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

[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.)

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.

Eh, most traditions start by happenstance anyway. It doesn't really matter how it starts, just that it is.

I'm a creature of habit. I don't like change, it's one of my foibles. Heck, my family moved us across the country when I was eight and it dang near made me have a mental breakdown. I support things that I'm comfortable with. I never said, "this way is the only way." All I said was "I'm a trationalist."

And you know what? The reactions says more unflattering things about the people around here than it does about my conservative views.

 

[Vault101]

[quote/]Maybe we have these roles because they work.[/quote]
based oooooon?

oh right...nothing

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.

except things have not been the same for 1000 years, I mean the romans had some pretty interesting ideas when it came to sexuality, like as long as you were a "top" in bed with other guys then it was cool and totally manly

and the 1950's didn't actually happen untill the 1950's and ended with the 1950's...due to certain ecenomic conditions that made what we think of as "the nuclear familiy possible"

this magical version of the 50's didn't exist at all


that women have woked outside of the home for almost all of history....unless you thourght they have thir own self sustaining food supply

that having ones well being rely SOLEY on another is a REALLY shitty futue investment strategy

that gay people did not spring fourth from the fires of mordor in the 60's...nor did Transsexuals or gender non-conforming

that people should ideally do what their good at

that this veiw is completly counter to modern society and dare I say relaltiy

women who want to take time off work to raise kids DO

women who don't return to work to raise the kids DO somtimes because that shits expensive

for those who want to and can't blame the enonemy and not the eminist bogeymen

in fact don't blame anyone cause its their choice not yours

I also sincerely hope your username is not refering to your date of birth....

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Funny thing is, you think you're being clever-- you know, make me question my beliefs, really examine what I support, hopefully see some kind of skeleton in the closet-- if it wasn't for the fact I DO SEE WHAT MRA's POST ONLINE. I read A Voice For Men, COTWA, Judgy *****, A Voice For Male Students and Women Against Men religiously. I know what the MRA's are thinking, I read their content, and do you know what I find?

Stuff that proves that what feminists and internet commentators have been saying about the movement has been nothing but a giant CROCK OF SHIT.

I mean really; have these people ever engaged with the movement?

Have you heard of A Voice For Men? That's literally the biggest MRM website out there, most likely if you don't frequent it, you're most likely in the fringe of the MRM, here's their "welcome" page:

http://www.avoiceformen.com/a-voice-for-men/welcome-to-avfm/

Incidentally, AVFM's rank on Alexa is 30,000, which means it's pretty damn big.



Here's AVFM's mission statement:

http://www.avoiceformen.com/policies/mission-statement/

Yeah, read AVFM before you judge the MRM! You'll see it's not so bad!


http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/ill-decide-if-you-were-raped-not-you/

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2010/11/14/paul-elams-vanishing-post-blaming-and-mocking-rape-victims/

yah it's obviously a totally beneficial movement based on equality mmhmm no question there

 

[kuolonen]

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.

All too late for that mate. Escapist has been a second tumblr for quite some time. By now it is given that if the topic is even somewhere near the issues (and often even if it is not), this is the state of thread after.

 

[Daemian Lucifer]

Yeah, read AVFM before you judge the MRM! You'll see it's not so bad!

And if only you did that and read the whole first article,rather than just the snippet of it,you might have looked like less of an idiot with your "clever" remark.

But I get how just skimming through and reading through only the first part of that article can get you the idea that he is a bigot.And I get how quote mining can make someone look the complete opposite of what they are.Here,let me show you how easy it is to quote mine:

Any man who gets drunk and hooks up with a woman he?s only recently met is damn near demanding to be falsely accused of rape, is walking though life with the equivalent of a I?M A STUPID, CONNIVING ***** ? PLEASE ACCUSE ME neon sign glowing above his empty little narcissistic head.

Damn,thats one crazy bigot for saying stuff like that.If only that made any sense with a different context,but alas,it doesnt,so I have to conclude that David Futrelle is a bigot.#CancelColbert!

 

[Daemian Lucifer]

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.

Maybe we have these roles because they work.

People were saying the same thing about slavery.And technically,they were correct.The thing is,just because something works,doesnt mean its a good thing,or that everyone benefits,or that it cannot be improved or replaced with a better thing.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Yeah, read AVFM before you judge the MRM! You'll see it's not so bad!

