Men's Rights Movement?

[onlysaneperson]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm finally delurking. I found this whilst reading BBC news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16592633

 

Anyone know if there's any reverse biological determinism going on here? It'd be interesting to know if they construe "reproductive power" as a reason for their matriarchal society.

[bananacat]

Oh wow, where to start? MRAs (men's rights activists) have been a thorn in feminists' sides for a long time. At the very least, they are extremely control. They usually start because some woman aborted his baby, or conversely she didn't have an abortion when he wanted her to and now he's stuck with a kid he doesn't want. They've eaten up the lie that abortion is all about the fetus, and forgotten that the woman actually exists around it.

They also tend to be bitter about divorces when a woman takes half of his money, or gets custody of his kids. While there may be legitimate criticisms about how custody works, they certainly aren't arguing that. They are generally abusers, whether physical, emotional, or sexual, or at the very least they are extremely entitled and controlling. And they get mad that the courts won't help them to continue their abuse. They also brush away things like pay discrimination by saying women are inherently inferior, but then get really riled about men opening doors for women like they're some poor, persecuted minority. They generally very much by into the conservative myth that women never want sex and men always want it, and they feel like it's transactional and they resent the price they have to pay.

[bananacat]

Oh, also I would expect one to show up on this thread, quite likely a first time user who signs up just to put us women in our place (because they believe that no man could possibly be against MRAs). They're like Beetlejuice in that saying MRA too many times seems to magically summon them. My theory is that they're basement dwellers who have nothing better to do than to frantically search Google for "MRA" and then rant at us. I've never been on an MRA thread where one didn't show up.

[devilsadvocate]

Hey everyone,

I'm finally delurking. I found this whilst reading BBC news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16592633

Anyone know if there's any reverse biological determinism going on here? It'd be interesting to know if they construe "reproductive power" as a reason for their matriarchal society.

A very interesting article! I had not heard about this before. It seems like a pretty major contrast to most of India so it would be interesting to find out more about it.

[debrand]

There are certainly issues that the men's rights groups speak about that I have sympathy. However, I've found it impossible to have conversations with men's advocates about issues that we agree. I think that this is because the reasons behind why we might agree on a subject are different.

For example, I've admitted to a man's advocate online that I agree that the draft should inclued women as well as men. He had brought that up as a suggestion of an unfair practice in the United States. My rational was the women should not be treated as children. We should have the same social responsibilities as men. I don't like the draft because I don't see the point in sending the unwilling to fight for our freedom but if we have one, women should be eligible.

I got the sense that the men's right advocate did not want to inclued women in the draft, he just wanted to use it as an example of men's superiority over women.

I don't think taht either a matriarchal or a patriarchal society would be fair to everyone.

[devilsadvocate]

Oh, also I would expect one to show up on this thread, quite likely a first time user who signs up just to put us women in our place (because they believe that no man could possibly be against MRAs). They're like Beetlejuice in that saying MRA too many times seems to magically summon them. My theory is that they're basement dwellers who have nothing better to do than to frantically search Google for "MRA" and then rant at us. I've never been on an MRA thread where one didn't show up.

I get the feeling you didn't read the article that the OP linked. The article that the poster linked to is about a tribe in India where property inheritance and surnames are matrilineal, not the western world's idea of men's rights. If an MRA shows up here to talk about the article that was posted, then I'd say their concern for men's rights is legit.

[debrand]

I get the feeling you didn't read the article that the OP linked. The article that the poster linked to is about a tribe in India where property inheritance and surnames are matrilineal, not the western world's idea of men's rights. If an MRA shows up here to talk about the article that was posted, then I'd say their concern for men's rights is legit.

No one should be in charge solely on their gender. I also think that it is foolish for socieity to prevent half its members from bringing their ideas to the table. To exclude someone based only on gender hurts the society as a whole.

[Kitchen Princess]

Yeah, as soon as I saw the title I thought, "oh no, here they come."

[Alecto]

I've been involved with some men who might be qualified as Men's Rights Advocates, and I completely understood and agreed with their POV. In my experience, there are two kinds of people involved - ones like those above, and ones who solely focus on the family court issues. Many of those focused on family court issues have actually moved away from any involvement with MRA and prefer to call themselves Fathers or Family Rights Activists. I've worked a lot with Fathers and Families, as well as SPARC (Shared Parenting and Access Resource Center.)

The long and the short of it is, when it comes to family court, men, especially lower income men, are discriminated against. I've seen, personally, lower income men had child support orders that were over half their take home income, which actually violates federal laws. These men simply can't fight it, and often when they fall behind they are send to jail, which makes them even further behind.

