A List of “Men’s Rights” Issues That Feminism Is Already Working On

[AnnieLobeseder]

Since we seem to have another incursion of MRAs on the thread, I thought I would post this excellent blog which should clear some points up right from the start and save valuable argument debate time.

A List of ?Men?s Rights? Issues That Feminism Is Already Working On

Feminists do not want you to lose custody of your children. The assumption that women are naturally better caregivers is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not like commercials in which bumbling dads mess up the laundry and competent wives have to bustle in and fix it. The assumption that women are naturally better housekeepers is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to have to make alimony payments. Alimony is set up to combat the fact that women have been historically expected to prioritize domestic duties over professional goals, thus minimizing their earning potential if their ?traditional? marriages end. The assumption that wives should make babies instead of money is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want anyone to get raped in prison. Permissiveness and jokes about prison rape are part of rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want anyone to be falsely accused of rape. False rape accusations discredit rape victims, which reinforces rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be lonely and we do not hate ?nice guys.? The idea that certain people are inherently more valuable than other people because of superficial physical attributes is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to have to pay for dinner. We want the opportunity to achieve financial success on par with men in any field we choose (and are qualified for), and the fact that we currently don?t is part of patriarchy. The idea that men should coddle and provide for women, and/or purchase their affections in romantic contexts, is condescending and damaging and part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be maimed or killed in industrial accidents, or toil in coal mines while we do cushy secretarial work and various yarn-themed activities. The fact that women have long been shut out of dangerous industrial jobs (by men, by the way) is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to commit suicide. Any pressures and expectations that lower the quality of life of either gender are part of patriarchy. The fact that depression is characterized as an effeminate weakness, making men less likely to seek treatment, is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be viewed with suspicion when you take your child to the park (men frequently insist that this is a serious issue, so I will take them at their word). The assumption that men are insatiable sexual animals, combined with the idea that it?s unnatural for men to care for children, is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be drafted and then die in a war while we stay home and iron stuff. The idea that women are too weak to fight or too delicate to function in a military setting is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want women to escape prosecution on legitimate domestic violence charges, nor do we want men to be ridiculed for being raped or abused. The idea that women are naturally gentle and compliant and that victimhood is inherently feminine is part of patriarchy.

Feminists hate patriarchy. We do not hate you.

If you really care about those issues as passionately as you say you do, you should be thanking feminists, because feminism is a social movement actively dedicated to dismantling every single one of them. The fact that you blame feminists?your allies?for problems against which they have been struggling for decades suggests that supporting men isn?t nearly as important to you as resenting women. We care about your problems a lot. Could you try caring about ours?

[Tortington]

"Feminists do not want you to have to pay for dinner. We want the opportunity to achieve financial success on par with men in any field we choose (and are qualified for), and the fact that we currently don?t is part of patriarchy. "

...........i agree so far - on an equality level

"The idea that men should coddle "

[seeker]

Sorry you've been so busy, sigmund- a woman's work is never done, eh?

[seeker]

Sorry sigmund- I got you confused with another poster

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

YY NT - when a (male) cousin of mine helps out with Cubs events etc, it's male colleagues of his who pass comment.

[SigmundFraude]

It's Sigmund, not Shagmund, ta very muchly. I have a shedload of things to do today. Unlike some I can't pretend to be working whilst MNing. I will answer when I've got time to sit down.

[seeker]

Just popped back to see if Shagmund has asked me her question yet.

These MRA don' have a brilliant record when actually pinned down to specifics, do they?

[Absy]

""Ok, but how will these things actually change perceptions that a man is not a danger to a child in a park, if he is not known to that child."

I have heard that this is more of a UK issue (e.g. reading articles by male journalists saying they're viewed with suspicion in the UK, not in Italy for e.g.) and wonder how it compares to countries like Sweden where there is more equitable distribution of childcare between men and women. Perhaps the default position of "sex predator" if a man is seen with a child is partly because it is the exception, rather than the norm, that men care for children. (I also don't think that every woman out there assumes that every male hanging around children is a sex pest).
I also think that there is this perception because of all the media hype Daily Mail about sexual predators, child abusers etc.

[YoniMatopoeia]

Great op.

[Sparklyboots]

Word, word Esp. But those people simply have flawed methodology. It doesn't make the concept of feminism flawed

This ^^

[wordfactory]

Put it this way, during the anti slavery campaigns, some campaigners agitated for seperate communities. Some campaigners set up terrorist organisations. Some campaigners attempted the muder of white children...

Did these campaigners make the concept of anti slavery flawed?

Did these few nut jobs discredit the entire concept?

[MummyPigsFatTummy]

Nicholas Teakozy: "I can tell you from personal experience that in the main it isn't women who treat me with suspicion but men."

This.

It is most often men who are most suspicious of other men who show an interest in children, whether as a career - working in primary schools/nurseries etc. or whether because they are seen out with prams etc. Women are usually impressed (overly so really) with men who care for their children. Men not always so much.

It is often men who don't want their sons to play with "girls' toys" or wear clothes or join in activities which are seen as traditionally girly. That is not always the case - some women do have the same views - but in my experience it is often fathers who express these views.

I think you are aiming your anger about this and other wrongs against men (some genuine, some imagined) at the wrong people when you focus on feminism.