And if only you did that and read the whole first article,rather than just the snippet of it,you might have looked like less of an idiot with your "clever" remark.

But I get how just skimming through and reading through only the first part of that article can get you the idea that he is a bigot.And I get how quote mining can make someone look the complete opposite of what they are.Here,let me show you how easy it is to quote mine:

Any man who gets drunk and hooks up with a woman he?s only recently met is damn near demanding to be falsely accused of rape, is walking though life with the equivalent of a I?M A STUPID, CONNIVING ***** ? PLEASE ACCUSE ME neon sign glowing above his empty little narcissistic head.

Damn,thats one crazy bigot for saying stuff like that.If only that made any sense with a different context,but alas,it doesnt,so I have to conclude that David Futrelle is a bigot.#CancelColbert!

I have read the whole first article. It's role reversal satire. And it's still pretty shit.

If you want one that's not, how about this

There is a really easy way to deal with ?street harassment? ladies. It will require you to consider the point of view of someone other than yourself. It will require you to envision the person talking to you as human. It will require you to envision a world in which what you want is NOT the governing principle. It will require you to acknowledge that other people exist and they have different motivations than you.
?HEY BABY, NICE TITS!?
What do you say? How do you respond?
Listen carefully. Two words. You can?t go wrong.
T H A N K Y O U
You?re welcome.

Also, what about the other one that's since been removed? In context, David Futrelle's post was a parody of Paul Elam's. Was Elam's a parody?

 

[Shodanbot]

I have read the whole first article. It's role reversal satire. And it's still pretty shit.

If you want one that's not, how about this

There is a really easy way to deal with ?street harassment? ladies. It will require you to consider the point of view of someone other than yourself. It will require you to envision the person talking to you as human. It will require you to envision a world in which what you want is NOT the governing principle. It will require you to acknowledge that other people exist and they have different motivations than you.
?HEY BABY, NICE TITS!?
What do you say? How do you respond?
Listen carefully. Two words. You can?t go wrong.
T H A N K Y O U
You?re welcome.

Also, what about the other one that's since been removed? In context, David Futrelle's post was a parody of Paul Elam's. Was Elam's a parody?

If you're going to play the "but look at all these big meanies on this side!" game, let me direct your attention to this:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/08/08/what-do-you-do-when-someone-pulls-the-pin-and-hands-you-a-grenade/

It's just one example of the lunacy from this blog. The blog post example given, is not a joke or a reactionary fit of anger.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

I have read the whole first article. It's role reversal satire. And it's still pretty shit.

If you want one that's not, how about this

There is a really easy way to deal with ?street harassment? ladies. It will require you to consider the point of view of someone other than yourself. It will require you to envision the person talking to you as human. It will require you to envision a world in which what you want is NOT the governing principle. It will require you to acknowledge that other people exist and they have different motivations than you.
?HEY BABY, NICE TITS!?
What do you say? How do you respond?
Listen carefully. Two words. You can?t go wrong.
T H A N K Y O U
You?re welcome.

Also, what about the other one that's since been removed? In context, David Futrelle's post was a parody of Paul Elam's. Was Elam's a parody?

If you're going to play the "but look at all these big meanies on this side!" game, let me direct your attention to this:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/08/08/what-do-you-do-when-someone-pulls-the-pin-and-hands-you-a-grenade/

It's just one example of the lunacy from this blog. The blog post example given, is not a joke or a reactionary fit of anger.

Yeah, some feminists are batshit crazy. Not all MRA's are crazy.

However, the difference here is that several people in the thread have been spouting "AVFM is the representative MRA blog!", and it is undeniably a massive part of it, considering it's the biggest MRA site to my knowledge and the MRM is based almost entirely online.

I'm not playing the "look at the shit people in this movement" game, I'm playing the "look at how crazy the biggest single representative of the movement is" game.

 

[Daemian Lucifer]

I have read the whole first article. It's role reversal satire. And it's still pretty shit.

Except the satire is only half of the article.And that half is shit simply because thats how reality thats made fun of actually is.

Also, what about the other one that's since been removed? In context, David Futrelle's post was a parody of Paul Elam's. Was Elam's a parody?

Seeing how the original article doesnt exist anymore(there is also the possibility that it never existed in the first place,but lets disregard that for simplicity),and the other article you have linked was satire,to me it seems (since ths is the first time Ive been exposed to either of them) that chances are 50% that this one was just as well,and David Futrelle simply didnt understand it.

