MRAs

[girlwiththeflaxenhair]

This has maybe already been posted but couldn't find anything.

I've been trying to learn more about feminism and mens rights/anti feminists/mgotw/whatever and had a question or thought. Probably not an original one by any means.

It seems to me that a large part of the MRA agenda is driven by a feeling of rejection, they feel that women are the gatekeepers of sex and that if a woman wont have sex with them, but will with other men, that is a direct message that the other man is better than them.

Leaving this rather ugly stuff to one side for now, it seems like for this army of bitter young men to exist, there must be a corresponding number of young women who are single. Either that, or all the young women are going after the same "alpha" type males (I think this is the explanation that would be accepted in the MRA sphere)

I then started looking at whether there really were more single men than women, and it seems there are at the age a lot of these men seem to be (I assume most of them to be 25 or below?). However once you get to over 45 there are many more single women than men.

So how can this be ? The only explanation I can come up with is that it is more common for young women to date older guys that the other way around. Looking around at my own friendship group there are a few age gaps of 10 years plus with younger women/older man - I don't know any the other way around.

Is anyone interested in discussing this ? Are age gap relationships more common now than they used to be ?

[OneFlewOverTheDodosNest]

It's interesting that you posted this because I was looking at the prevalence of age gap relationships just the other day. Over 10% of marriages had grooms more than 10 years older than brides, and a further 15% had grooms between 5 - 10 years older than brides. That's in the U.K., instinctively I'd say that trend is likely to be greater in countries with fewer opportunities for women.

In terms of the "lack of women for young men" trend - this is causing significant issues in parts of the world where femicide abortion has resulted in far too few women. It's been suggested by many military thinkers, philosophers and even modern day politicians that young men either need to get married or find a "higher purpose" which ties them to society to stop them being a destructive force in their teens and twenties.

In history, military, religious and political leaders have used this to their own ends. MRAs seem to be the consequence of when that doesn't happen in a modern, western democracy.

[QueenOfTheSardines]

I don't think that in the UK it has anything to do with being "single". Both men and women are waiting til they are older to settle down, they are spending many more years dating and just going out and having fun. When it comes to casual dating and stuff I can't imagine that most young women are going for older men this seems like a total red herring.

I think it's down to a very basic set of circumstances:

• Some men have always felt like this (entitled / women own them stuff / they get angry when they don't get "what they deserve" or when uppity bitches reject them).
  
• Now they have the internet they can find each other and wallow in their insecurity and anger
  
• And they have more of a platform so that people outside of their circles hear their views
  
  I also wonder if the prevalence of porn and the type of porn these days is priming boys to feel a certain way about women / girls / sex - that there is all this "stuff" to do and all they need to do is to get a girl to do them. Then when the girls say no, they feel like they are denying them their fun and they have a right to enjoy themselves FFS, like their mum has confiscated their lego or something.
  
  Bottom line is there have always been whiny entitles / aggressive / violent men with repulsive / dangerous ideas about women, just now we have the pleasure of reading their ramblings rather than just occasionally having to get away from them in nightclubs safely.

[QueenOfTheSardines]

MRA agenda is driven by entitlement - and an idea that women are inferior and should do as they are told (sex/sandwiches) and not be allowed to have any opinions / agency.

Have you seen the stuff about "negging"?
Have you seen the stuff about encouraging to rape?
Have you seen all the men who were egging on that bloke who went out to murder women at university in america?

These are not poor misguided chaps they are dangerous, their base point is a real contempt for girls and women.

[DeepAndCrispAndEvenTheWind]

Are there an army of them?

Don't know about dating, but the average age gap at marriage has been steadily trending downwards and is now about two years.

[QueenOfTheSardines]

I don't believe that there are that many of them, but the ones there are are loud and shouty, with a small number of genuinely very dangerous individuals.

I do believe that a large minority of men have pretty dodgy ideas about women though - the types who grab you in a club or whatever. It happens too often to too many women for it not to be quite a few. I dont' think these are necessarily "mras" though they're just doing their thing.

[QueenOfTheSardines]

I mean in my days if a bloke couldn't get a girlfriend he fastidiously applied the lynx and hung out with his mates and played computer games and went out to the pub and kept trying.

I am fairly sure this is still what most boys and young men do

There was an interesting article the other day about the mra sites being a breeding ground for extremism in the states - these people are often extremely racist as well.

[DeepAndCrispAndEvenTheWind]

I also suspect many single women over the age of 45 are separated resident parents with little time for dating as they have unequal coparenting with the NRP, plus, frankly, high standards for relationships given the impact on kids - less room for casual.

[QueenOfTheSardines]

Also they would be no use to MRAs, deepandcrisp, who generally agree that any women over 25 (ish?) should not be allowed out of the house and that women who have had sex previously are revolting.

[QueenOfTheSardines]

I was just catching up on facebook and saw this link which is about some mra types (with their alt-right (white supremacist) hats on):

Alt-right movement descends into civil war after leading figure is booted from Trump inauguration event

[girlwiththeflaxenhair]

I am not sure of the stats....I think a lot of these men, despite being bitter about not getting the same attention as the "hot" guys, must surely ignore all the girls who don't fit their idea of what is hot. Either that or some people are lying about whether they are single or not.

