David Futrelle dug deep into the Men’s Rights Movement, looking for some kind of activism. Here’s what he found.
When I started my blog Man Boobz around six months ago, I intended to mostly discuss the issues motivating those in the Men’s Rights Movement, and to highlight some of the sillier misogynist emanations from men’s rights activists (MRAs). But the more I delved into the movement online, the more convinced I became that, for most of those involved in it, the movement isn’t really about the issues at all—rather, it’s an excuse to vent male rage and spew misogyny online.
To borrow a phrase from computer programmers: misogyny isn’t a bug in the Men’s Rights Movement; it’s a feature.
Men’s rights activists aren’t much like any other activists I’ve ever run across. For one thing, for supposed activists they 
are almost completely inactive. Sure, they complain endlessly about things they see as terrible injustices against men. They just don’t do anything about them. While some of those who consider themselves fathers’ rights activists—a slightly different breed from your garden-variety MRAs—try to influence laws and legislatures, MRAs do little more than cultivate their resentments.
MRAs complain about (and dramatically overstate the number of) false rape accusations, but instead of mounting media campaigns or protests or anything else that would involve trying to bring this issue to a wider world, the overwhelming majority of MRAs seem content to use the issue as an excuse to rant about lying bitches online. MRAs, meanwhile, are quick to raise the issue prison rape (which mostly affects men) whenever rape is being discussed, but generally only to score rhetorical points; very few MRAs seem to even be aware there is an established national organization, Just Detention, devoted to fighting prison rape.
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Similarly, MRAs complain that there are virtually no domestic violence shelters specifically designed for male victims, but unlike the feminists and other activists who fought for years to get the woman-centered shelters we have today, MRAs seem content to gripe that feminists haven’t given them shelters, too. The closest thing we’ve seen to an actual activist campaign from MRAs on this issue was when Glenn Sacks, a fathers’ rights activist, called on his supporters to besiege the biggest donors to one domestic-violence shelter serving mostly women—they had run an ad Sacks didn’t like—in an attempt to get them to stop donating to the shelter. That’s right: instead of trying to raise money to build domestic-violence shelters for men, Sacks’ fans instead tried to take money away from a shelter for women.
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MRAs are as sensitive to signs of oppression as the princess from “The Princess and the Pea.”
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At its heart, men’s rights activism doesn’t really seem to be about activism at all. What the movement has turned into is a strange parody of “victim feminism,” an endless search for proof that men (despite earning more than women, heading up the overwhelming majority of companies and governments in the world, getting all the best movie roles, never having to wear heels, and so on and so on and so on) are in fact second-class citizens.
MRAs are as sensitive to signs of oppression as the princess from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Princess and the Pea,” who was able to detect the presence of a pea under 20 mattresses. No sign of “oppression” is too trivial to whine about; these are people who think that whenever a woman “gets away with” calling a man a “creep”—apparently the worst insult in the world, far worse than “slut” or “bitch” or other insults directed at women that I cannot repeat here—it is a sign that women “sit on a pedestal of privilege.”
Others see themselves as besieged by women … dressing slutty. One would-be patriarch complained on a forum promoting patriarchy that “dressing provocatively and then suppressing male urges is an assault on men’s sexuality.” By “suppressing male urges” he essentially means not having sex with any man who lusts after her. Meanwhile, his idea of “dressing provocatively” includes wearing blue jeans, “because a tight pair of jeans will accentuate a woman’s legs and buttocks. High heels meet the same conflict as tight jeans, while they may not show extra skin, they accentuate a woman’s legs and buttocks. “Even uncovered hair is bad,” as “raw, long hair can excite men.”
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Next: A vacation from empathy
About David Futrelle
The false rape accusation is another problem that Amanda Marcotte’s solution of “more feminism” would work for. Destroy rape culture & everybody wins.
From the no. 1 online delineation of rape culture at Shakesville:
“Rape culture is 1 in 33 men being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is encouraging men to use the language of rape to establish dominance over one another (“I’ll make you my bitch”). Rape culture is making rape a ubiquitous part of male-exclusive bonding. Rape culture is ignoring the cavernous need for men’s prison reform in part because the threat of being raped in prison is considered an acceptable deterrent to committing crime, and the threat only works if actual men are actually being raped.”
From a source on Enthusiastic consent:
“The enthusiastic consent model makes the person who initiates physical contact responsible, regardless of gender, for fighting against the culture of victim blaming. Under this model, the person initiating contact is required to take account of and not exploit a relationship, the other person’s intoxicated state, or the power of peer pressure or social conditioning. No matter what the type of contact, the initiating party must get genuine consent. It is not acceptable to touch another person who has not given affirmative permission, no matter how harmless it seems to the one doing the touching.
Read more at Suite101: Using Enthusiastic Consent to Fight Rape Culture: Defining Sexual Assault Broadly and Avoiding Victim Blaming”
Oh yes sir, feminists don’t care about male rape?
Read your own study, I just did:
Also, the study says:
Men:
“Table 1 presents descriptive information concerning the per- centage of men who sustained forced sex, verbal sexual co- ercion, and a history of CSA. Almost 3% of men reported forced sex and 22% reported verbal coercion.” (p 412)
Women:
“2.3% of the [female] sample overall reported sustaining forced sex from their current or most recent romantic partner, and close to 25% of the female sample sustained verbal sexual coercion.” (p 414)
Notice the difference between those two measures? Overall history of sexual coercion (men) vs. sexual coercion with most recent partner (women).
The data are weighted to draw the conclusion.
Again, I am not surprised that so many men report sexual victimisation; feminist theory asserts that male rapes are ignored because of patriarchal culture. Observe, the Curvature, a popular feminist blog:
“When a Man is the Victim: A Second Study in Rape Apology”
The link to that article:
http://thecurvature.com/2009/03/20/when-a-man-is-the-victim-a-second-study-in-rape-apology/
3% is how many men report forced sex in their previous relationship as well. Read the study. The authors did not ask *anyone* about sexual abuse sustained throughout their lifetime.
I like how switchingtoglide noted only one statistic in her post, coming directly from Shakesville, one of the most popular feminist blogs: that 1 in 33 men are sexually assaulted…
Then Eogan accuses her of “abusing statistics” and then lists statistics that feminists are “hiding”… the first being that “3% of men reported forced sex.”
Sigh.
Men:
“Table 1 presents descriptive information concerning the per- centage of men who sustained forced sex, verbal sexual co- ercion, and a history of CSA. Almost 3% of men reported forced sex and 22% reported verbal coercion.” (p 412)
Women:
“2.3% of the [female] sample overall reported sustaining forced sex from their current or most recent romantic partner, and close to 25% of the female sample sustained verbal sexual coercion.” (p 414)
What you and others are missing about this statistic is that 3% of men reported forced sex that occurred at any point in their LIFETIME. Whereas 2.3 % of women reported forced sex from their CURRENT OR MOST RECENT romantic partner.
Wow, this is the worst misrepresentation of that study yet.
3% is how many men report forced sex in their previous relationship as well. Read the study. The authors did not ask *anyone* about sexual abuse sustained throughout their lifetime.
I think you misread my post. My critique was of Eogan, not of switchingtoglide. E cited the same statistic S did, then accused S of “hiding” it.
That is what I have been trying to say! How is that hiding anything! The feminist estimate of 1/33 is actually slightly higher than the MRA estimate of 3%!
switchtoglide,
That study is, in fact, the largest and most multi-cultural exploration of sexual violence in relationships yet undertaken.
Other studies that use it’s methodology find similar rates of sexual violence.
You both don’t seem to see the obvious issue, which has been outlined twice by me and once by someone else; READ:
Men:
“Table 1 presents descriptive information concerning the per- centage of men who sustained forced sex, verbal sexual co- ercion, and a history of CSA. Almost 3% of men reported forced sex and 22% reported verbal coercion.” (p 412)
Women:
“2.3% of the [female] sample overall reported sustaining forced sex from their current or most recent romantic partner, and close to 25% of the female sample sustained verbal sexual coercion.” (p 414)
Notice the difference between those two measures? Overall history of sexual coercion (men) vs. sexual coercion with most recent partner (women).