Meanwhile, women are not punished as frequently or severely for violating visitation orders. Fathers have no state agency working on their behalf to make sure they get their visitation rights, and can often not afford an order to go back to court to get them enforced.

Our court system is failing children, especially low income children, and I think these fathers have a legitimate grief. Sadly, they are being drowned out by jackasses.

[valsa]

There are some very, very narrow topics that I might sympathize with a someone who is a MRA on, mostly dealing with custody. However, even if I agree on principle, I've never been able to actually talk to someone who identifies as a MRA about it for long. Most of them are major misogynists with huge chips on their shoulders who don't care about working towards equality between men and women (on the few issues where it's men who are treated unfairly) so much as wanting to punish women and put them in "their place" (their place being the role women occupied back in the 50s with no rights and no protections)

[MerryHappy]

""Our culture offers a very safe sanctuary for women," she declares."

That is pretty cool.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

They generally very much buy into the conservative myth that women never want sex and men always want it, and they feel like it's transactional and they resent the price they have to pay.

THIIIIIIIIS.

I'd almost bet that most of the rest of the poisonous rhetoric is derivable from that one thing. "It's not fair, she controls me with her ladyparts by withholding sex!!!" (Right, because it should be UNQUESTIONED than men should have control and access to womens' bodies. Always. :roll:)

There's legitimate questions to be had about how child custody is awarded, but (1) often if you start reading about that topic you get half a page (maybe!) into it before falling right off the cliff into the odious Men's Rights stuff, and (2) they fail to see that even those policies supposedly "favoring" women are rooted in misogynistic ideas.

But yeah, IF someone wants to sample more of the crazy, you can try googling around the topic of "father's rights manifesto" also.

[Patsy]

bananacat's summary about HIS baby, etc is a good one. The MRAs I know of are men who belted the shit out of their kids so consistently, they've been denied access, and so react to this removal of ultimate power by bitching that FEMINISM and THE COURTS and THAT BITCH took THEIR kids away. No, sweetheart, you're the party at fault.

Are their men's issues deserving of attention? Absolutely. Do men suffer in some ways under patriarchy that women do not? Sure. But that's never what MRAs are on about, in my experience. The only valid issue I think they have has to do with gender preference in custody (judges automatically assuming mother will be better), but even that, they cannot approach from the right area - it's all "MY POWER GOT TAKEN AWAY, MY MANLY MANLY ENTITLEMENT COMPLEX CANNOT LIIIIIVE!"

On the article itself :): I was interested to read that the men's response to their living situation is so different to what you'd expect from, say, women 200 years ago in England. Obviously the cultures aren't going to reflect one another 100% with only genders swapped, just because we can see this one area where genders are swapped, but I did find that interesting. It sounds like the men don't have equal rights, but they're certainly not housebound and unable to socialise with people unaccompanied by their wife or mother.

That being said, property rights and having your own voice are pretty important, and it certainly sounds like most men don't have that by default.

[Rosa]

I've been involved with some men who might be qualified as Men's Rights Advocates, and I completely understood and agreed with their POV. In my experience, there are two kinds of people involved - ones like those above, and ones who solely focus on the family court issues. Many of those focused on family court issues have actually moved away from any involvement with MRA and prefer to call themselves Fathers or Family Rights Activists. I've worked a lot with Fathers and Families, as well as SPARC (Shared Parenting and Access Resource Center.)

The long and the short of it is, when it comes to family court, men, especially lower income men, are discriminated against. I've seen, personally, lower income men had child support orders that were over half their take home income, which actually violates federal laws. These men simply can't fight it, and often when they fall behind they are send to jail, which makes them even further behind.

Meanwhile, women are not punished as frequently or severely for violating visitation orders. Fathers have no state agency working on their behalf to make sure they get their visitation rights, and can often not afford an order to go back to court to get them enforced.

Our court system is failing children, especially low income children, and I think these fathers have a legitimate grief. Sadly, they are being drowned out by jackasses.

Alecto, does SPARC work on welfare reform?

All the cases I know of big settelements against low income fathers, it was because the mom was on public aid and the state went after the dad - the mom and kids didn't see any more or less cash if he paid or not, it was the state.

[The Archivist]

The long and the short of it is, when it comes to family court, men, especially lower income men, are discriminated against. I've seen, personally, lower income men had child support orders that were over half their take home income, which actually violates federal laws. These men simply can't fight it, and often when they fall behind they are send to jail, which makes them even further behind.

Meanwhile, women are not punished as frequently or severely for violating visitation orders. Fathers have no state agency working on their behalf to make sure they get their visitation rights, and can often not afford an order to go back to court to get them enforced.

