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
I’m not an “MRA” (I find the idea stupid), but I get it. They’re angry and bitter because the feminist movement makes them feel angry and bitter. I mean, come on, there’s people who believe all-men-are-rapists and anyone who picks up a women at a bar is a criminal. They want to lower the freakin’ burden of proof for sex crimes. How do you respond to that? David Futrelle starts a blog on goodmenproject.com and writes about how terrible he is. I don’t think that’s the right response.
“Feminists believe that all-men-are-rapists” is a strawman argument. This is in no way a mainstream feminist opinion. You’re making things up. Also, the two feminists that such an assertion has been (wrongly) credited to (MacKinnon and Dworkin) are controversial figures in the feminist movement. Nobody would call them mainstream or claim they speak for all feminists.
So you’re not an MRA but you have false impressions of what feminism is. I don’t know if you’re doing it on purpose or out of ignorance, but it misses the point of the debate and is harmful to the conversation.
“there’s people who believe all-men-are-rapists and anyone who picks up a women at a bar is a criminal.”
There’s people does not mean all feminists. It does not translate at all to:
“Feminists believe that all-men-are-rapists”
The funny thing is you’re the one who using a strawman. Do you know what that means? It means misinterpreting or misconstruing something the other person said, then attacking that as if it was their actual argument. Which is exactly what you did, and absolutely nothing like what he did, even if we looked at what you thought he said.
I don’t know if you’re doing it on purpose or out of ignorance, but it misses the point of the debate and is harmful to the conversation.
There’s people who believe the moon landing was faked. Get out of here with your alarmism.
http://www.glennsacks.com/dart/dart-1.jpg
The deep-seated sexism of feminism is all around you. If you can’t see it, then take your hands off your eyes.
How is that ad sexist? I think perhaps you’re missing its point, it’s not saying “because he’s a male he’s a future wife-beater”, it’s using shock value to drive home the message that domestic abuse between parents can have really bad effects on children, specifically making them more likely to abuse as adults. The intent is that the viewer is supposed to feel sad that an innocent-looking kid would get twisted in that way by adult violence, not that the viewer should fear little boys. It’s basically a more dead-serious version of the “when I grow up” ads from monster.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myG8hq1Mk00
It’s not a strawman to say “Just a man” was linking “feminism” to the idea that all-men-are-rapists. After all, “Just a man” said:
“They’re angry and bitter because the feminist movement makes them feel angry and bitter. I mean, come on, there’s people who believe all-men-are-rapists and anyone who picks up a women at a bar is a criminal.”
Do you think there was no link intended between the first sentence here and the second? “Feminists believe all men are rapists” is a reasonable summary of what “Just a man” was saying, providing you understand that “feminists” does not mean *all* feminists, just some non-negligible fraction of them (whereas in reality I’m sure the fraction is quite negligible, so trashing feminism by pointing out that “some” believe this is a bit like trashing environmentalists because there are some tiny number of them who are actively hoping the human race goes extinct).
“Feminists believe that all-men-are-rapists” is a strawman argument.
I thought the same thing….until I experienced first hand feminsts defending the notion that its okay to assume that all men are either rapists or rapists that just haven’t struck yet.
This is in no way a mainstream feminist opinion.
And did I mention that this happened on Feministe?
Does this sentiment represent the entire movement? Of course not. But to act like this opnion does not exist (or try really hard to get people to pretend it doesn’t exist) is just foul. Especially on a post from a guy that makes his bread and butter on cherry picking the worst MRAs and passing them off as the entire movement.
Until I hear “Feminist” and particularly Feminist who are “card carrying” members of N.O.W. publicly dissavow the rantings of Dworkin and all the other extremist on the N.O.W. “suggested reading list” I refuse to believe the so called “moderate” Feminist when they say “Well, she doese’nt speak for me”. It’s kind of like me joining the KKK and telling you on the side “Listen, I really don’t have a problem with Blacks and Jews” as I’m standing there in my white sheet watching the cross burning. If you identify with an orginazation you identify with there positions .
