Dan Moore of MenZ magazine gives his perspective on fundamental men’s rights issues, breaks down MRA sub-groups, and answers the question: Why do MRAs hate feminism?
My involvement with the Men’s Rights Movement began nearly two decades ago, before Reddit gave MRAs (men’s rights activists) a place to gather, and before I founded MenZ magazine. Back then, there was a thing we call the “Lace Curtain,” a reference to the media’s unwillingness to take a male-sympathetic view of anything, even to the point of suppressing any pro-male comments or letters to the editor. We used to send out an email alert whenever someone got a letter to the editor published in their local paper. It was so rare, we had to celebrate it.
We’ve made a lot of progress as a movement since then. But what kind of progress, exactly? It’s obvious we exist, and that we’re angry and loud—but what do we believe in and stand for today? Explaining the MRM involves exploding so many of the cultural myths we live with that it would take more than one article to cover them. But, if you’ll bear with me, I’m going to try.
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The Issues:
Men have no reproductive rights throughout what we would call the Political West. Men have no right to choose if they are
ready for parenthood post-conception, even though women have that right (and staunchly defend it). While the morality of letting men abandon pregnant girlfriends is left in question, the base inequality of the current situation is not. We have a blatant legal double standard, based solely on the sex of the person involved. Either give men the same rights as women, or restrict women’s rights to equal those of men—I don’t care which. But to fail to do so is to promote sexism as official government policy.
As the Department of Health and Human Services concedes,”historically, unmarried fathers have had fewer rights with regard to their children than either unwed mothers or married parents.” For example, as an unintended consequence of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, which required single mothers seeking public assistance to identify the father and put states in charge of collecting child support, millions of men across the U.S. were declared dads by “default judgment.” As Matt Welch wrote in a 2004 issue of Reason magazine:
[W]hen the government accuses you of fathering a child, no matter how flimsy the evidence, you are one month away from having your life wrecked. Federal law gives a man just 30 days to file a written challenge; if he doesn’t, he is presumed guilty. And once that steamroller of justice starts rolling, dozens of statutory lubricants help make it extremely difficult, and prohibitively expensive, to stop—even, in most cases, if there’s conclusive DNA proof that the man is not the child’s father.
Many states have since passed reform bills, but paternity fraud is still a problem.
While we’re talking about family court, how about those child support tables? They were based in part on hysteria created when sociologist Lenore Weitzman concluded, in a 1985 report, that after a divorce women’s standard of living went down 73 percent, and men’s went up 42 percent. “For several years after the publication of her book, she did not make her data available to other researchers,” according to the Associated Press. In 1996, she admitted that her calculations were faulty. A re-analysis of her numbers “found a 27 percent decline in women’s post-divorce standard of living and a 10 percent increase in men’s—still a serious gap, but not the catastrophic one that Weitzman saw.”
But by that time it was too late. According to the 1996 AP report, Weitzman’s bogus statistic had already been cited in 348 social-science articles, 250 law review articles, 24 appeals and Supreme Court cases, and in President Clinton’s 1996 budget. “This has been one of the most widely quoted statistics in recent history,” said Anne Colby, director of Radcliffe College’s Murray Research Center at the time.
All this is done under “no fault” divorce, which basically means there’s no reason needed to initiate divorce and no acknowledgment of wrongdoing. Even in cases where one spouse is decent and hardworking and upstanding, and the other cheats and drinks too much and is addicted to gambling and takes off with the kids, there can be no assignation of blame. Alone, this is no big deal until you factor in the misandric culture we live in, where accusations of wrongdoing are gendered in the media.
Speaking of the law, men have particular concerns when it comes to the justice system. There has been a massive spike in incarcerations in the U.S. over the last 30 years. Nearly all of those are men, and nearly all of those men are poor, and usually black. While some might see this as our society being tough on crime, I see a society locking their “undesirables” out of sight. And while black and white men are often treated differently, the differences in treatment between men and women are substantially greater.
About Dan Moore
The content of recent articles marks a marginal shift in attitude here at TGMP but its language of it’s chief contributors for the most part is still as full of shaming and mockery towards the MRM as always. This merely feeds the MRM so it will only grow in response.
Before I expound on why growth is inevitable, I’ll pose the question I always pose to those who question the motives of MRA’s:
What possible motive could an undefinable number of men, growing by the thousands daily worldwide, who’ll probably never meet in person, have for banding together in the unforgiving environment of the internet to share and express their feelings, if it isn’t to thwart a rapidly rising evil?
