What is an MRA?

[spacefem]

So this is ooooold but it's the first descent explanation that reflects some of the, er, INTERESTING opinions we've seen reflected on behalf of MRAs here. Spacefem approves of this article.

http://www.shakesville.com/2007/10/expl ... s-mra.html

Is that like the "National Association for the Advancement of White People" or the folks who think the Christian Right is oppressed?

Yes, the Men's Rights Movement is the same kind of animal. All of these groups share a common worldview, that the traditionally oppressed groups, be they women, minorities, or non-Christians, have somehow seized control of the country and are systematically denying the straight, white, Christian men their rights.

So are MRAs concerned about anything other than raping and beating women?

Oh, sure -- they also don't want to pay child support.

You brought up abortion--I'm guessing the MRAs aren't exactly pro-choice, are they?

They're pro-choice for men. They think, by and large, that abortion is fine, if it gets them out of fatherhood when they want to, and they think, by and large, that abortion is evil if it keeps them from being fathers when they want to.

SERIOUSLY. anyway, lots of other good takes from the article, it's nice to hear from a website that's been fighting the good fight for years like we have.

[A.K.A. Z]

The article's a little reductive, but it does get right down to the crux: MRA's just throw out numbers and factoids rather than addressing the actual systemic issues, meanwhile ignoring obvious ethical axioms (which anybody else wouldn't even bring up because of their obvious axiomatic quality) involved when discussing legality. The summation at the end about feminism and what I've heard discussed as "gender obsolescence," rather than gender elimination wraps it all up nicely.

[Amuro]

I'd say they're kind of like the folks who think white women are oppressed. lol. sorry i just had to say it.

[propatriachy]

I wouldn't join the mra, although I can understand why a lot of men would.

Maybe their are some women's issues, I've heard in the past that mras never use statistics but yet when they do there also mocked for that.

There are a lot men's issues, if men and women are to be equal, things need to balance out, for example, divorce cases, prison numbers, higher retirement age for men, child custody, suicide rates, okay their may well be more men in the boardroom but that's an alien environment to most men, I think the history it goes towards feminism as it belittles any men's opinions.

Also what I don't like is how anti patriachy it is yet no alternative has been offered.

[kelsa]

I wouldn't join the mra, although I can understand why a lot of men would.

Maybe their are some women's issues, I've heard in the past that mras never use statistics but yet when they do there also mocked for that.

There are a lot men's issues, if men and women are to be equal, things need to balance out, for example, divorce cases, prison numbers, higher retirement age for men, child custody, suicide rates, okay their may well be more men in the boardroom but that's an alien environment to most men, I think the history it goes towards feminism as it belittles any men's opinions.

Also what I don't like is how anti patriachy it is yet no alternative has been offered.

This is a beautiful example of irony.

[leadyourself22]

Misogynists, Racists, Abusers -that's what MRA stands for

[androkguz]

I'm really sorry but I don't live in the US and therefore haven't heard the MRAs talking beyond some comments that I have read in certain corners of the internet, mostly in the comments section of some feminist article like the one spacefem just posted.

And I gotta tell you, from the point of view of an outsider, it seems like there should be no reason for feminist and MRAs like the commenter "darren" to get along. The debate looks really weird, like there is some personal hatred between the groups that prevents any calm debate.

Also, off topic: I watch tons of shows and movies produced in the US. At least in those, it really does seem like the Christian Right is 95% of the time mocked and ridiculed. I do believe that the privileged group can become the marginalized one, and when it happens, the new privileged ones will not acknowledge it for a long time.

[Aum]

And I gotta tell you, from the point of view of an outsider, it seems like there should be no reason for feminist and MRAs like the commenter "darren" to get along. The debate looks really weird, like there is some personal hatred between the groups that prevents any calm debate.

Have you been reading the posts and articles on this very site that talk about MRAs? How can you see no reason when the reasons are all around you?

MRAs are not about men's rights, but are about countering women's rights and feminism. If men want to improve the conditions of men then there is nothing wrong with that. Improve the conditions of men! But they exist only in relation to feminism, not as a stand-alone movement. That's their problem.

