Let’s take a trip down memory lane with this short history of feminism, helpfully prepared for us by mountainmansOG in the Men’s Rights subreddit.
I learn new things about feminism every day! Thanks, Men’s Rights subreddit!
Categories
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
Also, that divorce lawyer’s credibility is now being questioned on another thread in r/mr. They went through his comment history, and have decided that (a) he’s not a lawyer, though he might be a law student; (b) he’s a shitty lawyer; (c) he went to a bad law school; (d) since he’s not a MRA, he must be lying. They are going through his entire comment history on Reddit looking for ways to attack him. Next step doxxing!
I like that the first comment is from a guy who feels qualified to judge his legal chops because “I never took a family law class. But I interned for a couple of family law attorneys 2 years ago.” Well, I’m convinced.
Back on the main thread, guys are yelling at him because he won’t teach them “dirty tricks” to use in the courtroom. I mean, to stop their wives from using. That’s the ticket.
Those guys don’t want a fair 50/50 split of assets after a divorce. They want the man to always get everything. They also want the man to get full legal custody of any children from the marriage. However, a lot of them don’t want to do any work to raise the children. They want their ex wives to do all of that work, and they don’t have to help her in any way, especially financially. That’s why I say they want legal custody, and not physical custody.
They want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to walk away after a divorce with no responsibilities for their own children. If they choose, they might decide to be a Disneyland dad. If the courts tell them no, they say it’s sexist and unfair. They are used to bossing their wives and children around, and it makes them mad to have someone tell them no.
I feel sorry for that divorce lawyer trying to explain things to the more obtuse redditors. He would have a better chance arguing with young earth creationists.
And this is just what their demands are for hetero couples divorcing. In the case of same sex marriages, they wouldn’t be able to use the rule of “woman gets nothing and man gets everything”.
“I like that the first comment is from a guy who feels qualified to judge his legal chops because “I never took a family law class. But I interned for a couple of family law attorneys 2 years ago.” Well, I’m convinced.”
That’s funny. The “everybody lies in divorce” made me chuckle cuz the atty I worked for wouldn’t do divorces cuz everybody’s in the wrong about something. (And we did mostly construction litigation, so damn near all the regular clients where men…who were probably also in the wrong and thus nope, not touching your divorce!)
Am I the only one who thinks it is terribly sad that most of the guys who are asking the questions seem to be single and childless but are completely obsessed with how to protect themselves from being taken advantage of by their (utterly hypothetical) ex-wives, to the detriment of their (completely imaginary) children? Most of them seem to be asking for the kind of tips and tricks they can use to undermine their wives in case of eventual (inevitable?) divorce, to the degree that you can imagine them dating and perhaps even getting married (those who don’t GTOW out of terror, I suppose) and meanwhile maintaining detailed logs and recordings of their girlfriends/wives speech and behavior.
The MRM: bitter, angry divorced men pushing a narrative by which you need to be constantly on guard, viewing your intimate partner as a current suspect and future enemy, and building an NSA-worthy archive of potential “evidence” against them in case of future breakup.
Except there is one basic flaw here. Someone so hyper vigilant and defensive, so carefully primed to be on the lookout for evidence of perfidy in every word and gesture, is going to give off a strong negative vibe virtually guaranteeing that those with healthy habits and personalities are going to give them a wide berth. And if they do indeed manage to find their way into a relationship, I suspect those would be doomed from the start. If you spend all your time sifting your interactions with other people for evidence that they are not trustworthy, you will eventually find something, even if your mind has to invent it, and chances are your behavior will contribute mightily to producing it.
@Gillian, yes it’s a self fulfilling prophecy for them. They start out assuming that most straight women are cheaters and liars, and that the entire court system and criminal justice system has a strong anti male bias. Their paranoia about getting dumped causes them to be jealous and possessive, which tends to push people away from them.