If this article is anything to go by, TGMP seems to be starting to see the emptiness of their previous answers to this question. Soon, its testicles will drop, its voice will break and it will no longer be drowned out by the whelps of the feminist dog-pack that anoints all men everywhere who speak in their own defense as evil.
While most women could be characterized more accurately as herd animals rather than pack animals, most simply don’t care about men when they feel helpless. Their response is like this article – shaming and mockery. In many cases it doesn’t even to occur to women that a man might ever be in need.
I speak from personal experience. Most women who have seen me in trouble start with a look of total non-comprehension on their faces and it’s only after I emphatically articulate my need that it seems to register. In my experience, most women haven’t the faintest idea what a man in need looks like. The MRM is for these men.
The problem is not so much that women don’t care about men, but that most men are invisible to most women, so the humanity of these men doesn’t even register. Most women seem to care for the men in their personal frame, or even random strangers in trouble who fit their notion of ‘safe’, ‘respectable-looking’ or even ‘cute’, but they’d not stop to help a random man who falls outside of these often very narrow perceptions. My guess is that 90% of random men fall outside the lines. The MRM is for these men.
This is one of the key areas in which masculinity differs from femininity. While the statistic is arbitrary, it’s a lot more convincing to say that 90% of women are fully visible to all men than the other way around, so this dichotomy of perception must create an unrighteous imbalance. The MRM is for men who are poorly treated by women.
Consider this true statement and reflect on how often it is forgotten:
“Masculinity is the possession of strength for the purpose of female protection rather than expression of strength for the purpose of their coercion.”
I’ve read hundreds, perhaps thousands of descriptions of femininity, but I’ve never seen this description, or anything like it, used to characterize women. In other words, male strength provides the intrinsic freedoms in society that women take for granted yet it’s demonized by almost everyone. The MRM is for men who are demonized unnecessarily.
Speaking of protection, with the demise of Marriage 1.0, this flow of provision and protection services, this ‘Patriarchy’ no longer has a counter-flow, so this feminized social system has become unstable. Since the state is now the primary protector and provider of women, and sex is no longer a marital entitlement for men, men have little incentive to do anything at all for women, least of all protect them. There are literally thousands of ways in which a woman can obtain the provisioning and protective services of Big Daddy government that don’t require anything from men but their taxes. If women hijack the workplace, what’s left for men but the cackling laughter of feminists? The MRM is for men whose livelihoods are being systematically drained away by a workplace environment that is no longer suitable or legally safe for men.
This brings me to female tendency to hypergamy, or to marry up, which I alluded to in a previous paragraph. Since most women set their male standard against the 10% of men of whom they perceive as having higher status than they, it comes as no surprise that the other 90% – the invisible men are seen as afflatus. It’s a rare woman indeed who is able to recognize, let alone respect, the independent social value of men whom she has herself rejected as potential mates. These men, in the vast majority, the machinery of society, are systematically being replaced by the at-call appliances of an ever more feminized state. The men are not redundant because they’re not productive or bad, but because they’re invisible to a feminized society. The MRM is for men whose social protections and guarantees are no longer valued.
This is why the MRM exists. It exists not only FOR the 90% who fall outside the protections of a feminized system – it IS them. Unlike feminism, it’s not an ideology and it doesn’t exist for its own sake. It’s a response to the gender apartheid and cultural misandry promoted and purveyed by the corrupt ideology we commonly refer to as ‘feminism’. It comprises every deserving man who feels that the state no longer treats him as fundamentally vital and virtuous. The MRM may be better understood not as an organization, but as a process. An organic process.
In that regard the MRM can no more be stopped than Mother Nature. You can falsely represent it, complain about it, wax lyrical about it, express outrage over it, but you can’t stop it. The MRM carries in its heart the essence of masculinity, society’s engine room, which everyone knows won’t stop until its function is fulfilled. The stronger and more pervasive feminism and cultural misandry become, the larger the MRM will grow. Try to stop it and it will grow. It’s that simple.
such a good article, even if it is heavily edited. Please post the original if you can, I’d love to read it as I always fell more on the PUA side of things rather than MRA.
