Men’s rights activism — a term most often applied to wounded community of daft, delusional, and often malignant denizens of the Internet who think that feminism threatens their basic rights and that rape isn’t even that big of a deal — has had a busy week bringing shame to its already quite besmirched name. In the past few days, MRAs have launched a defamatory campaign against Kate Winslet over poorly-supported fears that she’s hogging the custody of her children, and they’ve inundated Occidental’s anonymous rape reporting form — which is meant only to gather data on sexual assault, not to accuse anyone of anything — with false claims. Ugh, fending off the creeping Feminazi Apocalypse is hard work. Good thing someone‘s out there to keep those rape victims from oppressing and silencing us all.
And so it’s beyond vindicating to see that a self-proclaimed former MRA has posted a rant about the movement on Reddit, where the MRA hivemind lurks. (Yes, I’m aware that this could be fake — but I WANT TO BELIEVE, and it’s prompted a lot of interesting discussion). The Redditor, writing under a throwaway account, points out that men’s rights could be a useful movement, and it’s a fair point:
For example, men who put other men down for liking feminine traits, or
how male rape/molestation victims aren’t treated with the same respect
as female ones. While feminism does work to address these problems, it
would be nice to have a “men only” type safe space/group that other men
could use to vent, talk, or show SUPPORT against the way society puts
men in these awful constraints or stereotypes.
It’s true that a lot of the oppression that MRAs think they face is oppression that feminism broadly addresses — feminists work against all forms of domestic violence, feminists fight against the constrictive gender norms that constrain both men and women, feminists do not want to keep men in cages, etc. But if the men’s rights movement worked with feminism, instead of against it, and functioned as a safe space for men to share their specific experiences navigating masculinity, that would be great. Everyone could be happy. With that said, the current MRA movement is terrible. As the former MRA puts it:
/r/MensRights and MRAs in general don’t focus on these issues. There are
those who do, but they are such a small minority that any time they
speak up, they are over shadowed by the large majority and/or downvoted
into oblivion.
MRAs claims that it’s only the rad-MRAs that do this, and how if you
spend time on their sub, you’ll see how it’s mostly mature discussions
and about “SERIOUS” issues. Well, as a long term member and contributor,
this simply isn’t true. MRAs has a ton of non-serious issues that not
only show up often, but they are actually apart of the “official” MRA
movement.
He points out that one of the pages linked to on the /r/MensRights sidebar is A Voice For Men, a MRA website that ardently and vociferously believes that “women were never oppressed” and historically “protected and provided for… [and] privileged.” Ha ha ha ha okay but fun fact: women work two-thirds of the world’s working hours, but they earn only 10% of the world’s income and own less than one percent of the world’s property. But, ever averse to facts and logic, the online MRA community is increasingly spouting misogynistic, terrifying Red Pill rhetoric.
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