If you want one that's not, how about this

There is a really easy way to deal with ?street harassment? ladies. It will require you to consider the point of view of someone other than yourself. It will require you to envision the person talking to you as human. It will require you to envision a world in which what you want is NOT the governing principle. It will require you to acknowledge that other people exist and they have different motivations than you.
?HEY BABY, NICE TITS!?
What do you say? How do you respond?
Listen carefully. Two words. You can?t go wrong.
T H A N K Y O U
You?re welcome.

First,how do you know its serious?You already attacked one that started with a huge dose of satire,so maybe you just misunderstood this one as well.

Second,even if its serious,is that really such a bad advice?A couple of years back,I overheard a couple of girls standing behind me in a bus say "He has a nice ass".They thought I couldnt hear them,because I had headphones, but I did. So I turned around,and said "Thank you ladies". They were so embarrassed that they left on the first stop.Was I wrong in my response,and should I have made a fuss about how they were objectifying me?

 

[O maestre]

Funny thing is that married with children also predicted another reddit movement, the health at every size movement. Or at least it predicted the ridiculousness of the members.

 

[Schadrach]

Yeah, read AVFM before you judge the MRM! You'll see it's not so bad!


http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/ill-decide-if-you-were-raped-not-you/

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2010/11/14/paul-elams-vanishing-post-blaming-and-mocking-rape-victims/

yah it's obviously a totally beneficial movement based on equality mmhmm no question there

You referenced a four year old article that has since been removed with a significant explanation and notes that it was being quote-mined (the comments were left intact and do contain references to the previous content), specifically stating:

It was, to use a phrase feminist Camille Paglia once used, a ?necessary savaging? of a once-taboo subject. Now that the culture at large is beginning to acknowledge that both men and women can and do engage in abusive behavior that can provoke violent, dangerous reactions in psychotic and irresponsible individuals, and now that the culture is beginning to recognize that men are at least as likely to be victims of sexual assault as women, and women far more likely to be perpetrators of sexual assault than was once commonly believed, and a more mature dialogue has begun on the non-gendered nature of rape and sexual assault and abuse, the old article no longer serves its intended purpose; it only tends to be quoted out of context by dishonest ideologues as ?typical? of the AVFM?s content rather than the unusually provocative article that it was.

Thus its continued presence on these pages only tended to cause confusion and to be used dishonestly by people who don?t seek a real dialogue on the issues.

The other opens with a lengthy comment on the idea of writing something with the specific intent of offending, quoted here:

Please be forewarned that many people will find this article highly offensive. That being the case, a disclaimer is in order, particularly for those easily offended.

This article was written with the intent of offending. In fact, that is pretty much its primary purpose.

Unfortunately, when addressing instances of male disadvantage or female power in this society, offence is a necessary evil. We are a culture blinded and brainwashed by decades (arguably millenia) of disinformation and propaganda about men and women. We are also a species of animal more or less hardwired to take a dim view of compassion for men and boys. This leaves us with few tools to rattle people out of complacency and into a thoughtful discussion of those issues.

Intentional offence is one of them, and it is one proven to work as this website has repeatedly demonstrated.

This disclaimer is not an apology for, nor a retraction of, any of the points in the article. It is simply a clarification of context regarding the articles? style, content and delivery. When society evolves to the point where we can have real discussions about issues facing men and boys, then the need for this kind of provocation will end, at which point the editorial staff of this website may consider removing this article from its archives.

This particular article is dedicated to Mary P. Koss, an influential researcher who has demonstrated over and over how the crime of rape permeates our culture and results in a living nightmare for women across the western world. Sort of. ?PE

Second note: Male victims of sexual assault by women who are frequently told that what happened to them is funny or something they should be proud of, by cops, the popular culture, even so-called friends, will understand the exact intent of this article. ?DE

The point of that article is a role reversal to demonstrate how horrible it sounds if you were to treat sexually assaulted women like sexually assaulted men are treated.

At least you did better than 20/20, who once quoted something from the quote mines (aka Futrelle) where he claimed that a statement was typical of AVfM/MRAs that was used on AVfM as an example of the kinds of comments that would get you immediately and permanently banned. But it's still a 4 year old since removed article and an intentionally offensive blatant role-reversal to demonstrate the problematic nature of something by comparison.