I've actually visited MRA sites and made posts - a total waste of my time btw. The people there end up being mostly white, cisgendered, heterosexual, conservative, and often religious men who are pro-patriarchy. At the time I didn't see a single woman among them. Most of them don't want to develop men's rights, they just want to suppress the progress of feminism in order to reclaim what "men have lost".

Also, off topic: I watch tons of shows and movies produced in the US. At least in those, it really does seem like the Christian Right is 95% of the time mocked and ridiculed. I do believe that the privileged group can become the marginalized one, and when it happens, the new privileged ones will not acknowledge it for a long time.

Christians are not to blame, the Christian Right is. Christians are every day people who believe in the Bible and religion. The Christian Right are an anti-secular political movement that wish to suppress the rights of others in order to restore some degree of theocratic culture. They are against the separation of Church and State out of the entitled belief that Christianity should be the ruling morality in the United States. That's why they are mocked.

[androkguz]

Have you been reading the posts and articles on this very site that talk about MRAs? How can you see no reason when the reasons are all around you?

I have Aum (but keep in mind I have not been a member of this site for long). And that is exactly the point, every turn off I read comes from a feminist telling me what the MRAs are. Yet, when I see the responses posted by actual MRAs I don't get the impresion that this is the same people I have been told about.
I realize that implies that I should dig more myself, but the thought of that makes me sleepy, mostly because I get the feeling that I will arrive at the same conclusion as you all here have and that you state in the last post, only that I will in about 2 months of dissapointment after dissapointment. Given that MRAs are inexistant or invisible in South America, I'm choosing to believe you and the others forumites that have already taught me a lot. But final judgement is still reserved.

[Aum]

^ Visit some MRA sites and talk to some people. They have forums and discussion groups too. Discover for yourself what we are talking about.

I just thought I'd save you the time by telling you what you're going to find there.

[Haruhi Kenoko]

If I could say something, you cannot stereotype all men's rights activists/advocates because of a few bad apples. And not all of them are men *hint hint, me and other girls like me*. All an MRA really is, is someone who is an advocate for men. Someone who is angry at how society views them and wishes to stop it. We don't want to throw away women's rights. We believe that everyone should have equal opportunity but not equal outcomes. In short, most of the people, men and women, are genuinely pissed off at the double standards.

[androkguz]

^ See what I mean?

[Haruhi Kenoko]

^ Yeah not all men's rights advocates are evil people who want women to be raped or want to shut them up, that is only a tiny few percent and quite frankly, I don't know of anyone who wants someone to be abused or raped. That's wrong and horribly offensive and misandric to say.

[rowan]

So where can we find this mythical collection of MRAs which are not feminist haters? Because I haven't seen any. One person doesn't count as a group.

[Ama]

^ Yeah not all men's rights advocates are evil people who want women to be raped or want to shut them up, that is only a tiny few percent and quite frankly, I don't know of anyone who wants someone to be abused or raped. That's wrong and horribly offensive and misandric to say.

Yeah, I don't think most people who are here think that most MRAs want to rape women. There's plenty of generic asshole men out there who do that. My few run ins with MRAs off of this site (including a preposterously stupid plot to ruin this website a few years ago that never came to fruition) did leave me with the feeling that there are MRAs out there who wouldn't blame a man for raping women... but that is still a different thing from actually raping a woman, and a much different thing from all MRA members having similar opinions.

One thing that you say does beg a question though. What do you mean when you say that everyone shouldn't have equal outcomes?

P.S. This forum has a fairly unique double posting rule. Probably because we're a pretty small forum, double posting is defined as posting before two other comments have been left after your previous message. Alternatively, you can post again if 24 hours have gone between posts in the thread. Just a heads up, because if you do it too much people will start getting annoyed at you for breaking the rule. So try to remember that for the future

[Haruhi Kenoko]

Yeah, I don't think most people who are here think that most MRAs want to rape women. There's plenty of generic asshole men out there who do that. My few run ins with MRAs off of this site (including a preposterously stupid plot to ruin this website a few years ago that never came to fruition) did leave me with the feeling that there are MRAs out there who wouldn't blame a man for raping women... but that is still a different thing from actually raping a woman, and a much different thing from all MRA members having similar opinions.