Plenty of feminists do disavow such nonsense- Google individualist feminists, conservative feminists, and libertarian feminists, for example. If you don’t know about such feminists from now on, it’s only because you don’t want to acknowledge them.
“They’re angry and bitter because the feminist movement makes them feel angry and bitter. ”
WTF! If you believe that you are juvenile in development. We allow ourselves to become angry! What world are you on. Oh, thats’s right, you are a women hater!
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Now can someone please explain to me how this website can publish this piece, while simultaneously publishing this piece: http://goodmenproject.com/conflict/raise-your-voice-lose-your-child/
As a survivor of domestic violence, and as someone who sees misogyny and false information being spread my MRAs, why would a website like The Good Men Project give these folks a voice? I’m hoping it’s mere ignorance and not that they actually share this group’s views.
The reason that both articles can exist simultaneously is because this site strives to allow all sides and viewpoints to have a voice. You may take offense to the article you refer to, but that is what spurs conversation and (idealistically) change.
This article, in my opinion, brings up good points. It points out deficiencies in radical men’s rights activists that rightfully so, should be questioned. I don’t believe that these viewpoints should be superimposed on to all MRA’s, and that is what I find incorrect. Overall it was a good read that helps to narrow down the ‘good’ oppositional arguments from the ‘bad.’
You and many men are survivors of domestic violence. According to the CDC, from 50-70% of one-way DV attacks are started by the female against the male.
All I can say that it is extremly said to see so many that have lost their masculinity and I say this as a gay person .I see gay men that have been robbed of their very selves and mimic others and do not see or now the facts of hwo many men are living with mom and pop 1 out of every 4 men between the ages of 25-and 35 are living with their moms and dad.I thought we had a extreme hooker problem in America to the age I was 31 I then realized its based on many I thought some people where genuine took me away to wake it like most men .
The majortiy of those in prison are men the majority of the homeless are men .
Over 65 percent of African women are single but this percentage of women mostly have one child from one man from my studies I am finding that it just isnt possible that their is a shortage of black men .From what i read and from statistics and years of research I feel that those in charge of our census are not doing their job .
I feel great sorry for men that support feminism look at my own people like J-lo she just divorced her husband is sleeping around with some kid that like 23 while here kids are with pop.I say that their is only one good thing for feminist a big hole and a celelbration .
J-Lo isn’t a feminist. And it’s nice to hear that you celebrate the death of women.
K, Robert said “only one good thing for feminist a big hole and a celebration”. Stop twisting things and insulting real women by associating them with feminism. Feminism is a very misogynistic movement.
Dismantling the Men’s Rights Movement
This is an old article from March 2011.
I am happy to see, that exactly the opposite happened.
The Men’s Rights Movement was getting stronger in 2011…..even here within the GoodMenProject.
Happy New Year 2012!
IDK, I guess there’s been a (left wing) men’s rights movement for about 50 years? I get the impression the right wing guys were a little later.
When was “Men Freeing Men” (Baumli) first published?
I can’t believe what whiny princess-men have come under their rocks to comment even here. The so called men’s-right’s movement is a complete joke. It’s just jerks and losers with a massive sense of entitlement who are ticked off by equal right for women. It’s very sad to see such throwback stuff in this time still.
Adept, it’s funny. Essentially, your descriptions read like you are talking about feminists. Just swap out the male for female words, and MRM with feminism. As usual, all people hear and read about are personalized feminist attacks on men and boys rather than reasons backed up with real facts and numbers to state your political views. No wonder feminism is less and less acceptable to normal people.
Most MRAs are fine with equality for both sexes (be careful what you wish for) and that includes equality for us too. Ironic, that long term feminism will benefit men more. We are going through our own self-actualization questioning phase. Guess what? More and more of us don’t want to be pigeon-holed to being provider, protectors, and chivalrous gentlemen. We’re seeing that society, government, and women use us and need us more than we do them.
All the happiness surveys indicate women are less happy than ever. One out of three women are on anti-depressants. Have you perchance taken your happy pill today?