I bet I could find some suitably awful feminist quotes though if I tried. No, wait, that's too easy.

Maybe I should look at anti-male and/or anti-due-process-in-rape-cases quotes from only this year. Nevermind, that already exists: http://www.cotwa.info/2014/06/add-these-to-misandry-hall-of-fame.html

Hmm, maybe a feminist professor minimizing sexual abuse against boys? http://www.genderratic.com/p/4240/feminist-rape-culture-statutory-edition/


How about feminists trying to silence men talking about men's issues? Not going to bother to link it, just search YouTube for "CAFE protest mra." Or watch the actual presentations that were being protested -- they filmed those too -- and tell us all what's wrong with them?

Since you like older posts, how about a Jezebel post about how the editors hit their boyfriends. Some choice quotes (the kinds of things a bizarro-world Futrelle would quote from that post): http://jezebel.com/294383/have-you-ever-beat-up-a-boyfriend-cause-uh-we-have

we decided to conduct an informal survey of the Jezebels to see who's gotten violent with their men. After reviewing the answers, let's just say that it'd be wise to never ever fuck with us.

And that's when she socked him. He was, uh, totally asking for it.

So, we have victim blaming feminist bloggers who revel in their ability to engage in intimate partner violence against their SOs without fear of reprisal, arrest, or punishment. Reasonable chance that might even actually be the case, since I don't really see an alternative motive to this article, nor do they ever claim one.

Side note: That very same Jezebel article takes a position that MRAs are usually given some hate for espousing, despite statistics to back it up:

According to a study of relationships that engage in nonreciprocal violence, a whopping 70% are perpetrated by women. So basically that means that girls are beating up their BFs and husbands and the dudes aren't fighting back.

Or I could point out a couple of twitter hash tags that have caused large numbers of feminists to say awful, awful things. #INeedMasculism was a particularly clever attempt at baiting feminists by 4chan (and oh did they come out in droves), though the results of #EndFathersDay were more conflicted (though to be fair, enough people love their fathers that it was doomed not to be as successful and it was outed as 4chan trolling comparatively quickly so it didn't get days of feminists saying terrible things but rather hours).

Or I could always point out the feminist love for a theatrical work that at one point describes a girl being sexually assaulted by an older woman as "a good rape." Though I suppose you only used one example from several years ago, so that might be going too far (also why I'm not quoting a bunch of second-wavers or a certain published poet who wrote a several thousand word essay about how 90% of men should be killed off on a site that was generally in favor of things like male-specific infanticide [and liked to do fundraisers for SPLC, which for some reason never considered them a hate site] but isn't around any more).

If you're interested in some of the relevant research on the topics, http://www.reddit.com/r/mensrightslinks generally keeps a pretty broad array of it.

TL;DR: It's not hard to come up with examples of members of nearly any ideology saying awful stuff if you try to look -- it's even easier if you are willing to quote mine.

should I have made a fuss about how they were objectifying me?

Of course not. Being male, you cannot be objectified because objectification is an example of patriarchal dominance, and being girls they are the oppressed class and thus incapable of exerting patriarchal dominance. In fact, you should probably be apologetic for shaming them into having to leave public transit.

Kind of like how a man sitting with his knees 1-2 inches wider than his shoulder is exerting dominance through demonstrating a patriarchal right to take up space, while a woman using seats on both sides of her for luggage storage is, at worst, trying to prevent creeps from getting too close.

 

[Saetha]

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.

I mostly agree with you here, I just want to point out something about the "#YesAllWomen" hashtag that really pisses me off - that no, it's not "all women." As a woman, that's what made the most angry about the whole mess. Other girls want to take to Twitter and talk about their experiences? Fine. But don't pull me into that. Don't make a label that, by dint of it's very name, attaches me to the movement. Don't speak for me or my experiences. Because isn't that what feminism's supposed to fight against? People silencing and ignoring women, speaking over and for them? If anyone else had claimed anything about all women, feminists would be frothing at the mouth. But I guess it's fair game when feminism does it?

Uh-huh. Thank you for fighting for my right to an opinion, feminists! Thank you for getting my experiences with men and sexism before making a blanket statement about women everywhere! Thank you for appropriating my voice and attaching it to something I very well may not agree with, simply because I'm a woman, while simultaneously claiming you're fighting for my right to self-identify and speak my mind!

