Fuckin' MRAs, how do THEY work? (for AndrewV69)

[0verlord]

Since AndrewV69 expressed interest... Express your current understanding of Men's Rights Advocates and the Men's Rights Movement.

I'll answer first. MRAs, and the MRM, are a response to the negative social consequences of feminism. They consist of both men and women who are aware of the laws and social practices -- largely inspired and put in place by activist feminists -- that cause a great deal of harm to men. This harm may be to their reputations, their careers, their families, or even their lives (e.g., wrongful incarceration and permanent sex offender status via false rape allegation). MRAs tend to be conservative, family-oriented, hard working men who have been burned in the past by women who abuse such laws and practices for their own ends. The women in the MRM tend to know these sorts of men, are simply standing up on principle for the men in their lives, or both.

That is my jumbled understanding of the MRM and MRAs as they are today. Regrettably, I do not maintain any sort of optimism the MRM will not someday largely become a "revenge" campaign the way feminism has.

[John Greg]

My understanding of what MRAs are, is that, like feminists, they cover a broad range from the John What'sits who go naked into yonder wild woods and shout at trees and then hug 'em to death, to men and women who are ordinary humanists with a slightly stronger focus on men's rights than on women's rights.

And of course there is the FfTB Hinterland variant which comes out in spring in his wooly hibernation fur and is pretty much any biped with a doohickeydangley bit somewhere down there between his bifurcated fundament. But for all the actual factual data supplied by FfTB, they might just be more examples of bigfoots.

[AndrewV69]

Thanks Overlord. Anyone else?

I am really interested in the negative connotations that some people appear to have though, and if they can put their finger on where they picked up their perceptions in particular.

For example, last time I swung by Reddit they appeared to have quite a few "for reals" misogynists in there and easy picking for Manboobz.

So that is what I am really interested in:

- MRAs are misogynists___.
- I got this impression from Reddit/Manboobz_____.

[0verlord]

The most negative impression I've had about the MRM has to do with the "dudebros" (for lack of better term.) I got this impression from reading MRA blogs and watching Youtube videos (e.g., girlwriteswhat), specifically their comment sections. Despite that, my experiences with MRAs in general -- unlike with feminists in general -- is mostly positive.

Are the dudebros "real" MRAs? That's about as meaningful and helpful as asking if the shrieking harpies and career victims who call themselves feminists are "real" feminists. I prefer to take people at their word and assume that when they say they are this or that, they're speaking honestly. I judge the whole based on my general experiences with their constituency and those impressions are subject to change as my experiences are broadened.

[EveryMan]

The MRA's are societies Yang to the Femmie Yin.

And they are equally irritating and unnecessary.

[Heintje]

The MRA's are societies Yang to the Femmie Yin.

And they are equally irritating and unnecessary.

Usually I get very annoyed at false equivalence. However, this post made me LOL.

[Za-zen]

I'll go with the fftb definition:

Any person who hasn't submitted to the natural order of the matriachy. Any person who threatens or questions the sacred texts of the matriachy. And finally any person the preists of the matriachy deem unclean

[rayshul]

What I've seen of MRAs is that they are, as previously stated, a reaction to injustices against men. I've certainly been called an MRA for saying that I think men's issues should be considered too.

[Lsuoma]

What I've seen of MRAs is that they are, as previously stated, a reaction to injustices against men. I've certainly been called an MRA for saying that I think men's issues should be considered too.

I assumed that rayshul was a phonetic rendition of Rachel, but I just spotted that it may be something like Ray Schul.

Either way, being true to YOUR convictions whether you have a cock or cunt, or a cock that was a cunt, or vice versa, or - well, the combinations grow too quickly to follow - is most important.

[Ysanne]

I used to think that the MR in MRA was about the more male-focused part of what is promoted by the more enlightened types of feminism (the actual equality and fairness stuff, not men-are-evil whining), helping men who get rough deals w.r.t. custody/divorce/child support, organising men's health and education campaigns, and setting up activities for boys who get labeled as "difficult" for being on the rough and energetic end of the "normal" spectrum. At least that's how I found the first few pointers to MRA groups.
So I looked, read some forums, found the respective wiki (wikimannia, mostly in German)... and was absolutely shocked what a bunch of whingeing misogynists these self-declared MRAs turned out to be. About half of the posts were devoted to bragging about how superior they are to women in every respect, how fun it is to take advantage of women, how they totally don't need women for _anything_ and how they're entitled to treat women like shit, including physical abuse and rape. The other half were complaints and self-pity, in the form of heart-wrenching descriptions of some helpless man being repressed by all those evil cunning women who first confuse them with their mixed signals, lure them into a trap with the promise of sex, then take away their money/houses/work/families/reputation, and finally spit them out with a false rape accusation or worse.
I've never encountered such a concentration of hateful idiocy before. (And yes, I've met lots of super-religious, alt-science, esoteric/spiritual and anti-vaxxer folks, including debating a guy who "knew" that there are only finitely many natural numbers.)

