Just a reminder so things don’t go off the rails. This is an “Ask the” thread. This is not a debate. The MRA movement is certainly a valid topic for debate and I’m sure it has been debated in GD multiple times. The purpose of these threads (and why they are in MPSIMS and not GD) is so those that are interested can gain insight into the mind and motivations of the “Ask the” subject. Not to debate them or try to change their mind. From earlier discussions I understand that some here feel strongly one way or the other on the subject. Please remember which forum you are in.
I am aware that as part of the discussion there will be some back and forth and certainly everyone is not expected to agree with the OP. There is nothing wrong with a discussion. Just don’t turn it into a debate. No I’m not going to say where that line is.
To the OP:
I appreciate the rewording of the opening post. I hope you can see that your initial thread poisoned the well from the beginning and did not make the thread conducive to reasoned discussion. This is much better.
Do you think that your cause might be better served if it had a different name than “Men’s Rights”? Considering the fact that men have historically been more than adequately endowed with rights, that name seems likely to conjure up comparisons to groups who are either less-than-well-meaning (like the “American Socialist White People’s Party”) or less-than-serious (like the Orem Owlz ill-fated “Caucasian Heritage Night”).
Unfortunately, “Equal Rights” has already been taken…because “Women’s Rights” would have been too hard a sell?
Question for the OP: Do you think of feminism is as a good or bad thing? It’s true that many feminists might make fun of MRA’s, and post silly misandry gifs, because many of the most prominent MRA’s are the whiniest and most hateful. But many feminists would support the goals that you listed, just maybe for different reasons.
I very much believe that there is inequality in prison sentences, and prison should be heavily reformed. Of course from how I see it seems that black people and other minorities are the ones that are most targeted.
I do think that there should be more shelters for men who are domestic abuse victims. It’s not feminism that is keeping men’s shelters from being built, it’s outdated gender stereotypes about men being the big strong ones and women being weak and vulnerable.
I don’t know if that’s true about more being spent on women’s healthcare than men’s. Your link is from 1999, I tried to find a more recent cite. I did find this cite that women spend more on healthcare, but that’s because it costs more for women, because women are charged more.
Do you think it’s for different reasons? I think it’s for ultimately the same reason. (Sorry if that’s going all debate-y! I’m not trying to be debate-y!)
Do you consider yourself a feminist in the basic sense of the term-that is supporting legal and social equality for men and women, regardless of its current association in many minds with the sort of misandrist radical feminism associated with Andrea Dworkin?
I read somewhere that characterizes the rights issue as thus:
Feminists, normal people, non-MRAs say “Men already have more rights than women, let women catch up!”
MRA’s say “Women have too much rights, we should remove some of them”
I’m assuming you are the more of the latter?
From your post:
Would you rather men get lighter sentences like women, or women get heavier ones? Your answer speaks to where in the chain of justice you think the inequality lies
There’s nothing to discuss about how society perceives men and women abusers. We can’t legislate how people think, we can only work to change it. But like #1, do you think men should receive more shelter accommodation, or women should receive less?
Would you prefer men and boys be given resources to boost their performance, or take away existing ones from women and girls and give them to the guys?
I actually agree with you there
How would you propose to equalize spending? Find alternative revenues to fund men’s health research or take funding from women’s health to spend on men’s?
Are there any issues you feel women get less benefits than men and would you equalize them using similar criteria you list above to help men? For example, its widely known that women make less money than men for doing the same job. Whether that is true or not is not the issue, your reply to the potential fix is the issue. Would you prefer we give more money to women or lower men’s salaries?
You’re rather poisoning the well there. A lot of people do not know that men are discriminated against; many find it hard to grasp the concept. Just look at Procrustus’s reply to the OP.
White men have more privileges than everyone else, but that does not mean that every disadvantage men have should be ignored, especially when many of the disadvantages are a relic of the same sexist culture that disadvantages women as well.
Child custody is an excellent example of this. Why do women get custody more often? Bias in the culture that women are more nurturing and better parents (which puts both sexes into tiny little boxes) and the fact in many marriages that men aren’t doing as much caregiving (which denies them later custody and which puts more pressure on moms). Both of these things are problems for men and women. There are no victors here.
The child custody issue is a great reason why MRAs are looked at with skepticism. If you just say that women get custody more often, it does sound sexist and biased. But women often get custody not because the courts are biased, but because it’s what’s agreed to by the parents before a trial. From a Huffington Post article, with stats from Pew Research:
Now it is possible that some men assume the courts are biased and so give in before the trial. But overall it doesn’t sound like women get custody more because of biased courts.
It is true that there are a lot of sexist assumptions about men and women’s places as parents, and it hurts both men and women. A lot can be done to make things more egalitarian and equal for everyone.
But I can’t help but be skeptical of MRA’s. Just like if I heard that someone was trying to improve health and education efforts in a majority white place like West Virginia, I would have no issue, improving health and education for people is great. But if they said they were a White’s Rights Activist, I then would be skeptical of their goals.
The education thing got me thinking. Let’s say we take the entire country and look at the percentage of graduating seniors that go directly into college.
If we break up the population one way, we get:
Group 1 - 63%
Group 2 - 67%
If we break up the population a different way, we get:
Group A - 61%
Group B - 71%
Some members of Group 1 and Group A both claim that their groups are under-served by the public school system, however one group is granted broad support for the idea, and the other is mocked as pathetic assholes. This is despite the fact that the disparity they are concerned about is 2.5x as large as Group 1’s.
OP - I find I am skeptical of the MRA movement both because I have been on the receiving end of some of the nastiness (it’s a long story which has to do with where I work and providing web services - my workplace is completely apolitical) and because, as other have mentioned, men as a group seem to be so heavily privileged in the rights department already that the name itself makes me take the movement less seriously.
Could you see taking the movement in a new direction by splitting the efforts and/or changing the name? Something that concentrated more on the people involved (regardless of sex or gender) and equality?
Actually, I think I’d like to propose that you almost have to split the concerns you’ve outlined out of the larger movement. Any time researching MRA reveals that groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center consider that MRA propagates hates speech.
It seems to me that if you really want to change the items you’ve outlined in your OP, you would need to separate yourself from the “traditional” or mainstream MRA groups and start a new movement. Are you willing to do that or does MRA as it currently exists offer you something beyond what you’ve already laid out for us?
Your link in support of proposition #2 is broken. This is problematic because proposition #2 is inaccurate by any reasonable definition, and if that proposition is drawn from what a google search suggests is the most likely source, that source is “a men’s rights organization called Parity UK.” Where are these statistics drawn from, and why are they so drastically different from other data on the same issue?
Your link in support of proposition #4 is broken, but it goes to the 404 page for someone whose website sections include:
Chivalry
Manliness
Manosphere Humor
Feminists
Game
Proposition #4 is also just you saying “custody.” What about it?