One thing that you say does beg a question though. What do you mean when you say that everyone shouldn't have equal outcomes?

P.S. This forum has a fairly unique double posting rule. Probably because we're a pretty small forum, double posting is defined as posting before two other comments have been left after your previous message. Alternatively, you can post again if 24 hours have gone between posts in the thread. Just a heads up, because if you do it too much people will start getting annoyed at you for breaking the rule. So try to remember that for the future

Meaning that yes everyone should have an opportunity do do something they want but the outcomes should not be forced to be the same. Like I have the opportunity to apply for a job selling video games and I can do that, but to actually get the job should vary. What if the person who applied has more experience than me? What if they happened to be male? Should I be chosen over this person just because I have two x chromosomes? No. People should be chosen based on experience.

Or this: I have the opportunity to win money, but I don't get it because someone else wins. See what I mean? Outcomes shouldn't be forced to be the same.

Also I do want to clarify, do I post after two people have posted after my comment or do I have to wait a day? I'm confused.

[lillerina]

You wait for 2 other people to post or 24 hours, whichever comes first.

And nobody believes that women should get jobs just for being women even if they're less experienced than the male candidates for the job. Nobody fucking believes it and nobody fucking says it and it's the MRAs who build these fucking straw feminists to knock down when actually we don't say half of the stuff that they say that we say. And give me a break, misandrism is not real, men are not broadly oppressed by the system in the same way that women are and women lack societal power. Yes men are screwed over by the patriarchy but not in the same way that women are and there's already a group working to dismantle patriarchy, and you know what that group is called? Feminists. One man being discriminated against is not sexism, like one white person being discriminated against is not racism, because these groups are empowered by the system as a whole.

[Axiomatic]

I don't think MRAs are evil, I think they're all deluded by the patriarchy into believing that human rights are a zero-sum game, where it is impossible to reduce the suffering of women without increasing the suffering of men by an equal amount.

[Aum]

What lil said is a reflection of my experience. There are so many strawmen that it's impossible to have a functional debate on an MRA site. It's like they exist to misrepresent feminism so that it can be disempowered. Their goal, whether intentionally or not, is not to empower men but to disempower women. Like I said: conservatives. *shrug*

[Haruhi Kenoko]

I feel like I won't be listened to but feel me out. You can't say that misandry doesn't exist. It certainly does and it doesn't only happen to one man, it happens to many. There is a blog I found that talks about it and how it affects people, not just men. Like I said, our goal isn't to tear you apart, our goal is to stop double standards that are hurting people. Belive it or not, there are women who are outraged by misandry as well.

http://antimisandry.com/articles/what-m ... z1yNVP9SBV

Here. And this was from someone who is really intelligent as I say and gave me permission to post this.

[Ama]

I am listening to you. I know that misandry exists because I personally have been a misandrist... maybe you could say that in ways I still am. I've not encountered anyone else on this forum who I would characterize as misandrist though. Although there are a few radical feminists here who may seem close. Anyway. I don't have a problem with not expecting everyone trying out to get the same job to get it, because obviously that can't happen. I guess your example of a man losing out on a job to a less experienced woman is a case of Affirmative Action at work? Personally I've never agreed with Affirmative Action, because having an artificial quota is a good way to screw things up. However, we'll also point out here that women are very vulnerable to the same exact thing. Except that it's not an artificial law taking jobs away from qualified women, it's ingrained misogyny. Alternatively, young, pretty, inexperienced women being hired over better qualified candidates because the person doing the hiring thinks she's hot. Yeah this is bad too. But we actually can agree that discrimination against *either* sex is bad. As I recall, we recently had a thread here pointing out the very things that article was talking about - the media portrayal of men as stupid, bumbling, poor fathers, etc etc and how this is also unacceptable. We want, honestly, for men and women to be treated as equals. Meritocracy rather than blatant favoritism over one sex or another.

Although I wonder just what kid's programs are being referred to? If we're talking disney channel, then there's a very good reason for what results are being gotten, and that is just that disney has for a very long time been primarily targeted at young girls. So naturally it portrays girls in a better light, especially the protagonist. If we're talking about something like cartoon network or nickelodeon, I've no idea what those look like these days, but when I used to watch them I recall most programs being fairly sex neutral in the favoritism department. Educational programming like sesame street? Sex neutral. So I think mostly you can blame disney here actually But as I said I really don't know children's programming that well these days.