So... sadly, I'll have to vote "MRA = bunch of whiny losers".

[astrokid.nj]

I used to think that the MR in MRA was about the more male-focused part of what is promoted by the more enlightened types of feminism (the actual equality and fairness stuff, not men-are-evil whining), helping men who get rough deals w.r.t. custody/divorce/child support,

What MRAs fight for has been documented quite well, and here is the sample. [youtube]57EWApOypIQ[/youtube]
feminists have fought against many of these goals (shared parenting, punish false allegations, alimony reform etc). I can dig up evidence if the situation arises. Dont go on about the "support of more enlightened feminists". Its all a big lie. The only good feminist out there that supports these male issues, by joining MRA group effectively, is Christina Hoff Sommers. And she's always fighting the rest of the feminists all the time. Read up her articles at aei.org

About half of the posts were devoted to ... how they totally don't need women for _anything_

Geez.. I wonder what your people were doing when the feminists said "Women need men like a fish needs a bicycle", and even adopted political lesbianism. Men didnt give a fuck for which way the feminists went then, but now when some MRAs say that, its a problem for you?? Hypocrisy much?

The other half were complaints and self-pity, in the form of heart-wrenching descriptions of some helpless man being repressed by all those evil cunning women who first confuse them with their mixed signals, lure them into a trap with the promise of sex, then take away their money/houses/work/families/reputation, and finally spit them out with a false rape accusation or worse.
So... sadly, I'll have to vote "MRA = bunch of whiny losers".

We see assholes like you all the time. I will just point to this article as to how we shrug off misandric assholes like you.

Women’s whining = pursuit of justice. Men’s pursuit of justice = whining.
Trying to reason with or educate people in a culture where this mindset is biologically rooted is absolutely foolish. The people we would engage view all forms of support for men like they were dirty hypodermic needles scattered across a schoolyard playground.
Allow me to expand on this.
I recently read an article on a feminist website, Sociological Images authored by a couple of female Ph. D’s, in which one of the comments named yours truly as an MRA who wrote about men’s superiority over women, and yet another person who commented said they visited A Voice for Men and found a lot of whining going on here.
Par for the course, right?
But let’s just run a short comparison to further demonstrate what I am talking about.
Recently on A Voice for Men, we have engaged in the standard discussions that relate to men in modern culture: A police state that arrests and incarcerates male victims of domestic violence and enables female perpetrators to continue criminal behavior; a ten to one death gap concerning capital punishment that works against men; a five to one death gap against men related to suicide; the staggering attrition of males in higher education and employment; the utter lack of reproductive rights for men, and the incidence of false rape allegations against men which even the police are calling epidemic.
And that is just the past two weeks.
On the other hand, the article from which the comments I cited at Sociological Images was about:
Rulers.
No, not heads of state. Measuring sticks. The kind that sell for $1.19 in your grocery store. It seems the fembots in question found a line of rulers commemorating great scientists of history, and a woman scientist, Marie Curie, had her own ruler under the heading of “Great Women Rulers of Science.”
That’s the horrific injustice that pissed off the author.
Her problem was (or at least appeared to be) that the women were separated from the men, giving us a default position of men as human and women as, uh, something else. Perhaps something less.
...
And we are the whiners?

[Ysanne]

Ah, so it's "fucking misandric assholes like [me]" who repress you, isn't it? Because all the crap you linked to was written by me... oops no wait, just some random women on the internet, but hey, they're women an my nick sounds female, so it's all the same? Go on, keep lashing out and spew some more crap.
Anyway, thanks for making my point about MRAs being the male equivalent of the most stereotypical, whiny, misandric "feminists": Malcontents hijacking a sensible cause (plus its name), and turning it into a shining display of their own idiocy and mindless hate.

