Married with Children as a Parody of Men's Rights Activists

[Dragonbums]

Ever consider it's your google results that are being skewed as well as his?

Um...yes? Why else would I say Google caters ones results to your search history if it doesn't apply to me? I don't bother around much with feminist/MRA/whatever sites. My main clicks are gaming sites, tumblr, and the occasional art site. Sorry that those things tend to be way under my radar.

Anyway, I already looked up the women in question in my previous post and gave my thoughts about that.

 

[NoeL]

What can I say? I'm a traditionalist. Every one I know and everyone in my extended family, save one aunt, live in a nuclear family with traditional gender roles.

Oh cool, thanks for clearing that up. Now I can just ignore you.

Is that the bitter sweet scent of prejudice and intolerance I smell?

Thanks for invalidating everything you ever wrote!

Nice try, but there's no hypocrisy in being intolerant of intolerance. That may or may not accurately describe you, but given your last post I'm pretty confident that any further discussion with you would only show that yes, it's an accurate description. So I won't bother.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

What can I say? I'm a traditionalist. Every one I know and everyone in my extended family, save one aunt, live in a nuclear family with traditional gender roles.

Oh cool, thanks for clearing that up. Now I can just ignore you.

Is that the bitter sweet scent of prejudice and intolerance I smell?

Thanks for invalidating everything you ever wrote!

Nice try, but there's no hypocrisy in being intolerant of intolerance. That may or may not accurately describe you, but given your last post I'm pretty confident that any further discussion with you would only show that yes, it's an accurate description. So I won't bother.

How is being in favor of traditional gender roles "intolerant"? I'm legitimately confused because it sounds like you're trying to justify your own closed mindedness by hiding behind the banner of being progressive. A debate is not one way. You don't get to dictate who is right and who is wrong just because someone says something you don't like.

 

[NoeL]

What can I say? I'm a traditionalist. Every one I know and everyone in my extended family, save one aunt, live in a nuclear family with traditional gender roles.

Oh cool, thanks for clearing that up. Now I can just ignore you.

Is that the bitter sweet scent of prejudice and intolerance I smell?

Thanks for invalidating everything you ever wrote!

Nice try, but there's no hypocrisy in being intolerant of intolerance. That may or may not accurately describe you, but given your last post I'm pretty confident that any further discussion with you would only show that yes, it's an accurate description. So I won't bother.

How is being in favor of traditional gender roles "intolerant"? I'm legitimately confused because it sounds like you're trying to justify your own closed mindedness by hiding behind the banner of being progressive. A debate is not one way. You don't get to dictate who is right and who is wrong just because someone says something you don't like.

Of course not, but making an appeal to tradition is one of the worst approaches any critically-minded person could take, which leads me to believe further discussion with you would just be like beating my head against a wall. "We should do it this way because that's how it's always been done" is about as unimaginative and closed-minded as you can get.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

What can I say? I'm a traditionalist. Every one I know and everyone in my extended family, save one aunt, live in a nuclear family with traditional gender roles.

Oh cool, thanks for clearing that up. Now I can just ignore you.

Is that the bitter sweet scent of prejudice and intolerance I smell?

Thanks for invalidating everything you ever wrote!

Nice try, but there's no hypocrisy in being intolerant of intolerance. That may or may not accurately describe you, but given your last post I'm pretty confident that any further discussion with you would only show that yes, it's an accurate description. So I won't bother.

How is being in favor of traditional gender roles "intolerant"? I'm legitimately confused because it sounds like you're trying to justify your own closed mindedness by hiding behind the banner of being progressive. A debate is not one way. You don't get to dictate who is right and who is wrong just because someone says something you don't like.

Of course not, but making an appeal to tradition is one of the worst approaches any critically-minded person could take, which leads me to believe further discussion with you would just be like beating my head against a wall. "We should do it this way because that's how it's always been done" is about as unimaginative and closed-minded as you can get.

I support tradition. At no point did I say I was opposed to any other kind of social change. Just because I like it one way, does not mean I hate the other way. You're the one who comes off as an black and white extremist, and you're the one giving up without even trying.

 

[Dragonlayer]

I'm going to take the controversial stand here and say we don't need either movement. I think we should live as we have lived for the last thousand years; man works outside the home, woman inside.

Ooooh boy! Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Oh man, you are so dead on this website after typing that! Can I have your stuff?