The data are weighted to draw the conclusion.
The study does not measure women over the course of a lifetime, but measures men over a lifetime.
switchintoglide,
Read the study again.
Here is a quote from the study in their limitations section:
“Finally, the measure of adult sexual victimization in the current study may not have captured all the sexual victimization experiences of the participants. For example, participants reported only sexual victimization experiences in the past year of their current or most recent romantic relationship, and therefore, any prior sexual victimization experiences would not have been captured.”
All participants, male and female, were reporting only sexual victimization experiences in the past year of their current or most recent romantic relationship.
I’m hoping you’re just confused and not perpetuating misinformation.
YES!! Agreed! Thank you!
“Prominent MRA Paul Elam’s response to Domestic Violence Awareness Month last October was to, er, humorously proclaim October to be “Bash a Violent Bitch Month,” and to fantasize about “beating the living shit” out of any woman who physically abuses men in any way. Elam has also famously declared that because he sees rape laws as being unfair to men, if he were “called to sit on a jury for a rape trial, I vow publicly to vote not guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the charges are true.””
WAIT what? & this guy has been allowed to use a blog called “Good” Men Project as a forum on multiple occasions? What the hell?
Also, please review our commenting policy.
No quoting of facts?
Yeah, I’m misleading people by … quoting what Elam actually said.
If anyone wants to see the quote in context, here’s Elam’s piece, complete with graphics of battered women, one with the caption: “Maybe she DID have it coming.”
http://www.avoiceformen.com/2010/10/22/if-you-see-jezebel-in-the-road-run-the-bitch-down/
I talk more about Elam’s post and the issue of “satire” here:
http://www.manboobz.com/2010/11/paul-elam-youre-no-jonathan-swift.html
And this is the article he’s satirizing:
“Have You Ever Beat Up A Boyfriend? Cause, Uh, We Have:
“One Jezebel got into it with a dude while they were breaking up, while another Jez went nuts on her guy and began violently shoving him. One of your editors heard her boyfriend flirting on the phone with another girl, so she slapped the phone out of his hands and hit him in the face and neck… “partially open handed.” Another editor slapped a guy when “he told me he thought he had breast cancer.” (Okay, that one made us laugh really hard.) And lastly, one Jez punched a steady in the face and broke his glasses. He had discovered a sex story she was writing about another dude on her laptop, so he picked it up and threw it. And that’s when she socked him. He was, uh, totally asking for it.”
Note that Paul isn’t actually advocating violence in response to this and also note that these women are gleefully describing acts of abuse that they have engaged in.
What jezebel did was several orders of magnitude worse then Paul’s response. They are lionizing domestic abuse.
Wow, that’s just vile. One of the saddest parts is the breast cancer joke. Men *can* get breast cancer. It’s very rare and that’s why often diagnosed at a late stage. But knowing this is probably too much to ask from a hip feminist writer.
Also, the vote ‘not guilty’ is based on the fact that due process has been eroded for the crime of rape. Essentially rape has been made it’s own special category of crime with it’s own special rules for the admission of evidence, all of which make any particular rape prosecution suspect.
Did you read the article?
Fantastic….one thing tho –
David IS “a tabloid style feature about strange and sexist women”
Futrelle does what he claims that MRAs do. He cherry picks some of the worst quotes, takes other quotes out of context, and ignores activists who have been very effective in challenging attitudes and changing laws. Basically a hack job. It’s pretty much a misandrist article.
Yeah, it’s sort of hard to do that with the Men’s Rights movement because there actually aren’t any celebrated or influential MRAs yet. I’m not really saying this as an insult; it’s a simple fact; the MR movement has made little headway in mainstream culture. Warren Farrell is perhaps the most — possibly the only — MRA who has gotten much attention from the mainstream culture, but he’s far more moderate than the typical MRAs one can find online today.. Within the world of Men’s Rights activism, many of the people I quote (Elam, for example) and the sites I draw from (The Spearhead), for example), are “celebrated and influential.”
Also, those lists of quotes that MRAs tend to pass around online tend to focus on a relative handful of radical feminists (Andrea Dworkin in particular), and more than a few of the quotes are impossible to track down or simply made up:
http://www.manboobz.com/2011/02/factchecking-list-of-hateful-quotes.html
“but he’s far more moderate than the typical MRAs one can find online today”
He’s far more moderate then the MRA’s you seek out on the internet. Big difference. Your job is to sift through for misogyny. Makes me wonder how open you are to actually seeing the more moderate, as they do nothing for your website. When all you look for is the hate, that’s all you’ll ever see.
“a relative handful of radical feminists (Andrea Dworkin in particular)”
As I’ve noted before, the reason for that is because those relative handful became very prominent, and they did so because they had support from many many others. One does not become a 10 time published author without people wanting to buy your books. As such, those handfuls of radical feminist (but they are feminists still, which blows away peoples “feminists are about equality” argument. just an aside) represent themselves, as well as the thousands upon thousands of supporters. This makes them very relevant, and far more representative of some feminist’s views then some nobody with a computer posting an angry comment on a website open to any nobody with a computer.
Charlie, misogyny is rampant in the MR and MGTOW movements online. Take any random discussion thread on The Spearhead and you can find countless comments that are frankly misogynistic, most of them with numerous (often dozens of) upvotes from other readers there. The only cherry picking I do is to find quotes that are actually sort of entertainingly misogynistic. If I did nothing but post misogynistic quotes from MRA/MGTOW message boards I would have to make dozens of posts a day just to keep up.
If you think that the MRAs and the MRA sites I write about aren’t representative of the Men’s Rights movement — despite being some of the most widely trafficked and linked to sites in the “manosphere” — what sites should I be looking at instead?
The only MR forum I know in which misogyny is sometimes challenged is the MR subreddit on REddit, and that’s in part because many of those who read it are not MRAs.
Sigh…
Oddly enough I was actually agreeing to a point, until this tripe:
“The only MR forum I know in which misogyny is sometimes challenged is the MR subreddit on REddit, and that’s in part because many of those who read it are not MRAs.”
Which is flat out bullshit.
Really? I’ve started reading the MRA blogs and forums outside of Reddit relatively recently and I’m yet to see a MRA criticize or seriously try and refute what appears to be institutionalized misogyny and at times delusional paranoia within the movement.
The most I’ve seen is a fairly hardcore MRA guy make the suggestion in the comments section of a Spearhead article that the constant spouting of violent, crazy or overtly misogynistic rhetoric was *strategically* a bad idea (not that the bigotry in itself was abhorrent or should be addressed) in that it can be used by the MRM’s perceived enemies to discredit the movement.
Ironically, he was downvoted to hell and a called traitor, with one poster threatening that he would not be forgotten about and in the future would be treated like a nazi-sympathizer after WWII.
But if you can link me to any examples of MRAs seriously trying to address the ingrained misogyny I’d really like to see it, it might begin to turn around the depressingly pessimistic view I have of the movement and it’s future.
1. The feminist movement does monitor itself for misandry.
2. Even if it didn’t, why wouldn’t the men’s rights movement want to be better? Misogyny does not help the movement, in fact it hurts it.
Your #1 is complete bullshit. The reason you don’t see the misandry is because you’re a woman. You don’t se it because IT ISN’T BEING AIMED AT YOU It’s basically like a white person not being able to see racism.
This sort of thing is ROUTINELY addressed. It’s a consequence of having a large influx of new members…freshly pissed off at Family Court and somesuch.
But hey, if it bothers you, don’t go there. It’s not like you feminists matter anyway.
You are no better David. I have called you on several examples of misandry in your comments section, and you simply brush them off as “jokes”.
Hit piece? Form David futrelle?
Nah, say it isn’t so….
