AIBU to think that if MN are willing to boycott certain groups on ethical grounds

Why don't you personally answer Earth's question treen? You could have a stab at it surely, seeing as you're defending the MRM?

if you feel a post breaks the rules report it.

I suspect where you feel there are inconsistency it's either due to it not being reported or it actually not being a personal attack and therefore not actually breaking the rules.

problem is you have got to look objectively at that post, not whether or not the opinion matches yours but whether it actually breaks the rules. that can be really hard when you yourself feel strongly about something

No you personally

Many people are unhappy about the consistency with which the guidelines are applied, yes

Sorry, I thought you weren't happy with the consistency of the guideline application. My bad.

Treen, that's not my place to answer :)

God loves a trier, Sabrina

Earth, what areas?

If both movements lie about what each other represent, then you'll get nowhere. Both may get more members but it's not healthy.

So you don't really understand what the MRM / MRAs are about Treen, but you'll defend them nevertheless?

And on your second point, I think you'll find that the problem many posters have regarding your concerns is that the guidelines seem to be applied inconsistently in some areas.

You'll never get a straight answer to that question, Earth - many have tried...

Earth, that's not my place to answer. I'm sure you can find one and ask them.
My concerns here are that it's wrong to ban someone for belonging to a particular group, wrong to assume that the extreme of a group is the norm, how do you identify them on here, etc.

There are guidelines for a reason, why can't people be happy with that.

But seriously , I'd like to ask you both Suelford and Treen44444 - in which areas of life do men experience a significant, structural disadvantage currently, in your opinion? And if you can identify these issues, can you tell us what the MRM / MRAs are constructively doing to tackle these inequalities in a way which doesn't disadvantage women and girls?

good grief! talk about taking the worst of mankind and generalising them to be the whole!

everyone is different. everyone's opinions will be on a scale

To me, it doesn't make sense to ask a mass open-access site like Mumsnet to ban "MRA" posters. Partly because I think the term has been so debased and over-used on MN. And partly because the pressure to ban seems to be based on a misperception of mn as being divided into distinct groups of posters -- the disruptive, the vulnerable/uninformed, and the "right," with the posters who are "right" taking upon themselves the task of guarding the vulnerable/uninformed against the disruptive.

Of course there is a small but significant number of posters who are genuinely disruptive. "Troll" is a good name for them. We don't need the further label "MRA." But it is also true to say that most of us combine the three statuses that seems to be so rigidly separated in some posters minds -- we are all capable of being disruptive, right, and vulnerable/ill-informed. I am really very fed up with posters who seem to place themselves in the category of the enlightened and to represent other posters as being either the enemy or in need of protection from the enemy.

I do firmly believe in preserving a women's space, with predominantly female perspectives and with a low-to-zero tolerance of misogyny. But I think that objective is pretty well achieved at the moment as is evidenced by the numbers of posters at the moment saying "what is MRA?" I might be wrong but I think that the recent postings from a self-proclaimed MRA were provoked by someone asking what MRA meant a reasonable question in reaction to the obsession that a few posters on MN have with a fairly minimal problem on the site. It isn't really surprising that an MRA poster would come on in response to that obsession.

It's all become a bit "I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil!" The anti-MRA preoccupation with MRA is far more troublesome than the MRA themselves, and only encourages them to pay attention to MN.

Dench

That's drench derailing

Urban Dictionary FTW Sabrina

Definitions of MRAs:

1. Acronym for a group called Men's Rights Activists.

I.E. - A bunch of whiny pedantic morons that think there is some vast Illuminati feminist conspiracy while seemingly ignoring the fact that their own gender runs the majority of the world.

2. An MRA is a troglodyte that writes “women’s rights --- ROFLOL!“ and “a woman is the useless skin around the vagina” on Urban Dictionary.
An MRA thinks that a woman should be locked in the kitchen and “slammed and beaten” (a quote). They are scared shitless that one day women might become truly equal and try to use all kinds of defamations and con artistry to keep women down.

3. An MRA is a white man who insists against all evidence and decency that white men are oppressed and than women and minorities are "revered and privileged."
An MRA would never support the rights of those men who truly are at a disadvantage in our society: homosexual and black men. Instead, he leaves campaigning for LGBT rights and minorities' rights to the "evil evil cunt bull dykes" aka feminists.
An MRA sits on a huge pile of white and male privilege and keeps whining that he is oppressed.

4. The most screaming announcement of insecurity and masculine shortcomings short of two pit bulls in a lifted 4x4 truck with a "No Fear" sticker on the window.
They never live up to the “no fear” slogan though.
An MRA is always suffering from Little Man’s Complex.
Hates women because they wouldn’t give him the time of day.

There are more. Thank you Urban Dictionary: I love you

"The MRM defines itself as anti-feminist, treen."

Is there a source for that? Or do you mean that some MRA groups said that? There isn't a single, unified platform, just like there isn't for feminism.

The extreme population of that group do, extreme feminists say they are anti-men.
They are not representative.

I think it is a reasonable statement. Generalising MRAs as their extreme fringe is the exact equivalent of generalising feminists as their extreme fringe, surely?

The MRM defines itself as anti-feminist, treen.

Do you advise that people find the most extreme feminist website and judge all feminists as that? It's not logical.

You are using the same method that extreme MRAs use to define feminists, and applying it to defining MRAs. Thats one thing you have in common.

I don't agree treen - mra's are anti-feminist - which by it's very definition means that they don't want women to have equality.