The gender egalitarian masculist movement is tiny.
By “gender egalitarian,” I mean “believes men and women are more similar than they are different and fights against the sexist institutions and cultural narratives that try to make them more different than they are, while avoiding being racist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ableist, etc. and not advocating violence, hate or stereotypes against a particular group.” And, unfortunately, there are not nearly enough of them fighting for men’s rights.
For instance, consider r/MensRights, the largest men’s rights group on Reddit. They have recently appointed AnnArchist as a new mod. TW on all the following links for violence and misogyny. He has a history of transphobia, advocating murder and violence, calling women “cum dumpsters” and “shrews” and bragging about “persuading” women into sex with him after they say no. In addition, he is a member of the r/beatingwomen subreddit. I feel it is not too much to ask that members of a gender egalitarian movement not find beating people of a particular gender hilarious. That is, like, the bare minimum requirement.
All too often, the mainstream men’s rights movement is not gender egalitarian at all. All too often, those of us who support equal rights for everyone– no matter what our differences in opinion– have found our voices drowned out by misogynistic, rape-apologist and frankly stupid asshats. That has to change.
One of NSWATM’s biggest problems is its lack of inclusiveness. It’d be less of an issue if we were just one of a thousand truly gender egalitarian masculist blogs. If we didn’t talk about the problem of male homelessness, then one of the other blogs would take of the slack. But NSWATM is one of a few voices in one very lonely wilderness. We have a responsibility to try to cover all the issues, as much as we can, and I worry about that. A lot.
But you know what? I’m upper-middle class, white and nineteen years old. There are things I cannot write about, because I don’t know my shit. I can’t talk about prison reform. I can’t talk about growing up male in a working-class neighborhood, or about the intersection of masculinity and race. I don’t know what it’s like to be a construction worker or a logger. I can’t talk about divorce or fatherhood. Sometimes I’m pretty sure the only things I’m qualified to talk about are suicidal depression and sex.
There has to be more than me.
So I’m asking you, everyone who’s reading this: if you can write, write. It doesn’t matter if you come from an MRA background or a feminist background or discovered NSWATM while searching for “i want to circumcised my uncircumcised anus without sergury.” (Yes, that is an actual search term.) All you have to do is not make jokes about beating people of a particular gender, and you will already be better than AnnArchist.
Radical feminists and MRAs, trans people and cis people, queers and straight people, white people and people of color, people of all social classes, people working on their PhDs in gender studies and people who’ve never read a bell hooks book, men and women and miscellaneous… it’s time to write about men.
Critique our posts! Tell us where we’re wrong! Write about the things we’re not qualified to write about, or about the issues we’ve overlooked! Cover angles we haven’t thought of! Make us irrelevant! I’m begging you, come up with such brilliant theory that NSWATM seems as out-of-date, as full of mistakes, as completely missing the point as The Feminine Mystique.
Because only then– only when NSWATM is a half-forgotten trivia question– will we have a movement. A living movement. A movement that can change the world.
@Ozy: I agree even though my stance on feminism is quite critical. Anyhow, maybe the picture painted of r/mr was a tad too grim?
It is funny someone is calling out AA for making that post and asking him to get removed *grabs popcorn* -> http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/kuhra/nonconfidence_in_annarchist_vote_to_remove_as_mod/
Aaaand gets downvoted.
Feckless: Awesome! I’m glad. 🙂 The more people in the men’s rights movement recognize that feminists and masulists are not necessarily enemies, the better off we’ll all be.
Props for removing FF101.
Even though nobody is going to read that, AnnArchist started another post: “I have consulted with ignatiusloyola about the title. It was “Earning scorn from feminists since March 2008. . ” We have decided to change it to ‘Earning scorn from anti-equality activists since March 2008’ to be more inclusive. That way we don’t exclude potential feminist allies who might not have seen the subreddit before they even get into the door. It kind of reminded me of the women’s spaces that automatically discount the opinions of men merely because they are men / or expects them to take a… Read more »
BTW….recently on r/mensrights -> http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/ktkbc/rmensrights_supports_lgbt_history_month/
I’ll have to admit that even at my own place I have it in a small list of Other Haunting Grounds (although I very rarely haunt the place). But frankly I kept it there in the belief that there HAD to be something of value there. But I didn’t know realize that McEwan was a big contributor there, makes sense though…
@Ozy: Also arguing that there is no female privilege, the being a feminist means believing women have it worse, that the female gaze does not exist or that there are such a low number of male DV victims that men don’t need DV shelters.