What MRA’s are actually successful ? Fatherandfamilies is far and away the most successful organization that defends men’s rights. But what input did you get from that site ? None ? It’s pretty clear from this article you had already made up your mind on the subject before you did any investigation. Have you ever gone to any of the feminist sites and pulled individual inflammatory comments and published them ?….I know for a fact you would find the same type of comments….because I’ve seen them. Next time you should just allow Amanda Marcotte to do the hit piece….she can do it in her sleep.
David Futrelle can only cherry-pick one off anonymous comments on blogs and try to discredit based on that. Whenever he enters into a serious debate, he’s dead in the water. His entire argument against the mountain of domestic violence research is that “Men are physically stronger;therefore abuse of men doesn’t matter” before he ran with his tail between his legs.
It’s safe to say that this clown can’t write anything intellectually honest.
Serious research is indicating that women are at least as violent as men.
It’s not only about USA, but about EU as well.
Abuse of men is however not politically correct, articles written by David or Hugo and by other male feminists cannot be taken seriously – they are biased and anti-male at its finest.
I’ve dealt with the “cherry picking” claim in another comment.
As for the rest, I would say that’s a pretty gross misrepresentation of my debate with Elam. You can read my contributions to that debate, and find links to Elam’s portion of it, here:
http://www.manboobz.com/p/not-so-great-debate-on-domestic.html
For the record, I did in fact respond to Elam’s final post in the debate, and pointed out that the major point he tried to make in that post was in fact based on a complete misunderstanding of the research he was quoting. Elam never offered a substantive response to my final post, and when I tried to post a link to it on his site, he deleted it.
http://www.manboobz.com/2010/10/paul-elams-big-mistake-on-domestic.html
http://www.avoiceformen.com/2010/10/25/a-debate-on-domestic-violence/#comment-5643
Sorry to keep posting links, but I’m not sure how else to respond to these sorts of misrepresentations.
That’s because your entire ‘argument’ relied upon the acceptance of some pretty unsubstantiated premises, and wholesale acceptance of Feminist ideology as truth…neither of which are a given. ie, you failed miserably at convincing anyone but your own fellow feminists.
If you simply reject the majority of the research on the subject of domestic violence, including massive govt. surveys, without actually looking at these studies or their methodologies, because some of the people involved in this research identify themselves as feminists, it is impossible to have a real debate.
Ironically, as I pointed out, some of the researchers Elam relied upon also consider themselves feminists. But their results were more to Elam’s liking so he coveniently ignored this.
He also ignored the fact that many of the points I was making were supported by the very researchers he was citing.
It was one of the most bizarre “debates”I’ve ever been in.
The majority of research only studies violence against women and patriarchal theories of dominance. It is a result of feminist dominance in academia and funding.
There are only about 300 studies including both genders with a non-ideological slant.
Darwin was also a lone voice in a sea of ideological theories.
Glenn Sacks and Ron Franklin will be contributing to this package.
Others from the movement — Dr Tara, etc — declined.
Because they think your site is trashy feminist propaganda.
I suspect you meant Robert Franklin ?
I didn’t decline to participate in this package; I just didn’t submit anything.
My first priority is to my audience and to bring them new content at least 2x/week. It takes me a day to a day and a half to write and article; more if it’s a heavily researched piece. I also solely moderate my website comments, moderate the Shrink4Men Forum, run a small coaching practice and have a 25-hour a week job.
Mr Belanger does not pay for content. Basically, he requested that I work for free for the benefit of his publication. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that Mr Belanger does not work for free. I sometimes write original content for other publications and organizations that I want to support. I considered writing something for this MRM series, but I had to attend to my responsibilities that keep a roof over my head, my partner, my clients and my employer first.
I may submit work at some point, if GMP is willing to pay for my work—even a nominal fee. I worked at several start-ups and understand limited budgets, but content has a value, my time has a value, and Mr Belanger’s time has a value.
Tara, not to be nit-picky, but if someone asks you to contribute an article to something, and you say no, you are, er declining. There’s no shame in that, or in wanting to be paid for what you write, but you did decline.
Dr. T doesn’t need to submit to TGMP.
Any men who are seeking compassion and understanding can go to:
http://www.shrink4men.com
They won’t find it here.
For the most part, I agree with this piece. I have not seen a website devoted to MRAs that wasn’t sexist in some manner, misogynistic in some manner, what have you. I’ve met more feminists devoted to equal rights for both sexes than I’ve met men right’s activists devoted to men’s rights. Most I’ve met in person and on-line are devoted to one upping females, getting revenge, rather than striving for complete equality with both sexes. Most MRAs I know and have seen on-line wish we could go back to the glory days where women were barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and men were breadwinners. I definitely don’t deny that men have problems. Of course it’s obvious they have problems. But what MRAs attempt to do is play the victim card and play the whole who-has-it-worse game. They spam feminist sites, crying ‘what about the menz?’ completely ignoring the fact that both sexes have their fair share of sexism to deal with. They also throw up female advantage and belittle accomplishments we’ve made. They claim women are earning more degrees because colleges are giving them out like toilet paper, women are ruining the educational system (women have always dominated grade school education! Really?), women are ruining the economy, feminism is the reason for the recession, feminism is the reason for men’s misery due to losing their breadwinner positions, just blame, blame, blame, whine, whine, whine. Until I see one MRA who can talk about men’s issues without blaming feminism (or women), MRAs will always be extremists to me. No doubt women aren’t at fault for some of it, put playing the blame game does not help your positions. If MRAs want to make any headway with their activism and be heard, they need to learn how to take a more egalitarian stance, and I haven’t seen that. There’s one article on The Good Men Project listing ten reasons for male activism (or whatever) and it was the most unbiased thing I have read in favor of men’s rights. And because it didn’t bash females or feminism, I took every point seriously. If MRAs want people to take them seriously, then stop bashing.
I suggest you read Pelle Billing’s article just below this one on the front page. There are many thoughtful intelligent MRA’s……it’s just not nearly as easy to discredit them. Just about everything you have said about MRA’s is also true about contributors on feminist sites. I know….I use to consider myself a feminist until I waded into the feminist echo chamber. There are men and women on both sides that lash out because of their personal circumstances.
I don’t agree with a lot of what he says, but Pele Billing is perhaps the most moderate and civil MRA with any influence online. John Diaz of Misandry Review would be another. If there are others as thoughtful as either of them — I haven’t found any — I would like to see links to their sites.
I would also like to see either or both of them make a real effort to challenge the rampant misogyny of the MR movement.
Heh. I don’t think we’ll be seeing John Dias challenging the misogyny in the MRM. He is well-spoken, uses big words, and is measured in his responses, but his messages are just the same. I’ve never seen him stand up to any them. But I’ve seen him defend them.
It is the job of MRM to stand up for MEN and BOYS, not women. Women have the other 8 billion robots on the planet standing up for them.
Well, yeah, “moderate” is not really the best word to describe Dias, who is after all a proponent of patriarchy. (This is not rhetoric on my part; he describes himself plainly as such.) But unlike virtually everyone else I’ve encountered in the MRM, he does at least argue in good faith.
Actually, the misogyny (what little of it there is) in the Mens Movement is largely driven by the same psychological mechanisms that cause abused women, for example, to fear, mistrust, and hate men.
Another thing to consider:
You yourself say there is precious little awareness of the Mens Movement, that there are no ‘leaders’, not even an ideology…
Yet you blame us for the misogyny of our newest members?
How exactly can we be responsible for that, since we’re invisible outside a few forums?
No David, what you are seeing as a rise of misogyny in the Mens Movement is nothing more than a rise in the MEMBERSHIP of the mens movement. Nearly all of us were angry, frustrated, etc, when we started out. Complacency is the result of a moribund movement. What you see as misogyny, I see as fiery bellies.
And you know what? You Feminist types are the BEST membership drive we could ask for.
And there you have what the feminist answer should be to accusations of misandry, “That’s just fiery bellies”.
