:

The men’s movement is quietly moving into its second phase: wide acceptance and recognition. This is normal and healthy. You’ll notice that we don’t need to have marches in the streets, to hijack TV shows or have official leaders, books and doctrine – that’s because what we’re saying is so obviously and so self-evidently true that no reasonable person who encounters it needs to be confronted or debated. They simply look, see that we’re right and move on with a changed mind.

Ah, yes. The idea that women should have the right to vote wasn’t self-evident enough to be won without an activist movement complete with demonstrations and arrests and hunger strikes. The idea that black people should have the same civil rights as white people wasn’t self-evident enough to be won without sit-ins, arrests, demonstrations met with snarling dogs and water cannons, the murder of civil rights leaders and activists and children who happened to be black, etc etc.

But the idea that the most oppressed group of people in the world today consists of the same group of people that actually basically runs the world today is so self-evident that MRAs don’t have to do shit before they WIN!

Now that scares the SHIT out of many feminists – and yes, I’m comfortable classifying most feminists as being fundamentally against men having equal rights to women.

Well, no. The Men’s Rights movement mostly annoys and amuses feminists. It’s the harassment of women that so many MRAs encourage and engage in that alarms them. Also, [citation needed] for the rest of that shit.

The last thing the feminist movement wants is people quietly pointing out that, for example, the idea that 1 in 4 women will be raped is utterly ludicrous.

An idea like that is so obviously wrong that you don’t even really need to see any statistics or studies to know that it’s a lie. You can just ask your wives, sisters, colleagues and friends. And you know that you’re not going to discover that 1 in 4 of them have been raped. That statistics support this, of course, but it’s so obviously false that it takes us no effort at all to change peoples’ minds about it.

Well, dude, I’m thinking that the women in your life are probably not willing to share this sort of information with you, because I know a depressingly large number of women who have been raped and/or sexually assaulted. Setting aside anecdotal evidence, a recent survey puts the figure at one in five for women. And a large number of men as well as women have also faced forms of sexual coercion and assault other than rape.

And that’s the bottom line. That’s what this is all about. I don’t think men’s rights will succeed after a long hard fight. I think it will succeed after quietly pointing out the obvious. The feminist movement is a house of cards, built entirely of lies and fear. It’s so flimsy that it can be destroyed with nothing more than a whisper of truth.

Then start whispering, dudes! All I hear is a lot of yelling and stamping of feet.

I believe in men. I believe we are good, and strong, and kind, and gentle, and that we make the world a better place, not worse, when we are allowed to behave the way we want. And I believe in women too. I believe that women are good and strong and all those other things too.

Well, gosh, I believe that most people are good, too. But what on earth is that bit about being “allowed to behave the way we want” supposed to mean? You are aware that every society that’s ever existed has put some sorts of restrictions on human behavior? What exactly are men being prohibited from doing that women can do?

And I believe that we will not have to browbeat them, or shout at them, or hurt them, or threaten them in order to succeed, because I believe that they have the courage and the integrity to accept the simple facts we present, and to move out from the shadow that feminism casts over their whole lives as well as ours.

Woah. It’s a bit revealing that the only methods to bring about social change that nigglereddit can think of off the top of his head are:

1) Browbeating
2) Shouting
3) HURTING
4) THREATENING

Oh, Men’s Rightsers, no one is better at making you look terrible than yourselves.

Anyway, nigglereddit, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him, but there was a dude named Martin Luther King who was pretty good at that whole civil rights thing, and I’m pretty sure he never had to resort to any of those things. Well, sometimes he raised his voice, but that was when he was speaking to large crowds.

Also, you really might want to think about changing your “hilarious” name.

Note: In case you go to look at the thread this comment comes from, it’s a discussion of whether or not there is “a cadre of faux MRA’s, i.e. feminists trolling the new posts and down voting and concern trolling before posts hit the front page?” Ridiculousness abounds.

EDIT: Rewrote a paragraph because I hadn’t even noticed nigglereddit’s creepy comment about men “being allowed to behave the way we want.”

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katz
11 years ago

Oh, you’re not supposed to read it; you’re supposed to watch the amazing silent-film version!

Kittehserf
11 years ago

I hadn’t known it was from a novel before the other day. I saw it when I was reading about The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and remembered a still from the film I’d seen in a book on horror movies. I read the novel’s synopsis and was left thinking “This has to be one of the dumbest story outlines I have ever read.”

katz
11 years ago

It’s melodrama! It’s supposed to be like that!

Kittehserf
11 years ago

LOL yeah, but not my thing!

hellkell
hellkell
11 years ago

Your ineffectiveness makes me grin in schadenfereude.

As others have mentioned, Roger, learn to spell it. While you’re up, explain what it is we’re so ineffective at. Repelling trolls? Having convos that neglect boners? Being friendly? Cat ownership? WHAT, Roger?

Aaliyah
11 years ago

Your ineffectiveness makes me grin in schadenfereude.

Your assumption that we should take your shit seriously makes me grin with amusement.

Kittehserf
11 years ago

Roger knows all about ineffectiveness. Just look at his writing.

marcilannister
marcilannister
11 years ago

Oh no…oh goddammit…please someone tell me that MRAs aren’t like big George RR Martin fans?? I’m gonna puke. D:

historophilia
historophilia
11 years ago

They couldn’t possibly like Game of Thrones. On several occasions women kill men in it, Misandry!

Dvärghundspossen
11 years ago

I’m clearly ineffective at cat ownership, since I have four dogs but no cats.

emilygoddess
emilygoddess
11 years ago

I’m inclined to give Roger a break on misspelling “schadenfreude”. It’s long, it’s foreign, and frankly it could have been a typo. On the other hand, this is a man who can’t even be bothered to identify who he’s speaking to, so I may be giving him too much benefit of the doubt.

Sarah Daniels
11 years ago

These MRAs and MGTOWs remind me of those useless villains in cartoons. Team Rocket, Dick Dastardly, Dr Robotnic, Mojojojo. It really is quite amusing.

hellkell
hellkell
11 years ago

Sarah: know what else is useless? Necroing old threads. Quit it.

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
11 years ago

Seriously, stop necro’ing threads. Particularly with completely random nonsense that no one is going to engage in discussion about.

Johnny
Johnny
9 years ago

Wow, way to turn an article into an angry reddit response post. Score one for your great journalistic skills.

contrapangloss
9 years ago

Aaaaaaaaand Heeeeeeeeeeres Johnny!

Feel free to go, now. Boring necro was boring. I was hoping for hilariousness, but it failed to appear.

Sad day.

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