Sorry, that's just... that just pissed me the hell of about the whole mess. No, not all women live in fear of men. You want to? Fine. But don't drag me into that bullshit.

 

[Megalodon]

Maybe I should look at anti-male and/or anti-due-process-in-rape-cases quotes from only this year. Nevermind, that already exists: http://www.cotwa.info/2014/06/add-these-to-misandry-hall-of-fame.html

That link. My fucking God. Quotes like that make me sad I don't believe there's a hell for that kind of person.
Excellent post btw.

I mostly agree with you here, I just want to point out something about the "#YesAllWomen" hashtag that really pisses me off - that no, it's not "all women." As a woman, that's what made the most angry about the whole mess. Other girls want to take to Twitter and talk about their experiences? Fine. But don't pull me into that. Don't make a label that, by dint of it's very name, attaches me to the movement. Don't speak for me or my experiences. Because isn't that what feminism's supposed to fight against? People silencing and ignoring women, speaking over and for them? If anyone else had claimed anything about all women, feminists would be frothing at the mouth. But I guess it's fair game when feminism does it?

Uh-huh. Thank you for fighting for my right to an opinion, feminists! Thank you for getting my experiences with men and sexism before making a blanket statement about women everywhere! Thank you for appropriating my voice and attaching it to something I very well may not agree with, simply because I'm a woman, while simultaneously claiming you're fighting for my right to self-identify and speak my mind!

Sorry, that's just... that just pissed me the hell of about the whole mess. No, not all women live in fear of men. You want to? Fine. But don't drag me into that bullshit.

Another excellent post that has me wishing this forum had a 'like' button or equivalent. It seems to me that 'feminism' has become yet another dogmatic ideology, like communism, fascism, fundamentalist religion and who knows how many cults before it. All that matters is the ideology, rather than the truth. Sweeping, all encompassing statements of absolute assumed truth become the norm, and any chance to achieve anything constructive through dialogue is lost. Such a shame.

 

[Daemian Lucifer]

It was, to use a phrase feminist Camille Paglia once used, a ?necessary savaging? of a once-taboo subject. Now that the culture at large is beginning to acknowledge that both men and women can and do engage in abusive behavior that can provoke violent, dangerous reactions in psychotic and irresponsible individuals, and now that the culture is beginning to recognize that men are at least as likely to be victims of sexual assault as women, and women far more likely to be perpetrators of sexual assault than was once commonly believed, and a more mature dialogue has begun on the non-gendered nature of rape and sexual assault and abuse, the old article no longer serves its intended purpose; it only tends to be quoted out of context by dishonest ideologues as ?typical? of the AVFM?s content rather than the unusually provocative article that it was.

Thus its continued presence on these pages only tended to cause confusion and to be used dishonestly by people who don?t seek a real dialogue on the issues.

Huh,so without knowing the actual truth,and by simply applying logic,I actually correctly guessed what has actually happened.Who knew that logic could work?Amazing.

Another excellent post that has me wishing this forum had a 'like' button or equivalent. It seems to me that 'feminism' has become yet another dogmatic ideology, like communism, fascism, fundamentalist religion and who knows how many cults before it. All that matters is the ideology, rather than the truth. Sweeping, all encompassing statements of absolute assumed truth become the norm, and any chance to achieve anything constructive through dialogue is lost. Such a shame.

Please dont do that.Whenever people in power become corrupt and twist an ideology to suit them,others jump on to say how the ideology is broken now.But the truth is,it isnt.Feminism is still about equal rights,and all those examples of corrupt feminists are just that:Corrupt feminists.The blame should be squarely on them and their followers for abusing the ideology they are allegedly following,and not the movement itself.Same goes for communism(its still a good theory,but because it has created so many corrupt states in practice it is now being shunned as something evil).

Though maybe the time has come to merge feminism and MRM into humanism and have everyone who actually wants true equality under a new umbrella.A few people here and there who are sick of the extremists from both groups actually are calling themselves that already,so a real movement may not be that far away.

 

[Megalodon]

Another excellent post that has me wishing this forum had a 'like' button or equivalent. It seems to me that 'feminism' has become yet another dogmatic ideology, like communism, fascism, fundamentalist religion and who knows how many cults before it. All that matters is the ideology, rather than the truth. Sweeping, all encompassing statements of absolute assumed truth become the norm, and any chance to achieve anything constructive through dialogue is lost. Such a shame.