OT

Was this the thing parodied on Futurama where Leela moves in with that shape-shifting scumbag? I think that question right there highlights my wealth of knowledge of this sitcom and nor do I engage with internet Feminism or Men's Rights activities, so I can't really offer much of an informed opinion either way. But I do remember my introduction to the latter, in an episode of the Bill no less, where a Fathers 4 Justice bloke was climbing over public buildings dressed as Batman and thus evidently sticking it to The Woman.

It's like how CSI introduced me to the existence of the Furry Fandom.

 

[Shodanbot]

Um...yes? Why else would I say Google caters ones results to your search history if it doesn't apply to me? I don't bother around much with feminist/MRA/whatever sites. My main clicks are gaming sites, tumblr, and the occasional art site. Sorry that those things tend to be way under my radar.

Anyway, I already looked up the women in question in my previous post and gave my thoughts about that.

I'm almost tempted to set up a Linux box, a sock Google account and make 10 searches a day on topics of games, tumblr and art for a month, and at the end of the month search "ptsd twitter" to see if the top five results are anything related to Hensley. I'm not a masochist, so I'm not going to do it.

I looked at your thoughts on Hensley; I agree that soldiers, police and anyone affected by violence are not the only people to suffer PTSD. However, a shell-shocked soldier or rape victim would not return to the place that gave him or her the disorder by their own volition, unless after they have recovered. And the probably wouldn't stick around. Hensley has been active on twitter since stating she had PTSD from various people who trolled her.

She also threatened to call the CO's of the military personal who questioned the validity of her PTSD. On twitter.

I'm going to take the controversial stand here and say we don't need either movement. I think we should live as we have lived for the last thousand years; man works outside the home, woman inside.

Ooooh boy! Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Oh man, you are so dead on this website after typing that! Can I have your stuff?

The carrion crows approach! I'm curious: Single mothers, do they have to stay inside or is there wiggle room on that?

 

[Gorrath]

Thing is, in the first stage it's not about women being considered lesser. Rather, it's about women being considered, at all. Being considered as lesser comes a bit later on the scale, but even then the same problem arises with being a better caretaker and being a better anything at all.
To put it very bluntly, since everyone always grow up and see women in the role of housekeepers and caretakers, and never see men fill those same shoes, it becomes unfathomable that a man could do that job.
On the flip side, since everyone always grow up and see all men in positions of power and respect and women in positions of submission, it becomes unfathomable that a woman could adequately perform in a position of power and respect.
This is a perception that is true for both men and women in every field. So to have "caretaking" being the only field in which a man is automatically considered lesser, that seems like a pretty good place to be in tbh.
Either way, with increased gender equality women gain agency and the opportunity to make their own way in the world. This automatically opens up for *EDIT* men to fill a more caretaking role, and in turn be accepted as plausible caretakers.

I agree with pretty much everything you say here. I think your assessment is fair and is an accurate description of what goes on and how gender roles/stereotypes perform. I think the only part I take umbrage with is the assertion that men only being viewed as lesser caretakers is a pretty good position to be in. That's not an inaccurate statement if all we care about is where men as a group are, but it is not such a great position to be in if you're trying to get custody of your children or if your occupation of choice is the caretaking of children. In those cases, the fact that other men who are not you have advantages is meaningless. Also it is not simply the caretaking of children that men are viewed to be lesser at, there are a great many fields, especially today, where open communication and emotion are highly desirable, both of which are traits which are viewed as being more strongly associated with women instead of men.

Frankly, I find that *EDIT* the perception of men being lesser caretakers to be rather silly. In Sweden, where I'm from, shared parental responsibility has been trending for the last 5 to 15 years at least.

I can't say much for Sweden really. I live in the U.S. so that's where my point of view is mostly concentrated and what I'm most concerned with. And I won't say that no progress has been made for men either, it's simply that many men feel it is impossible to be taken seriously when they have unfair, gender-based discrimination thrown at them and face a mountainous up-hill climb trying to fight it. Of course this is related to how women and men are both viewed, as neither view of the sexes exists in a vacuum.

I think what you're getting at is rather: Women are expected to take care of children. Not necessarily be better caretakers. Either way, it's two separate things.
Being held to a higher standard is about men expected to grow up and be a good, hard working and succesful person. To make another extreme example, in some cultures, when a daughter is born the father get's dissapointed in the mother, because only boys matter. Only boys can be expected to hold responsibility, and only boys can carry on the familys true legacy, etc. Think of my statement as a more subtle version of that.

