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.
‘he’ll wonder why his penis doesn’t look like his father’s.’
And maybe his father will just tell him the truth. That Dad had a piece removed because it was the custom long ago when Dad was young and that the kid could choose for himself, once he was a grown-up, whether he wanted to do the same or not.
Wait, if MEZ is banned that means we’ll never find out what she planned to do after she got back to Howard. We’ll never know if she was going to post a cogent point that contributed positively to the discussion at hand, or make an uncomfortable comment about Howard’s penis. Probably the latter, but we can’t be ever be certain of that.
I love how she provided an origin story that explains her current role as Anti-Circumcision Feminist Woman. At another time, she was just a regular citizen until one fateful day
the Joker murdered her parentsshe was disgusted by what feminists said about male circumcision during a discussion of FGM. Now she patrols the internet in search of feminists discussions aboutFGManything and derails them with her male circumcision truth bombs, in order to prevent bad feminists from driving slighted men into the arms of the MRM. A hero’s job is never done, especially one trying to save feminism from feminists.I guess we should at least have given her a cape as a gift before she left.
Maybe she’s still lurking
http://giphy.com/gifs/fGABZhiUzwi2c
Hi, brooked, how are you? Been a while. 🙂
So often with sex/genital-related stuff, people act like “just explain it to your kids” is somehow not a viable option. But seriously, what’s so hard about this?
Why does it even have to be that complicated? People look different in all sorts of ways. This is just another of them.
@cassandra
that’s shockingly accurate. 😛
@david
thanks for banning her.
Or maybe hawkward.
RE: contrapangloss
No, you’ve been perfectly decent! And frankly, I’m kind of accustomed to educating wherever I go. (I think now enough people at Mammoths know that I don’t have to do it so much but then again, that whole kladle clusterfuck was a while ago…) If any of the baby Mammoths wonder what the hell I’m on about HERE YOU GO.
RE: Robert
I’d read in a pro-circumcision piece – advocating it on the basis of ‘he’ll wonder why his penis doesn’t look like his father’s.’
*snarky face* Well, my dick doesn’t look like my father’s, but seeing as I’m trans, I don’t think anything can be done about that. Somehow, I’ve managed to endure life while knowing this fact.
Also, seriously, what the hell is MEZ’s fucking DEAL? She’s fucking preaching to people with penises about how they should feel about them. I mean, I’m against circumcision, but I’m not going to go around saying, “I WILL GET TO YOU.” I mean, Jesus, try to sound more like a Saw villain, Christ.
cloudiah: You are in New York? Ping me.
re wasabi: most of what is sold in the US/outside Japan isn’t really wasabi, but rather horseradish, food coloring and just enough wasabi root to make it legal to say, “wasabi powder”.
Real wasabi is a related, but much less aggressive, somewhat floral/earthy flavor. It’s also (so I am told) different when freshly grated as opposed to powdered.
A friend of mine was going on about how Wasabi is so much more potent than horseradish. I averred that it wasn’t so very different. We were at a party, at my house. At the party (a barbecue) we had just opened a jar of grated horseradish. He decided to prove to me that it wasn’t so bad.
He dipped a full-load into a Frito’s Scoop and popped it into his mouth, and I got to see a Tex Avery Cartoon in real life. His face went red, his eyes popped, and then shrank into his head, and he emptied the bottle of beer in his hand.
I calmly dipped a fair bit into a chip, ate it, and then did it again.
My grandmother’s house had been a horseradish farm. I grew up eating it on buttered bread.
Just going to repeat my thanks from before. Unfortunately I don’t live in an area where there’s common-law marriage, so I don’t know what I would get in a breakup. I’ve been thinking of going to therapy because I’ve been pretty depressed lately and I’m starting to get far too angry at things that don’t deserve anger. I don’t want to leak anger onto my kids or the people around me.
Mez: Gee, I wonder how entire blocks of decent normal people end up part of hate groups. I wonder how this sort of manipulation has repeated throughout history.
Nawwwww, can’t be it! Hate-groups are only filled with “bad people”. I bet all Germans are bad people.
sarcasm, sarcasm, sarcasm.