Please dont do that.Whenever people in power become corrupt and twist an ideology to suit them,others jump on to say how the ideology is broken now.But the truth is,it isnt.Feminism is still about equal rights,and all those examples of corrupt feminists are just that:Corrupt feminists.The blame should be squarely on them and their followers for abusing the ideology they are allegedly following,and not the movement itself.Same goes for communism(its still a good theory,but because it has created so many corrupt states in practice it is now being shunned as something evil).

Though maybe the time has come to merge feminism and MRM into humanism and have everyone who actually wants true equality under a new umbrella.A few people here and there who are sick of the extremists from both groups actually are calling themselves that already,so a real movement may not be that far away.

What do you expect? If I judge by real life, then self indentifying 'feminists' are a nigh non-existent, as most people seem to be happy with simply trying to not be aresholes. Then there's the internet...

The important word in my post was dogmatic. I view dogmatism in any form as poisonous, unpleasant and dangerous. I'm sorry to say that I rarely see evidence online of people who self identify as feminist and aren't dogmatic ideologues and/or demagogues. Likewise, there seems to be little internal criticism form within the 'movement'. For example, I'm unaware of a large body of self identifying 'feminists' that are critical of the sort of scum quoted in Schadrach's link who want to dissolve the justice system in the instance of rape.

When the 'corrupt' are the unchallenged majority, can you be surprised that they're the ones outsiders view as speaking for their ideology?

Of course, this is all my opinion formed from what I have read and listened to. If you have an untapped seam of contrary evidence I'm unaware of, please let me know.

 

[Daemian Lucifer]

Just search the web for "feminist against modern feminism" and you will find lots of criticism against them(for example http://www.skepticink.com/skepticallyleft/2013/01/06/dear-modern-feminists-so-this-is-what-youre-saying/).The problem is,they arent as loud or media worthy as "OMG,ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS,GIMME MONEY".The problem is not that these corrupt feminists are the majority,but that they are loudest.Same way how Bob here figured all MRA are all looneys,because those are the loudest ones,and the ones given most media coverage.

 

[WeepingAngels]

As always, I am delighted to see MRA's getting this much attention. The anti-MRA attitude is not great but it's preferable to MRA's being ignored. They say that negative publicity is still publicity.

I imagine feminists were regarded negatively at first too and it took time for most people to accept them. Things are as they should be.

 

[Gorrath]

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.

I mostly agree with you here, I just want to point out something about the "#YesAllWomen" hashtag that really pisses me off - that no, it's not "all women." As a woman, that's what made the most angry about the whole mess. Other girls want to take to Twitter and talk about their experiences? Fine. But don't pull me into that. Don't make a label that, by dint of it's very name, attaches me to the movement. Don't speak for me or my experiences. Because isn't that what feminism's supposed to fight against? People silencing and ignoring women, speaking over and for them? If anyone else had claimed anything about all women, feminists would be frothing at the mouth. But I guess it's fair game when feminism does it?

Uh-huh. Thank you for fighting for my right to an opinion, feminists! Thank you for getting my experiences with men and sexism before making a blanket statement about women everywhere! Thank you for appropriating my voice and attaching it to something I very well may not agree with, simply because I'm a woman, while simultaneously claiming you're fighting for my right to self-identify and speak my mind!

Sorry, that's just... that just pissed me the hell of about the whole mess. No, not all women live in fear of men. You want to? Fine. But don't drag me into that bullshit.

While I fell that it is pretty much impossible for a claim that "all" of any group so large as half the population could have a shared experience like "fear of men" I didn't feel qualified to assert it as truth. I appreciate your stance on this and your indignation. Hastags aren't usually well thought out pieces of academic discussion, nor are they intended to be, but since they serve as a rallying point around issues, they deserve to be criticized just as you have done here.

The more women who don't have the shared experience that #yesallwomen claims and who stand up to make themselves heard, the less likely people are to engage in such sweeping claims as rallying cries I think. Even if I were to make every assertion you just did, it seems likely that I would be told that "I just don't get it because I'm a man," or that "All women really do feel this way, I'm just too privileged to understand it." You making your voice heard on this subject isn't just a good thing, it's an essential thing. Thank you for that!