I do know that cultures outside my own are quite patriarchal in nature (mine still is too, in some ways, some would say many ways) but I focus on what's happening in my culture in these talks because it is what's most immediate to my own needs and experiences. I will support any movement which seeks to peaceably (or sometimes not peaceably) break down those gender issues in other cultures though. The issue of caretaking and it being viewed as a women's job isn't the only factor though. In my country, it was well established for many years that in a divorce, the children "needed to be with their mother" because "she was more fit to look after them."

This causes and still causes a wide range of issues with how men are treated in divorce, how they are treated when seeking employment in associated fields and how they are treated in family court. Despite the progress made in empowering women and fighting for women's rights, men still face a lot of disadvantages in these areas and the progress does not seem to have kept pace with progress made in changing our views about women. That's why I consider myself an MRA, and also a feminist, I want to break down as many gender based assumptions as possible and help create a society which strives for equality for all.

No, #notallmen is some men butting into a conversation about bad people and how they hurt women by saying "I was not the one who did that! Look at me! Who has two thumbs and didn't do that thing you're talking about? This guy!".
Like if victims of robbery were to bring attention to their experiences, and petty thieves started speaking up like "I never used a knife, this is offensive!"

I don't see the controversy others do here. It seems silly to me that a hashtag can "butt into" another hashtag's conversation, or that there is only enough twitter space for one discussion or that MRAs, having been directly associated by the media with the killer, are juvenile for wanting to make it clear that they did not share that crazy person's ideologies. Moreso, it was a response to #yesallwomen, which as a trending conversation focused on how all women everywhere experience fear of men. The fact that it is irrational to fear men because of what some men do is a valid point that deserved to be made.

Your example is a bit unnerving for me, as it suggests that there are really bad men (the robbers) and then men who aren't quite as bad (petty thieves.) I think a more accurate comparison (though still flawed, I admit)would be this: If a really bad crime had been committed by black person and some white people made a hashtag declaring how all white people had some level of fear of black people because of the number of violent crimes committed by black people, not only would black people speaking up in indignation of the hashtag not be considered "butting in" the original hashtag would be considered racist as hell. My example is flawed because the historical con of the two is quite different, but it serves to illustrate how a hashtag like #yesallwomen raises a specter of sexism, just as something like #yesallwhitepeople would raise a specter of racism. It is no wonder that men would want to respond to something like that.

But, a conversation about how men are viewed as inferior caregivers is actually a conversation about women and their plight as "lessers". #notallmen is a reaction wherein MRAs want to distance themselves from a person and his ideology that the media incorrectly associated with them and as a reply to #yesallwomen, a hashtag about how women, all women, experience fear of men.
I have no frame of reference for any such discussion or response.

I must not have explained myself clearly so I'll drop that part. My fault.

Somehow, men are not part of the discussion about women's fear of men and, especially, aren't allowed to take a victimized tone when they feel the specter of sexism being leveled their way?

Because the correct response in that situation would be support. Something which would get your message clear across without making you look like an attention starved child.

The correct response to feeling like someone's making a sexist remark is to support them? I don't mean to be dense or obtuse, but that was what some men felt that #yesallwomen was. One can express support for the victims of the crime, or even women at large who feel threatened while also wanting to make it clear that people shouldn't associate men with violence against women because some men are violent against women. As with the example I gave above, the prejudiced undertones of such a hashtag might not be readily apparent until one switches the actors. I do think #notallmen was stupid, but I can certainly see why someone would want to express the troublesome nature of the #yesallwomen hashtag. I don't think #notallmen is what you seem to indicate it was, a "me me me, pay attention to me" sort of thing.

Again, still just talking about MRA defenders.

Not sure how you make this distinction. It seems we've both directly talked about some of the ideology that is right at the core of MRA. Our conversation above about gender roles and how they effect people is part of that core. Excuse my confusion please.

Yet I didn't see a single one which didn't contain that kind of bashing, rather than keeping to a relevant point. MRA's get attacked, MRA defenders start pointing fingers, and the defenders of the other supposed side spend time beating down that defense. If it was focused, to the point and didn't just spew blame around, things might've turned out different.

I'm not sure I totally get your gist here. My own defense of MRA has discussed the core ideology of MRA and also pointed out the hypocrisy of tossing away that core ideology (as some would) because of logical flaws, vitriol and hate spewed by would be MRAs if one is is unwilling to do the same with feminism. There are those that want to chuck the baby out with the bath water in regards to feminism and also in regards to MRA. I don't think it's fair to do that kind of disservice to either movement. I don't think it is unfair to criticize the double standards some people are putting into play here.

So, you essentially admit that you are engaged in the same kind of mud-flinging you accuse MRAs of, it's just that when you do it it's fine, and when MRA defenders do it, it's "laughable?" I think we've struck the very essence of why you and I disagree on these subjects. I'm not even defending the poorly thought out, fallacy filled arguments MRAs and their defenders make, I'm just asking that feminism and MRA be treated the same way. The ideas that are good ones be accepted and assessed and the logical fallacies and mud-flinging be called out as such.

No, I essentially admit that changing the names would make it into an incorrect statement and render it completely irrelevant. Try, for instance, changing out the names of Rihanna and Chris Brown in a discussion about domestic abuse. It wouldn't matter, because it would make the whole discussion a farce.

False equivocation. You can't switch the sides in the Chris Brown/Rhianna case because there is no parallel between the two. You do see the same dishonest activities among members of MRA and feminism. Holding feminism and MRA to the same standard with regard to how we treat the ideas they propose and how we treat the ideologies in the light of the activities of its members, honest and dishonest, is nothing like trying to claim the actions of Chris Brown and Rhianna are somehow interchangeable.

I'm talking about the defenders. I make no claim as to where their allegiances lie, what their purposes are or whether or not they are embraced by any or all of the mythical real MRA's.
Sure, I've adressed a handful of perceptions regarding some pertinent issues, but I don't really know or care about what these real MRA's actually stand for. I'm just reacting to the conduct I keep seeing occur wherever "MRA" is whispered somewhere on the internet.

I think I'm safe in claiming to be a "real" MRA, but of course there is no litmus test for admission, so I"ll also happily be a mythical feminist as well. You're reacting to the conduct of MRAs on the internet, and I'm criticizing the way some feminists react to what internet MRAs do without holding feminism or feminists to the same standards. MRAs of course do exactly the same thing, playing apologetics for the bad behavior of its members while screaming for blood when feminists do the same sorts of things.

If they want followers, it's their job to convince me of their cause. It's not my job to seek out all causes, because that would be insane.

I think you and I may have a philosophical difference here. I didn't need a feminist to act a certain way to convince me that women should be better represented, or that gender roles can be damaging, or that women should considered equal to men. The actions of some feminists or MRAs are irrelevant to me with regard to assessing the truth of claims that come from them. I do consider myself an MRA, and not because I was won over to the ideology by some MRA group, but because I agree with the notion that men's issues are important and that they are often acknowledged but not always well represented in feminist circles because of feminism is often focused on women's rights and issues. Pointing to the biggest, loudest MRA and demonstrating that he's got a bunch of befuddled beliefs would do nothing to dissuade me from agreeing with the importance of addressing men's rights. This is also why I do not endorse any specific group, but just the ideology itself.

On that same token (though hoping not to get distracted on something else by saying this) all the religious people in the world can point out how much charity comes from churches, or how nice the people are, or what gains have been won by religious people and it would all be irrelevant with regard to my assessment of whether there is any truth about any of their religious claims. Ideas stand on their own, and the only way a person can convince me of truth is by presenting evidence. If they do that, all their other logical fallacies and batshit ideas are of no consequence to me.

I hope I was able to clarify some things here. My goal as always is mutual understanding even if agreement about any particular point proves elusive.

 

[HK_01]

MovieBob, I like your video reviews, but even there you cannot keep your political views out of it, ever, and occasionally use a third of the video ranting about what you perceive as racism or sexism or anything like that. Why are you so obsessed with these topics? I don't really want the Escapist to turn into Tumblr.

On topic: I don't think that show had anything to do with parodying the MRA or supporting feminism or whatever. It was a show that made jokes at pretty much everyone's expense and played with stereotypes of both sexes.


Edit: Just look at this comment section to see why I don't want this site to become a second Tumblr. It's venomous and unpleasant.

 

[cypher-raige]

Feminism is just as pointless as Men's Rights.
They are both partisan ideologies that exclusively focus on one gender.

