What do Men’s Rights Activists want? Based on what they actually do, it’s seems pretty clear that many of them want little more than the right to pester women with endless cries of “what about the menz?” But from time to time MRAs will step forward with little bullet-pointed manifestos presenting their grievances — and their goals — to the world.
So today let’s look at one of these little manifestos, from an MRA calling himself TzeTze Anopheles. It’s pretty revealing. And stupid. But that goes without saying.
Tze Tze starts off by demanding:
A complete rollback of all misandric laws. … It is high time we assigned the systematically unjust, contradictory and oftentimes outright insane feminist laws to the dustbin of history.
So what does Tze Tze mean by this? Well, you guessed it: “Paper abortion.” That is, the right of men to abandon their children without penalty.
Reproductive rights must be bestowed on *both* men and women and the cruel farce that is the current family law regime ended. This entails granting men the right to unilaterally “abort” their responsibility for any child they might have sired for the *exact* same time period a woman has to abort her child.
Huh. If this man lives in Texas, should he have to drive to a clinic in another state in order to carry out this “abortion?”
Tze Tze continues:
I want nothing less than the complete removal of sex from the equation regarding laws. By this I mean, that women have to be punished to the same degree as men for the same offenses and the ‘Pussy Pass’ needs to be rescinded. Additionally, I demand that women no longer be excluded from having to register for selective services. Draft has to be unisex.
Given that there hasn’t been a draft for decades, and that it has been feminists, not MRAs, who have been pushing for women to have the same rights to serve as men, I’m not sure this is the gigantic CHECKMATE FEMINISTS issue you think it is.
Tze Tze’s next proposal is a doozy. Indeed, it’s positively Anthony Zarat-esque in its audacity:
A complete segregation in society with regards to schooling and work. By this I mean girl only and boy only schools combined with appropriate education methods tailored to the respective sex’s natural inclinations. With regards to work I mean creating – as best possible – companies that are male only or female only.
Wait, what?
If Feminism’s claim that women can do everything men can do holds water women shouldn’t have a problem with this since it gives them an excellent opportunity to demonstrate this claim by *deeds* not words. Likewise, I am convinced that men – undistracted by the actions of women and without the necessity to sugarcoat everything they say and abide to a totalitarian politically correct behavioural code – can achieve far better performance than we have at present.
Oh, but Tze Tze isn’t done yet. He also demands:
The creation of male only and female only healthcare, pension funds and other social benefit schemes. And here again I say to Feminists who might have a problem with this: put your money where your mouth is. If women are naturally superior at basically everything – as claimed by Feminism – they should be delighted to no longer have to “carry the burden of the inferior male”.
Yeah, I don’t know many feminists who actually think that women are “naturally superior at basically everything,” or who even think about the genders in these terms.
It just seems a little odd that Tze Tze’s grand political program is based largely on playing a weird game of GOTCHA with the straw feminists living in his head.
And men for their part will know that their labour will no longer be abused in order to pay for the entitlement of western “princesses”. I for my part am convinced this would strongly increase the incentive of men to work hard, seeing as they would be sure to actually be able to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
I’m pretty sure “men for their part” — and even a good number of MRAs — would see your plan as pretty much the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard.
Tze Tze then throws in some garden-variety libertarian nonsense about reducing the size of government and “return[ing] to the US constitution, the original constitution.”
But it turns out he’s got quite an odd definition of democracy, as he then moves on to demand:
A complete reworking of suffrage.
Oh dear. This doesn’t sound promising.
I believe universal suffrage is unbecoming to any republic. When the mob rules democracy degenerates into a corporate circus, a cesspit where corrupt individuals bribe criminals to pose as politicians and the plebs is fooled and hoodwinked on every level.
Yes, “the plebs is fooled.” What kind of elitist can’t master subject-verb agreement?
As such more democracy is actually *less* democracy, and certainly…less freedom.
Black is white! Up is down! Freedom is slavery!
Cats are dogs and dogs are cats!
What I envision is a mechanism by which merit can be determined effectively and suffrage bestowed accordingly.
Presumably this wouldn’t involve a writing test. (See “the plebs is fooled” above.)
Hence, any individual would have the potential to acquire voting rights but only if he or she manages to demonstrate outstanding merit by, for example, inventing a useful technology, creating a successful business, creating excellent works of art, literature or philosophy (and thus demonstrating above standard wisdom). Naturally, this mechanism would have to be balanced out and its details worked out in a holistic sense.
