@RoboBlue:
Men's rights groups seem to accomplish very little, and like feminists many of them do hate the other side. Unlike feminists, there are very few MRAs and (as you stated) the president of the united states is a feminist. I can't say that men's rights groups haven't been unproductive in working to accomplish those points that you agree are valid, but it's clear that feminism is openly endorsed, spread, and often mandated by the establishment. Men don't have a similar movement with even a thousandth of the influence.
I mean, you're basically agreeing with me here.
The point you seem to be making is that since MRAs are few in number at this point, that we can't yet judge them despite everything I said about their tactics and ideals is for the most part true at this point.
@RoboBlue:
It is a movement largely in reaction to feminism, yes. However, you'll find that many civil rights movements have their roots in emotion-fueled reactions to oppression and hate. Malcolm X stands out as a shining example of someone raised in a societal kiln of hate and who grew better than his peers and oppressors to made a positive difference in the world.
Here's the thing tho. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was active at around the same time as Macolm X. What's more, Malcom X had to grow to get better and make it to the point that he had that positive effect.
If the typical MRA is the ineffective kind you agreed was the norm before, can you point me to the more peaceful kind? The "MLK" equivalent if you will.
The onus is on the "MRAs" to better themselves and make themselves into a real force for change and good. It's not wrong to criticize the current ilk that only want to bash feminists.
@RoboBlue:
You have to understand that while a majority of feminists do not believe that all men should be grouped together as a sort of amalgamated oppressor to be judged and hated, misandry runs rampant within the feminist community and almost all feminist speakers have adopted a Reagan-esque policy of "never criticize a feminist". This solidarity between normal, healthy activists and misandrists advocating violence is extremely damaging to men's (and the public's) view of feminism.
In short, feminists need to clean house and disown the crazies (which can be done, they're a minority) while making real progress to promote the men's issues that most seem to agree on.
I can agree to this entirely, however I don't think it justifies MRAs prioritizing attacking Feminism as their primary purpose while relegating any legitimate issues as secondary.
@RoboBlue:
Yeah, no. Misandry has grown up and is now its own self-sustaining problem, so you can't claim that eliminating misogyny (a goal I agree with) will solve it. All existing legal authorities are trained (by society or otherwise) to assume that in cases of domestic abuse, the man is the assumed aggressor. This is institutionalized misandry, the core problem driving the rising popularity of men's rights and anti-feminist groups in the west.
I'm sorry, but no. I'll agree "Misandry" can be a thing since the basic definition of it is just "Man hating" but "institutionalized misandry"? No, that's not a thing. The system still overwhelming favors men in almost all situations.
Again, I agree there are times when men are hurt to some extent by the issues in the system, but those issues aren't born of "The system hates men", at least not fully.
@RoboBlue:
I have to stop you there, because you've already shown your hand: you assume that the men's rights movement is illegitimate and needs to hide its true nature, when in reality the men's rights movement has legitimate issues and its supporters cannot be dismissed so easily.
Poor choice of words on my part perhaps. What I meant by "Legitimacy" in this case is the same problems you agreed were problems earlier in this post. The idea that they're focusing more attention on attacking Feminists than advocating for their actual issues. The fact that this has made them largely ineffectual and has made nobody take them seriously at all.
That's what I meant by "Legitimate".
If a movement wants to be taken seriously, they have to step up and BE serious. You can't start an ineffectual movement and then insist nobody criticize them yet until they get off their feet. It's THEIR job to mature as a movement, move past attacking Feminists and really make a difference.
@RoboBlue:
I agree with that as a partial explanation, but it falls within a larger pattern of sympathy bias towards women. As I stated previously, over 90% of our prison population is male. Obviously a major part of the problem is that we send far too many people to prison, but the sheer scale of the disproportion screams bias.
The "Sympathy Bias towards women" you mention is born from misogyny however. The idea that women are weak and therefore NEED that sympathy is the problem.
@RoboBlue:
This one's entirely speculation. Why do we even need to use misogyny as a boogeyman to increase awareness of and empathy for male victims? How has blaming the rape of men on misogyny helped at all, really?
It's not entirely speculation, it's a well-documented factor in the situation of sexual assault with male victims. I've very heavily researched this.
There are several papers, organizations, andexperts who have commented on this as, at least a factor.
Examples:
@Ohio State University Rape Education and Prevention Program:
On average, somewhere between 5-10% of rapes reported to service providers like rape crisis centers and police
departments are male-on-male sexual assaults. However, approximately 90- 95% of men who are raped do not report
it (Forman 1982). In a study on male rape survivors he had counseled, one therapist found an unusually high incidence
of denial and repression after the assault (Myers 1989). The stigma of apparent weakness in having been raped often
prevents a survivor from coming forward.