[astrokid.nj]

'misandric assholes' did the trick didnt it? gratuitous insults like 'bunch of whiney losers' from you is ok though.
You downplayed and mocked some of the serious issues that MRAs are fighting against, and came up with the same summary as that asshole, hence I referred you to that canned reply. I called out your hypocrisy as well. And your response? male equivalents, hate, blah blah. Even female MRAs like typhonblue, GirlWritesWhat would deliver the same message as I did, if not better.
And I didnt think you are female either.. In my experience, women rarely come out to others' forums and argue. Its normally men who do the fighting for them.. the Laden's, PeeZus's etc are the extreme, its regular men who havent done much introspection and study who automatically come to the defence of women.

Gender differences in automatic in-group bias: why do women like women more than men like men?
Rudman LA, Goodwin SA.
Source
Department of Psychology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ, USA. rudman@rci.rutgers.edu
Abstract
Four experiments confirmed that women's automatic in-group bias is remarkably stronger than men's and investigated explanations for this sex difference, derived from potential sources of implicit attitudes (L. A. Rudman, 2004). In Experiment 1, only women (not men) showed cognitive balance among in-group bias, identity, and self-esteem (A. G. Greenwald et al., 2002), revealing that men lack a mechanism that bolsters automatic own group preference. Experiments 2 and 3 found pro-female bias to the extent that participants automatically favored their mothers over their fathers or associated male gender with violence, suggesting that maternal bonding and male intimidation influence gender attitudes. Experiment 4 showed that for sexually experienced men, the more positive their attitude was toward sex, the more they implicitly favored women. In concert, the findings help to explain sex differences in automatic in-group bias and underscore the uniqueness of gender for intergroup relations theorists.

[AndrewV69]

So I looked, read some forums, found the respective wiki (wikimannia, mostly in German)... and was absolutely shocked what a bunch of whingeing misogynists these self-declared MRAs turned out to be. About half of the posts were devoted to bragging about how superior they are to women in every respect, how fun it is to take advantage of women, how they totally don't need women for _anything_ and how they're entitled to treat women like shit, including physical abuse and rape. The other half were complaints and self-pity, in the form of heart-wrenching descriptions of some helpless man being repressed by all those evil cunning women who first confuse them with their mixed signals, lure them into a trap with the promise of sex, then take away their money/houses/work/families/reputation, and finally spit them out with a false rape accusation or worse.
I've never encountered such a concentration of hateful idiocy before. (And yes, I've met lots of super-religious, alt-science, esoteric/spiritual and anti-vaxxer folks, including debating a guy who "knew" that there are only finitely many natural numbers.)

So... sadly, I'll have to vote "MRA = bunch of whiny losers".

Hi Ysanne,

Thanks for your perceptions. I would appreciate if you would give me the names of these forums you visited.

FYI, I also was taken aback at some of the mysogny expressed by some of the guys on for example Reddit. What I found alarming was when it was expressed by young men. The older guys it was understandable because many of them are shell shocked and were completely blind sided by what happened to them.

What percentage of young men are misogynist? How did they become that way? How can we prevent more from being created?

I am still on the first question, and some of the answers are shocking, because so far the indicators are that it is the women in authority over them from they were small children, that are responsible for creating them. These men are now in the 15-25 cohort and they hate all women!

To give you an idea of what is going on, the following paper reveals some attitudes from kids who are still in school. If you do not want to read the whole thing, skip to the part about how boys perceive they will be marked by female teachers.

London School of Economics Centre for Economic Performance

CEE DP 133

Students' Perceptions of Teacher Biases: Experimental Economics in Schools
Authors: Amine Ouazad, Lionel Page
Date:January 2012

http://cee.lse.ac.uk/ceedps/ceedp133.pdf

[dresq]

Yeah, I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning here. Boys have a perception (which is accurate, as it turns out) that female teachers will grade them more harshly than girls, therefore they are misogynists?

[AndrewV69]

Yeah, I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning here. Boys have a perception (which is accurate, as it turns out) that female teachers will grade them more harshly than girls, therefore they are misogynists?

It appears to be an ongoing lifelong process. At some point after sustained maltreatment they hit a tipping point and anything after that is reinforcement.

Clearly some boys "survive" the process to one degree or another, in that perhaps they relate it to a category, i.e. bad caregiver, bad teacher, bad supervisor, etc. etc. and not to all women in general.