Honesty is something feminists can’t seem to understand, let alone emulate. Misogyny is something feminists see literally everywhere.
There is no pleasing you.
So we stopped trying.
Sucks eh?
I thought you were being honest? You were never trying. That’s OK though because feminists don’t and shouldn’t be trying to please you either. We can all be happy with our fiery bellies.
Misogyny isn’t recognizing that women can be evil.
Misogyny is putting women into a box. That box can be labeled ‘victim’, ‘inferior’ or ‘superior’. It doesn’t matter.
Almost all feminists like to put women in the victim box; conservatives like to put women in the ‘morally superior/physically inferior’ box; some MRA wackjobs put them in the ‘inferior box’.
But, to be honest, the MRAs who don’t, the ones who recognize that women can be evil without putting them in the evil box or dismissing it as ‘but less evil then men’, are just about the least misogynist people on the planet.
Far less misogynist then manhood101 wackjobs, chivalrous conservatives and feminists.
Who all want women in a box.
You’re already addressing misogyny in the MRM, but you just don’t give a sh’t about the issues faciing men.
Do you feel the same way about the rampant misandry in the feminist echo chamber ? Do you publish that misandry ? Do you hold leaders of the feminist movement accountable for that misandry ? If you dont believe Glenn Sacks is a moderate, civil MRA your just not listening. It’s clear your goal is to discredit a movement….in which you state, you actually agree with some of their issues. So why the focus on the negative and not the positive aspects ?
What “rampant misandry?”
Find me feminist message boards that have 36,033 posts talking about “bad boys and attention whores.”
Find me feminist bloggers who argue that men should be denied the right to vote.
Find me feminist message boards where someone gets upvotes when they suggest that a woman who saved a man’s life was equivalent to a Jew helping a Nazi.
Find me a feminist who posts a blog post suggesting that an attack on a male war reporter is his fault, because he’s such a slut, and besides, men shouldn’t even be allowed to cover events in foreign lands.
Seriously, if you think the tiny amount of misandry one can find on feminist sites is in any way comparable to the misogyny that is omnipresent on almost all MRA sites, you either haven’t looked at many feminist sites, or you are simply deluded. That Jezebel piece Elam referred to in the article of his I quoted? Yes, that post was filled with misandry, comparable to the misogyny I see every day on MRA/MGTOW sites. It was a terrible article. It should never have been published.
The difference? Jezebel ran ONE piece like that, many years ago, and MRAs are still talking about it. Why? Because it’s pretty much the only example of misandry on that level from a mainstream feminist site they have. There are comparable misogynist articles on MRA sites pretty much every single day.
You spend your time policing MRM sites for ‘misogyny’?…?
Really?
Whatever blows your hair back, I guess…
David Futrelle called me out on his blog for insinuating that all this is somehow a paid gig for him and that he is building up a large karmic debt.
That he is paid is the most logical explanation. Most people don’t have that much time and resources to actively oppress and denigrate a social group unless they are paid do so.
Hopefully someday he will see the error of ways and renounce Misandry, but I’m not holding my breath.
Yes. I agree. And as a MRA, I’ll stop bashing feminism when feminists stop bashing the MRM. Which of course, will never happen. Let’s do an experiment. Let’s type in “male studies feminist” into google (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=male+studies+feminist) and see what feminsts have to say about the new proposed discipline. You, my friend, are a hypocrit. If you fail to recognize women’s advantages in western societies, you are either misinformed (by purposefully misleading feminist advocacy research and propoganda) or you are dishonest.
“But what MRAs attempt to do is play the victim card and play the whole who-has-it-worse game.”
God, it is weirdo to read it from a feminist.
Unfortuntely what gets missed because of certain individuals(not all) is that there are inequities in our judicial systems. In regards to reproductive rights, custody, support/compensation it is clearly not favourable for men. I found out this morning what some of these MRA sites are all about and its not about helping men. It really is directed more at complaining rather than discussion. It may be true that in some cases the squeaky wheel gets the grease but in this case it should be thrown in the trash.
Actually no, we’re building a critical mass of REALLY pissed off men.
Action comes AFTER that, not before.
The problem is that you’re too cowardly to do much.
Yeah…we’ve gotten nowhere.
(waits for feminist ideologue to look up the word ‘irony’…..)
There’s no irony; you haven’t done much beyond whining.
If you really believe that at a future time you will take violent collective action against feminists, as you implied in your comment @March 9, 2011 at 12:23 pm, then I guess you’ll continue to hope for it. Maybe you’ll get lucky and your rhetoric will inspire a braver hate-based movement than yours.
Well, I’m sorry we can’t all go out and burn our Bra’s.
You mean “Bro” or “Mansierre”.
@Henry Belanger,
Would you allow article submissions that are a total hatchet job on the feminist movement? I don’t think so.
This is crap.
Exactly!
Denis,
A well-sourced piece filled with actual quotes, in context, and actual rational thought that didn’t chase its own tail? Sure.
How do you feel this is a hit piece? please explain.
It’s already been shown that his take on Paul Elam’s “Bash a Violent Bitch Month,” was in fact taken out of context.
…and Henry tells somebody to review the comment policy when they quote Paul Elam to add context.
What a total joke.
I provided the link to Elam’s piece in my post, and again, at least once, here in the comments. I urge everyone to go read it.
Interestingly, those who’ve complained that I was taking the quotes out of context have cited only the intro to the piece, talking about a post on Jezebel (that I also found offensive); they haven’t actually dealt with what I found offensive about Elam’s post: his elaborate fantasy of violence against female abusers.
Paul Elam did not write a fantasy of violence, that’s what was happening at Jezebel.
Paul Elam wrote a satire of these misandrists, kinda like what you do about misogynists. You’re both fighting the same war against a few hateful ideologues, but from different sides.
I could easily do the same type of hit piece by quoting prominent feminists academics and leaders, without sinking to David’s level, but you would never publish it.
I could also do a hit piece on the feminist scum on TGMP blogs, does that reflect on TGMP?
It’s as if David Futrelle didn’t read the “Meet the Men’s Rights Movement.” David spends his time quoting the most radical and simple minded representations of MRA’s. He fails to acknowledge the fact that feminists take the MRM very seriously. The gnashing of teeth by main stream feminists when the Male Studies initiative (http://www.malestudies.org/) got up and running was incredible. As mentioned in the Meet the Men’s Rights Movement piece, MRA’s have had much success in areas of family law. Furthermore, MRA’s have changed the narrative in the slandering feminist concept of “Rape Culture.” Take a look at David. A good analogy is like a prison guard. Prisoners are forced to live in a prison. Prison guards live there by choice. David goes to the most radical MRA sights and spends his days there. Now that, my friends, is kind of creepy.
Glenn Sacks and Fathers and Families have responded to David Futrelle’s accusations that we were trying to “take money away from a shelter for women” with our 2008 Campaign Protesting Father-Bashing Domestic Violence Ads.
I am posting the response here, and it is available on Fathers and Families’ website at: http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=13669.
Kristin Castner
Fathers and Families
The post states:
“In a recent piece on the subject of men’s activism, journalist David Futrelle strongly criticizes our highly-publicized October 2008 Campaign Protesting Father-Bashing Domestic Violence Ads. The ads, which depicted a smiling little boy as a future wife-beater and stereotype black men as wife-killers, are pictured above. Futrelle writes:
Glenn Sacks…called on his supporters to besiege the biggest donors to one domestic-violence shelter serving mostly women—they had run an ad Sacks didn’t like—in an attempt to get them to stop donating to the shelter. That’s right: instead of trying to raise money to build domestic-violence shelters for men, Sacks’ fans instead tried to take money away from a shelter for women.
There are numerous problems with Futrelle’s statement above:
1) During our campaign, which was done in concert with Fathers and Families, we never “called on supporters to besiege the biggest donors to one domestic-violence shelter serving mostly women.”
