Lundy Bancroft is an expert on abusive relationships and the author of Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds Of Angry and Controlling Men, a book I’ve found very helpful not only in understanding abusers but also in understanding the behavior and “activism” of Men’s Rights Activists.
In a recent post on his blog, he warns about the ways in which “Men’s Rights” ideologies can justify, and made worse, abusive behavior from men who are already abusive, or who have abusive tendencies.
In the post, entitled “The Abuser Crusade,” he writes
When a man has some unhealthy relationship patterns to begin with, the last thing he needs is to discover philosophies that actually back up the destructive aspects of how he thinks. Take a guy who is somewhat selfish and disrespectful to begin with, then add in a big dose of really negative influences, and you have a recipe for disaster. And the sad reality is that there are websites, books, and even organizations out there that encourage men to be at their worst rather than at their best when it comes to relating to women.
It’s not surprising that a philosophy rooted in male entitlement would appeal to men who already feel pretty entitled – and often quite bitter that the women in their lives, not to mention the world at large, doesn’t seem to regard them as quite so deserving of adulation as they think they are.
As I’ve mentioned before, I used to think it was unfair to label the Men’s Rights Movement “the abusers’ lobby,” as many domestic violence experts have done, because I felt that the movement did raise some issues that MRAs at least seem to sincerely believe reflect discrimination against men. But the more experience I’ve had with MRAs, the more I’ve begun to see the Men’s Rights Movement not only as an “abusers’ lobby” but as an abusers’ support group, and an abusive force in its own right, promoting forms of “activism” that are little more than semi-organized stalking and harassment of individual women.
It’s not that every MRA is literally a domestic abuser, though I wouldn’t be shocked to find domestic abusers seriously overrepresented in the Men’s Rights ranks; it’s that the Men’s Rights movement promotes abusive ways of thinking and behaving.
In case anyone had any doubt about which groups Bancroft is talking about, he gets specific:
Some of these groups come under the heading of what is known as “Men’s Rights” or “Father’s Rights” groups. Their writings spread the message that women are trying to control or humiliate men, or are mostly focused on taking men’s money. They also tend to promote the idea that women who want to keep primary custody of their children after divorce are evil. The irony is that we live in a country that has refused to pass an amendment to the constitution to guarantee equal rights for women; yet some men are still out there claiming that women have too many rights and that men don’t have enough.
Bancroft also warns about groups preaching a return to patriarchal values:
Other groups don’t use the language of “rights”, but promote abusive thinking by talking about the “natural” roles of men and women. These groups teach, for example, that men are biologically programmed to be the ones making the key decisions, and that women are just naturally the followers of men’s leadership. These philosophies sometimes teach that men and women are just too different to have really close relationships.
In the end, Bancroft urges women whose partners are picking up new philosophies that seem to be making their behavior worse rather than better to start researching the subject themselves, and reaching out to other women in the same situation, in order to better understand what their partners are getting into — and defend themselves against it.
I’m curious how many readers here have had personal experience with men who’ve embraced Men’s or Fathers’ Rights philosophies (or any of the varieties of backwards Manosphere philosophies), or who know of women whose partners have.
This is why I love Manboo… Mammoths!
I also like their disbelief at not being able to dominate and manipulate the conversation in the comments as they expect.
Oh, that’d be exciting, I’ve never attended a live meltdown yet 😀
@Marie, yes, I know that Mez said she was a woman. In my rant, she’s the “supposed feminist”. Her blaming of feminism for not being nicer to potential MRAs crystallised my thinking on how I react to men, both in everyday life and in feminist spaces.
I should add that I personally don’t want to ban men from all feminist spaces (hi, David, nice feminist space you host here) but I understand why some feminist spaces feel it is better for their work and activism to do so.
Ally,
But being told to be happy and optimistic never works for me. Whenever I vent to someone about some emotional pain and they just tell me “Stop worrying about it and being so negative; I don’t like seeing you sad”, then I just get upset. All this forced positivity does is make me hate the idea of happiness itself, and that’s obviously counterproductive. And then those same people pressuring me to be positive shame me whenever I tell them that I can’t just *make* myself happy, as if my mind has an on/off switch for positivity that I’m just too lazy to flip up or down.
And even if/when I become happier in general, that won’t stop me from me having negative feelings from time to time. There is no human being who doesn’t experience a wide range of feelings that includes negative feelings. Fuck that forced positivity bullshit.
Seconded. Have you ever read Bright-sided by Barbara Ehrenreich? It’s so validating! I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read. It’s a brilliant take down of forced positivity and how counterproductive and victim blaming it can be.
Step right up for your meltdown experience! Popcorn and cupcakes will be provided in the official Not A Nice Enough Lady kiosk in the corner.
The other messed up thing about the think-yourself-happy stuff is that it feeds into the new agey stuff about how you ought to be able to positive think your way out of things like cancer, which anti-scientific bullshit.
I know quite a few people who have benefited personally from a lot of that new agey stuff. I have nothing against them, though, because they don’t try to shove their views down my throat.
Ooo, I love Barbara Ehrenreich! I’ll try looking for it. Thanks.
Microwave popcorn – I discovered microwave popcorn yesterday. Damn, is that stuff yummy. I blame feminism for not telling me about this before. I mean I knew about cupcakes and bonbons but I feel fans of savoury snacks are being snubbed by the movement. If I find out that the MRA has a bigger stick of chilli peanuts, I may have to switch.
