Sons of Feminism: Men Have Their Say

Kal'Stang said:

Another form of dismissal.

"Oh these men are just women haters. They're just jealous because women don't need them anymore or give them the sex that they think they are rightfully owed" is a common mantra used to dismiss and denigrate. And yes, I know you didn't say that directly. But you might as well have because what you did actually say says the same thing....all you did was use semi more polite terms.

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I said some and I never said women haters. You apparently have a very very limited perspective/perception here as you are making up things I didnt write or even imply.

I said SOME...and I also used IMO....so get off your high horse and go try and brow beat someone else. It ain't gonna fly here.

Lursa said:

perception=perspective in the manner I intended to use it.

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You said "men's perception". And you were specifically talking about MRA or people who have experienced what the MRA is talking about. As if this was just imaginings.

Lursa said:

And men are not a minority.

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No, you said "happening to a small minority of men". 1 in 4 abused men is not a "minority".

Lursa said:

If you missed the point in my both my posts where I said we should pay attention and listen...that's some bias you have going on there.

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No, I got the point. Your point is that yeah, it "may be" happening to a "minority of men" but more than likely the majority of such claims are just "disenfranchised loser men/teen" that are "Blaming everyone else for their failures, bitter, jealous, possessive, and probably starting out with low self-esteem to begin with."

Lursa said:

I said some and I never said women haters. You apparently have a very very limited perspective/perception here as you are making up things I didnt write or even imply.

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No, you said "Among some I think there is resentment about having to work harder? Not be able to have sex without consequences anymore? Resentment that more and more women dont need a man to get along in life and think they have less chance of getting a woman" and other things which I have quoted several times now. All of it negative. All of it dismissive. What little there is of you admitting there "may be" a problem is minimization. Like I said, yeah, you didn't say that directly. But with everything that you've said so far you may as well have.

Lursa said:

I said SOME...and I also used IMO....so get off your high horse and go try and brow beat someone else. It ain't gonna fly here.

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Aren't we all just expressing our opinion?

And yeah, "some". In an attempt to minimize.

Kal'Stang said:

So remaining objective instead of automatically taking a side means that I'm taking criticism that isn't even directed at me personally? Hmmm....something seems off with your "logic" there.....

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Actually you are not remaining objective,. Your using ignorance of the subject as an excuse to remain detached.
It is more than obvious that a test group of 26 men is not an objective view of the matter but more one of selective questioning. Had there been a mixed response of positive and negative views one might begin to consider this an objective test. But as we have 26 men complaining then it is nothing more than a group specifically picked to give a negative view. A biased book is the only conclusion to take from this.

Kal'Stang said:

You said "men's perception". And you were specifically talking about MRA or people who have experienced what the MRA is talking about. As if this was just imaginings.



No, you said "happening to a small minority of men". 1 in 4 abused men is not a "minority".



No, I got the point. Your point is that yeah, it "may be" happening to a "minority of men" but more than likely the majority of such claims are just "disenfranchised loser men/teen" that are "Blaming everyone else for their failures, bitter, jealous, possessive, and probably starting out with low self-esteem to begin with."

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I think you started another thread on MRA's, if I remember correctly. Here's my thing...this is what I struggle with. I totally acknowledge there are men's issues, and that they need to be talked about. But the problem the MRA's have is that too often then have been shown to be in conflict with feminists, as if to support one, you must denounce the other. This is a self inflicted wound, from what I've seen - probably not a surprise I'm on a number of feminist group pages on the regular, and time and time again an MRA comes in, disrupts a focused discussion on one women's issue or another with "well, what about"...and then attempts to make the entire conversation about men.

If we, as a privileged demographic (yes we are, Kal, when compared with women yes we are, the numbers don't lie), want to discuss our issues, we can and should. But not at the cost of resources being allocated towards, or to the exclusion of, the issues of those more marginalized than us. I tend to think of it like this. I'm a rescue chopper operator, and I have two people to rescue. Both of them have problems, for sure - they need me to rescue them. Neither can swim. One is in freezing cold water up to their chest, the other is in freezing cold water that is 30 feet deep. Who do I rescue first? And just because I rescue one, does it mean I don't rescue the other? And what do you think of the one at less risk that feels they should be rescued first, even though they know about the increased risk of the other?

I don't see a reason why we can't talk about men's issues and women's issues. But the "MRA's" have made that discussion more difficult...another reason why they frustrate me.