Our campaign, which generated 10,000 calls, letters, and faxes, had three phases or Action Alerts. The first one was a request to call officials of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) which ran the bus ads. The second asked our supporters to contact Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and the Dallas City Council. The third was targeted at the media. These are still on our DART Campaign page here, if Futrelle would like to see them.
At no time did we ask our general supporters to contact either The Family Place’s contributors or The Family Place itself.
2) We did orchestrate efforts by 25 specific activists to call over 50 of The Family Place’s financial contributors to express our concerns about the ads. All of these activists were women who found the ads offensive. We never asked DART’s supporters to withdraw any contributions–we asked them to contact the leader of The Family Place and let her know they were offended by the ads.
Most contributors said they sympathized with us, and many told us they thought the ads and the subsequent protest/controversy were an embarrassment to The Family Place. Many told us they had or would contact The Family Place Executive Director Paige Flink with their concerns.
Several of The Family Place’s financial contributors withdrew or reduced the financial gifts they planned for the end-of-the-year giving season. I don’t say this with pleasure–I would have preferred that The Family Place do the right thing from the beginning rather than lose the funding. Still, with a $9 million budget for 2008, I doubt our efforts had a significant financial impact on The Family Place, and that was never our intent.
3) The ads weren’t simply “an ad Sacks didn’t like” as Futrelle says, they were blatantly unfair and sexist and should be condemned by Futrelle and any other fair-minded person. During the campaign we compiled an impressive endorsers list, which included some of the world’s leading authorities on domestic violence, as well as many other experts, media figures, and prominent citizens. This list is here.
Among our campaign’s achievements were:
1) Widespread, positive media coverage which allowed us to educate the public on domestic violence and child abuse. Coverage included CNN, The Associated Press, FOX, CBS, hundreds of radio stations throughout the country, and many newspapers. This was particularly remarkable considering we launched the Campaign just seven days before the presidential election.
2) To its credit, The Family Place, the prominent Dallas-area domestic violence service provider which placed the controversial ads on DART buses, backed away from the gender exclusivity which was previously prominent in their public materials. They changed several areas of their website to specifically include male victims, and issued a statement that “We are not a male-bashing organization. Our services support all victims—male and female, children and adults.” We publicly commended them for this.
All blog posts and updates on the DART campaign can be seen here. To comment on Futrelle’s piece, please click here.
In Futrelle’s defense, there is some truth to one of the statements he makes, writing:
[Men's activists] complain that there are virtually no domestic violence shelters specifically designed for male victims, but unlike the feminists and other activists who fought for years to get the woman-centered shelters we have today, MRAs seem content to gripe that feminists haven’t given them shelters, too.
This isn’t literally true–there are many activists who have worked very hard to get funding for programs for men, and it has been a long, uphill struggle for them, in part because men are far more likely to give money to help women than they are to help other men.
That being said, I do believe (and have previously stated) that men’s activists do not give proper respect and credit to the domestic violence activists’ hard and effective work in building up a wide network of services for female domestic violence victims. Contrary to what critics sometimes claim, much of this funding is not governmental, but instead corporate and from private contributors, many of whom, ironically, are men.
During our campaign there were people who criticized The Family Place Executive Director Paige Flink for her high ($170,000 range) salary. Actually, Flink, despite her unfortunate moral blind-spot when it comes to men, has been a hardworking and effective organization builder and fundraiser. As such, she probably deserves her salary.”
Fathers and Families said: “We did orchestrate efforts by 25 specific activists to call over 50 of The Family Place’s financial contributors to express our concerns about the ads”
That would indeed be what I was referring to when I said that Sacks “called on his supporters to besiege the biggest donors to one domestic-violence shelter serving mostly women.”
Here’s an interview with Flink, from The Family Place:
http://amptoons.com/blog/2008/12/04/domestic-violence-shelter-targeted-by-anti-feminists-some-of-the-vile-language-and-verbal-abuse-we-took-on-the-phone-was-horrific/
According to her,
“There was one of my board members who received 25 calls from the same woman. …
Some of the vile language and verbal abuse we took on the phone was horrific. The kinds of things they said to our staff about what they’re going to do to them was awful. I’ve had some “you’re going to go to hell, you’re a fat lesbian luring women into those shelters so you can prey on them.” “
David, neither you nor I have any idea whether Paige Flink’s claims above are true. However, you persist in your tactic of quoting a handful of (alleged) idiots and then pretending that this is representative of our movement, while dismissing the very legitimate grievances and issues we have.
During our campaign we conducted ourselves professionally and respectfully. The concerned women who contacted The Family Place’s contributors on our behalf were uniformly polite and sincere, and were often received very well.
As for associating Fathers and Families with the disgusting anti-gay slur you quote above, Fathers and Families has in fact defended gay and lesbian parents’ child custody rights on numerous occasions in the media, legislatures, and in legal challenges.
Together with you in the love of our children,
Glenn Sacks, MA
National Executive Director,
Fathers and Families
No, i do not know if Flink’s claims are true. That’s why I wrote “according to her” when I quoted her.
I also don’t know if your claims that “The concerned women who contacted The Family Place’s contributors on our behalf were uniformly polite and sincere, and were often received very well” are true.
How exactly do you know this? Have you listened to tapes of the calls? Did you yourself speak to the contributors who were called, and ask them? Or are you taking the word of those who called?
What I do know — and what I can provide actual evidence for — is that in a similar recent case, in which MRAs and others protested against a similar PSA by an anti-sexual-violence group, the protests were anything but polite; indeed, one commenter on The Spearhead suggested that the man responsible for the ads deserved to be killed, and his comment drew dozens of upvotes from Spearhead readers:
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/02/06/abuse-charlatan-gears-up-for-super-bowl-with-abuse-bingo-rapist-babies-ad/#comment-69495
So I am inclined to be skeptical of your claims, and more inclined to believe Flink.
David, Allow me to understand–judged by what some idiot I’ve never heard of wrote on some website we’ve never been affiliated with about an ad I’ve never heard of, I and Fathers and Families are culpable?
Together with you in the love of our children,
Glenn Sacks, MA
National Executive Director,
Fathers and Families
Why does the Father’s Rights activists advocate for violent men? I know Sacks calls young Jennifer a liar, but personally, I believe her and her brother over him.
http://americanchildrenunderground.blogspot.com/
It’s common to hear men with violent histories in batterer’s intervention groups and in courts claim to be associated with Father’s Rights or Men’s Rights groups. So common that Lundy Bancroft and others who work in the criminal justice field have begun referring to these activists as the “Abuser’s Lobby”. Why no discrimination in who you represent? And why attack a young college student when she comes out to tell her side of the story rather than just admit you were wrong about the guy you represented?
It’s a common tactic to attack the character, rather then the actual argument, of those who have a strong case against you.
This guy got called all kinds of names simply for asking the question why is there a ministry for the status of women, and not one for men, on a political party discussion page on facebook. There was no reason for it and his points were never even addressed, just his character attacked.
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=60266912006&topic=14674
What I am saying is that in my experience I have not run across many MRAs online who make their points politely or respectfully. Indeed, in the case I mentioned — in which MRAs and others reacted to a very similar ad — I don’t think I saw a single polite or respectful comment from an MRA on the issue.
On the contrary, on The Spearhead and on many other sites associated with the MRM online, I saw dozens if not hundreds of very angry posts, some of them of a threatening nature. (Look through the rest of the comments in the thread I linked to if you do not believe me.) The target of this wrath also says he got death treats. Given what I saw online, I am inclined to believe him.
I suppose it is possible that all of those who called A Family Place were indeed polite and respectful. Flink says they weren’t; you say they were. You have not provided any evidence that they were, nor has Flink provided any evidence that her account is accurate. But it’s impossible that both her account and your account could both be true, so I have to judge the situation based on my own experience with men’s rights activists. That experience leads me to be skeptical of your account.
You may honestly believe that those who called were polite, based on what you heard from the callers; I simply doubt that what they told you was true.