My life is worth so much more than what feminism, the media and women in general would have me believe. It is my opinion that there is no point in arguing anymore and what men & boys need to do is just learn to live without women. My life has meaning and is precious to me. I don’t need it run by angry women, they can have the manginas for that. If we really want to take their power away there is really only 3 things we need to do. #1 At all costs don’t get them pregnant. #2 don’t marry them. #3 don’t let them move in with you. Let them scream all they want, if we follow these 3 simple rules it won’t matter what they do. We’ll be to busy enjoying our own lives to notice them. The pigs are starting to squeal, and I love it.
Just marry a cool girl from over seas, there are plenty of women in other countries that still know how to treat a man and how to be a woman
I know, they don’t, like, talk back and shit.
An ignorant comment by someone who has completely lost touch with their femininity
Exactly, fannie, they don’t “talk back”, they RESPOND.
You mean they obey…
This only works if you live THERE! If you bring such a woman here, Feminism will infect her to the core and she’ll f**k you over the first chance she gets. You may treat her as equal, but according to feminism there is no equality.
Where do you guys live? Move somewhere else.
You can have Dworkin reading barely even tolerate men difficult woman like our friend Fannie here who probably lives in some coastal overpriced city.
Or you can have a woman from fly over country who actually likes men! And who doesn’t want to change them into pathetic simpering man-children. And they don’t like women who sleep around and abandon their children. You can have personality, intelligence, like to argue…and still like men.
No Kate, it you and your species that will be outbred.America can’t protect you any moer. Give it another 20 years and those ‘foreign’ countries will be America. Your grandchildren will be Muslim and brown.
You just summed it up nicely. MGTOW. Spend your time, your money, your energy, and your mental and emotional resources on things that will benefit YOU as a MAN. We’ve spent a lot of unappreciated effort bowing to the whims of selfish women and feminists.
I, for one, will never willfully subsidize another woman again.
You selfish, arrogant, entitled women can all go to hell. OI’ll be in my man cave creating some more badass manly shit with my badass manly hands.
Yawn. Have fun. Don’t let the door hit ya on the way out!
Dan is another angry emasculated male who is impotent to stand up to feminists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plkeKMTDM9g
Says the stark raving lunatic from Manhood101. You pusbags have been trying to poison the well for long enough, haven’t you?
Take your woman hating everyone-is-queer-but-internet-tough-guys-like-me bullshit and peddle it somewhere else. There’s a reason why every single MRA site I’m aware of – certainly all the majors – have come out openly attacking you people as the 5th column bullshit artists you really are. You have no backing from anyone (unless it’s covert) in this discussion – you are NOT MRAs, and you’re all unwelcome anywhere as far as I know.
It’s hardly surprising you’re here though, considering your site and TGMP have the same goals in mind, even though you attack it from opposite ends….you want the Mens Movement to implode.
All I can say, is you’re out of your minds if you think that’s gonna happen.
This site is beyond feminist propaganda, I’d be ashamed to be any part of it
Wow, great article, the first good one on this site probably. I’m shocked they let you put it up at all since it’s actually telling it how it is and not how some feminist is speculating it is
Thanks. I appreciate the compliment.
I was kind of skeptical of this MRA thing until Fannie showed up. I’m so sheltered since I’ve surrounded myself with people who like men in my personal life, that I totally forget what a nuisance feminists are. They want to spread their unhappiness and bitterness everywhere. And sadly based on this essay it seems they’ve succeeded. I hope some of you bitter men find women who truly stand by you and support you. I still think they exist and I strive to be one every day.
Kate, i’m wiht you on that. I do not have any female friends who hate men (well, i do know one woman who is very bitter about her choices in life, but she’s not a close friend, but someone i know through my work). But my close friends, we are all man lovers!
All I look for in a partner is someone who I can share life with, and important to do things apart, get on well, laugh a lot and who has a high libido!! I look for laughter and someone who is happy in themselves. I am not interested in how much a guy earns as I am my own boss and earn my own money. It would make me very happy to make my other half happy. Unfortunately at the moment I live in an area which is filled with couples and marrieds and need to move somewhere where there are actual single people!!
Like kate, i also hope some of you guys find good women out there. We do exist. honest!
I’d just like to say…
This website or blog or whatever you like to call it, is extremely glitchy.
How do users or members have the patience to deal with it?
A site this poorly designed would last about 4 days in the MRA community.
Why does The Good Men Project hate men?
Because the site owners are feminists.
Kate says:
March 10, 2011 at 8:39 am
Choice starts at the choice to not have sex with people who you don’t want to have children with.