 

[Raesvelg]

My take on men's rights advocacy basically boils down to the fact that while bad and unfair things happen to women more often than to men, that doesn't mean that the bad and unfair things that happen to men should be ignored.

Which seems to be the stance of most people opposed to the MRM.

I suppose this position crystallized when a friend of mine lost custody of his child in his divorce from his abusive spouse, whom he divorced on the grounds that she was abusive.

 

[Shodanbot]

MovieBob, I like your video reviews, but even there you cannot keep your political views out of it, ever, and occasionally use a third of the video ranting about what you perceive as racism or sexism or anything like that. Why are you so obsessed with these topics? I don't really want the Escapist to turn into Tumblr.

Off-topic

Sam Goldwyn: "If you want to send a message, use Western Union."

 

[Schadrach]

It's kind of sad that the general view of MRA groups are labeled as hateful, misogynist and ridiculous where some groups like Fathers 4 Justice, Save Indian Family Foundation and National Coalition for Men actually do some good work. It's almost like how those tumblr feminist don't represent the entirety of feminism as a whole just how a single angry guy with a gun doesn't represent all MRAs.

Also just because I like to draw parallels: Valerie Solanas = Elliot Rodgers.

Did Valerie Solanas consider herself a feminist, associate with any feminist groups, have her writings taken favorably by other feminists, or be considered influential as far as feminism is concerned? Because none of those things are actually true of Elliot Rodger and MRAs (and I know offhand that at least two of the things I listed are true of Solanas).

The closest he comes to being involved with MRAs is being a member of a forum called PUAHate (an "anti-pick-up-artist" forum which essentially believes in most of the underlying viewpoint behind pickup artists but believes that they sell snake oil) which has shut itself down as a result, he also posted some of his complaints on Bodybuilding.com (to the general response of "whine less, lift more"). He wasn't a poster or member of any MRA sites or YouTube channels, and the only politically inclined YouTube channel to which he subbed was The Young Turks [footnote]https://www.youtube.com/user/ElliotRodger/feed[/footnote]. In short, Elliot Rodger being an MRA is a fabrication.

However, when we're talking about the difference between MRA and feminists, I would note the previous mention of multiple supposedly "good" MRA groups who do things like oppose marital rape laws or even take stands against abuse against men but not against women. That's not good for anyone.

Who opposes marital rape laws, again? And no, assuming the need for standards of evidence and the usual rights of the accused is not supporting rape.

As for taking stands for abuse against men but not getting involved when it's abuse against women, ultimately in the latter case there are a comparative ton of resoureces available (unless you are in Norway, where domestic violence resources that receive governmetn funding [this is most of them] are required to provide services for both male and female victims).

You've got groups petulantly trying to get women drafted--even as women are fighting to be accepted in combat roles for the first time in US history--rather than getting rid of it an an archaic and unnecessary artifact. If we were to go to the equivalent length, feminism would be something along the lines of "only men should fight."

The usual argument for pushing to have women drafted is actually that doing so is probably the most successful route to having it abolished (or having any penalty taken away from not registering, which is functionally the same). It needs to be either for everyone or no one though, and the usual response from the feminist side is generally to deem it a non-issue.

Here's the thing though -- even if we assume that it's highly unlikely that it will ever be invoked again and it only remains as an outdated institution that we just haven't bothered to get rid of, even if we assume that the requirement to sign up for Selective Service is essentially entirely symbolic there's still a problem. You still are requiring men but not women to declare that their lives are forfeit to the greater good of the nation if it should be asked of them, and making that a prerequisite of many rights and benefits that women are given with no strings attached. That's ignoring that it's also technically a felony with a quarter million dollar fine attached, since they haven't actually prosecuted a case since the 80s (largely because the law requires that you fail to register *knowingly*, and that last bit is hard to prove).

If we were to go to the equivalent length on rape, feminism would be lobbying that only women could be raped, ever.

They have, in the past. Nowadays it's still argued that a woman forcing a man into sexual intercourse is very much not rape and shouldn't be (also, that it is right to force such a male victim to pay child support if his attacker is impregnated by the attack). There's something of an empathy gap when it comes to male victims. Hell, I can quote a poster from this forum saying as much, whose background is a gender studies graduate doing research on masculinity.