The fuck is your point here?
Because I don’t see anyone saying all men are bad. I also don’t see how the idea that the victims of oppression need to be nice to the oppressors helps anyone.
Why are their hate groups? Because some people hate. How do they gain/remain powerful? Because idiots don’t call them out for being hateful. Because fellow travellers say, “they may be wrong, but they aren’t completely wrong and “those people” aren’t grateful enough for the good things which happened. All they do is talk about the bad things,” yadda, yadda.
You know, the way you are doing with the MRM.
I was obviously making fun of the idea that people join hate groups because they are bad people and not because they are manipulated.
No*. Your point was that people join hate groups because the people they feel wrong them (e.g. proto-MRAs and women) aren’t nice enough. That makes them angry and the hate group fuels the anger. You aver that should the target of their ire be nice, they will see the error of their ways.
This is bullshit.
*and if you read “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” you will find more evidence of your errors; even if the book wasn’t the groundbreaker it was ballyhooed to be. It was just the first real analysis of that aspect done in English.
Magpie (long time no see): My friend didn’t fall into the MRM. He was tempted, but had people who didn’t let him walk alone; and kept him from being led down the garden path.
MEz: How did we get talking about anti-semetism[sic] anyway?
You introduced it, the same way you introduced circumcision, and those nasty black folks who caused the KKK.
My point was about lending credibility to your oppressors, not being at fault for your oppression.
Bullshit. Bigots gonna bigot. People who are bigoted will take the least scrap of, “evidence” and use it to prove the targets of their hate deserve it.
The law made it worse to have crack cocaine than it was to have powder. So a lot more blacks end up in prison. Then the KKK, etc. go on about how “blacks are prone to crime”. That also means there is a greater percentage of women who are raising children alone/without men, and that shows they are all harlots.
Because bigots gonna bigot.
MEZ: a). The clitoral hood is the foreskin of the clitoris. LITERALLY. The clitoris and penis are homogolous.
Homologous is not identical. Removing the clitoral hood reduces (dramtically) the ability of women to enjoy sex. That, in fact, is the fucking point. Removing the foreskin doesn’t. It is argued that men who have been circumsised enjoy sex less. This is hard to prove.
It’s not hard to prove that even the least traumatic forms of FGM make sex unpleasant; not merely less wonderful (and, from personal experience, I can say sex while circumcised is pretty good, even when it’s less than wonderful), but downright unpleasant.
Since the declared purpose is to make sex unpleasant so women won’t do it willingly (and so won’t be “unfaithful”). That also means the desired end state of FGM is to make all sex a form of rape.
The foreskin’s “job” is to protect the sensitive skin of the rest of the penis from getting calloused by constant rubbing and bumping
Their is no way to prove what the, “job” is. One can as easily argue the point of the foreskin is to make it easier to penetrate an unwilling woman, because the smegma acts a a lubricant.
Well, I’ve never personally seen a commercial for douche, EVER, but that’s besides the point.
Never? Where the fuck have you been hiding? Not only have I seen lots, I’ve seen them in the past few years; and I watch practically no television anymore (thank goodness for streaming and DVDs).
Freemange said that circumcising boys was no worse than girl’s douching.
Liar. He said the relative merits of the two were more equivalent to the discussion.
If you are going to pretend people here are misrepresenting you, it might behoove you to be accurate when attempting to relate others words.
Obviously I don’t want to do violent things to him. That’s a literal description of a circumcision procedure.
More bullshit. Have you ever been present at a circumcision? I have (more than one, actually). My little brother (21 years my junior) is also circumcised. They used a pederson clamp. He wasn’t tied down. The doctor put it on, and a few says later it fell off, with the forskin.
So far as could be seen, it wasn’t painful.
In jewish practice the child is being held, not tied down.
So, in short, you are full of it, and the graphic nature of your fantasies tells me more about you than I wanted to know.
Oh, and Pecumium’s argument is that circumcision is okay because babies don’t remember and children don’t understand what circumcision is or is not.