I don’t believe you are a hateful person. But I do think it would behoove you to speak out about some of the hate in the MR movement, which I have amply documented on my web site.
David writes “I don’t believe you are a hateful person. But I do think it would behoove you to speak out about some of the hate in the MR movement, which I have amply documented on my web site.”
David–Thanks for the suggestion, but I’ve actually been doing that for almost a decade. In fact, 9 years ago I wrote “Confronting Woman-Bashing in the Men’s Movement” (4/2/02) (see http://www.glennsacks.com/confronting_women_bashing.htm) and have expressed similar sentiments on countless occasions since. I wouldn’t vouch word for word for anything I wrote so long ago, but the general idea was correct. I’ve also often gone out of my way to commend our political opponents when they do something positive.
That being said, I’ve seen no evidence that what appears on feminist sites is any better than some of the trash that is on men’s activist sites. There’s a lot of sexism and nastiness, and rarely do I see feminists confront it. Speaking personally, there are people who take it upon themselves to write absolutely insane things about me on the web. The radicals on both sides are bad. Your advice for me is good, but I suggest that you heed it as well.
Lemme see…a guy comes out with an ad that shows a little baby boy, and then proceeds to paint him as an abusive rapist type….gee, why would we get mad at that? Why would we look at it as an attack on men and boys?
Gee, I dunno…we’re so unreasonable.
What I laugh at, is that Glenn really hasn’t had much to do with the blogging end of the Mens Movement for over a year…he’s out there “doing something” rather than ‘bitching” like the rest of us. The truly ironic thing is, Glenn thinks I, and guys like me, are reactionary assholes. Or something to that effect. Yet you ninnies keep lumping him in with the “misogynistic MRM”.
Glenn is EASILY the most moderate voice in the Mens Movement, followed by Pelle in my estimation. Frankly, the guy deserves to get more respect than you guys give him.
Seems to me you are taking a post made by some nobody on a website, and trying to equate it as representative of Mr. Sacks professionalism.
“I don’t think I saw a single polite or respectful comment from an MRA on the issue.”
You’re no better David. Posters on your website are routinely offensive and belligerent. I have had to endure numerous uncalled for attacks, simply for defending the causes of the men’s rights movement, and not once have you spoken up against one of your posters attacks, or suggested that addressing my points rather then attacking may be a more effective way of proving me wrong. Your simply running a smear campaign on the MRA, and one must wonder what motivates a feminist such as yourself to do such a thing?
I am confused. Your article’s premise is that there is no activism in MRA’s, yet you now bemoan activist telephone calls to A Family Place? Which is it David? Are MRA’s activists or not? Can’t have it both ways, sweet cheeks.
The callers could have been doing something constructive, like raising money for a shelter for men. Instead, they were trying to take money away from a shelter for women. That’s activism, but it’s not activism that helps any abuse victim, male or female.
There’s already lots of money for DV services. Feminists just need to learn how to share and not discriminate.
David–As previously explained, the callers were not “trying to take money away from a shelter for women”–they were protesting an offensive, anti-father, anti-child advertisement which you yourself should publicly condemn.
As for your advice, we appreciate it, but Fathers and Families has actually done many things that are “constructive.” To learn more, see our Accomplishments page at http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?page_id=1196
You were having people call donors. How is this not an attempt to disrupt the shelter’s fund raising?
You can say you were simply trying to pressure these donors to complain to the shelter about the ads, but the primary sway donors have over the shelter is the possibility that they will stop donating to the shelter. The pressure you were trying to exert on the shelter was based on threatening its future finances.
@Putrelle
When a “shelter” uses its funding for things that are not germane to running a shelter it’s fraudulently dishonest to claim that peoples complaints were interrupting a “shelter’s” funding.
If I run a homeless shelter that also creates political campaign ads if, and when, people complain to my donors, I can’t, in good faith, say the people complaining are seeking to cut funding to the homeless.
Having a significant portion of the men angry, especially if most have a good reason to be, is very unhealthy for any society. Well any social groups, but especially young men, as they tend to be preferred foot soldiers in revolutions.
Why do some people feel it’s good and just paint all these men as fools and idiots, instead of honestly trying to see if what they are saying about their experiences has any merit?
It could be because so many of them, at least in the blogosphere, speak of very little but anger. If there are any with positive ideas or proposals that involve more than backlash and redress, they’re getting drowned out.
Whatever the goals of the movement may be, its public face is snarktastic, histrionic, and downright mean. All that does is get a certain kind of man’s rocks off – one who would be better off down at the gym, punching the bag.
Hard to imagine men’s and father’s righters as “uniformly polite and sincere” when protesting anything to do with women. I imagine they conducted themselves exactly as they do online. Nasty, nasty, nasty. Josh Jasper got death threats.
http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=311352
http://www.freep.com/article/20110209/ENT03/110209012/TV-ad-sparks-death-threats
Cause that’s just how the men’s rights and father’s rights activists roll.
Two thumbs down as this article was shallow and biased. This website itself really is a joke and has more to do with being a propaganda mouthpiece for Ms. Magazine than some new format for men.
Completely agree. Just look at the way the topic was introduced by goodmen and it’s easy to see the bias. Making fun of men’s activists is the name of the game. Just look at the descriptions, MRAs and Mythopoetic males are joked about while there seems to be little joking about the male feminists. This web site is not offering a level playing field and is indeed reminiscent of feminism’s habit of only telling half the story.
David Futrelle brings a poison dagger and the voice of hatred to men and boys.
Oooh, I smell a new t-shirt tagline!
Don’t let that stop you from using their platform to propagate the message. They are, after all, hoping to discredit our movement…a fact I was pretty aware of from the beginning.
yes, this is a Feminist website (with a majority of viewers being young women). Yes, this is hostile territory. No, there hasn’t been a single writer who has said “You know, these guys have some good points”.
But there are lurkers, and there may be men looking for answers that came here by mistake.
It’s our job to make sure they hear what they’ve been kept in the dark about for decades.
It is, after all, patently obvious none of these ideologues are interested in substantive change for men…they merely want to convince us to accept our role as third class citizens.
And the more men that see what a fraud this whole feminism thing is, the better. Even here.
First of all, the Elam “Bash a Violent Bitch” month seems to be talking about fighting back when a woman hits a man. Not that I’m advocating for wife-beating here, but it is pretty hypocritical that guys can end up in handcuffs at the drop of a hat when it comes to domestic abuse, but the same is not true for women. And if women want equal treatment, then they should think first about choosing to become physically violent towards men. In that respect, I believe Elam has a violent point (albeit one made with a little too much hyperbole for my liking).
But the main problem I have with this piece is it focuses entirely on the lunatic fringe. No matter what organization you examine, you will find crazy people. Look at that TV show Whale Wars. The captain helped start Greenpeace, but he was too crazy so he got booted. Now they want to stop whaling, but they go about it in illegal and awful ways. A good cause hijacked by nutcases. And as the MRA readily points out, there are a variety of radical feminists out there who surely don’t speak for the rational ones.
My point is you can’t judge a whole group by the 1% of people who make everyone look bad. Every group has them.
edit: that was supposed to read “Elam has a VALID point.”
Paging Dr. Freud….
David Futrelle:
What they all seem to share, though, is a desire to talk shit about women endlessly on Internet forums. On the perversely misnamed NiceGuy’s MGTOW forum, a popular members-only hangout, there are 4,207 topics and 36,033 replies in the subforum devoted to “Tales of Bad Girls & Attention Whores”
—–
Thank you, David for visiting our forum by signing up with a fake-ID – It’s not necessary however to use a fake-ID as MRAs are not into banning and deleting comments from people who do not agree with us – we are no feminists. Why do you not sign up with your real name?
Thank you for reading through our subforum about ‘Bad girls…’ – It’s our collection of news-clips from the daily press about criminal women. Threads in the ‘Bad girls…’ section contain reports about real crimes, quite everything from child mistreatment done by females, female pedophiles, female thugs…
Any crime you can image you can find there – women are not always the victims…
Thanks for your report and for supporting the MRM.