Given the fact that Shakesville’s Mellisa McEwan is a main contributor of FF101 one really might ask questions about striking it from the link list….but I guess I am ahabing here. Kudos again for kicking of FF101 though!
FF101’s definition of sexism is problematic primarily because it suggests that no sexism against men can exist. Some of the contributors to NSWATM also find it problematic that they view sexism that benefits women as “benevolent sexism,” but sexism that benefits men as “male privilege.”
What’s wrong with “Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog”?
How can you simultaneously agree with 80% of Toysoldier and Shakesville? Or even 50%?
“At least “Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog” isn’t up there anymore”
Here here!
Adi: I quote you on your analisis on the MRM vs feminism. Whery good indeed, remarkable analisis!
Well I think the 80/20 rule is a little crude to say the least. Surely you’d want a qualifier as well as a quantifier – meaning it should matter what you dis-/agree upon and not just how much.
At least “Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog” isn’t up there anymore
@Ozy: It’s our guidelines for the blogroll: if we agree with 80% of what you say, then you’re on it. That is totally reasonable. I would not typically put people on my blogroll that I don’t at least often agree with. However, this 80/20 rule does make some of the items on your blogroll a little… disturbing to me, insofar as it indicates you agree with at least 80% of what they say. I had previously assumed some of those item were just up their for relevance. But I guess that’s just because I don’t agree with them, or often… Read more »
@Adi: I agree and am not ashamed to admit that I voted for them the last time. Although right now it is a bit like a “Not gegen Elend” situation. But as you said compared to the other parties (especially the green party) the Pirates are the best we got.
@ Feckless,
I know about that incident and yes it was despicable. But you have to judge a party by it’s proclaimed goals and those make the Pirates the most gender egalitarian party around – by far. Isolated events like this are not representative of the party as a whole.
Though we will have to watch them closely and as soon as they do something like quotas, I’m gone.
@Adi: The Pirates looked promising with their AG Männer (Workgroup Men) where even German masculist Arne Hoffmann took part. That grouped bombed spectacularly though after one of their meetings with Manndat was attacked by feminist Pirates. Read it here (German language warning) – http://ef-magazin.de/2011/06/20/3045-piratenpartei-die-katze-ist-endlich-aus-dem-sack – http://arnehoffmann.blogspot.com/2011/06/manndat-enttauscht-piratenpartei-alter.html
@Adi, Feminists of the old days made no secret of they’re having pinned the male gender onto their dart boards. And today, feminists have the luxury to be “open minded” and “egalitarian” but don’t kid yourself that this is a luxury that was brought to us by a lot of hostility and sexism propagated in the early days of feminism. That’s a good point. Present-day feminists have achieved some successes and mellowed out a bit. The correct comparison for MRAs is not present-day feminism, but the feminism of the 70s-90s. Ideologues everywhere are pretty similar. MRAs are only slightly more… Read more »
Ozy:
I read this blog and lurk here often but I have been considering on writing something for this blog and cross posting it on my personal blog >.>
Anywho: As I mentioned on manboobz, AnnArchist is also a cissexist.
@ Ozy
I’m guessing that leaves out me and a good portion of the commentators then. 😛
Typhon: It’s our guidelines for the blogroll: if we agree with 80% of what you say, then you’re on it. 🙂
@ Ozy
“80/20 Rule”
Say what?
Wait a second, the Pirates are the only party that have set the goal of removing gender from being recorded in any public institutions including not having it listed in your passport. The idea is so obvious that you’ve gotta wonder why nobody else thought of it before. You’re right about the army – it is a victory, even if by accident rather than by activism. Still gotta appreciate it. The last I heard about the EU human rights commission was concerning the laws on custody that favored mothers over fathers. I don’t know what the end result was though… Read more »
@Adi: Well you are correct, but I still see progress. Heck 5 years ago I couldn’t even imagine what they did to the army no matter how they worded it. Hurrah for Agens….booh for the Pirates….ah well
We will see how it goes. Aren’t the EU courts of human rights doing some suing as well atm?