Am I making any sense here, Kal? How do we bridge the gap between needing our issues resolved, and finding our place in the priority list when enter into the mix with people who have a lot harder challenges than we have?

soylentgreen said:

Actually you are not remaining objective,. Your using ignorance of the subject as an excuse to remain detached.
It is more than obvious that a test group of 26 men is not an objective view of the matter but more one of selective questioning. Had there been a mixed response of positive and negative views one might begin to consider this an objective test. But as we have 26 men complaining then it is nothing more than a group specifically picked to give a negative view. A biased book is the only conclusion to take from this.

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A negative view of what? Since you have no clue what is actually in the book I'd be interested to know what negative view you think they're espousing. You don't even know if those men gave statistics to back up their claims.

OlNate said:

I think you started another thread on MRA's, if I remember correctly. Here's my thing...this is what I struggle with. I totally acknowledge there are men's issues, and that they need to be talked about. But the problem the MRA's have is that too often then have been shown to be in conflict with feminists, as if to support one, you must denounce the other. This is a self inflicted wound, from what I've seen - probably not a surprise I'm on a number of feminist group pages on the regular, and time and time again an MRA comes in, disrupts a focused discussion on one women's issue or another with "well, what about"...and then attempts to make the entire conversation about men.

If we, as a privileged demographic (yes we are, Kal, when compared with women yes we are, the numbers don't lie), want to discuss our issues, we can and should. But not at the cost of resources being allocated towards, or to the exclusion of, the issues of those more marginalized than us. I tend to think of it like this. I'm a rescue chopper operator, and I have two people to rescue. Both of them have problems, for sure - they need me to rescue them. Neither can swim. One is in freezing cold water up to their chest, the other is in freezing cold water that is 30 feet deep. Who do I rescue first? And just because I rescue one, does it mean I don't rescue the other? And what do you think of the one at less risk that feels they should be rescued first, even though they know about the increased risk of the other?

I don't see a reason why we can't talk about men's issues and women's issues. But the "MRA's" have made that discussion more difficult...another reason why they frustrate me.

Am I making any sense here, Kal? How do we bridge the gap between needing our issues resolved, and finding our place in the priority list when enter into the mix with people who have a lot harder challenges than we have?

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I get what you're saying about helping those that are in more need first. And I'll address that. But first I'd like you to consider something here. I provided this video to someone in the very thread about MRA's that you're talking about (yes I started it ), I'd like you to view it and then reflect on what those MRA's said in those feminist sites. You'll understand what I mean after you watch it. Note however that I'm NOT going to say that there are not asshole misogynists that try to take advantage of the MRA movement. There obviously are just as there are "feminazi's" that use the Feminist movement. I tend to try and ignore both extremes in order to try and get to the meat of the matter. Anyways here's the vid...



Now, in regards to "chopper operator" example. I think that you're looking at it the wrong way. Perhaps too narrowly? Anyways, what if there were two choppers? Couldn't we use both to rescue both? Or maybe a chopper and a small boat? See, the thing is here is that no one is suggesting that we take away resources from one aspect in order to help solve the problem of the other aspect. Or that we prioritize one over the other. What is being suggested is that we help both equally. Dedicate more resources to the problem. Not less. Not the same amount. But more. We have that capability. The thing is that we have two different but similar problems going on. In The Red Pill one of the things pointed out is that if the problems that the MRA's pointed out were treated equally, or the same however you want to look at it, as women's problems then this wouldn't be a gender issue. It would just be a problem that needs to be fixed. And quite frankly this shouldn't be a gender issue. None of it should be. It should be societal issues. Issues that that should be worked towards fixing collectively.

Kal'Stang said:

{snip}ing ahead of time, cuz I plan to be long winded...

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Ok, Kal. I watched all 17:32 of your video. I cannot say that I'm not aligned with a good majority of what this lady has to say. Which you know I would, if I could. But I acknowledge, she's got a lot of things to say that are common sense, that I agree with...and some that I don't. I don't think her view of feminism is fair, because you know I don't agree with generalization, and every demographic has their hateful fringe. But for the most part this girl preaches. I will also admit that I, if perhaps unintentionally, would tend towards prejudice when I hear the term "MRA".

Here are my thoughts.........

No one can deny that despite having very valid issues, men have had it pretty good, a lot better than women have over the, well, forever. In contrast, women have become empowered to the point of anything even approaching equality only very recently, with there still being a demonstrable gap in any number of statistics, which significantly outnumber the instances of equally unacceptable disparity that men experience. The reality is that the societal relationship between men and women right now, on the whole activist front, is a bit rocky, and the root cause of that is the historic disparity that women faced at the hands of men. I mean, they were property a couple hundred years ago. More recently, in some places in the world, and still are in others. You can understand why a portion of perhaps particularly impacted, or socially aware individuals would have a bad reaction to that, and not find it in their hearts to be particularly sympathetic to the MRA cause.