This may sound weird, but I believe stuff like this is actually a side-effect of the patriarchy - men get fucked over by it too, especially the Woman As Natural Mother trope that has family courts behaving as though the default parent should always be the mother. This is based on a kind of biological determinism, the idea that all women are naturally motherly and make better mothers than men make fathers, and that fathers are "naturally" less involved with their offspring. Which, in my opinion, is bullshit, and even when it is the case in practice, a lot of that is due to our gendered training, and not our particular flavor of genitalia.

People who are really into men's rights would be equally on board with women's rights, and taking down the gender roles that are forced on us by a culture obsessed with the idea that women and men are fundamentally biological polar opposites, with one naturally being "superior" to the other. Because patriarchy hurts all of us - it pigeonholes men and women in roles that don't always fit us as individuals.

Just my perspective.

[Sax Russell]

So... what *is* the patriarchy, anyway? That's a term I see thrown around on here from time to time, but I've never been completely sure on what it's supposed to mean.

My WAG is that a lot of men who are seriously into this men's rights stuff have been badly hurt by some asshole women, or else they sorta feel rejected by women. The stuff they're pissed off about usually doesn't seem super-important, except for family courts. The draft? I definitely think women should be drafted. All young folks should be eligible for the draft. I also believe the draft should not exist. I also believe that the draft will not come back in the US. There's no need for it to - people are signing up for the Armed Forces of their own accord. So should women be drafted? Absolutely, but it's irrelevant. There are much bigger problems in the world than women not being drafted!

[valsa]

So... what *is* the patriarchy, anyway? That's a term I see thrown around on here from time to time, but I've never been completely sure on what it's supposed to mean.

I don't mean to be overly harsh but- do you not own a dictionary? Or know how to look one up online?

[Sax Russell]

I don't mean to be overly harsh but- do you not own a dictionary? Or know how to look one up online?

Patriarchy. How about this - is Wikipedia's article an accurate definition?

[valsa]

Patriarchy. How about this - is Wikipedia's article an accurate definition?

Just skimmed through it but looked like a pretty good basic explanation.

[Sax Russell]

Just skimmed through it but looked like a pretty good basic explanation.

That's cool. The key sentence in the article to me was "However, in modern times, it more generally refers to social systems in which power is primarily held by adult men." That's certainly a true statement, at least wrt the US government (and all governments worldwide, I believe): you look at who holds top political positions, it's mostly adult men. Of course, they are *heavily* influenced by their donors - OWS's 1%, the true holders of power imo - who, again, are mostly adult men.

[valsa]

That's cool. The key sentence in the article to me was "However, in modern times, it more generally refers to social systems in which power is primarily held by adult men." That's certainly a true statement, at least wrt the US government (and all governments worldwide, I believe): you look at who holds top political positions, it's mostly adult men. Of course, they are *heavily* influenced by their donors - OWS's 1%, the true holders of power imo - who, again, are mostly adult men.

Unfortunately, many (if not most) of the fundies we discuss also believe in patriarchy in the classic sense. They believe men are superior and must be leaders of the home, church, businesses, and government.

[desertvixen]

I definitely agree that in the area of child custody, there's a lot that could be better. Women shouldn't by default be the parent who gets custody, but at the same time, if she has done most of the child-rearing then that should definitely be taken into account.

Are their men's issues deserving of attention? Absolutely. Do men suffer in some ways under patriarchy that women do not? Sure. But that's never what MRAs are on about, in my experience. The only valid issue I think they have has to do with gender preference in custody (judges automatically assuming mother will be better), but even that, they cannot approach from the right area - it's all "MY POWER GOT TAKEN AWAY, MY MANLY MANLY ENTITLEMENT COMPLEX CANNOT LIIIIIVE!"

This. In my experience, this so much.

Because patriarchy hurts all of us - it pigeonholes men and women in roles that don't always fit us as individuals.

QFT.

My WAG is that a lot of men who are seriously into this men's rights stuff have been badly hurt by some asshole women, or else they sorta feel rejected by women.

Most of the self-identified MRAs I have dealt with are rejected by women because they ARE assholes.

I'm not including fathers who are genuinely concerned about issues and working on them, because many of them are not trying to demean women with every other word out of their mouth.

[valsa]

Most of the self-identified MRAs I have dealt with are rejected by women because they ARE assholes.

Of course none of them see it this way because they're former Nice Guys.

[Austin]

Of course none of them see it this way because they're former Nice Guys.

Ah, yes, the self-proclaimed Nice Guys™. . . :roll: