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.”
Wait, why do I have thirteen copies of that link open?
It came up a few times, but mostly it was ignored.
Four taunted them once, asking if they’re the superior life forms, why don’t they try climbing after him (he’d climbed up a wall). (Destiny of the Daleks)
Then they actually hovered up a flight of steps after Ace and Seven, sixteen years before it happened in Dalek. (Remembrance of the Daleks)
Ace is Best Companion:
2carnation,
Thanks for the link to the Steve Shives’ Youtube videos. As the MRM “goes mainstream,” I’m confident we’ll start seeing more pushback like this from smart, critical, outspoken men.
Fedora – What Freemage said. Also, since you come right out and say what a lot of smarter misogynists try to sugarcoat, you’re a useful teaching tool to help us educate the poor dupes who take those “kinder, gentler” misogynists at their word: “See how this horrible person is advocating this horrible, woman-hating idea? Well, this person you thought was nice is advocating the same idea, only with fewer uses of the word ‘cunt’.”
re Rape victims: I can make it about 10 I know (for certain) are such. Those are the women for whom it being mentioned was somehow relevant to a conversation. I didn’t go out looking to know.
That’s rape, not assaults, of a sexual nature, which didn’t rise to being actual rape.
If you add those, it’s probably closer to 50.
Well, if they’re anything like the boar in Europe I’m guessing that “tasty” might have been part of the thought process. I’m not sure how edible whatever was left would be after you fired an assault rifle at them though.
As much as would be left if you fired a non-assault rifle at them. The term has to do with intended purpose (killing people in armed conflict, at close range). The round from an AK-47 series rifle isn’t all that powerful (for the size of of bullet it discharges), which is part of why it became so popular, it was less trouble to shoot, because it had less recoil (every action has an equal and opposite reaction).
Using an AR-15 on boar is stupid, you’d have to hit it half a dozen times to stop it (they are stubborn, and the AR-15 family is notoriously underpowered, in some ways, even for killing people. Context is a funny thing).
re “niggling” I guess it’s just my circles, but it’s not a word I’d associate with racism (wheras, for all that I learned niggardly in it’s original context, more than 30 years ago; the ways in which the homophonic aspects have come to be seen/abused, means I don’t hear it in any other context than as “stealth” racism).
It’s usually used in the sense of, “small,and irritating” and usually with a context of suspicion/doubt, even when it’s things like, “it was niggling at the back of my mind” when someone was trying to recall who/what something was.
That doesn’t mean I think this redditor wasn’t playing on the way niggle and reddit combine to look like another word altogether.
Hat-Chappy: Then why does everyone here spend so much time worrying about us?
I worry about being bitten by centipedes, and brushing poison ivy, and any number of things which are more nuisance than threat. I also keep cockroaches out of the house; because once they get in, getting rid of them is really hard.
Look at the work required to get the rights women have now. If shits like you had your way regaining them would be even harder.
So, as with other pests, one cuts them down/crushes them, as they are seen.
That Kate Beaton Who strip was the best. 😀
Jon Pertwee thought the Daleks were the most ridiculous things – “Run up a flight of stairs and they’re stuffed” was pretty much his summary. I remember a comic from the 70s with one at the top of a flight of stairs saying “Our … plans … for … world … domination … have … been … delayed.”
The Daleks were really popular in the 60s, for some reason. Their period of featuring most frequently on DW ended by 1968, when Evil of the Daleks was the last serial (aside from cameos) for several years.
And then they had several more serials, and a six-year hiatus between Genesis of the Daleks and Destiny of the Daleks. Then they petered out, averaging about one Dalek serial per Doctor. They’re in the movie, but they’re not even shown on screen.
We weren’t sure they were going to feature in Series 1 because of contract disputes between the BBC and the Estate of Terry Nation. And then the show names the return episode “Dalek” and tries to build suspense for 20 minutes about what the Metaltron could possibly be. Gee. I wonder.
I wonder if these MRA’s keep daily journals. If so, I’d imagine they read like Sifl’s journal from the Sifl and Olly show:
Day 292: Woke up, ate a sandwich, went to bed
Day 293: Woke up, ate a sandwich, went to bed
Day 294: Woke up, ate a sandwich, went to bed
…
If I had time, I would go over to r/mr and/or COTWA and see if they reported on this as a ‘false rape accusation’ but I am in wall-to-wall meetings today. Note that police put enough pressure on her that she recanted her story that she was raped, in spite of the fact that she was raped by a serial rapist. Note also that if the police had believed her, more assaults could have been prevented.
@Mrfancypants Sifl and Olly were more responsive to a diverse audience. Plus they had their Calls, calls, calls, calls from the public! I still sing that to this day, confusing random people.
I followed the reddit link and discovered that there’s a subreddit just for MRM activism! Unfortunately, it looks like the whole thing is mostly held up by a single user, and even this person’s last “action opportunity” was posted a month ago. Also, the activism is almost always sending poorly worded emails.
Making a difference!
This has always been my biggest beef with the men’s rights movement. It’d be one thing if they spouted their misogyny and also set up domestic violence shelters for men or something, but no – the closest thing to activism for them is angry emails at women’s shelters that don’t take men in too.
They are very good at organizing a harassment, as long as the target is female. They never seem to want to threaten males with nearly the same vehemence, rather telling.
They might as well call themselves the Men’s Rights Mafia. Men’s Harassment Rights Mob.
Things that are not equivalent to slavery, #3,784,935
I mean, Polliwog explained this so clearly, and I made a whole post about it on my blog. You’d almost think none of the misters are even READING Artistry for Feminism and Kittens?!!?!??
What a shocking suggestion!
And I didn’t even notice the thinly-veiled (and upvoted) death threats.
Your ineffectiveness makes me grin in schadenfereude.
@roger, Then you should probably learn how to spell that.
Learning isn’t something Teh Manly Menz go in for. It implies they don’t know everything in the world in space already.
Whenever a troll misspells a word, I like to pretend that it’s a real word with a completely different meaning. Like maybe “in schadenfereude” means “because evil surgeons carved a smile permanently onto my face.“
Ineffective at what exactly? Making friends with each other? Because I’m trying to type while my twitter alerts keep going all “pecunium’s doing stuff”, so yep, succeeding there. Cats? No, pretty sure we’ve got the cuteness covered. Mocking misogyny? Yep, got that covered.
I’ll admit, my attempts at stopping this rain storm have proved ineffective as of yet.
Well, Argenti, we are both completely ineffective at everything, and at the same time we have complete control over the political power structure of all developed nations, along with the mainstream media.
It’s quite a conundrum.
Cloudiah, that little exchange in r/mr was so foul I made it into a post.
katz – I was reading about The Man Who Laughed the other day. I can only say I’m glad I never read it; the whole thing sounds beyond bizarre.
I wasn’t even going to read the comments in that “slavery” thing, and then a little voice in my head said, “cloudiah, what do you want to be they fantasize about him killing his ex somewhere down in the comments?” Lo and behold…