Men’s Rights Activists and other antifeminists always hate it when feminists point them to dictionary definitions of feminism as “the advocacy of equal rights for men and women” (or similar) rather than “a seekrit cabal of evil spermjacking sluts that want to genocide all men,” which is what all MRAs apparently think feminism really is.
In the meme below, one anti-feminist tries to prove that dictionary definitions aren’t always right so there, and if the dictionary can get “tomato” wrong then it must have feminism wrong too!
Aw, dude. You tried. But apparently you didn’t bother to check the dictionary definition of “tomato” first. Here’s what you get if you type the words “tomato definition” into Google.
D’oh!
I noticed that he didn’t actually claim we call MRAs gay. Probably because he knows damn well that we don’t use gay as an insult around here. It’s easy to accuse of hating men because man-hating is ill defined. Anything up to and including not making every man who shows up here the center of our universe can be defined as misandry. Plus, there’s already that preexisting stereotype about feminists, so in theory the accusations put us on the defensive. But saying that we call MRAs gay and mean as an insult, that’s specific and easily refuted. So he avoided it. Which is a tacit admission that both sides are not in fact, the same.
Their fingers move upon the keyboard and all I hear is FAP FAP FAP.
So if feminism is really about equality…….
Where are all the feminists protesting against the routine surgical mutilation of infant boys in the US?
Where are all the feminists demanding the right to be drafted?
Where are all the feminists protesting against the 300 MILLION male soldiers marines seamen ect killed in action in the 20th century while women were safely exempt from the draft?
Where are all the feminists protesting unequal domestic violence law that require the removal or incarceration of the MAN in all incidents of domestic violence…… even when it was a woman hitting a man?
Where are all the feminists protesting the 20:1 male to female incarceration rates…. women getting shorter sentences for the same crimes…. and BETTER conditions in female prisons?
Where are all the feminists protesting unequal family courts where children automatically are taken away from fathers?
Where are all the feminists protesting alimony and child support payments? After all if women can do anything men can they can support their own kids right?
Actually, Jimbo, since you’re on about huge blind spots, how about YOURS? Because we have proof that MRAs, MGTOWs, etc. ARE bigots…it’s called THE REST OF THIS SITE. You can check it out anytime you like, but please do so before dropping comments like this again in future, ‘kay?
To go back to a previous meatball discussion, if someone calls you out on using meat when you are using vegetables in anyway, go old-school on them. “Meat” just meant “food” until the 13 or 14 hundreds. You still see this in things like “nutmeat” for the part of the nut you eat.
So just call the damn thing a meatball and claim you are trying to reclaim an old definition.
To go back to a previous meatball discussion, if someone calls you out on using meat when you are using vegetables in anyway, go old-school on them. “Meat” just meant “food” until the 13 or 14 hundreds. You still see this in things like “nutmeat” for the part of the nut you eat.
So just call the damn thing a meatball and claim you are trying to reclaim an old definition.
I hear an annoying whine again. Did the batteries run out on the bugzappers already? Would we be better off with citronella tiki torches?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7GIYVSsjGPU/TaUxKt9yT4I/AAAAAAAAMUU/fGg-BiS25uc/s1600/brady.jpg
@Just Asking – Have you thought about using Google? Because you can find the feminists you want using Google. (Or Bing, I guess. Honestly, I would use Duck Duck Go because it doesn’t track you the way Google does. But really any modern search engine should suffice.)
So off the top of my head I can answer a couple:
— Considering there is no draft, that’s kind of a moot point. There are feminists who have protested repeatedly for women to be in combat roles in the US. (I’m assuming you meant the US, since I’m sure you know that there are countries with forced military service which includes women, like Norway and Israel.)
— Why would feminists protest alimony and child support? They fought for the right to have to pay alimony and child support if they are the ones with the bigger income, which is a thing that happens all the time.
