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.”
If women would just do what men want and never say no to them then men would not be forced to rape and abuse them.
Pretty standard MRA position. Women are responsible for what men do to them.
Has niggle taken on a relationship to the n word in US usage? I’d never heard it used that way; here it’s much closer to its original meaning, with things like “a niggling doubt”. Niggardly, ditto: I’d never heard it associated with the n word before reading manboobz, only in the sense of skinflint, tightwad, miser. Trust fucking racists to go appropriating words that have nothing to do with their slurs and making them unusable too.
The dictionary meaning of niggle totally applies to MRAs, though:
nig·gle (ngl)
intr.v. nig·gled, nig·gling, nig·gles
1. To be preoccupied with trifles or petty details.
2. To find fault constantly and trivially; carp. See Synonyms at quibble.
Somehow I suspect nigglereddit didn’t realise what he was saying about himself when he picked that name.
How on earth is that screen name “not technically racist?” It’s clearly racist as fuck.
itsabeast — I was thinking the bar there was “things that will get caught by the mod filter”. But yes, it’s quite obviously meant to be racist, spelling aside.
Amnesia — this one does seem sorta reformable, I mean, if the whole “nigglereddit” shit also got dealt with. But treating women like people might make him the longed for “moderate”.
Oh and I did the rape rate question for my very first anonymous survey (aw my methodology was so cute and naive back then!)…just about 1 in 4. Cuz, you know, anonymous. (This is also why the MRA loves using police data, can’t be anonymous so less likely to lie…um, in one sense yes, in another…forget about “lying” by omission much?)
Even if they were comfortable talking to him about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if significantly fewer than one in four women in this guy’s life had been sexually assaulted. And this would prove nothing, because I’m almost certain that his social circle is disproportionately middle-to-upper-class, white, cis, physically abled, neurotypical, and other groups whose privilege decreases the likelihood that someone will decide to rape them. People should not be allowed to talk about statistics until they understand selection bias.
With added WTF for declaring especially vulnerable populations “unable” to be raped.
kittehs: I would say it has, and I say this as a reader of old books who is well aware of the meaning of those words (and how they are not at all linguistically related to the awful slur). The thing is, no one uses them in everyday conversation anymore except for white dudes trying to be edgy, hence the “I’m not touching you” comparison. So maybe it’s a case of guilt by association…the words themselves aren’t racist, but at least in the US they’re usually used by racists specifically because they sound like the slur, so it makes anyone using them suspect.
Re: “niggle”- I do see it used outside of “I’m not touching you!”-ish situations, but drawing special attention to it, such as by using it as a screen name, definitely suggests someone who’s trying to be edgy.
Thanks AK, onnastik. Sigh … more words gobshite racists have made unavailable, the turd-eating losers. I use a fair few archaic words, so those just have to go on the list of “not with USian/Canadian listeners or readers”.
Actually, I’ll agree with you onnastik…I spoke a bit too broadly. Thinking about it more, I have heard people use those words (especially “niggle” as a modifier, like “a niggling doubt” to use kitteh’s example) who didn’t come across as racist.
But I’d still say the vast majority of the time, the people I hear use them are doing so because they sound like the slur and the person thinks it is clever to tread so close to being openly racist without actually crossing a line they can be called on. So if, say, a regular poster here with a good track record on social justice issues described someone as “niggardly,” I’d probably give them the benefit of the doubt. But if they drew attention to it or used it as a screen name? I’m absolutely going to assume they’re racist.
“nigglereddit” is especially bad because visually you just change one letter and you have the slur. I’m not giving that person the benefit of the doubt.
@Argenti
Gosh, is this what discovering a unicorn feels like?
AK – that’s why I’m going to avoid the words here. I know what I mean if I’m calling our general manager (f’rinst) a miserable, niggardly, penny-pinching bastard; but anyone who doesn’t know my background might well think I was making a nasty pun on his colour. I can’t expect people to know I’m from Oz and the general manager is white, and I don’t want someone having a WTF moment reading it. It’s just the same as not calling a young MoC a boy – grossly insulting and with way too much history – however innocuous, and with no racial connotation, calling any young man a boy here may be.
I saw this on r/mr and it made me laugh. Except for the “behave the way we want” part which was just … urgh.
Kittehs, did you notice you were featured over in my bloggie-thingie? 😀
Also, I wanted to highlight one of David’s tweets over there — did you guys see that the hacker who helped expose the Steubenville rapists is now facing more jail time than they got for raping someone? This world.
I did, cloudiah, I did! I was whooting all over the place here yesterday. I left a message there, too. 🙂
There’s another one, about CLYDE. Let the additional whooting commence.
Oh, whoops, I iz behind the times! I didn’t realise you meant Clyde!
::blushes::
Behind the times and ninjaed … oh the shame … 😛
Love the blog post, cloudiah!
Whoot!
Yeah, I wouldn’t see using the word “niggle” as suspicious except that “nigglereddit” just happens to butt the two words together so at first glance that’s exactly what it looks like.
Using “niggardly” in a sentence would get you a massive side-eye though: I have never heard anyone use it and it this stage it just sounds wrong.
The part about women who are “unable be raped” really improved that piece. Where by improved I mean confirmed any doubt I might have that he could possibly be a decent person or “moderate”. >:(
http://www.returnofkings.com/category/culture
It’s amazing how he’s never heard of women who are raped in nursing homes, or babies who are raped, or women and girls of all ages in between. Presumably “can’t be raped” means “don’t give him a boner”.
Missed the “can’t be raped” apparently, not a unicorn, just a horse with a costume on.
Thanks for linking to the recent rape stats in the article! This’ll be useful for the anti-rape presentation I may or may not be suggesting that the Diversity Club at my school does (sorry for the mangled grammar).
Thanks for pooping out that link to returnofkings in the comments, lubrax, because really that is my go to place for useful discussions of culture. That is really helpful. And by “really helpful” I mean “completely irrelevant and stupid.”
At first, I thought Return of Kings was a gross, misogynistic site full of creeps and rape apologia. Then one day, lubrax dropped a link into a comment thread, and all of that changed. Thanks, lubrax! *Smiles winningly at the camera*