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This is exactly what MRAs are telling to all men.
And this is exactly what feminists do not want to hear and why they dislike MRAs so much.
MRAs recommend to study the laws in your Western feminist-orientated country, and if you think, it’s not a good choice to have a family/children because biased laws are against you as a man, say NO and stay single. Reject any contact with Western females.
This MRA-advice helps a lot to avoid certain mistakes in the life of a Western man which might financially ruin him over decades.
And yes, the Men’s Rights Movement is growing, and many young Western men prefer to remain single. Many divorced older men do not consider marriage again.
Why to do something which might harm you? Any reason for that?
Kate is correct. Men have a choice. The choice to say NO!
Kate says:
March 10, 2011 at 8:39 am
Choice starts at the choice to not have sex with people who you don’t want to have children with.
—-
This is exactly what MRAs are telling to all men.
And this is exactly what feminists do not want to hear and why they dislike MRAs so much.
MRAs recommend to study the laws in your Western feminist-orientated country, and if you think, it’s not a good choice to have a family/children because biased laws are against you as a man, say NO and stay single. Reject any contact with Western females.
This MRA-advice helps a lot to avoid certain mistakes in the life of a Western man which might financially ruin him over decades.
And yes, the Men’s Rights Movement is growing, and many young Western men prefer to remain single. Many divorced older men do not consider marriage again.
Why to do something which might harm you? any reason for that?
MRAs do not hate feminists, but feminists hate MRAs.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/2011/03/14/the-unabridged-mens-movement
http://www.avoiceformen.com/2011/03/14/the-unabridged-mens-movement
’nuff said!
There are some important questions about this whole Good Man Project here.
1) What are you DOING or ADVOCATING for MEN? How are you HELPING them? This is a MEN’s GROUP – yes? Can you please list them, in a nice simple bullet point way? Because that would help assure those who come by out of curiosity. You could have it as a one-page, just 8 points or so. Then you could say HOW you are going to achieve this. Examples below.
1.1 Positive discrimination (AA) is cheating. End of. Period. Before you start on the history argument, two wrongs don’t make a right. Why take it out on a 22-year-old guy going for a job?
1.2 Forced male circumcision of neonates is a human rights issue. Why is it OK?
1.3 The suicide right is three times higher for men than women
1.4 Men have poorer health outcomes and die earlier
1.5 Not all rape defendents are guilty, why are they named in the media before the trial. Human Rights Watch reports that male rapes in USA prisons are higher than those reported for females
1.6 In advertising, men are presented as incapable. If anybody presented a woman in that way there’d be an outcry
1.7 Divorce takes most of the assets (and the children) and gives to the women
1.8 You can do your own number 8.
2) You seem to believe men are culpable and need to ‘learn’ or ‘do penance’. (The walking in high heels at universities is just an exercise in humiliation. Saps, jerks and nitwits).
Let me alter this slightly – yes, some guys need to: learn manners, be a gentleman in terms of quitting the bad temper thing, control their money sensibly, go to the gym, take an interest in other people’s problems – etc. So you could do a practical self-improvement piece. But you seem to have a blame culture against the male sex – again, what do you hope to gain by this? Why would any guy want to take full responsibility for the actions of 1% of his gender?
3) The web-site seems to have an awful lot in common with feminist sites. That’s kind of strange, isn’t it? For a men’s group.
I agree with you, Peter.
The marxist feminist hate movement was exported from the former soviet union to the west to destroy the family and transfer all social, economic, educational and political power from men to women with the state being the ultimate authority. Women being the “peasant victim class” weild the guns of the state to incarcerate, hamstring or hurt any man, who are of course the “burgiousse oppressor class” for any reason or just on a whim.
Are feminists soley to blame? No, most women must also shoulder the resposibility of blame. The claim of NAWALT, (not all women are like that) may but true, but the number is depressingly small. When the Bolsheviks murdered 20 million Ukrainians by starving them to death and some folks took a piece of the communist pie while claiming innosence, they were also to blame. If a woman gorges herself on a piece of fruit from the feminist tree while claiming NAWALT, she is to blame. Silence is also consent, you are also to blame. You can’t pick and choose then cry NAWALT.