The number of MRM groups which make women the focus of their "justice" is ridiculous. If this were just some trilby-wearing fuckers on reddit, that would be one thing, but when they're actively lobbying? Yeah, that's a bigger problem.

Care to name something that's being lobbied for that you have an issue with? Also, can folks please choose a single hat to hate, it's getting hard to keep up with which hat is evil this week, first it was fedoras and now it's the trilby?

Women get the kids? Well, that's shifted a lot, and got support from feminist causes, but again, once we stop treating women like they can't work or are only caregivers, we'll see a change here.

There's a DV/divorce case in my home state (within a couple of hours drive from me) that made the rounds on the MRA sites because there was a push to give shared custody with the goal of giving the mother primary custody despite her alcoholism, drug problems, perpetrating domestic violence against her husband and occasionally children, and the following report from the guardian ad litem assigned to the children: http://www.avoiceformen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2012/09/gal-final-redacted-bw1.pdf

The judge decided that his recording her engaging in violence against him and one of their children was at least as bad as her engaging in the actual violence.

I'd say how things turned out in the end, but I lost track after the fifth judge that got involved (one of which was reprimanded because they didn't recuse themselves due to a conflict of interest). The case involves Joel Kirk and Tina Taylor Kirk.

Oh, and the idea that even an accusation of sexual misconduct ruins a man's life is bullshit, since even being convicted and doing time doesn't necessarily lead to ostracism. I can't find a parallel to that.

If you'd like, I can go dig through COTWA and find you many examples of "man accused of sexual misconduct, killed in vigilante attack; accuser recants, killer convicted, accuser receives no punishment", or "woman makes false accusation to get out of paying taxi fare, only fails because she didn't see the camera in the cab" or the whole Tracy West case, or Hofstra, or Duke Lacrosse, or Brian Banks (to name a couple you might be familiar with). Most cases the Innocence Project has freed people from are sexual assault cases in which DNA proves the convicted individual could not have committed the crime (including every case in my home state). These are all people hurt by "an accusation", sometimes losing jobs or future employment prospects because employers Google your name, sometimes losing chunks of their lives to imprisonment, sometimes getting away OK by the skin of their teeth. The Tracy West case involves an accusation that wasn't physically possible (even after giving her a couple of opportunities to revise her story when inconsistencies started to pop up), the accused spending a few months in jail, and then the accuser using the accusation to try to keep the accused (her ex) from having access to their child.

But just the fact that someone said "issues that affect women affect men and vice versa" and you said "no way, it's totally different" should be telling. That does not sound like the words of someone who reasonably wants gender equality. It sounds like someone who wants theirs and only theirs.

Usually when someone says that, the goal is not to agree that many issues that effect one effect the other, but rather to follow it up with "therefore, we should only actively work on this that benefit women, and men's issues will go away magically" which is absurd.

So basically she claimed that years of being stalked, harassed, and trolled online has made her adverse to the internet and she claims to suffer from PTSD. Military personnel are upset by this...because more military personnel suffer from it than regular people? That's pretty petty if you ask me. Seems to me that it's a 1-Up competition more than anything. Nothing of what she said diminishes PTSD suffered by military personnel. She simply rebutted by saying that for her, the shit she got for online harassment caused her serious distress and is just as valid as theirs.

Claims to have gotten PTSD from people saying mean things to her on Twitter, whines about it on Twitter. Surely you see the problem here. This would be like vets who are triggered into panic attacks and flashback from hearing gunfire (or similar loud, sharp noises) going to hang out at the firing range to complain about how awful that is. As in, it makes no sense at all and people generally avoid the environment that would allegedly cause panic attacks and flashbacks.

Was this the thing parodied on Futurama where Leela moves in with that shape-shifting scumbag? I think that question right there highlights my wealth of knowledge of this sitcom and nor do I engage with internet Feminism or Men's Rights activities, so I can't really offer much of an informed opinion either way. But I do remember my introduction to the latter, in an episode of the Bill no less, where a Fathers 4 Justice bloke was climbing over public buildings dressed as Batman and thus evidently sticking it to The Woman.

It's like how CSI introduced me to the existence of the Furry Fandom.

Married...with Children was the thing parodied on that ep of Futurama, yeah. Also like how Bones introduced me to the existence of pony play as a thing.

