Men’s Rights activists — or a good portion of them, anyway — seem to suffer from what we might call “Male Responsibility Bypass Syndrome.” Whatever terrible things a man (or a group of men) has been shown to have done, MRAs have a remarkable ability to find a woman to blame for it.
Nowhere is this clearer than when it comes to excusing violence. If a man is violent, MRAs tend to argue, it’s because he was provoked by a woman unaware that “equal rights mean equal lefts.” Or it’s the fault of his mother for not raising him right. Or the fault of his female ancestors for “choosing” violent men to “mate” with.
And if a stepfather abuses a child, it’s the fault of the mother for inviting him into the home. Take this generously upvoted comment from DavidByron2 in the Men’s Rights subreddit, who attempts to give a “scientific” — that is, an Evo Psych — excuse for the abuse:
In a later comment, Byron explains that he wasn’t really “blaming” the “females” in question, just saying that “the female is causal. She/it makes the decision to get a new mate or not.”
Oh, yeah, that’s much better.
But it’s that last bit, borrowed from Evo Psych, that’s even more remarkable, based as it is on the notion that male violence isn’t really violence if someone somewhere has come up with a genetic explanation for it.
Really? Animals need to survive in order to propagate their genes and “maximize genetic transfer to the next generation,” and they need to eat to survive. But I’m pretty sure that if I went to the middle-eastern restaurant on the corner, punched a customer in the head, and ran off with their Lamb Kabob entrée the cops wouldn’t be very sympathetic to my evolutionary argument. Biology doesn’t excuse bad behavior.
In the part of Byron’s comment I left out of the screencap, he links to summaries of the research of evolutionary psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, who’ve written a good deal about what’s come to be called the “Cinderella effect,” that is, the fact that child abuse seems to be many times more prevalent in homes with stepparents than in those without.
While empirically this is true — though often overstated, and more complicated than “evil stepfather” theories would have it, given that studies often include other men, including uncles and grandfathers, in the same category as stepfathers — we still don’t actually know why this is. Are human males really just wired like male lions, who kill cubs fathered by other lions when they link up with new mates? Or is it that, say, men inclined to abuse children target vulnerable single mothers in order to get access to their kids?
Or could it be that child abuse and neglect — which takes many different forms, from emotional abuse to sexual abuse to physical violence — is a complicated and messy subject that can’t be reduced to a single explanation?
I’m guessing the latter, but leave it to the MRAs to jump on an explanation that gives them an excuse to absolve men of responsibility for their actions BECAUSE GENES.
h/t to LieBaron on Reddit.
TIL that child abuse is always the mother’s fault, no matter who’s doing the actual abusing.
I also learned that blended families aren’t “normal” families.
DavidByron2 can step on many Legos.
Funny thing is, MRAs often use child abuse statistics to try to demonize women. So it’s bad if a woman abuses a child, but if a man abuses a child, they’ll do all they can to take the blame from him. I thought it would be pretty obvious that child abuse from any gender whatsoever is a horrible thing, but nope.
Reblogged this on woosterlang87.
The moment I hear someone talk about evopsych, I start counting until they say something despicable. Generally, I rarely have to make it to double digits.
MHRA: Men Having the Right to Abuse (or at least, that’s as close as I can tell)
I feel like I need to reread it, because it could not have possibly said what I think it said. I’m afraid, though. If I reread it and it does say what I think it says, I may do the technicolor spew across my keyboard.
I hereby declare, by the powers invested in me by my cats, the word of the day to be: VILE.
Close second’s were: slimy, repulsive, gag-worthy, and putrescent.
Yet another bullshit excuse to be an asshole. Guess what? Even if (big if) this had some evolutionary advantage the fact that we are aware that it is abusive behavior now does not allow us to act on it without consequence.
Xen, very good point. There are many things animals do that most if not all human societies/cultures proscribe to humans. Curious how fixated they are on an example that supposedly exonerates violent men.
They love to blame women for everything, but they really seem to hate their fellow men. To them, no man can ever control violent urges.
Time for a new MRA poster!
It could read: MRA’s: We’re not saying we abuse kids. We’re just saying that if we do, it’s not our fault.
David Byron strikes again. Few people could combine magnificent ignorance of basic human evolution with abject hatred of women and that special brand of smug superiority so adeptly, unknowingly elevating himself to self-parody. I recall many nights erupting into laughter as he tried desperately to derail threads on /r/feminism by insisting absolutely everything has to do with the rape of men, even (seriously) a lack of women’s education Afghanistan.
Xen, well, there are animals that steal food from other animals, but when I take one lousy Lamb Kebab entree all of a sudden people are all “you’re under arrest” and “you’re banned from this restaurant.”
I mean, if some hypothetical person were to do that.
These “men” will not be happy until the whole world agrees that all things good come from and/or are created by men and all things bad come from and/or are created by women.