@Pandora's Project - Sexual Abuse Survivor Support Group:
Anyone can be sexually assaulted / raped, regardless of their gender, size, strength, appearance or sexual orientation. The vast majority of the literature or discussion about sexual assault / rape is discussed from the perspective of the female victim, and as such, there has been a “feminization of victimiszation” (Sepler, 1990). Until very recently, there has been very little in the mass media about male victims of sexual assault, and this absence leads to the belief that sexual assault simply doesn't happen to men. This is untrue.
[…]
From very young children, we are taught that boys and men should be "brave", "strong" and "tough" - and therefore it is understandable that experiences which leave you feeling scared, vulnerable and abused can leave some men feeling inadequate and ashamed.
Being victimized in this way is certainly not an indication of a manliness or physical strength. It's important to appreciate that rape / sexual assault is about the abuse of power and control. Certainly this power can be in the form of physical strength, but it can also be in the form of psychological control, emotional blackmail, abuse when incapacitated, coercion etc.
@Susan Howley:
There are increased barriers for any sexual-assault victims, men or women, and all these barriers are that much higher for men
[…]
Perceptions that men are supposed to be able to defend themselves, and distressing issues of self-doubt about sexuality and manliness, all factor into the equation
I'm not trying to say this is the ONLY reason for this, again, maybe my choice of words was poor in expressing that, BUT it's definitely a factor.
There are plenty of people out there who would argue that Gender shouldn't be a binary and will rail against it and decry labels and say they're what's hurting us as a society etc, etc and I won't argue that point here, but the point does stand that the Gender Binary, that being what counts as traditionally "Masculine" or traditionally "Feminine" HAS been defined by our society AS a binary.
It's a well documented fact that several male rape survivors HAVE noted a reluctance to come forward because it makes them feel like they're "Less of a man". One of the links I shared above was a resource for Male rape victims organized as an FAQ for these folks, and it had an entire "Question" dedicated to the notion that "being raped automatically means you are gay".
It's an offshoot of the notion that men can't show emotion or cry for the same reasons.
The issue is that too many times and unnecessarily some people associate men crying with being weak, effeminate, or gay. The projection conveyed is that a man is somehow less than whole if any or too much emotion is displayed.
In this case, displaying a quality that our society has dictated falls on the "Feminine" side of the gender binary is automatically a bad thing.
It all ends up boiling down to this:
Society has an issue with Institutionalized Misogyny. That manifests in many ways, but one of them is the notion that Men are supposed to be strong and women are supposed to be weak. So a man showing this "weakness" is instantly a bad thing.
You may argue how much or little Misogyny plays a part, but my point is that it DOES play a part. It's involved in the process.
This all goes back to my notion that if "MRAs" want to be taken seriously, they have to stop making their primary goal attacking Feminists. There needs to be a real notion of "Ok hey, Misogyny sucks and we need to stop it, but some of the stuff that's going on in our system is affecting men negatively too. Can we tackle this together?"
@RoboBlue:
That's not unlike saying "I can't find one openly gay person who isn't a pedophile" in the 50s.
False equivalency, but if you're going down that road…
The LGBT community has, for years, worked on educating people through love, not hate. Attacking people never got us anywhere.
If all LGBT people ever did was complain about how "Christians are evil and their ideology is irredeemable and they're monsters" we would never have gotten anywhere.
The overarching message was "If you're Christian, that's ok and you're cool and you should keep on being cool, but we aren't actually hurting anyone and we have have legitimate secular issues we need to address".
Are there LGBT people who hate Christians and attack them? Yeah, there are, but the community as a whole has focused on moving forward and progress rather than attacking the "Other side" of the argument, and that has largely moved us to the point that we are widely accepted as a whole.
We did that. It wasn't on anybody else to give us the benefit of the doubt, and it wasn't on them to just blindly open their minds and accept us. It was on US to focus the overall message in a positive way to help make people receptive of it.
@RoboBlue:
If you see MRAs as purely woman-hating, you'll dismiss legitimate criticisms.
I don't however. I've stated several times I'm aware there are some legitimate concerns to be addressed. I'm purely talking about tactics.
"MRAs" need to focus the message on a national level. You'll honestly NEVER fully get rid of the bad apples, it just won't happen. However, If "MRA" is going to be a real thing with actual momentum, then there needs to be a breakout movement of positivism that overshadows the bile and feminism hate.
You seem to be making the argument that this is the natural growing pains phase that any political movement goes through, and you've cited a few examples (Civil Rights, LGBT rights etc) but in ALL of those situations, it was ultimately the people WITHIN those movements that made a positive impact and educated the public and became a full-blown thing.
When Malcolm X was resorting to violence at first, it's hard to defend, he himself had a change of heart and became a positive force. THAT'S what enacted the change, not the negativity and the blame.