The comments section at the recent Huffington Post article 8 Reasons Straight Men Don’t want to get Married is full of MRA’s telling happily married men that their lives could be ruined at any moment by their wives. One guy told a man who had just gotten married
. Another one said
Yeah, if that’s the attitude you take, your marriage will probably end up falling apart.
@thebionicmommy I find that so incredibly sad. I’m super troubled that this crap is being foisted off on people (like my brother, full disclosure) who tend to be shy and a bit socially awkward and have, as a result, not so much in the way of real experience to measure such horror stories against, and therefore form these awful, self-reinforcing “defense” mechanisms that actually function to keep them sad, alone and angry.
It fills me with a kind of sick rage at the whole MRA/PUA-sphere for the disservice they are doing to younger guys who are already hurting. In what way is it fair or right or even a good idea to export your dysfunction to others?
I remember when my sister got old enough for the doctor to finally be willing to prescribe hormones for her (we both suffered from severe dysmenorrhea as teenagers). She’d barely had them for any time at all when he discovered them in the bathroom and decided that they were proof that she was a “sl*t” and a “wh*re” and any other horrible name he could come up with. He was under the same mistaken belief that Rush Limbaugh seems to have, that you take a pill for each sex act (and for no other reason) and so he counted up the number of pills missing in the pack and came to his conclusion. No amount of arguing or explaining would change his mind, because we were girls and his (guy) friends wouldn’t lie to him where as we couldn’t be trusted, because cooties, I guess.
Sometimes, I feel pity for people who live their lives with such hatred. Where every little thing can and often is a personal slight against them and they have to be constantly on guard so that they aren’t “taken advantage of” or whatever. I can’t imagine living my life counting up all the things I do, and all the things other people do, and compiling and comparing them in order to make sure I always live at a zero-sum, so I’m never in the “negatives”. The negatives are where some of life’s best experiences come from, there’s genuine pleasure in helping people out just to know that you’ve made someone else’s life a bit better that day. It’s a pretty powerful connection to other people and one of the best forms of intimacy, especially since it doesn’t need to be in person or you don’t need to know them. Being generous to others and not counting up what they do for me is a genuinely wonderful way to experience the world, I don’t know why I would want to cheapen that ability to connect (given that experiences are so individual and we’re all trapped inside human shells and can’t truly experience collectivity), with base entitlement and hatred.
@SittieKitty I agree with you that some of this (as someone who suffers from depression I know better than to say all of it) is a choice. We can, within a certain margin, choose how to respond to some of our positive and negative experiences.
What bothers me so much is the effect of people who have chosen to be assholes on people who don’t realize yet that they have a choice. There is such bile and poison in what they are smearing around everywhere, and it seems to be really influencing younger guys who don’t yet have the breadth of experience to know the difference.
It reminds me a lot of the panic last year (I did some part time work as an after school writing tutor) that a lot of kids were feeling when so many adults were going around talking about how the world was going to end with the “Mayan apocalypse”. It’s the bitter and broken turning around and messing up the innocent, just because they can. Does it really make you feel better to warp the outlook of others?
Ah, yea, my comment was directed toward those who do it willfully, not people who can’t help but feel out of sorts at times. I get that feeling too, but it seems like MRAs and others do it on purpose, they’re so entitled they think that everything they give should be returned, and usually returned tenfold in some way.
Just thought you’d be interested in mountainmansOG’s (from the OP) recent comment history on Reddit, which you can see here.
Note in particular this now removed comment responding to a question from a guy who wants to know how he can get his engagement ring back from his ex-GF now that’s she’s broken off the engagement* (!!!TW for violence!!!):
(!!!DID YOU SEE THAT TRIGGER WARNING?!!!)
At least it’s being downvoted! There’s another violent comment from robert32907 about breaking her fingers, but it’s fairly new and I expect it will be removed too soon.
*The OP admits that she may be keeping the ring because he owes her $400, but the misters aren’t going to let something simple like facts or fairness get in the way of their rage-gasms.
@SittieKitty Yep. Couldn’t agree more.