@adept
If the MRM is only a complete joke, why does it disturb you so much?
For sure the MRM is a growing power, I have never seen so many websites for men as now.
I don’t think, you must be a loser or jerk if you are a man asking for your rights.
Why should men have only obligations but no rights?
Yohan,
Well said. The growing men’s awareness movements whether semi-organized around a site or simply occurring inside individual men’s heads and hearts is an unstoppable force. I like it that there is not a central organization or stated ideology. Just like the Marriage Strike that is growing, men are reaching decisions and taking actions on their own about how to live in western modern misandrist society. Men do not even need to be aware of the MRM or what an MRA means. I’m on the marriage strike and ghosting. I do nothing to support women, society, and government. I spread the word to all my friends about what I know about misandry and feminism.
This site go go further if it kept the loonie females off it.
I kinda like the crazy girls
What a completely one sided and wonderfully misandrous filled article written by a wonderfully self-loathing femi-sexist & ignorant jerk that is a huge part of the problem. I will not applaud anything written here by this man that erroneously makes excuses for the ass load of male hate that steams out of feminists’ mouths, then mistakenly claims that men who are against this stupidity are somehow misogynists. Get this, David: Being against ignorance & gender hate by a group of misandry loving bullies has NOTHING to do with misogyny. They specifically point out this faction of women, not all women. Just look at the ignorance in these commens(perilsofdivorcepauline & a division by zer0, yes, we’re looking at your complete bias & sexism) To act as if there are no areas of our society(legal. Social) where men are treated as second class citizens is sheer ignorance & rooted in not only brain washing, but absolute blind stupidity! The fact that people such as you refuse to acknowledge it shows a major bias & bigotry. Unacceptable! Absolutely unacceptable. Whether you like it or not, Femi-sexist, misandry lovers, there is justification for Men’s Rights & it’s not going to go away. The days of viewing sexism as a one way street are over & thank men it is. The people on this site want to believe that women are always right, women should never be questioned when it’s with issues with a man/men, mothersvshould have more rights than fathers – and this is al in the name of some busted & cracked delusion that equal rights is only the female’s perception of them & that misandry is okay, all the while claiming that men who are against being degraded are somehow misogynists. David Futrelle, seriously get a brain!
Davids pretty upset that men are talking about re-gaining our rights under the Bill of Rights.
We’ve been under the high heel for too long, enough is enough.
MRM is the radical idea men are human beings.
I do hope David finds himself at the hands of the unjust family court some day.
Then he might get-a-clue.
He’s a second class citizen,and he likes it that way.
The problem comes when he thinks he can speak for anyone else.
douchbag
Exactly what rights do you not have? All I ever hear from this group gets summed up to the right to rape women. A bunch of men crying because women are starting to realize that they don’t owe men sex and don’t have to take being raped. That is a right you will never get back because sex with another individual is a privilege that they grant you and never a right.
You still have the upper hand so quit whining..
Well, Jess — whomever she, he, or it is — pretty much confirms that feminists are angry lunatics.
How does conscription relate to raping women? You’re making the mistake many who hate feminism make, they here the bad and assume the worst of a group. There are bad AND good in both sides….
Jess, in America!? Women have had to ‘take being raped’? In what era in America was it in which rape was allowed, and socially sanctioned?
Link to even one MRA site on which the men are crying about not being able to rape women any more.
Still no proof from Jess about men screaming to “get back” the “right to rape women”…still waiting!
Davids pretty upset that men are talking about re-gaining our rights under the Bill of Rights.
We’ve been under the high heel for too long, enough is enough.
MRM is the radical idea men are human beings.
I do hope David finds himself at the hands of the unjust family court some day.
Then he might get-a-clue.
He’s a second class citizen,and he likes it that way.
The problem comes when he thinks he can speak for anyone else.
The MRA movement seems to resemble a 21st century version of Spanky and Alfalfa’s “He-man club”.