Now...I'm not saying that's fair. I'm just saying it's understandable. In my opinion, the problem with "ism" movements of any type is that is "vs." by nature. Women make x% on average less than men, not women make x% less than they are worth, wtf. Men are x% more likely to die in combat than women, not x% of American citizens are dying in armed combat, wtf??? Yet this is how both sides present their cases. And it goes on and on and on. From what I have seen, there is no difference in this between feminist and MRA activism, with few exceptions.

But, as I say all this, I'm stuck with the reality that as a fairly moderate person, despite how I like to go off in debate forums...hehe, in the same way as I support completely the feminists in their efforts to right the demonstrable injustices they face, despite not understanding or being aligned with the methodologies of some of their sub demographics, I find the demonstrable injustices men face to be in need of sorting out as well.

I personally think that what men need to work out is the fact that we are asking for help from people already facing these demonstrable injustices at a level that exceeds our own, if in different directions or columns, with us being the ones out ahead, and change our methodology. We need to show up with the same sense of urgency to address demonstrable injustices in the lives of others as we hope to get from them for the things we face. We need be able to point to something other than what would appear to others to be simply our own sense of entitlement, to maintain our privilege.

Your video addressed the reality of that perception. How hard did that lady have to concentrate and reflect and be disciplined to be able to separate her anger from what she was actually hearing from these men? That exists for a reason. We can't just snap our fingers and make it go away. We need to show up for them, if we want them to show up for us. Their stuff has to be important to us, even if we don't understand it, if we want our stuff to be important to them, even if they don't understand it. I mean, it's men's issues "vs." women's issues, is it really all that surprising? :lol:

But of course, this extends to really any collision of differing opinions or causes, whether it be about race, sexuality, gender, religion, politics...lol... That's what people forget, and that's why everything is such a ****ing mess.

So, I guess I land at I'm willing to hear out the MRA guys and agree that there are valid concerns there that need looking into...you got me to do that, good vid choice, homie...hehe... But I think they need to understand the climate they are living in, and come at it being willing to help out in return the people who they want help from. If they're already about that, well, they need to work on their PR, and perhaps actively shut down some of the guys that are being assholes in their name, cuz bud, I know we've both seem some doozies. But I do think their issues are important enough to do what it takes to drive the level of unity required to address them.

Thanks for the chat bud...now I'm off to knock around some dinos on Ark... haha Sorry for the long post, but I did watch a 17:32 video for ya...haha

Reduced quote due to 5k character limit.

OlNate said:

Ok, Kal. I watched all 17:32 of your video. I cannot say that I'm not aligned with a good majority of what this lady has to say. Which you know I would, if I could. But I acknowledge, she's got a lot of things to say that are common sense, that I agree with...and some that I don't. I don't think her view of feminism is fair, because you know I don't agree with generalization, and every demographic has their hateful fringe. But for the most part this girl preaches. I will also admit that I, if perhaps unintentionally, would tend towards prejudice when I hear the term "MRA".

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Thanks for the well thought out post and watching the vid. I agree with a lot of what you said. Here's a question for you though. There are millions of people that support helping women. We have campaigns where millions of men and women are involved in spreading knowledge of women's issues and there are processes in place to help them out. How much more must we acknowledge that and help out with that before its acceptable to point towards issues that men face? You see, part of the angst that is had between the Feminist and MRA movements is that any time that mens issues are brought up...even if they acknowledge and agree with Feminists on Feminists issues...the MRA people are shouted down as minimizing and not caring about women's issues. You've seen in two different threads now how the MRA is treated just by their name alone. In this thread you saw people admit that they didn't even read the book shown in the OP....yet what automatically started happening?

The woman in that video that you watched was once a feminist (stating the obvious here but bear with me). She had done two other documentaries previous to The Red Pill. Both focused on issues that is part of the Feminist list of issues. Do you know what happened to her after she made The Red Pill? She was ostracized by the feminist movement. Ridiculed and denigrated. And its not the first time that such has happened. The Red Pill gives another example of a woman who was once a feminist but is now ostracized by Feminists. A woman who opened up the first womens shelter in...I think it was Britain, can't remember exactly where now. That woman bought a house and set it up as a woman's shelter. Now she's not even allowed to visit it even though she owns the house because the Feminist that runs the shelter refuses to have anything to do with her. All because she spoke up for getting shelters for men also.