I don’t understand this question. Maybe it’s the grammar. What exactly is there to protest here? This happened in the 20th century and as lightcastle mentioned, feminists ARE fighting for more women in the military AT PRESENT. How are we supposed to protest deaths that happened decades ago? It’s not going to bring those men back from the dead. And again – this was in the past. What are we supposed to do about it when many of us weren’t even alive at that point in time?
Gonna address the drive-by C&P troll:
Gonna address these three together. Feminists are not out protesting against every bad thing under the sun. They are, instead, focusing on those issues that affect women. That said, feminists do not support cosmetic male infant circumcision, and would, in fact, generally support efforts to ban it.
The draft is more nuanced. There’s two different common schools of feminist thought:
1: Pacifist feminists generally oppose conscription entirely.
2: Non-pacifist feminists agree that women should be subject to conscription equally.
Note that both of these are positions of equality.
Finally, feminists support the right of women in the military to serve in combat roles. It’s been men who’ve been resisting that change.
Care to cite an actual law that does this?
You’ll need to clarify what you’re looking for here. Generally, no, feminists aren’t going to be out there demanding longer sentences for women convicted of theft or what have you. That would be stupid.
However, they also aren’t demanding that men receive longer sentences than women; that’s a product of a racist society that’s decided the best thing to do with a large number of poor young black men is lock them up on the flimsiest pretexts available, so as to ensure that they cannot get out of the poverty trap.
They’re back in the 1950s, when this was actually the case. Nowadays, if a man bothers to fight for custody at all, he’s actually more likely than the woman to win, because ‘best interest of the child’ usually factors in financial aspects, and the man is likely to come out of the divorce in better financial shape. However, a shockingly large proportion of men never so much as ask for joint custody (let alone primary or sole custody).
Again, your ignorance of the law post-1950 is rather appalling. Men can be awarded alimony, and if they do get custody, can seek child support payments as well. The reason that this is comparatively rare is because society pushes women into lower-paying jobs, making it far less likely that a woman is going to have the superior income. As noted above, she’s also more likely to get custody because the man isn’t interested in it.
@Just Asking
We have plenty of feminists just on this blog who don’t agree with male circumcisions. You should get out of your bubble more. We also have plenty of feminists who criticize the US criminal justice system. You’re arguing against a straw feminist.
It’s usually a good idea to ask what a person believes, rather than telling them what they believe.
As for women’s rights relating to military service, you should know that feminists have been arguing for equal rights in that sphere for a long time. MRAs tend to oppose this, yet they keep whining about it. You can’t have it both ways.
Of course, we can’t be expected to protest imaginary courts and imaginary DV statistics that only exist in the MRA hivemind narrative.
I’m not sure why you’d expect feminists to take the position that women should single handedly support their children financially, with no help from the father. I’m also not sure why you would call that ‘equality’.
It’s also confusing that you expect women to take care of their children with no help from the father, yet you want fathers to gain custody of said children in court. How would that even logically work?
http://i.imgur.com/vVb5QCS.png
If feminists are so great then how come they aren’t constantly talking about MY pet issue?!?!
Those tiki torches are a fire hazard and probably have toxic chemicals in them that get released into the air we breath when they’re burning.
Why can’t we just have our toxic chemicals dumped upon us by planes like they did back in the good old days.
@Just Asking:
Unless you’re intentionally giving away the fact that you’re here without any intent to have an actual discussion, that’s a really poor nym you’ve chosen for yourself. It’s the cardinal cry of people who are trying to get “gotcha”s over on their ideological opponents.
Also, under the assumption that you are, indeed, trying to say “gotcha, feminsits!”, this is a really bad place to come out with those particular arguments, considering how many of the feminist women around here who –
1. Think circumcision is a problem (maybe? I can’t remember, actually, it’s been a while since I’ve seen that topic come up)
2. Very much agree that women should be allowed in military roles
and
3. Well, I’m gonna need a big fat citation for all the rest of your points, actually.
First of all, I’m not sure I see the point in protesting things like the World Wars and Vietnam, etc. today. All of those things are over and done with, what exactly is going to be accomplished by… I dunno, feminists saying that 300 million women need to be killed in the line of duty? What are you even asking here?
