This whole “mocking misogyny” thing? Apparently we’re doing it all wrong. Over on Reddit’s Men’s Rights Subreddit, jmnzz has helpfully explained what misogyny is, and what it isn’t.
Misogyny: The hatred of women
Not misogyny: Bad taste jokes about rape/abuse/etc. Logic. Counterarguments. Disagreements. Harsh language. Saying cunt. Saying bitch. Calling women names. Being pro-life. Calling every woman who accuses a man of rape a liar.
Why are none of these things misogyny? Because you do not have to hate women to do any or all of these things. You might, but not everyone who does them hate women.
Seriously. What on earth is misogynist about calling all the fucking cunts who accuse men of rape of being goddamn lying bitches? When guys call women lying whores, they do it out of love.
But hey, in all seriousness, I have to give Maggie props here for actually raising the issue of misogyny in r/mensrights.
NOTE: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN …..
Missed this.
Feminist Critics isn’t MRA (I checked for them to identify as such; unless things have changed in the last few months, they don’t). They’re also stupid, but bigger fish to fry than just ‘stupid’ in that little listing of yours.
The Spearhead is ‘good’? AVFM is ‘good’? The former is Stormfront for gender issues. There’s a reason they’re on the boob roll. AVFM has hilariously stupid articles (I remember one of the linked ones tried to make some hollow comparison of feminism and naziism without any of the actual comparison; this was held up by a fan of the site as ‘some of their best’.) and is linked to an attempt to use what is a form of brute force against any activist they don’t like (And at this point, it has been ruined as anything else). It is in fact, the easiest way to confirm that the ‘Men’s Right’s Movement’ is little more than a hate ‘group’ (inasmuch as one can call it a coherent group), and a total joke, rightly mocked by everyone interested in actual social justice. And you think it’s ‘a good site’. You are stupid. Get an education, and learn something about the state of the world before even trying any of this shit.
Aware. The Father’s Right’s ‘movement’ despises the MRM for trying to claim credit for their ever so commendable (I am being sarcastic) work.
I don’t think the Mankind Project is misogynist, because I see nothing about that. But it looks harmful to men, so I said it isn’t good.
@ Rutee Katreya
Might I respectfully suggest that Heroic Man is given a little latitude? He seems genuinely confused about what constitutes the MRM. Read about Mankind and what they do.
@ Heroic Man
AVFW, Spearhead etc sell themselves as the MRM – and have, more or less, hijacked the term. Please understand they do NOTHING to advance the rights of anyone. What they do is give voice to angry men. That, basically, is it. Nothing more. They give voice to self confessed domestic abusers, self confessed paedophiles and self confessed would-be rapists. They lie, they gloat and they take great pride in their anger. Read the sites and you will (if you are a decent human being) see the type of low-life you are dealing with.
Heroic Man, ask yourself this. The MRM have an obsession with being “shamed” – they know fill well that their behaviour is strange, bullying and beyond the pale. So they prepare in advance. “Women/feminists shame us into acting a certain way”. Bullshit. They are weak and they are angry – and they need to rationalize it. Personally, I think most of them know that their arguments are nonsense – but they don’t care. They feed off the negative attention.
Recently, AVfW read a radical feminist blog and went into overdrive. It was actually tragic to witness. The MRAs acted out like a group of toy soldiers with plans to have “local MRAs” leaflet the author’s home area, contact her employers etc. The author of the blog turned out to be a rich woman with a formidable legal team. The about face from the dregs of the MRM was a truly pathetic spectacle.
As I often say about the MRM, they are a bunch of nobodies going nowhere. They invented a cause, with a pseudo-science wing, to give themselves some status. That’s it.
Don’t fall for it.
Rutee and Happy here is a good link http://themenscenter.com/
I identify with Dr. Warren Farrell. I do not agree with some misogyny you see on various websites. This is an awesome article http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-is-wrong-with-mens-rights-movement.html that discusses the wings of the MRM movement.
You wrote To every feminist on this blog, please do not fall into the trap of dismissing every male organisation cited by an MRA. Some male organizations loathe the MRM.
The MRM sites such as the Spearhead that has misogyny I do not advocate. I advocate that The Spearhead started by a man named Bill Price does have some valid blogs on various mens issues. A Voice for Men started by a man named Paul Elam does have some good stuff to helpmmen dealing with anger issues and emotions. A Voice for men has a female therapist named Dr Tara that help men and she answers questions on the blog.
I do not advocate misogyny at all. All people should be equal. I agree a lot with Dr. Warren Farrell he is a moderate. I do consider myself a Mens Rights Advocate but in no way hateful or misogynistic. I just support equality for men and to help men bond with other men as part of a larger MRM.
Rutee, you criticized the website for the mankind project. Rutee it is no different than various womens organizations like http://www.redtentwomensproject.org/.
