The Men's Rights Movement

[lisa needs braces]

I've been keeping up with the so called "manosphere" over the past year.

It seems like a lot of feminists simply have no meaningful counter-arguments to what Men's Rights Activists claim, so they resort to hollow and repetitive accusations of sexism and misogyny. Time and time again I would come across incisive articles by MRAs like this:

http://www.avoiceformen.com/sexual-politics/criminalizing-the-male-gaze-giving-female-narcissists-the-upper-hand/

..and absolutely no meaningful counter-arguments from feminists.

The mainstream media has taken notice of MRAs. And, naturally, they paint a negative picture:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/20/the-masculine-mystique-inside-the-men-s-rights-movement-mrm.html


You won't get the main grievances of Men's Rights Activists from that article. You can find that here:

http://www.singularity2050.com/2010/01/the-misandry-bubble.html

[Todd]

It is about time that someone fights for men's rights, at least in the United States.  I want the right to vote, to own property, to speak freely.  These things have been denied to men - especially white men like me - for far too long.  Thank you for bringing up this important, serious, and useful topic.

[lisa needs braces]

Ok.

[Daverz]

There's nothing sadder and more pathetic than an MRA.

[lisa needs braces]

There's nothing sadder and more pathetic than an MRA.

There is no denying a lot of people feel this way. I wonder what you think of the grievances listed in the manifesto in the OP? What do you find objectionable? Do you think men get a fair deal in family courts? In divorce?

[DavidW]

I was going to say something sarcastic but Todd beat me to it!  I thought the thread was a joke before I clicked on it.

[Karl Henning]

It is about time that someone fights for men's rights, at least in the United States.  I want the right to vote, to own property, to speak freely.  These things have been denied to men - especially white men like me - for far too long.  Thank you for bringing up this important, serious, and useful topic.

Surgically done, sieur!

[lisa needs braces]

Well I suppose by Todd's reasoning second wave feminism was simply unnecessary, since women had all those rights 70 years ago. 

[Sammy]

This MRA crap is really pathetic.  Men have been the "top dogs" for so long that some of them just can't stand to see their status reduced a little; those men are so weak in their self-esteem.

Abe, I suggest you "man-up" and compete with both men and women.  I'm confident you will hold your own.

[lisa needs braces]

This MRA crap is really pathetic.  Men have been the "top dogs" for so long that some of them just can't stand to see their status reduced a little; those men are so weak in their self-esteem.

Men have been "top dogs" but at a heavy price. To quote Roy. F Baumeister:

    A few lucky men are at the top of society and enjoy the culture's best rewards. Others, less fortunate, have their lives chewed up by it. Culture uses both men and women, but most cultures use them in somewhat different ways. Most cultures see individual men as more expendable than individual women, and this difference is probably based on nature, in whose reproductive competition some men are the big losers and other men are the biggest winners. Hence it uses men for the many risky jobs it has.

    Men go to extremes more than women, and this fits in well with culture using them to try out lots of different things, rewarding the winners and crushing the losers.

    Culture is not about men against women. By and large, cultural progress emerged from groups of men working with and against other men. While women concentrated on the close relationships that enabled the species to survive, men created the bigger networks of shallow relationships, less necessary for survival but eventually enabling culture to flourish. The gradual creation of wealth, knowledge, and power in the men's sphere was the source of gender inequality. Men created the big social structures that comprise society, and men still are mainly responsible for this, even though we now see that women can perform perfectly well in these large systems.

    What seems to have worked best for cultures is to play off the men against each other, competing for respect and other rewards that end up distributed very unequally. Men have to prove themselves by producing things the society values. They have to prevail over rivals and enemies in cultural competitions, which is probably why they aren't as lovable as women.

    The essence of how culture uses men depends on a basic social insecurity. This insecurity is in fact social, existential, and biological. Built into the male role is the danger of not being good enough to be accepted and respected and even the danger of not being able to do well enough to create offspring.

    The basic social insecurity of manhood is stressful for the men, and it is hardly surprising that so many men crack up or do evil or heroic things or die younger than women. But that insecurity is useful and productive for the culture, the system.

    Again, I'm not saying it's right, or fair, or proper. But it has worked. The cultures that have succeeded have used this formula, and that is one reason that they have succeeded instead of their rivals.

[lisa needs braces]

The existence of a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet does nothing for some mentally ill homeless person, who is very much likely to be a male. Men are more variable...they dominate the top and bottom of society, but it's erroneous to assume that the "winners" were necessarily working for the benefit of the rest, which is what "Men were top dogs" rhetoric implies.

[Sammy]

Men have been "top dogs" but at a heavy price.

A price that men decided on bearing, and that's the whole point. 

You have shared with us your negativity toward jewish folks and women.  So, you have a problem with over half the nation's population.  Good luck to you.

[lisa needs braces]

A price that men decided on bearing, and that's the whole point. 

Which men? The 14 year old male drafted into a war from some European village in the 15th century who ended up getting impaled in the neck with an arrow? Homeless men? Men who do grueling and dangerous physical labor? The guys who collect your garbage cans? These men are responsible for the system they participate in? 

your negativity toward jewish folks

I recall giving a bad review to a Sacha Baron Cohen comedy film that was laced with anti-Arab and anti-Iranian propaganda, and I might've made an anti-zionist critical comment here and there, but please back up your accusation that I have a problem with jewish folk or kindly withdraw it.

[Karl Henning]

. . .  I thought the thread was a joke before I clicked on it.

Not without reason . . . .

[lisa needs braces]

I was going to say something sarcastic but Todd beat me to it!  I thought the thread was a joke before I clicked on it.

Far from it Dave. Modern American men find themselves squeezed by feminists who hate men and traditional conservatives who prefer to worship women as pure innocent creatures.

[Sammy]

Far from it Dave. Modern American men find themselves squeezed by feminists who hate men and traditional conservatives who prefer to worship women as pure innocent creatures.

What does "Modern" refer to?

[lisa needs braces]

What does "Modern" refer to?

a needless modifier.

[lisa needs braces]

You guys, take The Red Pill.

http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/

[ibanezmonster]

Not sure which rights men or women don't have nowadays, so the title does sound like a joke...

but I think the general complaint must relate to the many guys who have told me that I should never get married. I've never met a woman that has told me that I shouldn't get married, so the guys must know something that I don't and I should probably take their advice seriously.

[lisa needs braces]

Greg, may I ask how old you are?

The reason some guys give that advice is because feminists, with the collaboration of hapless traditional conservatives, have turned marriage into a one sided contract that in most cases punishes the husband far more than the wife upon the marriage's dissolution, something which has a 40% chance of happening. Basically, no matter who is at fault for marital breakdown, the men are the one who face having to pay alimony, moving out of their house, gaining only partial custody of their children, paying child support, etc.

It is possible for women to end up paying alimony but that would depend upon their husbands being economically dependent on them, and since women prefer to marry up, a union in which the wife could end up paying alimony is very unlikely to form. So these guys are warning you about this one sided nature of the marital contract.