The point that I'm getting at here is that even when people try their very best to help women with women's issues, the moment that they also end up trying to help men also they're ostracized, condemned and ridiculed. So your suggestion on how to solve this problem of the MRA VS. Feminist mentality has been tried. And rejected. Believe me, its a commendable suggestion. One that SHOULD (can't emphasize that enough) work. Unfortunately it doesn't. Like I said...this should be societal issues. Not gender issues.

Hope you had fun knocking around those dinos. And thanks for the chat also. It's nice to be able to actually discuss something with someone and have that person actually LISTEN instead of just react.

Kal'Stang said:

A negative view of what? Since you have no clue what is actually in the book I'd be interested to know what negative view you think they're espousing. You don't even know if those men gave statistics to back up their claims.

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Did you fail to read the OP?

here let me reprint it for you.

Feminist leaders tell us that men are entitled and powerful. Janice Fiamengo actually asked men what it is like to be male in a feminist culture--and they responded. These 26 stories may surprise you with their accounts of men belittled, disliked, dismissed, blamed, falsely accused, and discriminated against under law—all while being expected to apologize for their “male privilege.”

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So give me a good laugh by twisting this into a positive view of feminism.

Notice the word "their". Usually means a personal account rather than a statistical look at what happens to others.

OlNate said:

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Oh, and one more thing: hahaha

Cuz nothing says oppressed like being a man. Says 26 dudes. Women, LGBTQ+, visible minorities, please take note, and stop your complaining, here are the real martyrs.

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Well, that was pretty much a mindless, knee jerk reaction.

StillBallin75 said:

This is like the male equivalent of white people bitching about how they're losing the country and need to take it back.

Also, what which men are imprisoned in a "feminist culture"? Are the Amazon women going around kidnapping men and keeping them cucked for life that I don't know about?

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Read the OP.

RabidAlpaca said:

Maybe they interviewed 26 ***** incels. I love being in a culture where women are treated as equals and I love strong women. If you feel pathetic and underappreciated by women you only have yourself to blame, OP.

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Classy and thoughtful as usual.

Kal'Stang said:

Reduced quote due to 5k character limit.

Hope you had fun knocking around those dinos. And thanks for the chat also. It's nice to be able to actually discuss something with someone and have that person actually LISTEN instead of just react.

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I hear what you're saying, man. I found the following for you...lifted from a VERY feminist site (it's a tad bit older than I usually reference, but I think 2014 is still permissible). Maybe it can help.

Why I’m a Male Feminist and Not a Men’s Rights Activist

As ever, division is the biggest problem we all face.

Have a good one, brother.

Kal'Stang said:

Note however that I'm NOT going to say that there are not asshole misogynists that try to take advantage of the MRA movement. There obviously are just as there are "feminazi's" that use the Feminist movement. I tend to try and ignore both extremes in order to try and get to the meat of the matter. Anyways here's the vid...

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Good video well worth 17 mins of anyone's time Pretty sure I watched it presented as a TED talk a few months ago, sans the combative atmosphere which tends to haunt DP threads. This time around - having just read numerous posts telling me all about the misogyny characterizing the MRA movement - I was particularly struck by the numerous times she described men's issues as being worthy of "compassion" or similarly sympathetic/emotional terms. Maybe it's just me, but I reckon that would be a helluva hard thing for a lot of men to say: Asking for help and sympathy may feel the same as being weak or a "*****" (a term already used by one fellow in this thread).

Similarly, asking for help and sympathy may feel like broaching a topic from a position of weakness, as a supplicant. Perhaps that is part of the reason why the belligerent extremes of both men's and women's rights movements take the approach they do.

OlNate said:

I hear what you're saying, man. I found the following for you...lifted from a VERY feminist site (it's a tad bit older than I usually reference, but I think 2014 is still permissible). Maybe it can help.

Why I’m a Male Feminist and Not a Men’s Rights Activist

As ever, division is the biggest problem we all face.

Have a good one, brother.

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Read it, going to have to think on it a bit. But just woke up so may be a bit lol.

Kal'Stang said:

Read it, going to have to think on it a bit. But just woke up so may be a bit lol.

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lol...get that coffee, into ya, bud. It's Friday, so it might be a light day for me anyway...Fridays are always weird in the automotive industry, from my experience. Could be a slacker day, but if all hell is going to break loose, it's gonna be today. hehe

OlNate said:

....

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Ok, I've thought about it for quite awhile now. Been trying to make sure that I saw things for what they were and not how I assumed them to be (perception wise). But there are certain things that I just can't get past. I'm going to try and take them one at a time. Note: This may be a two part response due to 5k character limit....