I have yet to find a single “MRA” site that isn’t sexist against women and doesn’t blame feminism for every single issue they have. It’s pathetic. At least sites like Feministing doesn’t blame men; it merely talks about women’s issues, and the “MRAs” hate them for that, for whatever reason. “MRAs” don’t even bother to remember that not all feminists are like Valerie Solanas. I believe in equal rights for everyone. I would totally team up with the “MRM” if they didn’t hate on women so much. And I know you’re going to say “well, feminists hate men,” but no, it’s not true. I have never seen women create a site glorifying the killing of men, whereas some “MRAs” made a site dedicated to Marc Lepine, the man who killed more than a dozen innocent women because he hated feminism for encouraging women to enter the workforce and “take the men’s jobs away.” I also see so many “I hate women” videos on YouTube and “I hate women” websites. There is so much hate against women in this culture that I find it laughable when men mention the word “misandry,” while ignoring the sheer amount of misogyny that exists throughout the world.
And then there are those of you hypocrites that complain about rigid gender roles for men, followed by a rant about how horrible Western women are and how you want a “real woman” from a foreign country. At least feminists abolished gender roles, and they tend to be highly supportive of the LGBT community. Sure, some feminists suck, but there are bad apples in every group. However, with “MRAs,” I have yet to see a single “MRA” that isn’t a total misogynist.
Funny you say that. I am not a MRA but I would be on board with feminists if they didn’t hate men so much. Despite certain denials, feminists man-hating reputation was earned and continues to thrive due to their relentless hatred of men and boys.
“MRAs reject the very notion that “men oppressed women.” It didn’t happen. Ever.”
You can’t be serious. Sure, men had “rigid gender roles,” too, but at least men had more options. Women couldn’t even get an education. Many girls in other countries still don’t get an education. Girls’ genitals are cut off and sewed up just enough to let urine and menses come out so they “stay pure.” Girls are aborted or abandoned simply for not being boys. Women are often blamed in the Bible for all of humankind’s “sins.”
Also, feminists fought against these rigid gender roles. MRAs seem hell-bent on “keeping women in their place.” With your logic, I guess white people never enslaved black people.
thank you for bringing up genetal mutilation, they cannot complaint about circumcision anymore. i know circumcision is a big issue for these dudes. well guess what? when you were born your DAD, thats right your FATHER prolly had a good amount of say in it, not your “bitchy, tyrannic” mom (who just went through 6-24 hours give or take of extreme pain so you could come into this world.) and if your mom made the sole decision to do it then where the hell was your dad at? certianly not being the upstanding father you people are always talking about. also that has to do with religion, if you were circumsised for religious purposes it was prbably the same religion you hold near and dear in your heart for setting laws and rules and regulations so that men could use women how ever they want and women cant say shit. have a baby, have painful bloody intercourse, THEN complain about circumcision. i pity you all.
Seriously? Don’t you realize that women are the ones insist that young girls get circumcised? That they are the ones who hold them down?
Yeah, any blog that doesn’t bash women/feminists while championing MRA men must be anti-male!
This is why we don’t take MRAs seriously.
I’m confused as to what the MRM wants to have done about the inequality between men and women over deciding whether or not to raise a child. I don’t see any good solution. It would be wrong to allow a father to abandon his child. It would be horrific if men could force women to have abortions when they didn’t want to support the child.
So are they suggesting that to make things fair, women shouldn’t be allowed to have abortions? Wouldn’t many men be upset by that and end up having to support more children?
Or do they want men to be able to abandon their babies?
I agree that Weitzman’s data should have been corrected long ago. The thing is, that even corrected, men were getting richer after divorce and women were getting poorer. This is an issue we have to address in divorce.
It’s still true that most married mothers work fewer hours for pay and more at home. The fathers then work more hours for pay and less at home. This is good for the kids and hopefully the parents. The only problem is if the couple divorces. Then the woman has less earning power. She hasn’t been lazy, far from it. So she needs something to make up for that in a divorce.
The laws need to be gender neutral so a dad who stays home or works part-time can get money in the case of a divorce. Still, so long as mothers are more likely to be the ones doing the child care, actual divorces are going to end up with husbands having to help the women financially after divorce.
The bottom line, though, is that no matter how you slice it, women aren’t getting rich after a divorce unless they married a rich older guy. Men suffer financially after a divorce, but their ex-wives are just as miserable. Divorce isn’t good for families financially. In the best, friendliest divorce, you don’t have as much to go around once you need to pay for two places to live, etc.
So the question again is, what is the solution according to the MRM? It’s not like men can pay less and the wives and children will be okay.