I don't see the controversy others do here. It seems silly to me that a hashtag can "butt into" another hashtag's conversation, or that there is only enough twitter space for one discussion or that MRAs, having been directly associated by the media with the killer, are juvenile for wanting to make it clear that they did not share that crazy person's ideologies. Moreso, it was a response to #yesallwomen, which as a trending conversation focused on how all women everywhere experience fear of men. The fact that it is irrational to fear men because of what some men do is a valid point that deserved to be made.

Your example is a bit unnerving for me, as it suggests that there are really bad men (the robbers) and then men who aren't quite as bad (petty thieves.) I think a more accurate comparison (though still flawed, I admit)would be this: If a really bad crime had been committed by black person and some white people made a hashtag declaring how all white people had some level of fear of black people because of the number of violent crimes committed by black people, not only would black people speaking up in indignation of the hashtag not be considered "butting in" the original hashtag would be considered racist as hell. My example is flawed because the historical con of the two is quite different, but it serves to illustrate how a hashtag like #yesallwomen raises a specter of sexism, just as something like #yesallwhitepeople would raise a specter of racism. It is no wonder that men would want to respond to something like that.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the *point* of the analogy he or she chose. One of those "no one is righteous / all have fallen short before the grace of God" sort of things, except God in this case is feminist women.

No, I essentially admit that changing the names would make it into an incorrect statement and render it completely irrelevant. Try, for instance, changing out the names of Rihanna and Chris Brown in a discussion about domestic abuse. It wouldn't matter, because it would make the whole discussion a farce.

False equivocation. You can't switch the sides in the Chris Brown/Rhianna case because there is no parallel between the two. You do see the same dishonest activities among members of MRA and feminism. Holding feminism and MRA to the same standard with regard to how we treat the ideas they propose and how we treat the ideologies in the light of the activities of its members, honest and dishonest, is nothing like trying to claim the actions of Chris Brown and Rhianna are somehow interchangeable.

I think they were going for one of two things here, and I would love to know which. Either they are trying to imply that feminism is a victim of MRAs (which is silly), or that the idea of a woman committing domestic violence against a man is a farce. I'm not sure which, and they are both a bit nuts.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

Ooooh boy! Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Oh man, you are so dead on this website after typing that! Can I have your stuff?

*grabs steel balls with one hand, gives finger with the other* COME AT ME BRO.

OT

Was this the thing parodied on Futurama where Leela moves in with that shape-shifting scumbag? I think that question right there highlights my wealth of knowledge of this sitcom and nor do I engage with internet Feminism or Men's Rights activities, so I can't really offer much of an informed opinion either way. But I do remember my introduction to the latter, in an episode of the Bill no less, where a Fathers 4 Justice bloke was climbing over public buildings dressed as Batman and thus evidently sticking it to The Woman.

It's like how CSI introduced me to the existence of the Furry Fandom.

I remember that episode of CSI. It's one of my favorites because of how fucked up it is. Anyway, the MHRM is basically the male version of feminism, but with a smaller foot print. It's not as well established and is constant victim of the rumor mill, not helped by the fact they take constant potshots at feminism. Hell, AVFM, on of my favorite sites, love to take shots at feminists. Most of them deserve it, but sometimes it gets a little tiresome.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

AHA! Found it!

Noel or AArdvarkman or whoever the hell I was getting into internet punchups with, I found that study that says (entitled) women like benevolent sexism.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2470085/Women-fine-sexism-long-benefits-scientists-reveal.html

http://www.psypost.org/2013/10/self-entitled-women-are-more-likely-to-endorse-benevolent-sexism-study-finds-20644

http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/09/26/1948550613506124.abstract (this is the actual study, the other two are news articles about the study.)

 

[Shodanbot]

AHA! Found it!

Noel or AArdvarkman or whoever the hell I was getting into internet punchups with, I found that study that says (entitled) women like benevolent sexism.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2470085/Women-fine-sexism-long-benefits-scientists-reveal.html

http://www.psypost.org/2013/10/self-entitled-women-are-more-likely-to-endorse-benevolent-sexism-study-finds-20644

http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/09/26/1948550613506124.abstract (this is the actual study, the other two are news articles about the study.)

I'm not dismissing the study, but don't see how it has anything to do with your appeal to tradition. Those are the opinions of yours that caused the most offence from what I can tell.

The nuclear family wasn't even the "traditional" family over the past thousand years, that would be the extended family (at least among the peasants) during the pre-industrial and industrial period. Just a couple of reasons for this: they didn't have the financial manoeuvrability or political stability that we enjoy today. It was a family of happenstance, not tradition.