Also, the whole court situation does tend to be a widely-debated topic as well. However, you seem to be saying that the solution is for women to be treated more poorly, rather than improving circumstances for men. How, exactly, is that helpful?
Just Asking started out with a couple good points but sadly then devolved into “if feminists are so great why aren’t they protesting the injustices that I hear about on MRA forums (and only in MRA forums)?”
EDIT:: And by good points I mean problems that really do affect men, not the “feminists aren’t pandering to my concerns!” whine.
Wait. Is justasking/jamie/james/Aris really trying to claim that feminists don’t protest war? I’ve protested it. I’m sure others here have too.
There’s a whole group of anti-war feminists
http://www.codepink.org/
What is with this MRA narrative that feminists love when men are sent to war? It just has absolutely no connection to reality. Who are these feminist hawks? I’ve sure never encountered them.
Neither have MRAs, but when was the last time they let something like reality change their thinking? If the misogynist echo chamber says it, then it must be true! THE ECHO CHAMBER HAS SPOKEN.
Do me a favour and never become a parent.
I’m not so sure that JA is coming back. I think he just wanted to write out a “gotcha” and then leave, feeling smug and imagining all us feminists falling over in a tizzy as we realised we’ve been outsmarted by the power of Man Lojik. Our flaws! Our weaknesses! Oh noes, feminism ISN’T about equality like we thought! Who knew all it would take was a passing MRA to shed sunlight on the cobwebs! Ahhhhhhh Noooooooo!!!
@ Just Asking
There hasn’t been a draft in nearly 50 years, but feminists had been protesting every draft and heavily involved in the antiwar movement ever since it began with the suffrage movement around the WWI, when the WILPF (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom), Women Waging Peace, and other antiwar organisations organized events with turnouts in the thousands to protest the policy. So that’s where they all are and always have been.
Investigation into the allegations of bias in family courts concluded it to be a myth. They found that men are given full or joint custody in 70% of all court cases where fathers actively pursued it, the catch is that only 4% of all divorces every proceed to court and only 1.5% complete litigation.
The other 96% of divorce custody arrangements are agreed upon by the parents without a fight or legal third party telling them what to do. In these cases settled outside of court the parents agreed that the mother become the custodial parent 51% percent of the time, which means that fathers get custody almost exactly half the time. So you really have no basis to claim bias.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathy-meyer/dispelling-the-myth-of-ge_b_1617115.html
As for whining about child support, the average payment is $40-60 per week, which is pretty fatuous and dramatic to compare to “indentured servitude”. It’s also not even half the financial support or hands-on, full-time effort that the child requires, the custodial parent is paying more and doing more unpaid work. Fathers also receive child support when they are the custodial parents, but as they probably discover quickly, single parenthood is not a gravy train.
Don’t create children you have no intention of supporting, and don’t put your sperm into female reproductive organs without taking any precautions and then try to act surprised and walk away like it has nothing to do with you. Yeah, if woman can do anything men can, then it’s fair that MEN can also take some responsibility for their own children.
Men are incarcerated at a higher rate compared to women because the fact is that they commit crime at a higher rate, particularly violent crime. When women commit crime it is usually a misdemeanor or non-violent felony, hence less overcrowded and violent prisons. However, it was feminism that demanded women be held accountable for their own crimes rather than passing the responsibility on to their male guardians. Feminism has also been heavily involved in the call for a reformed and less punitive justice system, including addressing the prison rape issue and forcing legal changes.
@GenJones
BOOM!! Nicely done.
I guess Just Asking has never heard that Susan B. Anthony demanded to be arrested “like a man,” with no special privileges attached to her being a woman, back when she was fighting for the right to vote.
Coming out of lurking just to say that tomato aspic is gross. I feel it’s important to have that on record.
Oh, look, an entire book about feminists protesting World War I.