I have known three year old kids who are more mature then these guys.
Why would anyone even talk to them?????? Bleah!
How many ways can one person be so wrong?
Some men are perfectly happy to have avoided the nappies and the sleepless nights to have a ready-made family. The children are big enough to safely be carried on the shoulders or to fly kites with or kick a ball around. Some men regard that as a real win, others regret that they missed out on the early stuff. Both kinds can love having the family they got anyway.
What about all those kinship systems in various places where the important male relative is not the father but the mother’s brother?
Most importantly, how on earth did humans survive this long if that’s the case? Back when early death was common for both men and women, mixed families of all kinds were common. As recently as my greatgrandmother’s family there were children of 5 marriages within the one family. GGGrandpa married 3 times, widowed twice, and had one or more children each time. Two of those women were widows with children of their own. Nobody did anything more than smack a few fingers in that family. No one killed anyone.
I almost emailed you about this Reddit post, but as always you’re on the case.
This is really classic male hypoagency.
Except, of course, most men are perfectly decent and don’t kill or abuse their stepchildren, nor do they make excuses for men who do that.
So really, it’s classic MRA hypoagency.
It’s amazing how often men are basically described as natural disasters by those people. Mindless, imminent dangers we can’t really do anything about. If you don’t prepare yourself correctly, it’s your fault.
I have my hurricane preparedness kit ready for the upcoming hurricane season. Where can I buy a male preparedness kit for the man season?
Also, a good family friend who was thought to be a lifelong bachelor surprised us all by getting married last year, to a woman who had two young sons. He has always wanted kids, and has worked with kids as a teacher and camp counselor for many years. He is blissfully happy being a stepfather, and husband. He is a gentle soul, but I bet if he were to read DavidByron2’s words he would join me in wishing that he step on all the LEGOs forever, and that his clothes forever reek of tomcat piss. (kittehserf came up with that one yesterday.)
O/T: Adam Lee, a semi-prominent blogger in the New/Movement Atheist community, made a really good post on the phenomenon of MRAs in the community.
Yes, animals will sometimes kill offspring that aren’t theirs. They also shit in the woods. We’ve invented indoor plumbing, air conditioning, and cars; I’m pretty sure we can muster up the self-control to not hit kids.
Of course, if these dudes insist on living by the law of the jungle, they can always go do that… in the fucking jungle. Wonder how long they’d last.
I know this has been said many times before but I really envy/appreciate/applaud your ability to wade through this crap. I feel my inner beserker struggling to get out when I read your excerpts.
Line from “Feet of Clay”, Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett:
Sgt. Colon: “Unnatural, sir. Don’t like unnatural things.”
Patrician: “You mean you eat your meat raw and sleep in a tree?”
OOOOh, Cloudiah and Kittehserf, I love the “reek of tomcat piss” curse! My dear departed Italian aunt used to make up wonderful curses in English (my fave was “May a diseased yak inhabit your socks drawer), and this would really have made my Aunt Teresina’s day.
But if a woman even hints at protecting her children from strange men, that’s the ultimate misandry.
I recently read The Woman That Never Evolved by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. It’s a bit old, but it was the only one of her books I could find as an ebook, and I wanted to be able to read it at lunch at my desk at work.
She mentions a few species of primates where males engage in infanticide of babies from mothers with whom they have never mated, but at least at the time the book was written, there was some debate about whether or not this was normal behaviour, or a response to dire situations like overpopulation or other stressors.
In any case, females generally fought back to protect their infants and the infants of their relatives, but were eventually overpowered by the larger males. Having a baby die is bad for a female’s evolutionary success, obviously. Females who don’t have young that grow up to reproduce don’t pass on their genes. She does point out, though, that in many species, including chimps, females engage in sex with multiple partners, even after they become pregnant, possibly so that all males in the group will refrain from harming her babies, and even protecting them from predators. So if this MRA is arguing that it’s cool for dudes to beat up their step kids because of evolution, he would, of course, agree that female promiscuity and questionable paternity is also a natural female response to natural violent male behaviour, and it’s in the best interest of our species.
@BigKitty: My husband and I do the same, but in reverse! (He’s teaching me Italian so I can talk to his mom… or at least… he’s attempting to, haha. I can’t say much for my aptitude for languages outside of English.) I’d totally high five your Aunt Teresina; she sounds rad.
I saw this on AMR, and almost threw up.
As someone who was abused by a stepparent: DO NOT TRY AND PULL THAT SHIT WITH ME.
If you abuse a child, that is on you. You want to live like a lion, go join a pride in the savanna and see how long you last. If you marry a woman and she has children, it is your fault if you abuse them. Those are your actions, not hers. This guy can go straight to hell.
I just…argh and rage and now I’m flashbacking and angry and if I ever come across someone saying this in real life I will kick them in the shin.