 

[NoeL]

I support tradition. At no point did I say I was opposed to any other kind of social change.

Except for this:

I'm going to take the controversial stand here and say we don't need either movement. I think we should live as we have lived for the last thousand years; man works outside the home, woman inside.

Pretty much speaks for itself.

Just because I like it one way, does not mean I hate the other way.

I never said you did. I said that your reasons for liking/wanting it one way (i.e. tradition) is unimaginative, uncritical and potentially closed-minded, and makes me believe trying to discuss the issue would be pointless. Any positive arguments made in favour of why we should change will only get "But tradition!" as a response. Tradition is no reason to continue doing anything.

AHA! Found it!

Noel or AArdvarkman or whoever the hell I was getting into internet punchups with, I found that study that says (entitled) women like benevolent sexism.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2470085/Women-fine-sexism-long-benefits-scientists-reveal.html

http://www.psypost.org/2013/10/self-entitled-women-are-more-likely-to-endorse-benevolent-sexism-study-finds-20644

http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/09/26/1948550613506124.abstract (this is the actual study, the other two are news articles about the study.)

Yech, Daily Mail. So yeah, seems I was wrong, though now I think about it these results aren't surprising at all. In fact it'd be more surprising if the correlation didn exist. I'm curious though, what do you think the significance of this study is? That women inherently want traditional gender roles? I don't think you're quite there yet - after all, experiments like this don't exist in a vacuum. The participants are real people that exist in and are influenced by the real world, so I think the correlation is better explained by women (and men) favouring what's familiar (i.e. a tradition of benevolent sexism towards women). As noted in link 2 "Hammond cautioned that the finding should not be extrapolated outside of its cultural context."

So yeah, what was the point on mentioning this study?

 

[Dragonbums]

Claims to have gotten PTSD from people saying mean things to her on Twitter, whines about it on Twitter.

I'm fairly certain she has online friends and followers (you know considering her general job occupation.) that were probably asking about why she's been absent for an entire year. It is not unreasonable for her to state that her absence was because she was suffering from PTSD like symptoms. Which is when she ended up getting shit from military personnel that apparently don't understand that being in warfare is only one of many ways someone can experience a traumatic event.

This would be like vets who are triggered into panic attacks and flashback from hearing gunfire (or similar loud, sharp noises) going to hang out at the firing range to complain about how awful that is.

No it would not. The analogy would only work if the military person in question had friends he only sees at a shooting range and would like to let them know why he doesn't frequent anymore. And even then you wouldn't go up to a person in real life and call them a liar because they are there.

As in, it makes no sense at all and people generally avoid the environment that would allegedly cause panic attacks and flashbacks.

Did you not read the definition I put in for PTSD? They are symptoms. They aren't permanent, and frankly they can happen at any time anyway. People go to therapy to get over their PTSD. What if the person was fine for 5 years and decided they were going to take up the hobby they loved to do but avoided due to traumatic events? What if that person was perfectly fine participating in said hobby for another solid 2 years and then all of a sudden year 3 they get a flashback?

Some people are just triggered by general settings. You can sit on a porch and get a flashback. (Not that that is the only symptom to PTSD anyway.)

In her case she didn't suffer from flashbacks. She suffered from intense anxiety. Which is one of many symptoms of PTSD.

 

[the December King]

Married made fun of both genders chauvinism, the stereotypical and exaggerated Male idiocy of Al and the tepid Feminism of Peggy who wanted to bleed her husband dry with a view of him almost deserving it as she lazed about while giving him no respect for providing for their family, however ineptly.

The character Peggy Bundy had nothing to do with feminism, wasn't a feminist, and couldn't care less about feminism. She was a lying, selfish jerk whose casual malice came close to justifying Al's horrid irresponsibility -- if it hadn't been for Al's neglect of his kids, it would have justified it. The quoted claim is both ridiculous and completely without any factual basis, and worse, it's the sort of "their side does it too!" strawman crap typical of a MRA-tainted discussion. We should eschew this sort of thing.

I guess so- Peggy seemed misandrist with her views on men in general, a counter-point to Al's contempt for women. I don't recall Peggy ever really wanting equality, nor pushing for women in general to be treated fairly.

But then again I didn't watch all eight seasons.