“…getting all the best movie roles…”
You don’t have to be Molly Haskell to find THAT assertion ridiculous. The film industry is dominated by its principle demographic, adolescent males, and it shows accordingly in the films that Hollywood makes, whereby guys are free to be considerably less-than-matinee idols in their looks (Jason Segel, Seth Rogen when he was still fat) in romantic comedies, while their female partners must remain young, slim, and pretty.
For the record, the independent scene isn’t that much better.
Spose you’ve never seen an action movie in the last 30 years where bodies with more muscle than most men can really get without a fulltime gym career and probably some roids….This added in with the recent finding in the uk that men are actually slightly more anxious of their body image than women, you’re argument doesn’t appear to have much weight. Did you also ignore how STUPID those guys are in romcom’s? They’re portrayed as bafoons, losers, lazy in many cases. You can take hollywood and make arguments for each gender that are treated bad.
Thank you so much for this article. It has explained a lot of things I see on here, relating to MRAs, which I couldn’t entirely put my finger on/articulate but have FELT them.
I swear some of these threads, especially feminist topics overtaken by the MRAs make me feel like I have walked into a FUN HOUSE, with all these giant mirrors all around me – and everywhere I look, things are distorted and laughing back at me! They make women feel and look like crazy fools! I pity these angry men.
wilma says:
January 3, 2012 at 12:06 pm
…feminist topics overtaken by the MRAs make me feel like I have walked into a FUN HOUSE
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MRAs do not ‘overtake feminist topics’ within the GMP.
MRAs, simply said, write their comments in those threads exactly in the same way as the feminists do.
You will have to learn as a feminist, that many people, not only MRAs do not agree with you.
Of course you will find comments against feminism written by MRAs and published by the GMP, like it or not, but what is wrong with this?
The GMP is not supposed to operate as a ‘feminist-only’ website, it is supposed to be a website for men, and this includes comments from MRAs.
Nobody will restrict you as a feminist to post your opinion but please accept the fact, that other who do not agree with you will also post their opinion.
This article is directly against the Men’s Rights Movement – what replies do you expect from men, who were badly treated by women in their past?
Not all MRA’s are like this, the author basically wrote a piece on a few and generalized badly that most are like this. The same tactic used by those BAD Mra’s the author hates, on feminism.
IF the gmp was a feminist site I would not be here because from experience with trying to get anything I say valued and respected in the feminist-areas is like walking on eggshells and having to parrot only the popular feminist ideals, never EVER mention male suffering, join in blind following of women suffer and we can’t talk about the men. I haven’t seen any feminist site that allows for both genders to talk freely like this one does, if you know of any let me know and I’ll gladly say otherwise. But from everything I’ve seen, men are not welcome in feminist areas if they are genuinely interested in the issues that affect men.
Feminism itself is for women’s issues of equality, masculism is for mens issues and this isn’t even really a masculist site, it’s simply a site for men and has a wide variety of topics.
It’s sad to say the above but it’s what I feel, I don’t feel safe with feminists being the only people in charge of anti-rape and anti-abuse campaigning, I and others have already shot holes through the popular rape culture article going atm where the author ignores vital stats and tries to treat a human issue as mainly a woman’s issue when the stats she uses proves otherwise. I don’t like bias, I don’t like having half the debate, we need feminism + masculism/MRA to work together to fix the world.
And the reason some of the feminist topics get taken over by mra’s is because the articles are full of bias, misandry, generalizations that are harmful, dishonest usage of statistics and downright antagonism. I’d expect feminists to do the same on articles by MRA’s doing the same thing, hell I’d probably do it if I can spot the problems.
What’s sad is this author obviously dislikes sexism, generalizations of feminists but will gladly do it to the MRA’s. “the movement isn’t really about the issues at all—rather, it’s an excuse to vent male rage and spew misogyny online.” Haven’t you heard of the various calls of feminism being about female superiority, or angry women, or women spreading misandry?
His first paragraph makes him look like a complete hypocrit and a bigot, something he advocates against. How do some people not see this?
It’s hilarious when feminists contradict themselves. They seem to do this constantly. David writes “…. the feminists and other activists who fought for years to get the woman-centered shelters we have today….”