I am about helping men deal with their feelings, and abolishing the male only draft, and helping adolescent boys excel academically. There are legitimate issues for Mens Rights, much of which has issues which have nothing to do with women.
Citation please. Not because I don’t believe you, but because life’s too short to wade through the sewage on that site trying to find it myself.
@ Heroic Man
Who are deluded. Paul Elam is a self declared misogynist who has said that watching feminists in distress sexually excites him. If you have read AVfM and have thought that it can help anyone other than weirdo sociopaths, then you are actually an MRA and I have no time or patience for you.
@ Wetherby
@ Heroic Man
According to a blog posting from a feminist featured on AVfM, Paul Elam recently addressed a feminist as an “Irish slut”. He also, according to the blog, described her as worthless. She is a millionaire.
Wetherby, I hear ya! Unfortunately, the blog detailing this has now been de-activated, no doubt on legal advice, but it was;
[url redacted by DF 7/27/2012]
The woman in question’s treatment at the hands of AVfM is here;
http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/activism/pamela-oshaughnessy-exposed/
Here is one comments that pretty much sums up the rampant paranoia and nonsense that makes up that site;
“They failed to stop Hitler; we must not fail to stop O’Shaughnessy and the ugly politics of male hate.”
Now classified under evil. Not discarding possibility of stupid, but it will be a dual classification if so.
You do realize this is the internet, don’t you? What you said is right there for us to see.
Those statements contradict each other; Farrell continually tries to erase the hardships of women with his half-assed books, based on research he doesn’t actually have the ability to discuss intelligently. He tries to pretend men and women were equally poorly treated in the past, and pretend that women don’t dominate the bottom of the barrel still.
Elam’s primary deal is harrassment and bullying of ‘false rape accusers’ (Scarequotes because they so rarely are with even the most minimal degree of certainty) and feminists. The secondary thing is attacking women and feminists. If he helps any men, it is entirely incidental to his site’s focus. AVFM is a waste of bandwidth.
Really? Because the very first thing you said the men’s rights movement was for was to criticize women and feminism (Because you know, feminists are responsible for patriarchal gender roles).
Even if he hadn’t outed himself as evil, I don’t suffer fools gladly.
I’ve got about as much trust in this as I do in a whites only club.
Happy Anti-MRA commented
” AVFW, Spearhead etc sell themselves as the MRM – and have, more or less, hijacked the term. Please understand they do NOTHING to advance the rights of anyone. What they do is give voice to angry men. That, basically, is it. Nothing more. They give voice to self confessed domestic abusers, self confessed pedophiles and self confessed would-be rapists. They lie, they gloat and they take great pride in their anger. Read the sites and you will (if you are a decent human being) see the type of low-life you are dealing with.”
Happy I agree with you. There are lots of problems with the MRM movement. The Mens Rights Movement is new and emerging and has some kinks to work out. If it seems angry, it is a new movement. In the early 1970’s, feminism seemed angry, it was a relatively new movement. However, there are legitimate Mens Rights Groups. The National Coalition for Men is good. I like Warren Farrell as well. Here is an excellent blog that sums it up about the emerging Mens Rights Movement (MRM), Take you time to read it when you have a few minutes.
.
http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-is-wrong-with-mens-rights-movement.html
Rutee commented Really? Because the very first thing you said the men’s rights movement was for was to criticize women and feminism (Because you know, feminists are responsible for patriarchal gender roles).
Okay, I am an MRA.. But I am not a misogynist. I have commented on A Voice for Men and The Spearhead,and there are legitimate mens issues on those sites.
I like Dr. Warren Farrell.He tries to help men and women transcend gender roles. I am just saying for years if men complained we were called wimps. Now with various internet mens blogs, men are complaining about their gender roles with boldness. For years men did not dare criticize a woman in this chivalrous puritan culture, now men are criticizing women and learning to express themselves.
Rutee wrote Really? Because the very first thing you said the men’s rights movement was for was to criticize women and feminism (Because you know, feminists are responsible for patriarchal gender roles
No I did not say this. I said the Mens Rights Movement has given men a forum to criticize women and not be labeled a wimp or a fairy. Feminists are not responsible for patriarchal gender roles, just for reinforcing patriarchal gender roles in feminists individual lives. That is what the MRM is annoyed about.
Feminists can publicly criticize patriarchal gender roles but individual feminists still retain it privately when it serves the, Such as men still having to ask women out and women being the home economist while the male is the breadwinner.
The Feminist is seen as the Christian Pastor espousing a theory of purity but secretly living an adulterous life. That is how some feminists are viewed in the larger MRM.
HMAN: Now with various internet mens blogs, men are complaining about their gender roles with boldness. For years men did not dare criticize a woman in this chivalrous puritan culture, now men are criticizing women and learning to express themselves.