From your article:

Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) claim that it is not fair that women often receive custody over men and need to pay large amounts of child support. An article on an MRM website provides data from the US census to back up this claim. This is certainly unfair, but custody concerns fall towards women because in our patriarchal system, women are perceived as being universally better parents (caring, empathetic, patient, domestic). Additionally, because this work is devalued, it’s assumed that men are more capable of and more busied with other, more important ventures.

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Bold: Yes, this is true.
Underlined: This however is not true. I can't count how many times a year that I hear about how hard parenthood is. Especially when it comes to single parent homes. There are also tons of programs to help parents that encompass both single parenthood and two parent homes because the need for such programs is seen and considered valuable. Due to this what immediately follows after the underlined part in the same paragraph is also false. the part in red.

Rest: If you discount what was said just previous to this part (red part) and just focus on the "busied" part that is actually one of the reasons that women often receive custody more than men. Men, on average work more hours at a job than women do. Due to this they do often spend less time with the children than the woman. Women will often use this fact to their advantage in custody disputes. Not that I blame them really. Assuming good intentions no parent wants to lose custody of their child and as such I don't blame women for using everything that they can to keep custody. (within reason of course.) Anyways, due to the man working more hours the court will often assume that the man is too busy to properly care for the children. Understandable right? What makes it worse is that even if the man can prove that they would reduce their working hours in order to spend more time with the child what is then considered is that by doing so that means less money to take care of the child, which again means not being able to properly take care of the child. It's a circular conundrum.

Then you have to acknowledge a biological fact that plays a small part in the perception that women are considered as "caring, empathetic, patient". Women carry a child for 9 months. That naturally will make them closer to the child than the man. Before my firstborn was born I was told that a man usually doesn't quite understand what's going on during the pregnancy. That they often do not even "connect the dots" that the pregnancy is real. This is because they can't see the child, feel the child, hear the child etc etc. So it seems unreal to them. Men know its happening, they understand its happening intellectually and do not dispute such. They can be happy about it, but they still cannot "get it". Not like the woman who feels the baby growing inside her. And you know what? They were right. I didn't "get it". I thought I did. But it wasn't until my son was born that I actually "got it". And the weird thing is that when my daughter came along the same exact thing happened. Don't know why. But it did. Of course after the child is born such shouldn't matter. But societal wise, perhaps unconsciously, it still does.

Next part:

MRA’s make some accurate observations, but they incorrectly attribute the source of injustices to ‘female privilege’ instead of patriarchy.

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With the exception of the extremists who do incorrectly assign blame, I have never seen MRA's even mention "female privilege". They're generally more concerned with the system than assigning blame to women.

Next part will be in my next post as I think I'm getting close to the 5k limit...

OlNate said:

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From your article:

Male feminists can actually provide a unique perspective on how to attack gender inequality issues from their experiences of masculinity. However, masculinity can make it difficult to empathize with others since masculinity often values deadening one’s emotions. So when exploring feminism, I urge men to make an extra effort to break through the emotion barrier society places on us. Furthermore, empathy coupled with objectivity will help men while talking about gender issues. When taking a step back, the sense of self doesn’t muddle things as much. When looking at things more objectively, men can recognize the privilege they have in certain situations. Furthermore, us men need to understand that any blame in a conversation about gender inequality is not a personal attack, but a critique of the larger social system.

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This is actually one of my biggest pet peeves with the feminist movement.

First note the bold part: The guy claims that mens feelings are "deadened" and urges men to 'break through the emotion barrier" and then talks about objectivity. The problem with such is that its illogical. When being objective you have to set aside your emotions as emotions can color perception. It's all fine and dandy to have empathy. It's a GOOD thing. But it can also be a bad thing as sometimes you have to set aside empathy to do what's right. For example if my son murders someone I have to set aside my personal feelings and do what is right by calling the cops on him, doesn't matter the reason that he did so.

Now for the pet peeve part. This is actually a call to change men. And I'm not talking about social wise as in stop being misogynistic. But actually change how men ARE. What makes men actually men. This is a call to make a man more female in their thought processes. I can understand why they would want this and even slightly agree with them. But I reject it for a couple of reasons.

Part of what has made humans so successful ever since we crawled out of the trees is the distinct differences between males and females. Including men being less emotional than women, and women being more emotional than men. The differences tempered each other. Allowed the positives of both being emotional and not being emotional to shine through while suppressing the negatives of both also.

The other reason that I reject it is because it is one sided. They expect men to change, but where are women willing to change?

Now, I'm willing to admit that men do need to change. Become more effeminate. But if we are to keep the advantage that we've had since crawling out of the trees (as I mentioned above) women are going to have to become more man like also. There needs to be a meeting in the middle. And I do not see this in any part of the feminist movement.