Here I thought feminists stood for equality. Well shiver me timbers. I never would have guessed that they only supported women. How can you be for equality when you only support 51% of the population?
They (feminists) also love to argue with themselves. They tell you what mras are arguing and then they proceed to debate themselves. Easy to attack their opponent when they aren’t actually attacking their opponent.
David also seems to hate MGTOW. I wonder why? Maybe because the poor helpless pathetic females aren’t getting thins handed to them on a silver platter from these men? No meals? Gifts? Drinks? Etc. It must suck for women when they :gasp: actually have to buy things for themselves with their own money. Oh the horror. Not to mention no guy telling them how awesome little princesses they are to stroke their female egos.
So feminists think MRA’s and anti-feminists are a joke? Why attack it then? Why have whole websites devoted to “making fun of them” if they are a joke? Seems to me you attack an opponent. So they do. They know how formidable MRA’s and anti-feminists have become. They know the movement is getting stronger and growing. As usual the feminists show their true selves by running chicken shit like the cowards they are. They can’t stand the fact that they no longer run unopposed so they lash out.
This is like the terminator movies. Man created machine and the machine fought man. Feminists created their own enemies and now those forces are fighting back. This will not end soon and it won’t be pretty either.
“This is like the terminator movies. Man created machine and the machine fought man. Feminists created their own enemies and now those forces are fighting back. This will not end soon and it won’t be pretty either.”
This is why so many MRAs come across as angry creeps, because you guys so often act like living mirrors of caricatures of man-hating feminists (of which there are some, but most feminists aren’t like this in my experience)–all you ever seem to talk about is your hatred of feminism, your fantasies about how you’re going to turn the tables on them and give ‘em a taste of their own medicine, etc. etc. If you actually just focused on creating positive change on specific issues that do especially harm men (prison rape, child custody etc.) you’d be doing something admirable, but mostly it comes across as an ideology of vitriolic resentment (kind of like much of modern “conservatism” with its constant railing against the nefarious plans of “liberal elites”)
Jesse, I’m guessing you’re a feminist but do you like being lumped in with radfems who advocate aborting male children, have big forum discussions about it? Want to reduce the worlds population of men and speak other misandrist garbage? Who love the Scum manifesto like it’s a bible?
“Because you guys”, do you mean all mra’s, some mra’s, are you lumping the mra’s who question statistics with the ones that hate women?
“If you actually just focused on creating positive change on specific issues that do especially harm men (prison rape, child custody etc.) ”
I’m not an MRA, but I’ve tried to do this and had SOME feminists bite my head off for it, except the issue was rape and domestic violence. They treated it like it was so rare it wasn’t worth mentioning yet I posted stats that proved it was significant, varying from 20% to parity, and even argued it doesn’t matter how many suffer each side, EVERYONE needs support. But not many seem to have listened, people want to think of those issues as very gendered when both genders suffer so badly from them. I personally resent the lack of good will on both sides, the failure for whatever reason that they can’t work together. I resent that recent stats showed male rape, even by females, absolutely rose like crazy in numbers yet it was reported with heavy bias and didn’t even mention the vital part, even by feminists who call out equality, equalittyy. I resent the few feminists who are misandrist, I resent the few mra’s who are misogynous, they’re a stain on their cause, they aren’t for equality that’s for sure.
Jesse, I’m guessing you’re a feminist but do you like being lumped in with radfems who advocate aborting male children, have big forum discussions about it?
I’m a feminist in the sense of believing in equality but I don’t buy into all the things that get included in contemporary american feminism, especially when they get into critiques of the media. But in any case I think you could search through vast numbers of comments on mainstream feminist sites (jezebel, feminista) without ever finding any expressing that sort of extreme man-hating view, whereas finding woman-hating (or more specifically “feminist”-hating) comments is not that hard on mainstream MRA sites.
“Because you guys”, do you mean all mra’s, some mra’s, are you lumping the mra’s who question statistics with the ones that hate women?
