On Monday, Martin Luther King Day here in the United States, this was posted in the Men’s Rights subreddit, where, as you can see, it was quite popular with the assembled Men’s Rightsers:
How wrong is this? Let me count the ways.
1) It’s wrong because Men’s Rights “Activists” aren’t “warriors for peace,” or justice, or even for their own backwards notions of men’s rights. MRAs, like a lot of men insecure about their own worth, love to claim credit for the accomplishments of great men in the past (without accepting any responsibility for the terrible deeds of the terrible men who lived before them).
But even in terms of claiming credit where no credit is due this is especially ridiculous. Aside from a tiny handful of “fathers rights activists,” who’ve bizarrely chosen to try to advance their cause by vandalizing paintings and/or dressing up in superhero costumes and climbing up buildings, and one troubled man who killed himself in hopes that his death would spur other MRAs to acts of terrorism directed at courthouses and police stations, MRAs don’t risk anything with their “activism,” insofar as they engage in anything that can be called activism at all.
There’s nothing heroic, or risky, about posting anonymous rants online about how women are all a bunch of hypergamous bitches, or sending some vague threat to the feminist villain of the day.
Indeed, MRAs face so little risk that some are forced to invent stories of persecution — like John Hembling’s tall tale of being confronted by a mob of boxcutter-wielding feminists, thoroughly discredited by The Daily Beast — in order to cast themselves in the role of the persecuted victim-turned-hero.
2) It’s wrong because the person posting this message, and attempting to suggest some sort of link between the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King and the Men’s Rights movement today, is someone who also posts in the White Rights subreddit, a haven for the same sort of hateful white supremacists who hurled racial epithets — not to mention actual rocks and bottles — at King when he was alive.
When one Redditor pointed this out, and noted (correctly) that numerous white nationalists post in the Men’s Rights subreddit, they were quickly downvoted for their troubles.
The original poster explained that he only posted in White Rights about “real cases of white discrimination.”
Another poster offered an example of what he saw as one such case of “real” anti-white discrimination:
Yeah, that was totally a real thing.
3) It’s wrong because it’s wrong. As in, factually incorrect. Warren Farrell is talking out of his ass, again. Here’s a slightly longer version of his quote, which you can find on his web page. (It’s originally from The Myth of Male Power.)
Men are likely to be not only the warriors of war but also the warriors of peace. Almost all those who risk their lives, are put in jail, or are killed for peace are men. While some of the peace warriors—Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Dag Hammarskjold—are remembered, most are forgotten. Remember Norm Morrison?
Well, no, Warren, I don’t remember Norm Morrison. But I think you’re forgetting a few people too. Like half of the human race.
Women have been involved in peace and social justice movements as long as women have been active in the public sphere. Ever hear of Women Strike for Peace? Code Pink? At every large demonstration I’ve been at that has involved civil disobedience, I’ve seen both men and women arrested, with some of the women old enough to be grandmothers or great-grandmothers. The idea that women don’t put themselves on the line for peace or social justice is patently false.
This is really kind of basic stuff. But with MRAs, alas, you always need to go back to the basics.
But the post in the Men’s Rights subreddit was all about co-opting the civil rights movement, so today I thought I would remind anyone who might have forgotten — or who never knew — that it wasn’t just men who put themselves at risk in the struggle for civil rights.
You can click on the pictures for more information.
@auggziliary: Neither did anyone else, I think. Eventually, they won’t even need to get the uterus from a deceased patient; we are coming to the point where we can create new organs on their own (3D printers and stem cells are apparently very helpful here).
Me too . I thought it was really sweet of them .
Non sequitur after non sequitur after non sequitur.
Kitt33 how fucking dare you even think you can be logical or reasonable when just about everything you fucking post is a fucking non sequitur?
If the topic was “Elephants have big ears” your brain dead ass would probably post: “More women have tooth decay than MRA,s”
I am frankly getting very sick of it. You are annoying
I remember that. Hell, I was catcalled at Occupy Boston and was told I should politely ask him to stop and that would fix it. There was a great rant by a woman from Occupy Boston about the marginalizing of women’s voices in that camp, I’ll see if I can dig it up.
On the uterus transplant thing ? I thought I read an article about a year ago they had finally had a successful transplant and the first baby had been born .
@auggziliary: The article doesn’t say, unfortunately.
@dallasapple: Well, this is the first I heard of something like this happening, myself. But then, I don’t really keep up with medical stories…
YES! THIS! THIS!
Here it is . She was pregnant but unfortunately lost the baby later at 8 weeks. This must be what I had read .
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/04/15/woman-pregnant-after-uterus-transplant/
@dallasapple: That appears to be the same story I linked… Oh well. Sad that she lost the child, though. 🙁
I think the confusion for me on the transplant story is that its from I think back in April of 2013. Its the same story I read .