This is totally wrong. Totally and completely.
Why?
BECAUSE TYPE 1A RARELY OR NEVER HAPPENS.
Source.
Again, you’re consistently trying to call male circumcision more dangerous than it is, and downplaying the awfulness of FGM.
That’s MRM-level dishonesty right there.
I have wasabi peanuts if anyone wants a spicier snack.
Listen, I’m as anti-male-circumcision-without-medical-reasons as the next liberal; and we’re gaining headway. It used to be about two-thirds of children assigned male were circumcised in the States. We’re below half now, and dropping. Attitudes are changing.
But to compare it to FGM is to compare a mild inconvenience that rarely harms anybody (but is pretty well opposite to a consent-based society) to… to FUCKING MUTILATION.
And that’s MRM-levels of wrong.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaaaaa!
No.
Why did the blockquoting completely disappear? I swear I typed the code 🙁
Oh, hey, I have a song for Kate.
I have an undying hatred for wasabi-anything ever since I was tricked into eating a wasabi nut when I was 12. It felt like some fireball capable of destroying my entire olfactory system. I’ll stick with popcorn.
Seriously, folks, this “it’s a woman’s job to be happy for the people around her” shit is why some women’s families had them lobotomized back in the day. It’s neither cute nor harmless.
One of my Dad’s favorite stories of his first business trip to Japan is how a bunch of his Japanese colleagues took him out to dinner and tricked him into eating a big mouthful of wasabi by claiming it was green tea ice cream.
One time my dad was eating Chinese with a guy who was deeply into wasabi, and my dad had no idea what he was doing, so he just copied the guy.
He loves to tell that story.
And not eat any wasabi at all.
MEZ: Feminists are often dismissive of men’s feelings because so many men’s feelings are wrapped up in the concepts of toxic masculinity in the first place. They’re reacting from a place of privilege and entitlement, and complaining that women being treated as equals is bad for them. To take these feelings into account–to even treat these feelings as valid in any meaningful way–would be to decide to give up on feminism.
Also, I take further objection to your claim that the MRM is the ‘biggest’ game in town for men. It’s certainly the biggest game in town for men who hate women, or are upset that they are getting called out on their bullshit. But for men who, say, want to actually do something to help men in genuine need, there’s plenty of other groups. Most of them are single-issue, with the primary exception being masculinity studies as a broad subject. So there’s groups for male DV victims, prison rights activists, and yes, anti-circumcision groups, and so on, all of which benefit men pretty directly, in segments.
But there’s nothing to prevent a man from joining multiple groups, thereby helping a larger number of men. There’s also nothing stopping men who feel the need from forging a single platform meant to push all of these issues at once. I don’t know that it’s ~needed~ but it certainly would be welcome. But the MRM is not about that; it’s never BEEN about that; acting like it has any chance of ever being about that requires sticking your head so far up your own ass that you can lick your tonsils.
The difference between bad actors in feminism and bad actors in the MRM is that the former attached themselves, barnacle-like, to the movement in question; they had goals that were set around revenge or hate rather than advancing women’s rights, and opted to try and glean some stolen respectability of the actual movement. The latter FOUNDED the movement, and continue to lead it today. They then found men like themselves to lead, and found some men genuinely in need and conned them. The entire movement thereby consists of users and suckers, and thus has no real ability to be reformed.
Holy shit. That’s pure evil. =P
@titan blue
ah, that makes sense. I just couldn’t tell if it was a ‘in general’ thing or a ‘MEZ thing’. Sorry.
@Cassandra
GOod job now I”m hungry for cupcakes. XD
@ally
Same here. I know my mom really benefits from the ‘think positive’ stuff, and while she realizes it isn’t something that works for everyone, I often get in quarrels with her because she hangs around a lot of people who do think it should work for everyone. A ‘I don’t like your friends’ thing, if that makes any sense?
@titanblue
Yay for microwave popcorn! 😀 I’ll send in a complaint to the hivemind, all of our secrect agents should have been informed about this yummyness much earlier. I promise, it won’t happen again XD
Good job, all, now I want to try wasabi.
Hi from New York! Apparently we’re supposed to be nicer to members of a hate group now?
I think I’ll carry on not being nice to bigots, whether they’re in the KKK or the MRM — until they renounce their bigotry, in which case I’m usually pretty nice.
Now I have to quickly read the Amy Schumer thing. I knew that was probably taken out of context, but didn’t have time to go look at what that context was.
@marie think a form of horse radish that in too large a quantity burns like ice through your sinuses and on straight through to the back of your skull. I love it.
@Ally:
This sentence is perfection. <3
@Cassandra:
You’re right, of course. I regret taking as soft a stance as I did in this thread.
@cloudiah:
Hello! How was your trip?
I’m getting pretty excited about my upcoming vacation in San Francisco, where, one presumes, it has not been snowing all spring.
@Titanblue
I’ve never had horse radish, but assumed from context wasabi was spicy and I reaaaalllly love spicy food. nom nom nom! 😀
@Marie: Wasabi is a bit different from stuff like chili. The latter burns your mouth, and as titianblue wrote, wasabi burns right through your sinuses. It’s a refreshing change, highly recommended. I love wasabi peanuts to bits.