@cloudiah And I didn’t think my faith in humanity could go lower today… Did you see the comments about the woman who died at the gym?
Gillian, I didn’t even read that gym story, though I did see our little friend from the OP made frothing-with-rage comment on it.
“removed too soon” should probably be “removed too, soon.”
Commas are important!
Mods removing comments is a violation of free speech!! They should leave them up, no matter how awful and hateful and disgusting it makes the MRA movement look.
@cloudiah A woman collapsed in her stall in the women’s room of a Planet Fitness gym, and the woman in the next stall went running for help from the guy at the front desk, who declined to enter the bathroom (“I’m not allowed to go in there”) and dithered anywhere from five to ten minutes before calling 911. Meanwhile other patrons tried to get the door open and reached under the bottom to take the woman’s pulse. Sadly, she died (it wasn’t clear what from, but not getting medical personnel promptly didn’t help). Now the front desk guy is being charged for not helping and the gym owner is being sued for not having equipment or trained personnel to perform first aid as required by law for gyms.
But what seems to be eliciting ire is that the “poor guy” at the front desk is being charged after probably having spent all his life being attacked by feminists for stuff, you know, including sexual assault charges for even looking at the women’s bathroom door for too long. They also seem to feel that it is unfair to hold the guy responsible (you know, the one whose job it was to summon emergency personnel and to be trained and ready to provide first aid assessment and support in the meantime) when there were other women around who must have had cell phones (since women don’t ever go anywhere without their cell phones) and should have summoned help and performed first aid to prevent him from having to enter the women’s private inner sanctum.
That’s the gist, anyway. Add lots more ragey spewing, and some suggestions that other violence might have been called for to do away with those pesky women who witnessed the guy doing nothing while they shrieked at him like harpies, etc. etc. etc.
By the way, sorry I goofed up my link earlier. I linked to yahoo rather than the HuffPo. I tried twice to give the right link, but both of the comments disappeared. So if anyone wants to read the little MGTOW thing, just google Huffington Post 8 reasons straight men do not want to get married.
To be fair, women do spend a fair amount of our time shrieking like harpies; it’s just our preferred method of communication. Myself, I prefer to ulululate, but I’ve always been odd.
Wait, that engagement ring? It was a gift, it’s her’s. Creepy asshole’s just going to have to deal with it.
OMG: He made a joke about having sex with NWO.
Seriously.
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1gz52s/the_majority_of_military_sexual_assault_victims/capp1ex?context=3
Rare footage of women communicating in the wild!
That is awful about the woman at the gym. In a life or death emergency, nobody is going to care about the guy going into the women’s restroom. And if someone doesn’t know CPR, they can still call 911 and follow their instructions. People that are afraid of doing mouth to mouth can at least do chest compressions, too. It was neglectful on the part of of the front desk employee and the owner.
Here is something happier I saw at the Huffington Post article. I’m not trying to change the subject btw. I’m just putting this here because the other stuff is so sad, and I thought we could use something sweet.
One man said in response to a guy telling him marriage is prison
Awwww, it’s so nice to hear about happy couples like that.
I protest! I never shriek!! I prefer to drone on endlessly until I lull all the menz around me into a false sense of security (and a coma) and then spermjack them while they are asleep.
Because, you know, misandry (of course).
What is this i don’t even
Not to worry, bionicmommy, I tend to dwell on the horrible when I’m depressed, so a change of subject isn’t such a bad idea!
Meh, I’m cool with the general policy of returning a ring if you break off an engagement. There’s a social contract associated with engagement rings that isn’t associated with other gifts (eg, when you give someone a birthday present, you’re not making them commit to being your friend for another year).
That said, if someone chooses not to return the ring, you might justifiably be angry, but you have no right to demand or force zir to return it; the social contract is strictly voluntary! And if you owe zir money and haven’t paid up, that suggests that you haven’t been respecting the implicit expectations of the relationship and can hardly expect zir to extend such courtesies back to you.