No, just the ones who have a constant axe to grind against feminism, which is a lot of them I find. Just look at most of the MRA defenders in the comments on this post, for example.
I’m not an MRA, but I’ve tried to do this and had SOME feminists bite my head off for it, except the issue was rape and domestic violence. They treated it like it was so rare it wasn’t worth mentioning yet I posted stats that proved it was significant, varying from 20% to parity, and even argued it doesn’t matter how many suffer each side, EVERYONE needs support.
Domestic violence probably happens frequently against men, but I wonder what the ratio of male rape to female rape would be if one didn’t include prison populations–if most male rape happens in prison, to some degree it makes sense to treat it as a separate issue from rape in the wider society, just as the rape of children is generally seen as a somewhat separate issue from the rape of adults–this kind of partitioning makes sense because the strategies needed to combat one would probably be fairly different from the strategies needed to combat another. Anyway, I agree that no one should “bite your head off” for bringing this stuff up, although you need to be careful not to bring it up in a manner that might come across as confrontational or like you’re trying to score debating points (for example, “you guys are just concerned with domestic abuse against women, but it happens to men too!”) In your experience, do you think the author of this article is wrong to say that there is not nearly enough involvement among MRAs with specific organizations that actually try to *do* something about issues like prison rape?
Yes, Jesse, but the reality is that for the last forty years the “women’s movement” has very successfully manipulated the mass media and our judicial system to constantly regardless all women as hopeless victims, and all men as monsters. Perhaps that might — just might — account for the rage so many guys feel with regards to “feminism.” Think about it, how many men lose access to their children, often due to bogus claims by women that their spouses are sexual predators, how many men break their backs being good providers only to lose everything in divorce court to a wife who barely worked her whole life? How many men send child support checks to an ex-wife who then spends it all on herself? I have a friend whose wife — eventually diagnosed as being mentally ill — accused him of raping their children and battering her, and the ENTIRE community of lovey-dovey, hippie-dippie, college-educated granola-eaters believed HER sight unseen, and helped her abscond against a court order with the kids. And why? For no other reason than in this liberal college town, everyone assumes that a woman can do no wrong, while men are always suspect. She was eventually found out in another state by the FBI, arrested, diagnosed as being mentally ill, but then given a light, in-house sentence. Why? Because she got herself knocked-up along the way. Now, isn’t that convenient. But go on about horrible “male privilege”.
I’m sorry for what happened to your friend. Still, I’d need more evidence to think it was justified to blame this type of thing on feminism–there are plenty of sociopaths out there who will lie in court and smear people’s reputations to get what they want, men and women alike. For example, are cases like this significantly more common in liberal areas where feminism is popular than in conservative areas where it isn’t? I think there’s a general trend in our culture to see women as more sympathetic and likely to be victims, especially when it comes to child-rearing, so I’m not sure this would be a lot less likely in a community where few would identify as “feminists”. Probably cases like this are more common today than they would have been in say the 1950s, but then in the 1950s there was a lot less awareness of child abuse too, so a liar would be less likely to tell stories about it in order to get custody, not to mention the general fact that divorces and custody battles were a lot less common back then.
In general if you want to make a case that this stuff is pervasive and that feminism is a large part of the reason, as a math/science geek I’d want to see some real statistics on these issues. Just asking rhetorical questions like “how many men break their backs being good providers only to lose everything in divorce court to a wife who barely worked her whole life?” is not helping to convince me since I have no idea what the quantitative answer would actually look like.
I think MRA’s can do a lot more, I believe Glenn Sacks does quite a bit of work and various fathers groups try to get their issues addressed, I’ve seen the anti-misandry websites trying to raise awareness of that issue. I see quite a few of the bad mra’s seem to be in a backlash mode, feeling betrayed by feminism even to the point they are bitter and they are angry. I guess it can be quite daunting to see the bad feminists, and it does appear the bad ones might have a lot of power if the recent avoiceformen article on the “The Plan” for Australia in domestic violence against women. “The Plan” from what I’ve heard of it is heavily gendered to the point it’s probably harmful to men, it seems like a drastic overreach but I need to see more written about it to be 100% sure.