[wordfactory]

sigmund a feminist is someone who believes that men and women are equal... it really really isn't complicated, or subtle, or difficult.

Of course there are differences in opinion in how that can be achieved. Differences in opinion in methodology.

Obviously there will be nut jobs who say equality should be achieved by seperation of the sexes, or mass castration or waering uni sex clothes, or whatever...

But those people simply have flawed methodology. It doesn't make the concept of feminism flawed.

Of course people try to discredit the concept by pointing to a few nut jobs, but those people, I assume, simply lack intelligence .

[seeker]

"Feminists do tend to evade this question a lot."

Ask me the question in simple words and I guarantee to answer it. Maybe not for an hour or so- I've got to put the dowels in my cake. But I will answer it.

[seeker]

"How about telling your 4 year old son that he's a rapist because he tried to kiss a girl"

I read this article. I too wondered why he used the word rape. But what he was saying to his son was this. His son said he tried to kiss a girl. The girl didn't want to be kissed. The father asked his son whether he had asked her and the little boy said no, so the father said that he shouldn't have tried to kiss her. He didn't say that his child was a rapist. He was introducing his child early to the idea that if somebody doesn't want to be touched you don't touch them. It's interesting that we are happy with teaching our children that it's OK to say no to being touched, but not that you have to listen when somebody says no. Maybe if we teach both sides of the coin from the early years we'll finally bring up a generation who understand that "yes means yes and no means no".

[Sparklyboots]

"Being a man isn't an ideology" yes but it is subject to ideology to a degree to which it's actually impossible to say what's nature and what's nuture... but anyway, there are Christians that are total nutjobs and some lovely ones too who base their whole loveliness on their faith. They both claim to be Christians. Which ones are the real ones?

[SigmundFraude]

Feminists do tend to evade this question a lot.

[SigmundFraude]

Being a man isn't an ideology.

[seeker]

I come across nice men. I also come across men who are nut jobs. They both clam to be men. Which ones are the real ones?

[SigmundFraude]

'Once again it's a clear example of feminists being accused of doing something that we're actually opposed to. No wonder there's so much anti-feminist sentiment when there's also so much misconception about what the philosophies of feminism really are.'

If you listed what you believed the philosophies of feminism really are, I could link you to numerous feminist blogs/quotes etc...that will not back up your statements.

The fact is, there are a great many people out there who claim to be feminists. Indeed, would claim to be far more feminist than you. Who would claim that there's no way you could be a feminist if you challenge anti-male bias. Who would say that men can't be feminist. Who advocate for eugenics, aborting boys, separatism and a whole host of other pretty radical stuff. Stuff that the average person would find unbelievably shocking.

How about telling your 4 year old son that he's a rapist because he tried to kiss a girl, or the childcare worker who called her charges 'little rapists' or 'mr rape threat'??

So, who is the feminist? You or those nutjobs? Is it any wonder people struggle with feminism?

You see I come across 'nice' feminists a lot, I also come across nutjob ones. Both call themselves 'feminist'.

[seeker]

I am entertained by the idea that feminists don't know what they think or believe until they've had it explained to them by a man. And if they then say "well, actually that isn't what I think or believe" they are obviously wrong. And here is a nut job on Utube to prove it.

[wonderingagain]

Feminists do not want you to be maimed or killed in industrial accidents, or toil in coal mines while we do cushy secretarial work and various yarn-themed activities.

I like this one best.

[AnnieLobeseder]

Once again it's a clear example of feminists being accused of doing something that we're actually opposed to. No wonder there's so much anti-feminist sentiment when there's also so much misconception about what the philosophies of feminism really are.

[NicholasTeakozy]

SigmundFraude Mon 15-Apr-13 09:04:55

Right. How are feminists as a group, individually, or through their actions at home and in their personal lives, changing this one:

'Feminists do not want you to be viewed with suspicion when you take your child to the park (men frequently insist that this is a serious issue, so I will take them at their word). The assumption that men are insatiable sexual animals, combined with the idea that it?s unnatural for men to care for children, is part of patriarchy.

I can tell you from personal experience that in the main it isn't women who treat me with suspicion but men.

[MummyPigsFatTummy]

I have never met anyone who thinks a man in a park is suspicious simply by virtue of their not being known to them or their child. If you think like that SF, then I think that is simply your own paranoia. I would only be suspicious of a man (or woman) in a park if they were behaving oddly or in a threatening way. I am not very keen, for example, on the men who sit on the benches in the park near us drinking cans of beer and commenting on/to passers-by (and I equally wouldn't like it if there were women doing the same thing). They make me uncomfortable. However, men or women playing football or other games/reading/sunbathing/playing with their children/jogging/having a picnic etc would not raise any concerns with me. Which is not to say I would let my child wander off somewhere with them whichever sex they were.

Some men say they feel they are viewed this way certainly. But I think that is them projecting their own feelings onto others. I certainly don't see how feminism has had a negative influence on how men in parks are viewed. If anything, I would have thought feminism is all in favour of men in parks with their children as that suggests said men are looking after their children and taking responsibility for them.

[ilovexmastime]

"Ok, but how will these things actually change perceptions that a man is not a danger to a child in a park, if he is not known to that child."
Can you really not see that if men had equal responsibility for child care then over time our habit of viewing a man in a park as suspicious (not that I do btw) would disappear as it become the norm for men to be in the park just as much as women?