[OneFlewOverTheDodosNest]

Totally agree with the PP who says it's a form of extremism. For some reason white supremacy and misogyny driven acts are treated as individual acts and frequently excused by references to mental health problems (conveniently stigmatising the many MH sufferers who never commit violent acts)

Until this form of radicalisation is viewed with the same horror as e.g. Islamic radicalisation, entitlement, rape culture and violence against women is going to be normalised.

[QueenOfTheSardines]

Have you got the stats to hand flaxen?

[QueenOfTheSardines]

Agree oneflew

The reason for the difference in how it's viewed is an "us" and "them" thing. Crimes committed by "us" are minimised, by "them" are seen for what they are.

See - (UK) - reaction to people seen as "them" carrying out sex crimes / DV vs when "we" do them.

[QueenOfTheSardines]

Interestingly the "us" and "them" thing applies with crimes carried out by men and women who are "us" - with women often / usually being included in the "them" camp ie crimes are not minimised.

So "us" is a fairly specific group.

[QueenOfTheSardines]

You can probably chuck some age and class stuff in there as well.

[quencher]

Interesting thread.

I have always thought the difference in age was based on freedom biology gives men and women. Young men have the freedom to waste their twenties and thirties whiteout worrying about child birth (this ties in with finding a partner too). It's also acceptable for an older man to date and marry someone young. Sometimes almost seem like an accomplishment on the male part too.
I have also seen studies where it says that girls and women mature faster than their male counterpart. (I don't know how true this is ). if this is true, they would want to find people on similar maturity.

However, what is the cut of point for when that maturity becomes a dangerous territory for potential abuse of power, Leading to an imbalance in the relationship?

I doubt the alpha male is a thing that all women aspire to. I think that the media perpetuates this ideology (bad guy, American football type, the man who can do all manly things, leaving men who don't meet this standard felling inferior. They start to believe and have self-fulfilling prophecies about who they are as people. It can only be a downward spiral and resentment.

That they should be feminist and not against it, I would say.

[quencher]

Just to clarify, am not saying that abuse does not happen between people of the same age. Abuse can happen to anyone and from any age against people of any age.

[BertrandRussell]

It's all about men thinking that they have a right to sex and women have a responsibility to give it to them.

And the same sort of men thinking that they only want to have said sex with young, pretty women. It's not complicated. As usual it comes down to "Don't be a dick"

[BertrandRussell]

But in general, people who identify as MRAs think men have a right to stuff and women have a responsibility to give it to them

[QueenOfTheSardines]

The age stuff really is a red herring I think.

I believe that most of it is based in wealth / power. The whole "older man" with a "trophy wife" thing. When you get wealthy, powerful older women they do often seem to prefer younger men, sometimes much younger.

I suppose there's probably a "peak attractiveness" culturally that if you have a choice and no emotional bond to someone already then you would pick someone from that cohort.

See also men getting married to children - girls who are just post-pubescent. That doesn't make sense from a fertility side as even though pregnancy is possible at that age, the body is not fully developed and it's more dangerous / damaging than if you waited a few years. So why does that happen? Culture / power / male ideas about female sexuality and the need to control them etc.

So I think probably most of this is cultural more than anything else.

Also as women are getting into the workforce more and becoming more financially independent aren't age gaps shrinking & more women having partners who are same age or even a bit younger? This would also indicate social / power reasons.

[QueenOfTheSardines]

I don't think any of the above ^ has anything to do with MRAs.

MRAs are also misnamed. They only talk about genuine issues men face when it's in order to tell women to stop worrying about women because they should be worrying about men instead. They don't ever seem to do useful things to try to help men though. So eg they will go on threads with women who are raising money for homeless women and say hold on many more men are homeless than women don't you care about them fucking feminists you're all scum etc etc etc What you will not see is them setting up justgiving pages / raising for charity / working to set up hostels etc for actual male homeless people.

[quencher]

I forgot to say that the reason why they don't agree or are accepting of feminism is because they feel emasculated by feminist views. Feminist views deconstructs patriarchal views and tries to bring it in line with what is acceptable.
These males are resisting change from what they think is their right as men. They feel the lose of power and that goes against what they have been brought up to believe and feel it's their right to treat women like Second class citizens without rights similar to theirs. More in line with things they can own, claim ownership, exploit, and dump.
In their ideal world, sexism and misogyny would be ideal by giving them power and control. They forget that their inadequacy in society is actually down to their own failures rather than what we as feminist have imposed. We having stoped any one from having sex with decent respectful men, or any man for that matter, we haven't said men don't face any form of violence, no have we said men can't be abused. We have never said men should be stay at home parents if they don't wish to out of choice but not because society tells them to in case they are emasculated by looking after a child. Etc.

Re-sex. One gives the right to take without asking, the other you both have to be in agreement as consenting adults who respects each other without power play in motion.
Unless, of cause BDSM (debatable)

[quencher]

Also as women are getting into the workforce more and becoming more financially independent aren't age gaps shrinking & more women having partners who are same age or even a bit younger? This would also indicate social / power reasons.
This ^
Education for women has widened our horizons on what we can achieve and aspire to. The time frame for finishing education is a factor too.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

Bottom line is there have always been whiny entitles / aggressive / violent men with repulsive / dangerous ideas about women, just now we have the pleasure of reading their ramblings rather than just occasionally having to get away from them in nightclubs safely

This

[0phelia]

A lot of MRAs have girlfriends.
Ryan Williams (tampon tax bladders charmer) included.
So being an embittered singleton doesn't explain it. Neither does age gappage.
It's simply another expression of the hatred men hold towards women.