I truly hope to see a lot of feminists and mra’s get together, draw up what’s bad in the world and each tackle the issues or join together for certain ones/or all of them. Abuse can be prevented if we actually stopped the generational abuse, how many of those abusive husbands were abused by their mother or father? We need to acknowledge female abusers and not put SO MUCH weight on male responsibility, share it out where it’s needed. Need to remove bias in rape definition so the many male rape victims actually get a chance to be helped properly and supported instead of dishonest use of stats artificially inflating the percentage of women raped to men. Read the CDC report, last 12 months section, remember many people view “forced to penetrate as rape” however the cdc report doesn’t list that under rape. This is used to show women are raped far more than men, when there is no need to be so dodgy with the stats. Why does one group need to appear bigger in number? you don’t end rape and abuse by only tackling 1 gender because the other gender is still gonna suffer and the cycle of abuse can go…Male abused, male more likely to abuse someone, that can be male or female. Reduce all abuse, it’s in everyone’s best interests.
As far as I can tell most male rape is actually by females in the way of coersion and other methods to force a man to penetrate her. But it’s a heavily understudied area, since most rape stats for the west consider only the act of penetrating someone else as rape and that by it’s very definition is heavily weighted in favour of a male attacker. This is why I HATE comparisons of male and female rape, rape itself is heavily biased towards disproportionally raising male attacker vs female attacker, and female victim vs male victim percentages.
Jesse M: You said: “I wonder what the ratio of male rape to female rape would be if one didn’t include prison populations–if most male rape happens in prison, to some degree it makes sense to treat it as a separate issue from rape in the wider society,”
The NISVS 2010 Report from CDC did not have any institutionalized respondents, which means that prison inmated were not asked. If you look at the “Last 12 months” prevalency numbers and you accept the premise that “being made to penetrate someone else” (exact definition on p.17 in NISVS 2010) you will see that 1.1% women reported rape while 1.1% of men reported being made to penetrate someone else (tables on p.18-19).
The NISVS 2010 Report can be read here: http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf
Would you disagree that if rape prevention programs levelled at youth in a believable and sincere manner devoted just as much time to talk about men’s right and ability to withhold consent and have that respected as they do for women would be a good thing? My argument is that such an approach reflects the findings in the NISVS report as well as other studies and that men are sorely needing to be told that their right to not have sex if they don’t want to is just as valued and respected as women’s.
Another study which reflects this is a study on Male Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Care published in Pediatrics (the official journal of American Academy of Pediatrics) on page 5-6 in the PDF which can be found here: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/11/22/peds.2011-2384.full.pdf+html
Clearly men need to learn that they are free to consent or not and women need to learn that coercing someone into sex is not acceptable.
Note also that on page 6 this result on dating violence is reported:
Both these findings go against popular beliefs and against beliefs held by many who currently are in a position to influence much of the prevention efforts. These beliefs needs to be challenged with this findings which now are surfacing because someone finally thought what if we asked men about their experiences rather than just ask women and postulate a low prevalency of male victims.
‘If you look at the “Last 12 months” prevalency numbers and you accept the premise that “being made to penetrate someone else” (exact definition on p.17 in NISVS 2010) you will see that 1.1% women reported rape while 1.1% of men reported being made to penetrate someone else (tables on p.18-19).’
I wonder about these “12 month” figures–it seems strange that 1.1% of men would say this had happened in the last 12 months, but only 4.8% would say it happened in their entire lifetime, whereas for women 1.1% say they have been raped in the last 12 months, but 18.3% say it has happened in their lifetime. It would be useful to do some more detailed survey about this phenomenon of forced penetration, for example it might be that a lot of men wouldn’t have actually considered such events “rape” or even traumatic, just something like their partner pulling their dick into them when they weren’t really in the mood, and that the reason the “last 12 months” figure seems so disproportionate compared to the lifetime figure is that such events don’t really stick out in memory.