Others appear to come out of the process with a hatred for all women because many/most/all women have treated them badly.

Clearly I need to be careful about how I generalize.

[AndrewV69]

I need more data people. Do not be shy.

Having asked for your opinion, I am not going to attack you for it. The worst that will happen is I may ask you to expand on it.

I do realize that this is a touchy subject for some people, but whatever side of the fence you are on I will ask you to lighten up a bit:

[Parge]

I've told you my opinion back on ERV. Before the baboons started flinging that MRA epithet around, I only ever thought about MRAs as those Fathers 4 Justice guys - dad's dressed as superheros perched on buildings holding banners. I still assume that family issues are a primary catalyst for many men labelling themselves as such. The misogyny of some is just a natural push-back to being vilified for suggesting that men have rights too. The reactionary hatred of women is misguided and wrong - as is every single sweeping generalization that has ever been uttered in the history of language - but understandable. I'd even suggest that the vast majority of MRAs are not misogynist, just as the vast majority of feminists are not misandrist. True to form though, the angriest segments of those movements tend to be the most vocal.

[KiwiInOz]

My impression was/is similar to Parge's. I'm not sure how it came to be considered an insult on Pharyngula, nor how it came to be conflated with pick up artists (PUA).

[Lsuoma]

I'm not sure [...] how it came to be conflated with pick up artists (PUA).

This is a question I asked back at ERV and nobody had an answer there (or at least one they would concede was a good answer, IIRC.)

[Badger3k]

I'm not sure [...] how it came to be conflated with pick up artists (PUA).

This is a question I asked back at ERV and nobody had an answer there (or at least one they would concede was a good answer, IIRC.)

I wondered what that stood for - I would assume, and you know what they say about that - that a pick-up artist is only after one thing, and thus can only see women as sex objects.

[KiwiInOz]

I think that, when attached to MRA, it was equivalent to calling Obama a muslim, communist, atheist, fascist.

[Eucliwood]

Yeah, they are, and even if they aren't, that's honestly how many innocent MRAs perceive themselves... I hate the name chill girl. Really. No woman is about to "chill" with guilty MRAs (guilty as in guilty of simply being sexist or prejudiced or otherwise shitty and hiding under the guise of "I am for equality with an emphasis on men's rights). So people need to stop using it. Okay, I could see a messed up woman-hating girl being one, but really that's it. No one that shows she is for equal balance is going to be a chill girl. So let's cut the crap.

I was called a chill girl out of anger by my own friend.

There ARE total bastards in the MRA movement though. Just, ew. It may even be true that there are more rotten MRAs than rotten radical feminists, but really, assuming MRAs to be misogynist is very unfair. Listen to the PERSON. if they're advocating for "equal right here" and you're all "omg you're an MRA! You're a misogynist!" then you are anti equal rights.

Rather than considering myself feminist, I'll just call myself a humanist. I don't like the misnomer in the word, and the term humanist has been defiled less by biased people.

[another lurker]

Yeah, they are, and even if they aren't, that's honestly how many innocent MRAs perceive themselves... I hate the name chill girl. Really. No woman is about to "chill" with guilty MRAs (guilty as in guilty of simply being sexist or prejudiced or otherwise shitty and hiding under the guise of "I am for equality with an emphasis on men's rights). So people need to stop using it. Okay, I could see a messed up woman-hating girl being one, but really that's it. No one that shows she is for equal balance is going to be a chill girl. So let's cut the crap.

I was called a chill girl out of anger by my own friend.

There ARE total bastards in the MRA movement though. Just, ew. It may even be true that there are more rotten MRAs than rotten radical feminists, but really, assuming MRAs to be misogynist is very unfair. Listen to the PERSON. if they're advocating for "equal right here" and you're all "omg you're an MRA! You're a misogynist!" then you are anti equal rights.

Rather than considering myself feminist, I'll just call myself a humanist. I don't like the misnomer in the word, and the term humanist has been defiled less by biased people.

Agreed. MRA's are not a monolith. But many of them are just so fucked up. They are delusional, and hateful. Ironically, they use many of the same bullying tactics that some FTB'ers use. It's sad.

My heart aches for the men who are screwed over by bad women. Just as my heart aches for women who get fucked over by bad men. It's the extremists on both sides that I despise.