First off, you show a shocking ignorance of the several thousand year tradition of men criticizing women in order to support the kyriarchal structure (i.e. women are inferior to men, blah blah blah). I was a classics major. Read the classics, man, it’s all there. Ditto the time I spent as a history major. Men criticizing women (and criticism is a mild word) is omnipresent and has only begun to be critiqued the last few centuries.There are men who are supporters of feminist attempts to criticize gender roles, but the ones you talk about aren’t them. And you also don’t know squat about “puritan” culture (which isn’t the same as “chivalry” which was itself misogynistic) if you think the Puritans elders and major thinkers didn’t criticize women. And, you know, besides criticism, deny them civil rights (as well as denying civil rights to a lot of men who were in marginalized groups).
And I’d be a lot more interested if you could show me citations of men who are criticizing MEN, not women. Or, alternately, white men doing criticism of RACISM, HOMOPHOBIA, and CLASSISM that exist in social structures today. That is, where are these brave and heroic men’s rights groups speaking out against the right-wing social conservatives attempts to roll back some of the progressive changes of the past few decades?
Cis, white, straight, middle class men whining about their oppression isn’t a rights movement; it’s an attack on existing civil rights movements. And you’re making it all about the men, and still blaming women. Blaming women for “men’s oppression” is misogyny.
The self-identified MRAs who speak here are comfortable expressing racism and homophobia as well as misogyny–can you show me any actual sites that disprove that many MRAs are spouting the same sort of hateful rhetoric?
For years men did not dare criticize a woman in this chivalrous puritan culture
Sorry, are you on Earth Alpha? Here on regular old Earth, this would be hallucinatory bullshit.
Woo, ithiliana’s comment ftw
Really, reactionary privileged people trying to whine about the oppressed group making some steps towards equality have to deny the history of oppression if they are going to give lip service to not hating the oppressed group, even though they clearly do.
Ithiliana wrote And I’d be a lot more interested if you could show me citations of men who are criticizing MEN, not women. Or, alternately, white men doing criticism of RACISM, HOMOPHOBIA, and CLASSISM that exist in social structures today. That is, where are these brave and heroic men’s rights groups speaking out against the right-wing social conservatives attempts to roll back some of the progressive changes of the past few decades?
Ithiliana, the MRM is against social conservatives. Most of the MRM blogs have criticized conservative Bill Bennett on his book. Check this blog out http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/10/05/reader-responses-to-bill-bennetts-man-up-piece/
MRM is against social conservative women at times as well. http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2011/02/the-bullies-speak/ is a good article on how MRM is against conservative women who like traditional gender roles.Men Righst Advocates have even criticized Kay Hymowitz telling men they need to grow up and stop being “Peter Pans.” http://www.inmalafide.com/blog/2011/02/21/kay-hymowitz-and-the-entitlement-of-manning-up/
There are some website links that are good non misogynistic as per your request
http://www.dadsrights.org/ http://www.fatherville.com/ http://themenscenter.com/ http://mensightmagazine.com/ http://mankindproject.org/ http://menstuff.org/frameindex.html
http://ncfm.org/ http://www.orgformen.org/
Feminists are the ones enforcing traditional gender roles? I’m sorry, who is it that gave us the term “mangina”? ‘Cause I’m pretty fucking sure it wasn’t feminists.
The Reddit blog was right on in terms of the misunderstanding of misogyny by women. As a man who identifies himself as a Mens Rights Advocate, and part of the larger Mens Rights Movement, the MRM is misunderstood. Feminists seem to think it is a bunch of man hating, whining, hateful , misogynist guys. That is a false assumption.
Objection, assumes facts not in evidence.
The Mens Rights Movement allows men to vent and criticize women and feminism. Just as women have been hurt by men, men have been hurt by women. Before the internet, men had no option,
Objection, assumes facts not in evidence.
Really. I was around before the internet. There were lots of guys who didn’t like women, or feminism, or some combination of both. They weren’t silent. They weren’t unable to find each other and talk about it. They were vocal, and they had advocates. Advocates who had a larger following.
The problem, for the MRM is that they have a worldview which is becoming more marginal. That’s why the violent rhetoric is increasing. That’s why they need the internet. Not so long ago they were in tune with the times.
The times, they’ve been a changin, and the MRM hasn’t.
Most importantly, MRA”S are angry not at women and feminists but how male gender roles, such as a man should not cry, have been reinforced by women in our society.
Objection, Assumes facts not in evidence.
The concept of male as protector and that a man should not cry has to do with the man being able to protect a woman,. He should be able to control his emotion in order to protect a woman. This has constricted many men to deny their feeling causing ill health. If the need to be strong to protect a woman is removed, a an would have the liberty to cry and bee free with is emotion.