I'll leave other things up to people better prepared to post about them than I.

[androkguz]

And nobody believes that women should get jobs just for being women even if they're less experienced than the male candidates for the job. Nobody fucking believes it and nobody fucking says it and it's the MRAs who build these fucking straw feminists to knock down when actually we don't say half of the stuff that they say that we say.

I'm sorry lillerina, but I have already encountered a couple of educated people (in RL) that think that the way to remedy the fact that women seem to be employed less often for some jobs is to enforce gender quotas (actually, female quotas). Which is exactly believing that women should get jobs for being women.
I realize that this is not, at all, a popular opinion, specially among US's feminists who might have a much more "free market and competence" attitude towards problem solving, but the notion is not unexistant, specially in more socialist-inclined countries.

[rowan]

Well, I will say that the ideas of quotas are complicated. (And also pretty far from the original topic here.) There is quite the fact that people do not actually see women as "just as qualified" even if they are. So it's kind of a kludgy way to get more women in there. Unfortunately, it is a bit kludgy in my opinion. Also unfortunately, other things don't seem to be working. So that's kind of my simplified take on it. I'm not sure that I'm in favor of them but I'm also not sure that I'm against them. I can see points on both sides.

[Haruhi Kenoko]

Ah, sorry I kinda drifted off topic. By to the topic at hand, yes while most men's rights advocates are against feminism, it doesn't mean that they hate women. In fact, I'm on a site that all about fighting misandry and everyone on that forum loves women, I mean we have a lot of women who signed up for the site and were welcomed the same way a man would be welcomed. With open arms. They just don't like the idea of feminism or a government centered around that because they believe hat their rights are going to be threatened, especially the men who are fathers in the MRA are really outraged at the double standards that go on in cases involving children. Or in general, there are certain songs, people, awarenesses and sayings and also laws that are offensive to men as well. It happens but it goes unnoticed. That's why the men's right activism group formed. To tell people that a) men aren''t evil people, b)women arent goddesses and c)our problems exist.

I hope I said that pretty well. :p

edit: typo

[anonymousrabbit]

while most men's rights advocates are against feminism, it doesn't mean that they hate women.

If they are against feminism, they may not hate women, but they certainly don't respect them. Feminism is about equal rights, and those who fear and hate it tend to do so because they don't want equal rights. They may pretend it is otherwise, but if you look at the things they protest, they are either

a) artifacts of the current cultural system. For example, you mention that MRAs are against the double standards involving children; those double standards don't exist because of feminism, and are not supported by feminism. The current cultural system often both views women as better caregivers than men and assumes that women by default should be the ones to take care of children, which would contribute to why they seem to be favoured in divorce courts. Feminists fight these ideas as well; why should it be women who by default take care of children? Why can't a man be considered the better caregiver? Why aren't these decisions made on a case by case basis, each on it's own merit? These are all things that are promoted by feminism, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either grossly misinformed, or is trying to make you angry with false propaganda. The big contribution of feminism in all this is that it is now easier for women to leave a marriage; so where women were just trapped in a relationship and could not leave, now they have to the ability to do so and don't just have to stick it out.

b) loss of privilege [advantages that they have come to take for granted that they really shouldn't have had in the first place] Bringing back the last example, there was a time when a man was considered by default head of the family, and his wants and needs were considered to trump the wants and needs of the other family members, and could treat his wife horrifically, and there was not a whole lot she could do about it. New laws and culture have made this less true, and there are people who are unhappy about this loss of power. They see it as a loss of their rights, instead of seeing it as no longer allowing their rights to trample the rights of others.

women are goddesses

You want women to be goddesses . . . but you don't want them to be feminists? Putting women on a pedestal is a poor excuse to justify not treating them with equal respect and equal rights. You might as well call it what it really is : putting women down while pretending they're above us. Women aren't goddesses. They're people, and that is how they should be treated. Just like men. Just like anyone who falls anywhere else on the gender spectrum.