Yeah, that sounds great.
It was nice of Tze Tze to suggest that women might pass this little test of his, but he didn’t mean it. A mere five days after publishing his little manifesto, he published a post with the title “Why Women’s Suffrage Destroys Democracy,” arguing that
Any country that thus gives women the vote is *inevitably* doomed to devolve into tyranny ere long. There is no other possibility.
Too bad, ladies! I guess the vote is too important to be entrusted to you, what with your love of tyranny and all.
Tze Tze moves on from the question of suffrage to another critical question of our age:
A widespread and stringent inquiry into the feasibility of a male contraceptive pill as well as an artificial womb. These two innovations are of pivotal importance as they will finally create absolute equality between the sexes – something women and feminists claim to support. As such I cannot see and will not accept any rejection of this basic human right of man.
Well, get to work on it, dude! As a man with a superior man brain I’m sure you’ll be able to have both of those invented by dinnertime.
Tze Tze then regurgitates some notes he wrote down while reading Warren Farrell — or while listening to some other MRA regurgitate their Warren Farrell notes — demanding
The undisputed right of any man to opt out of traditional male gender roles in very much the same way women have done. If women reject their role as sex objects then men should equally have the right to break their shackles and no longer act as status objects, as disposable instruments for the advancement of the Feminine Imperative.
Go for it, dude. Be as unsuccessful as you damn well please.
Every man should have the right to live his life the way he choses and *nobody* should have the right to shame him for his individual decisions. If a man doesn’t want to marry or start a family with a western woman (or any woman) that is his *own* prerogative and nobody has the right to judge him for that.
Dude, do whatever the hell you want. I would actually prefer it if you didn’t marry or start a family; you’d clearly be a terrible husband and/or father. Just don’t delude yourself by pretending that the women of the world actually give a shit about what you do.
Tze Tze moves on to the most important issue of all: the right to tell rape jokes in a crowded theater.
Either the complete abolition of all P.C. suppression instruments with regards to women’s sensitivities and their concomitant mob hysteria every time a man makes a “sexist” joke *or* the expansion of these same strict standards to include men as well. Basically, if it is not acceptable to make sexist jokes about women or portray them in less than flattering fashion in movies etc. the same applies for men as well.
Do you actually think it’s against the law to “to make sexist jokes about women or portray them in less than flattering fashion in movies etc?” Have you ever seen a movie?
So either stop demonizing men or allow men to likewise demonize women. Anything else is gross hypocrisy.
Well, you’ve declared women to be intrinsically inimical to democracy already, so apparently you were allowed to demonize women all along.
NOTE: In case any of you were wondering about the reference to Anthony Zarat above, he was an MRA who used to hang around these parts, and who had a rather dramatic proposal to solve all our pesky man-woman problems. This little video will explain:
Argenti: I was intending to say that (I have a transmen friends who have been pregnant/nursing since pregnant).
It was a a subtle part of my my argument. Thank you (no snark; in case someone else is obtuse), for bringing it up.
Ok, I thought you might be, or at least, would’ve been really surprised if you’d had a dense and forgotten that possibly (of course, I did write you quite a novella last night huh? So I can take the blame for any denses you may have today). But Mysterics didn’t come off as bright enough to not take it as assumed that everyone is cis and cis men can get pregnant, and the order of your clauses…
In short, if I wasn’t sure, I was sure Mysterics and the rest of the dense wouldn’t even see the possibility. And I am babbling AGAIN. We need to get you some sort of “shut up already Argenti” magic wand.
*can’t
Nice typo eh? Let me know when you manage to get pregnant, I’ll bake a cake 🙂
It’s pretty safe to assume that MRAs are only talking about cis men, since any other men aren’t real men. And pregnancy is an ooh ick female thing, so with any luck the idea of men (ie themselves) being pregnant will make their tiny heads implode.
Yeah, their inability to acknowledge that not everyone is cis is why I didn’t just take it as assumed that pecunium was saying that yes, men can get pregnant. Because that’s a fairly safe assumption with him, but would they get that if I was inferring it from knowing him? Probably not, because, as you’ve implied, they think the uterus a very icky organ.
I apologize for the thread necromancy, but for some reason, I almost read “to acquire voting rights” as “to acquire vomiting rights”.