Yeah it is sad . The most recent news I found on it was that the heartbeat stopped at 8 weeks. But its still a miracle they got that far .
Here’s another photo from the civil rights era. From the Poor People’s Campaign which also included Resurrection City, a 3000 person tent town on the DC mall. Sort of the first “Occupy.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Poor_People%27s_March_at_Lafayette_Park_ppmsca.04302.jpg
@Dvarghundspossen – yeah I was thinking the same thing. Feminists have existed for much longer than the MRM (in its current form anyway). And even so, I would bet if you folded every threat ever made online by an MRA together with their verbal and physical threats? These guys have still made more of them than all the feminists in the last couple of centuries combined.
I’m really glad MLK Day gave our friends a holiday from complaining about female activists, so they could complain there are no female activists.
Women don’t fight for peace? They are very ignorant, aren’t they?
Here are some more women who have fought for peace and justice:
The Madres de Plaza de Mayo, aka the Mothers of the Disappeared:
http://www.gratefulness.org/giftpeople/madres_de_plaza_de-mayo.htm
The Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic, known as las Mariposas:
http://www.therealdr.com/dominican-republic-history/mirabal-sisters-of-the-dominican-republic.html
What’s really funny ?(in an absurd funny way) I just look at those pictures like the one Mayimoktoo just posted and imagine if the people in that march were all white guys (MRA’s) and what their signs would say . What ? Stop the madness of child support ? Or maybe “we demand reproductive choices! ” how about ” no more involuntary celibacy!”
Oh my glob. I am speechless (only figuratively, cause hold on I got a pile of words comin’ at ya here).
I have a few names for the MRAs to chew on and for the rest of us to celebrate. Women who were not and continue to not be recognized for their work as activists, pacifists, and leaders. Maybe, juuuuuuust maaaaaaybeeee it’s because we live in a world that consistently devalues women’s contributions? These women have been doing it just as long, they’ve worked just as hard, they’ve risked just as much, and most of them have NEVER received the accolades that their male counterparts did. But each and every one of them is so goddamn badass that she did it anyway and DIDN’T GIVE A HOOT.
Bertha von Suttner, Jane Addams, Emma Goldman, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, Benazir Bhutto, Rosa Parks, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Mother Teresa, Corazon Aquino, Molly Brown, Carmen Rupe, Henrietta Dugdale, Susan B. Anthony, Gabriela Silang, Sarah Bagley, Rose Schneiderman, bell hooks, Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Mary McLeod Bethune, Irena Sendler, Nancy Wake, Sylvia Rivera, Eileen Nearne, Krystyna Skarbek, Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan, Violette Szabo, Shirin Ebadi, Audre Lorde, and finally MALALA YOUSAFZAI.
This list is not comprehensive by any means, it only consists of the awesome female activists that I could name OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD (or at least with very minimal googling). There are literally thousands more.
Sorry for the wall of text, but this kind of willful and all-too-common ignorance of female heroes is one of my biggest pet peeves. In fact, I have just delurked after ~2 years to dump this list of names on you 🙂
I think I’m just gonna re-read the last half-dozen strips in one of my regular webcomics, in which one of the core group of characters shuts down a PUA asshat with flair, poise and style.
(Starts here: http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1789 )
For those who haven’t read it, I should note that the strip is one of those ones where gender-swapping happens almost as a matter of course (though not in the ones I’m highlighting here), and I’ve gotten the impression that some trans* folk really enjoy such comics, and others find them offensive for both minimizing their real-life plight and for the degree of fetishization that can be seen in the portrayal. So some of our trans* members, depending on how you personally feel about such things, may wish to opt out of following that link at all.
I’d like to see documented case of violence by feminists that are against MRAs. (Anything involving box cutters or murdered dogs are disqualified for being bullshit.) That is unless you are discussing acts of violence by women fighting for their rights throughout history, in which case that’s a weak ass false analogy considering the rich history of those movements compared to MRAs faux-movement antics.
Truth bomb! Suck it fascist assholes!
The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp – 30,000 women joined hands around the base. And that was just the start.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenham_Common_Women%27s_Peace_Camp
Format Fail!
Truth bomb! Suck it fascist assholes!
*drops mike, exits stage, tumbles into orchestra pit*
Format Fail!
Truth bomb! Suck it fascist assholes! *drops mike, exits stage, tumbles into orchestra pit*
*Screw you phone.
as the redditor who pointed out the hypocrisy (via an alt because my main is banned on /r/mensrights) and caused the dramawave and the MRAcists to ooze out of the woodwork, i feel like bonbons are in order