MRAs and mental illness - blaming it on women

[Albadross]

Recently a friend started a social media campaign to find her homeless brother who is addicted to drugs and has several severe mental illnesses.

It got on Buzzfeed, where some absolute cunt had posted saying that it was all because of selfish feminists who shy away from taking care of their children, blah blah, you know the MRA line.

Now I get that people who think this way are obviously projecting, but it still makes me furious that anyone could be such a complete twat - even going as far as questioning why my friend's mother wasn't in any of the photos and suggesting it was her fault for not being there.

I've recently been attacked by men saying that people that have BPD (borderline personality disorder) as I do are inherently evil. They actually seem to make this part of their political ideology - to 'stand against' PDs as if they're something we sign up to voluntarily!

How many of these people are there lurking out there and how worried should I be about being doxxed or whatever just for discussion around sexism/feminism?

[Dervel]

I have read, and this is by no means the last word on the subject (i.e. That this data is still being worked on and is contentious) that IQ whilst it averages out the same across genders there are more outliers amongst males.

That is to say more men sit at both the bottom and top of the pile. This would account for men dominating at the tops of a lot of fields whilst simultaneously making up the overwhelming number of criminals in prison. It also explains why women on average do better at school.

For the avoidance of doubt I am NOT making the case for biological determinism here, or insinuating anything about ladybrains. It could just as easily be mostly socialisation.

What I am comfortable asserting is that those of truly staggering intellects (wether male or female) are incredibly precious and rare, so I will always challenge assumptions that lead to gender discrimination.

[whoputthecatout]

Thanks noble I have seen other research on the anomaly but not that paper. Very interesting.

[Boolovessulley]

I would always answer the original post with where is the father?
It is as much his responsibility to parent a child as it is the mothers.

[noblegiraffe]

This paper from the 80s examines the question of why girls perform better than boys in the 11+ and whether the higher pass mark for girls could be justified www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/cmm/migrated/documents/gender-bias-in-selection.pdf

There is some suggestion that girls develop earlier than boys and that some of the selection tests may be biased towards girls' strengths.

Also, as an example of a 'sudden death' test in comparison to linear examinations, it's flawed as (back in the 50s at least) there was no preparation for the 11+. The usual suggestion that boys are better at last minute cramming and regurgitation where girls are better at ongoing assessment wouldn't be a factor here.

[whoputthecatout]

If this idea that it is the introduction of coursework that is giving the girls an edge, how come that when I took the 11+ - a sudden death no coursework exam - in the 1950s girls had to achieve higher marks than boys to get a grammar school place.? That was because if places had been allocated according to marks grammar schools would have seen girls take a majority of places and they wanted an even split.

Just asking.

[Xenophile]

Primary teaching has also moved away from a classroom style that helps girls thrive (sitting quietly at a desk working) to one that suits boys better (free range teaching). Of course this is only true for girls and boys who are performing their socialised gender role and there are obvious caveats for rowdy girls and studious boys.

Maybe the perceived feminisation of education is because teaching, especially primary teaching is viewed as low status work, and so therefore more women end up as primary teachers. It also appears to be true that a male primary teacher is quickly promoted to management, over his female colleagues. This Rwanda to be a feature of men taking roles in female dominated industries.

[noblegiraffe]

Do you really believe that in the UK today, men could change the education system so that boys suddenly started to do much better than women ? How would they do it ? Which powerful men would pull which levers?

The answers to those questions are
Yes
By scrapping coursework
Michael Gove

Girls outperformed boys for years at maths GCSE. The exact year that maths coursework was scrapped at GCSE, boys started to outperform girls and have done so ever since. The curriculum changes which have scrapped coursework (including controlled assessments) for most subjects and the move to linear exams is likely to be in boys' favour.

[Childrenofthestones]

Antisocialinpacifist
"The Red Pill" documentary by Cassie Jaye is just out.

[Albadross]

I did try to assert the fact that speaking in a sexy voice isn't a public statement of objectification but he wasn't having any of it. Although he's visually impaired so perhaps he picks up more signals from voices that maybe wouldn't be there if he was getting the visual cues (or lack of)...

[vesuvia]

AntiSocialInjusticePacifist wrote - "I think it's a movement that's finding it's feet".

MRAs have been opposing feminism since the 1890s and probably even before that. I think after 120 years, their movement has had more than enough time to find its feet.

[HillaryFTW]

"not here to argue or debate, because honestly I can be a complete ass when I argue, so I try to avoid it."

Glad to hear that. I'll have a look at your other thread when I can.

[AntiSocialInjusticePacifist]

oops the title thread is Gamergate and Feminism

[AntiSocialInjusticePacifist]

&HillaryFTW, I'm not here to argue or debate, because honestly I can be a complete ass when I argue, so I try to avoid it. I'd like to share thoughts. On an individual level sure I don't want people I interact with to feel that I am not listening and taking them seriously, but if I don't have the same/similar "lived experience" it is very difficult to just jump on board and agree/understand.