MRAs are not into banning and deleting comments from people who do not agree with us(Yohan)
Maybe not on your site, but on avoiceformen.com my posts(when not liked) were made to be somewhat invisible.
This site deletes about 50% of all my comments.
“This site deletes about 50% of all my comments”
…because you’re not a feminist and not following their agenda.
“Maybe not on your site, but on avoiceformen.com my posts(when not liked) were made to be somewhat invisible”
Invisible? Overexagerate much alls you have to do is click “read comment” and you can see the comment you typed.
Far from being “invisible”.
I heard a rumor that David Futrelle gave a donation in support of Paul Elam’s a voice for men Radio program, is this true?
Well, David is writing for a living. He gets paid for his crap.
The Good Men Project is a feminist publication. So he writes whatever feminists want to read.
I cannot really blame him for that. People like David and other male feminists are frequently rather out of money.
MRAs are different within their organization. We PAY for our websites out of our own wallet. We write our own stories out of our own experience with women. We do not have sponsors. We go our own way.
“… The Good Men Project is a feminist publication. So he writes whatever feminists want to read …”
The Good Men Project is very mainstream. Their cross-section of views are very similar to an average social cross-section of views.
Feminists have almost completely subjugated Western culture and society. That is why this publication is so “feminist” — because this world is so “feminist”
The GMP was started by a guy and like most magazines, requires advertising to sustain its revenue. You’re quite the proof of this guys article that is for sure. Thanks for over-sharing.
The two leading MRM sites, “The Spearhead” and “A Voice For Men”, operate on donations, not advertising. Unlike feminism, men’s rights does not enjoy billions of dollars in tax-payer financing. Unlike feminists we do not pave the road to our freedom with YOUR money. We pave it with our money.
*Sigh*…That’s because guys still earn more than women and have plenty of cash to throw around for futile attempts at regaining some semblance of societal masculinity. It’s not your fault. And in the capitalist system, money changes hand quite frequently, so just think, the company you work for could have sponsored projects dedicated to helping women in bad domestic situations, etc.
Women spend three times as much money as men do. So I guess women have more spending money than men. Because they have their money and our money. According to feminist theory, men are beasts of burden, an all male work should be controlled by, and for the benefit of, women.
If women are spending more money then men are on the family needs, why are men refusing to get involved?
Your comments make little sense.
Women who spend on the family may be spending more then men but how is that spending more on themselves? Because they are allowed to have part of the stuff purchased for the family?
Or are you trying to claim that since single women spend money, that means they are somehow wrong?
Please look up the word discretionary.
Yohan, I do not get paid to write my blog. I don’t even have ads. I started selling shirts, etc, but that money will go to charity.
I will receive a small amount of money for writing this piece on the Good Man Project.
I make my living writing for other publications, on other topics.
Selling your domain to pornographers would be an option to make some cash.
The number one action item for MRM is protection young boys from feminist hatred.
The number one expression for how we are doing this is fighting against the Ritalin Armageddon.
Ritalin is an addictive psychotropic drug that increases the lifetime risk of stroke by 5000%. It is one of the most dangerous and deadly drugs known. The feminist campaign of anti-boy hatred has succeeded in drafting our government and our school system as foot soldiers in their war on boys. Massive doses of Ritalin are being pumped into 5 million boys who cannot be coerced into acting like girls. The drugs are destroying both their spirits and their arterial walls. Millions will die of stroke as a result.
Fighting against this genocide of boys is what we are doing in the MRM. What are you doing, Mr. Futrelle?
Que? Dude, this is not genocide, this is the way America is. I work with senior citizens; they are ALL jacked up on meds. Medications are a parents’ responsibility, not feminists. This is a casual oversimplification, a bit of a red herring and most certainly is a slippery slope.
Schools REQUIRE boys to be doped on Ritalin in order to attend. Many parents fight against this feminist hate, but few succeed.
Elderly patients voluntarily taking dangerous medications in order to cure deadly diseases is VERY DIFFERENT from children being forced to take dangerous medications because feminists don’t like the way boys act.
Proof?
What schools REQUIRE boys to take ridalin to attend?
“Proof” … “What schools REQUIRE boys to take ridalin to attend?”
Every school in the United States requires children who are diagnosed with ADHD to take Ritalin in order to attend. Furthermore, to the ONLY disease that school nurses are authorized to diagnose is ADHD in children. To address this liberal madness and protect our children from feminist hate, the Republican congress passed the Child Medication Safety Act in 2004:
“(A) IN GENERAL- The State educational agency shall prohibit State and local educational agency personnel from requiring a child to obtain a prescription for a substance covered by the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.) as a condition of attending school, receiving an evaluation under subsection (a) or (c) of section 614, or receiving services under this title.”
But, under DIRECT PRESSURE FROM FEMINIST HATE GROUPS, democrats amended it into meaning nothing:
“RULE OF CONSTRUCTION- Nothing in subparagraph (A) shall be construed to create a Federal prohibition against teachers and other school personnel consulting or sharing classroom-based observations with parents or guardians regarding a student’s academic and functional performance, or behavior in the classroom or school, or regarding the need for evaluation for special education or related services under paragraph (3).”
So, schools cannot require Ritalin, but they can harass parents and accuse parents of neglect or child abuse if they fail to dope their children. Feminist anti boy hatred is so strong that they have no problem killing children in order to change them into girls. It is the modern equivalent of Mengele’s experiments to transform Jews into Arians.
ENOUGH PROOF FOR YOU? Want the papers showing that Ritalin causes a life-long and irreversible increase in the risk of stroke? Want the papers showing that Ritalin has the same biological activity as methamphetamine? Want the papers showing that the rate of stroke for boys, but NOT girls, has already increased by 50% — and is still growing?
By the way, the critical part of the Democrat amendment that preserves the right of feminists to continue to FORCE boys to take Ritalin in order to change them into girls is ” … regarding the need for evaluation for special education or related services under paragraph (3).”
Note the word NEED for evaluation, key feminist poison that means parents are not advised, but mandated, to have their children evaluated for the use of the drug. In practice, this is the same as mandating the use of the drug itself, since the school nurse does the evaluation.
Feminism kills. It is hate that kills.
This is an issue our friends are facing with their young son right now, the friends I mentioned recently on AVfM. Their little boy is only in kindergarten and the school is already attempting to have him labeled ADD and placed on Ritalin. He’s a very bright boy and is likely acting out because he is bored. The fact that students receive precious little recess time is not helping either. Their options at this point are to fight the school or walk away and try private school or homeschooling.
The homeschooling community is quickly becoming a haven for parents and children facing ridiculous school policies of all kinds, including the nearly forced medication of young children.
Hestia cares…unlike Futrelle and TGMP.
Antz is totally off base. I have a son in school and his teacher thought maybe he was showing signs of ADHD and recommended I get him tested. I didn’t and the teacher never spoke to me about it again. So here’s my son, years later, still going to school not tested and no body is forcing me to. Perhaps I should inform the school I’m not being properly harassed by them.
They have the POWER to force your son to take mind-altering drugs. That does not mean they will always do so. In all likelihood, other forms of coercion were successful, you son began to tow the feminist line, and so drug re-programing was no longer necessary.
And the CEO of Ritalin … David Vasella… a MAN.
*CEO of Ritalin-maker… Novartis.
The fact that a man is president of the company that sells the feminist anti-boy poison makes it all OK. Feminists are not to blame, because there is a man somewhere who has something to do with some part of something.
Feminism is hate, a hate that kills children.
The fact that it’s something you don’t like does not mean it has anything to do with feminism.
This is just painful. So much concentrated ignorance in just a few paragraphs, where to begin.