My argument was a rebutle to your claim of direct memory, and to the idea that it does irreparable harm.
a). Babies remember, even if it’s not a conscious memory. Every experience influences how their brain forms.
And… the issue is one of harm. I have done myself much more grievous harm than the pain of my circumcision is likely to have caused.
Because (having studied psychology), babies can’t ascribe cause, intent, etc., to the pains they feel. From the POV of an infant the pain which comes of slashing their faces with the razor blades they keep at the end of their fingers. If a cat claws a baby it hurts much the same as circumcision (i.e. it is a cut). It may even be worse, because cat’s scratches are prone to festering.
If you want to make the argument; you need those statistics you promised.
b). Even if they really didn’t remember, causing someone pain because “they won’t remember” is wrong.
Good thing that wasn’t the argument. The question is one of relative harm, and the faiures of feminism because they don’t make as big a deal about male circumcision as they do about FGM.
Again, it behooves you to be intellectually honest when presenting others arguments.
c). Just because he’s learned to live with it, and maybe isn’t bothered by it, doesn’t mean it’s ok.
Good thing I didn’t say that. I in fact didn’t say a fucking thing about my personal opinions about the subject. I spoke to the idea that circumcision is comparable to FGM (see above why it’s not).
I got ZERO pleasure.
I don’t believe you. I will grant, arguendo that writing it didn’t, per se give you pleasure. I do think, however, you took pleasure in the idea that you made him (and others) squirm.
Ach… I am sorry if my replies to Mez are tedious; given the (blessed) banning.
I am not sorry for making them; as I still think the points needed making.
And Mez, if you are haunting the thread; you deserved worse than you got. You are an asshole; and you take pleasure in being dishonest, and in attempting to hurt others.
I watched the video, and… ugh.
I kept waiting for him to mention at least the fact that several ancient philosophies have specifically promoted ‘living in the moment’, but I was doomed to disappointment. I freely acknowledge I’m not an expert on every philosophy, but one of the big principles of buddhism is called ‘mindfulness’, of which a large component is paying attention to the moment. And I’m also fairly certain that at least one Taoist text advocates a version of mindfulness – some part of my brain says it’s from the Tao Te Ching, but my brain gets fuzzy when I’m trying to remember something I haven’t read in over a decade, and it was a translation at that – so I may be totally wrong about it.
So this isn’t exactly what I’d call a grand new insight into human nature thanks to science (though it is always good to get verifiable data!). I can’t tell if the dude actually thinks he’s reinvented the wheel, or is shamelessly stealing from other cultures without even a mention of where he got his inspiration.
Dude didn’t even acknowledge how old the idea of living in the moment is?
I am shocked, shocked I say. ::eyeroll::
@Kitteh A belated hi back. I just adopted two rescue cats after a few years of pet-free living and happy as hell about that. Sounds like your jaunt to the States went well.
Haven’t been on the site for a while, returning only to see a troll get weird, implode and sent off with a vintage pecunium’s lengthy post excavation. You can go home again!
@pecunium. I’m glad you challenged MEZ’s bullshit claim that babies are traumatized by direct memories of their circumcision. Some babies get seriously injured and all babies get sick, and can suffer a lot of pain as a result. They get over it and forget it happened.
Here’s a recent article about infantile amnesia:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/birth-new-brain-cells-might-erase-babies’-memories
Robert:
This argument would make a little more sense if it was about a boy comparing himself to other boys (or even porn performers), which I guess would be more likely in mainstream US culture? But then, it’s really about validating circumcision as a family tradition, and validating the father’s own circumcision.
ENVY ENVY ENVY
I’ve been wanting a third kitty for a while (can’t afford to, alas). I hope there will be pictures of your two!
The amount of people claiming that removing healthy genital tissue isn’t comparable to removing healthy genital tissue is /really/ fucking horrible.
What the fuck are you people doing on a feminist and egalitarian site?
Arian, GTFO. Our arguments are far more nuanced than that, and maybe you would agree if you actually took time to read the damn thread. We’ve had this argument within countless pages of comments already and there is no reason go in circles just because you don’t get what we’re saying.