I had written more about my reasons for being here, but it turned into a massive digression from the topic at hand, so I snipped it and started my own thread, so if you have time to communicate more I would appreciate it.

[growapear]

Vestal

You can't seriously be claiming that in 2016 UK, women hold as much influence as house cats ?

I don't disagree with the assertion that mens rights movements are largely pointless. This is because I don't believe the issues they are going on about are that important. However, i find the logic that says they have no business even mobilising politically difficult to follow.

Lets take one of the cornerstones of mens rights movements, this is the only one that as a man there seems any truth in, and that is that education is being feminized and there is a "war against men". No men want to become primary school teachers for fear of being branded "pedos". Women are wary of men around children (this is not womens fault, I'm not saying that, I would agree it is largely mens fault) .Feminists want "masculine" behaviour of the kind young boys engage in (like scrapping with each other,) to be discouraged and they want to create a genderless utopia with the "masculine" end of the "gender spectrum" chopped off. I might be badly summarising the MRA movement, but I think this is along the lines of what I've read. Now - your argument goes something like "This can't be true because if it were, then men in charge wouldn't allow it". ? Supposing that one day the patriarchs decided these mra chaps (and they would say chaps wouldn't they?) had a point and they better put a stop it, what would they do ? Do you really believe that in the UK today, men could change the education system so that boys suddenly started to do much better than women ? How would they do it ? Which powerful men would pull which levers ? The PM and the education secretary are both female ? How does the patriarchy mobilise ? Do you have any examples ?

[venusinscorpio]

YY Hilary. You'd be wise to heed that piece of advice, AS.

[HillaryFTW]

"OK to use your body for financial gain of wolf whistling isn't ok'."

Well (a) because she probably wasn't flirting but (b) even if she was, a person's choice to act in a sexual way is light years apart from a man's choice to make an unsolicited "comment" on a woman's sexual attractiveness - one is chosen, the other imposed.

Is he also hard of thinking, this chap?

[HillaryFTW]

"all the feminist rhetoric"

Ok. Please bear in mind that, both here and elsewhere on MN, you are almost always hearing about women's lived experience, not rhetoric or any other debating society/theoretical position.

"the good old college try"

I don't know what this is.

[AntiSocialInjusticePacifist]

@HillaryFTW, it struck me as an intelligent place, that whilst I do not agree with all the feminist rhetoric I'd like to give it the good old college try to understand more, and in paticular it's context.

As with most things my thoughts are a constant work in progress.

[VestalVirgin]

That asshole on FB probably just imagined that "flirting".Entitled dudes always believe that attractive women who show them normal politeness , or are even so unwise to be friendly, are flirting with them.

@AntiSocial: There is no need for a men's right's movement. The people in power are men. If you choose to believe that MRAs are not actually just anti-feminists, framing themselves as oppressed group to advance their actual goal, which is the oppression of women, then you have to admit that they are spectacularly stupid.

It is like if the working class blamed housecats for their poverty, on the grounds that housecats live in luxury while the working class people starve. Could you have any respect for such a movement?

[Albadross]

Someone on FB today posted a story about some charity person flirting with him (she spoke in a sexy voice he said) and then asked why it was 'OK to use your body for financial gain of wolf whistling isn't ok'.

[Albadross]

It wasn't my brother - my poor friend's, she's also had lots of support though which is good.

[HillaryFTW]

OP, I'm really sorry about your brother. That twat was massively hard of thinking to try and use his problems in that way

[HillaryFTW]

Is it the feminist part of MN that's attracted you to sign up, ASIP?

[AntiSocialInjusticePacifist]

I think it's a movement that's finding it's feet Vestal, but I empathise that's you're view of them, and equally as valid as my own. I hope one day once they get over thier frustration they'll start to think.

In my case I am not exactly pro-feminist, in fact I have grave misgivings towards it's over-identification with left-wing politics to which I am opposed. Which I appreciate is a view that won't appeal to many.

But don't mistake me as being anti-feminist, I have a wonderful brain and I am sure you do to. The whole idea of different ideologies and perspectives appeals to me. We as a species have clearly not gotten it "right" quite yet.

So if there is something I don't agree with I'll still defend your right to mull it over with like minded people, just to see where the rabbit hole goes.

[Xenophile]

If MRAs actually tackled any of these problems, I'd be right behind them. Sadly, what they mostly want to do is threaten feminists and whine about how bad their lives are because women won't fuck them.

Men's mental health is about to hit crisis point. There is no money at all, which is why the female suicide rate is rising dramatically as well. The people who hold the purse strings tend to be male. Will they loosen them off to help others of their sex?