First, Ritalin is a stimulant used to treat ADHD. It is not one of the most dangerous and deadly drugs, not even close. I’ve never even heard of any studies on possible correlations between strokes and Ritalin, and as someone diagnosed with ADHD and taking medication myself, I try to be up-to-date on that sort of news. That 5000% figure has BS written all over it.
Second, if ADHD medication is destroying someone’s spirits, then they’re on the wrong medication. Ritalin is not a zombie drug.
Third, girls take Ritalin, too. People are just more likely to recognize the symptoms of ADHD in boys, thus the boys are more likely to get the diagnosis and help for their problems.
In short, you’re blaming feminism for a crisis that you made up. After this, I hope you don’t expect us to take you seriously.
Actually, I only expect you to admit that feminism is the driving force behind the effort to pump Ritalin into boys. And a few girls, as you say.
I am glad that you rationalize your support for pumping Ritalin into boys, since this might make you more likely to admit that you personally, and feminism institutionally, supported the mass addiction of our children to this drug.
If I am wrong about the dangers of Ritalin, I will look like an idiot. I will take that risk.
If you are wrong, you, and all the feminists like you, will look responsible for a genocidal holocaust.
Since I am a scientist who both knows and works with this dangerous drug, I am pretty happy with my odds. Are you?
What percentage of boys in our schools are on ritalin? You want us to believe ALL boys, but that would be a lie.
Demographics: While use of Ritalin has declined in recent years, prescription patterns involving similar drugs have soared, primarily due to growing demand within the United States. In 2005, 1.9 million U.S. prescriptions were written for Ritalin, while prescriptions for Adderall-XR and Concerta totalled 8.7 million and 8.2 million, respectively. During that same year, use of methylphenidate and dextroamphetamine figured into 7,873 U.S. emergency-room visits.
Odds are pretty high that you’re a liar, a troll, or both.
And people like you touting the dangers of a drug that’s no more dangerous than most OTC meds are just making it even more difficult for those of us that use those drugs to function in our day to day lives.
Oh, and if feminism really had the sort of institutional power you claim it does, birth control would be covered by all insurances.
Went to the Now website and searched ritalin and adhd, not a single article on it, also googled ritalin, adhd and feminism, should it be odd the only sites that came up are mra sites? For having a huge conspiracy to put boys on ritalin I sure am having a hard time finding a feminist site recommending putting all boys on it.
Try feministe or feministing. Like I said MANY TIMES before. You went to the NOW, which is an institution, not a think tank. NOW implements policy that is conceived in other feminist covens of hate.
“… also googled ritalin, adhd and feminism, should it be odd the only sites that came up are mra sites?”
For once, you are correct. The only group of people on this planet that are currently protecting children from forced addiction to mind altering drugs is the MRM.
Let me say that again. Like YOU observed in your own search: THE ONLY GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO ARE PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM MIND ALTERING DRUGS IS THE MRM
Yep. This is an accurate description of what Men’s Rights Movement websites look like. Just hatred towards women and a bunch of whining.
Yes and your precious feminist websites are all about equality arent they?
Feel free to google:
“husbands and fathers are useless hunks of flesh” oh and be sure to read the comments that follow.
Yup equality fighing feminsits right there.
Googled it, a bunch of mra sites come up, funny that.
Great article! Thanks for the exploration on this topic!
My two cents: Feminism attempts to combat Patriarchy for ALL involved. Sure there are a breeds of women that, too, “go their own way” and ignore men completely, but most feminism strives for that balance. My biggest issue around this idea of “Men’s Rights” is that it’s useless. We’re back to where we started with the two distinct groups: Feminists and MRA-ists (?). Feminism deals with it all! We are concerned with the welfare of women as it pertains to our relationships with men (and other females). Without Partiarchy, as it was originally designed, there would be no need for Feminism. Feminism is equality, Patriarchy is segregation not fairness to men; to have both groups is going right back too the way things were when no one was happy (except white, older men). Guys today would still find something to complain about even if they had the rights to hit us if we spoke up.
I read the post on this site a while back about not marrying and to me reading this article really hit home. The Don’t-Get-Married article claimed it was not bashing women, but it used women in most, if not all it’s examples as to why we are over-privleged twits (to be nice) and need to stfu about things being unfair. It was just one big rant and bitchfest. It had good points, but they were few and far between. I have had experience with the court system and men being assumed to be the bad guys. I know that it’s not perfect, but humoring us because we’re females and we would be better parents, or whatever, is not feminism either.
This was a well-rounded article, filled with descriptions of the problem(s) and their solution(s). It was a good look at a common issue.
Finally, these MRAs are entitled to their opinions, or delusions, really. I just hope for the sake of all involved, I never date any of them. Ever.
lol wut?
This article was an insult to the fair and reasonable MRAs that do exist.
This article is a hate-filled insult to the dignity of all men and boys.
It legitimises feminist sponsored anti-boy violence by schools. It legitimises feminist sponsored anti-male violence by law enforcement and family courts.
Yeah, that’s why I highlighted the issue of prison rape. That’s why ended the piece by saying that “Male victims of domestic violence really do deserve shelters and sympathy.”
Clearly that is a devious way to encourage anti-male violence.
Yea feminists love to talk about male victims of dv in the comment section of YT and various other websites. When was the last time you heard NOW or AAUW or any feminst org speak out about the need to help male victims of dv or prison rape?
Yup you love to claim to be “equality fighers” but have yet to prove that through action.
Case in point david is when the largest feminist org in America posted an “action alert” against the proposed shared parenting bill in Michigan.
Google “NOW action alert shared parenting” if you dont believe me.
Yup equality fighers rit der.
David Futrelle, your support for the feminist war against boys is the only thing that you will be remembered for.
Inform yourself, for your own sake. The rate of stroke among the entire cohort of adolescent and young adult males has increased by 50%, even though only 10-20% of them were forced to take Ritalin. This suggests that the increase among Ritalin users must be 250% to 500% (in order to account for the observed population increase). The evidence from prolonged methamphetamine use suggests that the increase in the rate of stroke will be both irreversible and life-long. When these 20-something year olds reach YOUR age, they will be dropping like flies. As many as HALF of them can be expected to eventually die because of the feminist war of hate THAT YOU SUPPORT. When this happens, do you think that anything else that you have ever done will matter?
Dude, you talk a lot of random shiz without being able to back up a single bit of it.
I’m getting bored now. Keep talking, but I’ve stopped listening.
Actually Sam, if your commenting about Antz, It is understandable, He is a member of
“A Voice For Men” and has articulated his views and experiences quite well to those of us who know him. Although you are unlikely to understand his position many of us here do and respect him for it.
“I’m getting bored now.”
And commeting here at the same time? That’s some multi-tasking right there. Does your lover mind your lack of focus?
The ones that took their ideas from…I dunno…Feminism?
The fair and reasonable MRA’s get downvoted on the-spearhead and a voice for men, so don’t post often or give up posting. The “I hate women” posts get upvoted.
Poor choice of name for a movement that is fighting for equal rights.
If I called myself a Masculinist, would “equal” rights be the first thing that popped into your head?
Feminism is women’s advocacy, that funny thing is that so is patriarchy, patriarchy condescendingly pats women on the head mind you, but it’s always women and children first in the lifeboats, the men with their “superior” status get go down with the ship and die.
Thanks for the little bit “shaming” language, par for the course standard feminist debating tactic.
In response, I’m sure any man with a shred of self-respect wouldn’t date you either.
How often do ships sink?
Several times a year if you include the whole world, you’d be surprised how many people still die at sea, on rivers and lakes.
How many women around the world die in childbirth?
I’d venture to stay it blows your ‘woe is me… in the rare even that I will be on a sinking ship I will feel pressured into a moral stance that makes me prioritize those who are physically weaker.’
Give me a friggin’ break.
Thank you for such an insightful article, David! The world needs more level-headed men like you.
He is not a man. Oh, and he is also not insightful or level-headed.
Mr Futrelle LIVES for being patted on the head and being called a good boy.
Now give him his cookie.