This, my dear boy is a non-sequitor. You are wrong as to the reason for this set of ideas. Feminism isn’t saying any of that should be the case.
That is a tradtionalist, patriarchal, view of men’s roles. Show me the women who are actually saying the things you are blaming feminism for. Then show me their views on feminism.
But really, the issue of gender roles (speaking as a man), is something which men are more insistent on enforcing. Men say, “dude, he’s a wimp, women don’t like wimps”, which causes, e.g., men to not cry in front of women because they have been told (by other men) that it’s not manly.
But you, and your ilk, say it’s women. Removing the male role in society (which includes things such as men’s positions of power in the attitude shaping institutions, and the legislative bodies), is hateful of women, because it (as you have done here) removes men from the equation and blames them for everything.
Then you pretend it’s not women, but, “society’s rules” you are protesting. But when pressed, you say those rules are all women’s fault.
Ergo, you are blaming them for things they didn’t do. Which is a sort of sexism, at best, and more probably a manifested misogyny.
So your special pleadings, are rejected. The MRM is, at root, misogynist; by the evidence of your words, and theirs, if one needed more evidence, your own words,
are more than enough evidence.
Anyone who wonders what the MRM is like can go to them and see the hatred which is soaked into the very bones of your movement, and compare it to the apologetics for hating of women you have made, the verdict isn’t likely to go your way.
Damned blockquotes.
That is not what you said.
You said women make it so that men can’t cry, etc. You said the MRM was trying to fight against the ways in which women create/enforce tradtional roles.
Let me help you (it’s all written down you know).
This is how you put it together. You conflated gender roles with women.
Then, just in case we missed it, you repeat in the very comment you are trying to say you didn’t say that.
The Feminist is seen as the Christian Pastor espousing a theory of purity but secretly living an adulterous life. That is how some feminists are viewed in the larger MRM.
So women, even the one’s who say they are against it, really are in favor of oppressing men with the gender roles you hate.
Again, you pretend to be neutral, against, “The System”, but when you elaborate we discover “The System” is codespeak for, “Women”.
That does not means he identifies with MRAs. However many people who do identify as MRAs, MGTOW or whatever have proven themselves to be misogynistic. See the problem?
You realize women have fought to have the right to be in the army (and not just as nurses,…) in many countries, not the other way around?
So why, when we go to this MRM sites, so much is about hating feminists and despising women?
You should choose your friends carefully.
And a last point: you said women are reinforcing male gender role. Although I completly agree that some do, what do you you think happen in a group of people when the proportion of women goes down?
In men-only environments, male role are very often more enforced. Boys and men are taught to be violent, to be competitive,… not in order to proof themselves worthy of women but to show they are better and stronger than other men. (or to illustrate my point: boys do NOT compare the size of their dicks because they wonder about its use to please their lovers, but because they want to have one bigger than the others)
Responding to Kyrie who commented to me
“And a last point: you said women are reinforcing male gender role. Although I completly agree that some do, what do you you think happen in a group of people when the proportion of women goes down?
In men-only environments, male role are very often more enforced. Boys and men are taught to be violent, to be competitive,… not in order to proof themselves worthy of women but to show they are better and stronger than other men. (or to illustrate my point: boys do NOT compare the size of their dicks because they wonder about its use to please their lovers, but because they want to have one bigger than the others)”
Kyrie, it is till not the same thing to compare to a men only environment. Although you are correct that there is gender reinforcing roles in a male only environment. However, a large reason men compete with each other and men strive to be strong and unfeeling is to get woman”s approval. Woman reinforce the “male as unfeeling protector” ,”Knight in shining armor” stereotype. This causes men to deny their emotions to prove to women they are strong and can protect.
However, a large reason men compete with each other and men strive to be strong and unfeeling is to get woman”s approval.
Then why do men police each other about behaviors that women actually like?
So your argument that men are more “successful” at offing themselves via suicide techniques is that men are better/smarter than women? Nice.
With friends like you, a guy doesn’t need enemies.
The only way that mens’ rights will be realized is through Feminism itself, because Feminism is broadly speaking, Humanism, while MRA is limited to men only, and if these MRA sites are anything to go by, is working AGAINST men rather than for them.
You’ve even got a man who claims to be a father who wants the side stop sign taken off of school busses. Come on, now.
Y’all are a bunch of nutters.
heroicman: Again you say “society”, but you blame women.
That’s misognyy.
Woman reinforce the “male as unfeeling protector” ,”Knight in shining armor” stereotype. This causes men to deny their emotions to prove to women they are strong and can protect.
Could be so kind as to actually demonstrate how women, and in feminists in particular, are doing this? And to what extent? Because for my part, this speaks to the exact opposite of my experience.
That should have read, “…and feminists in particular…”