Could be men are forcing themselves to bury it more but you run the risk of minimizing the severity of it with talk like that, there could be women who were raped too who didn’t view it as bad but I’d say most men n women really hated it and it affected them in some way. I’m very curious as to why there is such a disparity, maybe women have better long term memory? I can’t recall a lot of my bullying and assaults, only glimpses here n there. I know something happened, I can sometimes remember some of the incidents but recalling it at will is quite hard. Could be men bury their pain more? It’s probably hard enough getting the gender that is trained to be courageous and never admit weakness to actually open up and admit their traumas and insecurities.
Definitely needs more study though from an unbiased standpoint.
I notice now that for all the male figures the lifetime figure seems oddly low compared to the 12-month figure–for “unwanted sexual contact” it’s 2.3 vs. 11.7 (so the lifetime figure is less than 5.1 times larger), for “non-contact unwanted sexual experiences” it’s 2.7 vs. 12.8 (a little more than 4.7 times larger), for “sexual coersion” it’s 1.5 vs. 6.0 (4 times larger), all of which are comparable to the “made to penetrate” figures of 1.1 and 4.8 (a little under 4.4 times larger). Unfortunately the survey didn’t include 12 month figures for forced penetration, it would be helpful to know if the ratio was similar or different (such incidents might be harder to forget). Anyway this suggests a higher rate of putting these incidents out of mind long after they occur, whether it’s because they weren’t so traumatic or because men are more likely to repress them as you suggest. I definitely don’t want to dismiss the possibility they are commonly genuine traumas for the men, I think more research needs to be done on the issue.
Why no, they’re simply saying ‘karma’s a bitch’.
they are very active in bribery – of judges in family courts, especially regarding cases of child abuse (them vs. child) and when they don’t want to pay child support, or make the woman who’s never had a job pay child support to them. You’re right about the rage, though.
Any proof of that!?
“Dismantling the Men’s Rights Movement”
Too much big words coming from a so little “man”.
I’m waiting for you at my door, to see how you’re going to “dismantle the men’s rights movement”.
Won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen though… too much distance between your braggadocio and what you can materially do.
-An Italian Men’s Rights Activist, Celebrating 8 years of activism.
(And I’m 29 years old. About other 50-60 years of activism left, and I’m waking up more and more young men every day who will continue the AntiFeminist tradition…)
Far from ‘digging deep’, Futrelle lurked at one or two sites without ever posting (hadn’t the guts to say anything directly), cherry-picked and edited comments, put them on his blog and said ‘This is the men’s right’s movement’.
No comment on any of the other stuff since i don’t know much about it, but has it occurred to you that blue jeans guy is a troll? An obvious one? And you still fell for it. For shame. How long have you been on the internet?
David Futrelle does nothing more than malign and denigrate the MM as it’s is what he does. He introduces lies and misinformation as all feminists do and have done right from the beginning. False information and strawman arguments is the bread and butter of the feminist movement and generating anti-male sentiment, male hate and spreading vitriol against the MM just indicates that it is becoming something to be feared and to be controlled. Too late.
Also Congratulation on David Futrelle’s Mangina Award, I know he deserves it and has poisoned a lot of people in order to achieve it.
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I’ve been reading MRAs blogs since 2009 and I know women that read and comment on them too and David is right : there is no activism among MRAs, there’s only whining and trolling. In fact, Glenn Sacks had to shutdown the comment section of his blog a few years ago because it was flooded of insanities by MRAs. As an example, a few years ago, in soc.men, there’s a guy that complained that the comment he posted on Glenn Sacks blog had been removed because he said in it that women should not have the right to vote. Another guy told him that if people start thinking that Glenn Sacks want to remove the right to vote for women, he will look like a complete moron and nobody will take him seriously. And most comments were like that, so it’s no wonder Glenn Sacks had to shutdown the comment section of his blog.
Jess says:
January 3, 2012 at 5:02 am
Exactly what rights do you not have? All I ever hear from this group gets summed up to the right to rape women.
Sounds like feminist hatespeech to me.
This is really a stupid argument against the Men’s Rights Movement.