I can believe that the issues are legitimate, but the MRA's are cynically using those specific issues to make it appear that their movement has some worth.
Sexual assault in prison is a legitimate issue, but MRA's have done jack **** to actually promote reform. They point to it as "evidence" of how hard men have it hoping that sentimentality over that horrible abuse will allow them to kick through broader whining about the general victimhood of men in our society.
And, of course, feminists have been at the forefront of prison reform since the 19th century.
Yes, they were and are at the forefront of prison reform, yet today if you talk about things like sentencing disparity and prison rape today as issues that effect men, you're labeled an MRA and not a feminist by pop feminists. There is credit and blame there, not just credit. So who is right? Are the feminists working on these issues MRAs or feminists?
I'd agree that those who self-identify as MRAs have done next to nothing to actually address the problem and do just use it as a way to attack all feminists and feminism in general. However, if pop feminists are right and those other feminists are not feminists but are MRAs, then ironically MRAs are the ones at the forefront of prison reform.
And this is a problem with much of the criticisms of
this movie. 'Why didn't you interview these more reasonable people?', 'we did'. It isn't just a bunch of MRA, but people who others call MRA. It doesn't follow that because MRA have in general been counterproductive, that everyone called an MRA is, let alone that this movie is.
It's strange that you notice I point out legitimate issues but condemn MRA's then accuse me of not being able to distinguish legitimate issues from MRA nonsense.
Because you outright said that, "the total bankruptcy of legitimate issue these misogynists have devoted their sad lives to." So yes, what you wrote is contradictory.
To be clear: there are very legitimate issues sometimes mentioned by the Mens Rights Movement. They do this cynically and have done jack **** to actually reform those issues. For example, if they really cared about custody reform, they would note that the reason women often receive primary custody is because they have taken on the role of primary caregiver. This is a default role assigned to them by society and one that feminists generally oppose.
I worked as a family law attorney for a decade. I would conservatively estimate that I represented clients in 600+ custody cases. The only reason women received primary custody more often than men is that they had less demanding jobs and were able to take them to and from school and be available at 3:30 when school ended.
You want more evenly distributed custody, promote equality in the workplace. It's not a grand conspiracy to screw men. It's how our patriarchal society has developed rules and customs. It's hilarious to watch the very people who created and benefit from that structure whine about one of the very predictable results.
Yes, addressing workplace equality would help this a lot (ironically some of the lowest hanging fruit there is to help men so that they can take time as primary care givers), but no, it is not the only factor. Yes, it is not some conspiracy to screw men, no, it is not just the patriarchy. Gender biases hurt us all, and they are NOT only results of those bias that are degrading to women.
Hey, give Trump a chance!
We have plenty of experience with MRA's. It's silly to pretend like all of that should be tossed out.
Hey man, here's a movie about the KKK. Assuming it's bad faith just because the movie doesn't condemn them is poor critical thinking. Just hear them out.
Sorry, I'm not a naif.
No, give
a movie about them a chance, and more importantly, don't throw the film maker out without evening giving her a chance. See, this is what you can't separate. The movie isn't the MRA movement from anything I've been able to find. That it isn't straight up condemning everything around them doesn't make it 'pro-MRA'. If the maker of the movie is lying and it is pro-propaganda, then show that and we can agree. So far, that's not been the case.
Sounds ******. There are bad people in the world, feminists included. If you're making a broader point about the relationship between Feminism and male rape, you'll have to substantiate it. The only feminists I know and read do not dismiss male victimhood.
Really? It's been many years since I was able to say the same. You know what I was most recently told that I'm not a feminist and I must be an MRA over? I said that one can be a feminist and not believe that 'sexism' means power plus prejudice, and that men can experience sexism. A writer for Cosmo actually told me I was for the murder of women, because I say men can experience sexism. I got piled on for disagreeing, and because I was disagreeing with a woman, I was 'mansplaining'. How much feminism do you read?
Now think about that for a second. The arguments for the power-plus redefinition of sexism include that what men go through isn't like what women go through, because the effects are worse on women through the power structure shielding men. The idea is that the impact on men is less, therefore gender or sex based prejudice isn't really 'sexism'. That is literally marginalizing the effects of sexism on men. It's like saying a house cat isn't a cat because it's not as large as a lion. Using the redefinition for certain discussions as a stipulated definition is more than justified and useful, but there are huge drawbacks. Besides the zero-sum assumption of power, it focuses on single-source origins of the problem, and single-solutions well over any of the issues coming from interpersonal sexism. Yet no matter how bad a case of sex-based prejudice or discrimination is against a man, it's not as impactful as any of the sex-based prejudice against a woman. At the same time, they insist this isn't dismissing male-victimization. This is double-think. One cannot claim that sexism is impossible against a man because the impact is less and that they are not dismissing or marginalizing male victimization.
In theory, one should be able to differentiate when someone makes a 'what about the men' argument to dismiss valid feminist concerns or arguments from when 'this is a problem for men too' is a valid point, but in practice with pop feminism, that's not the case. Thankfully there are many, many more thoughtful feminists out there. I'm not going to condemn the more thoughtful ones as MRA without more evidence than 'not anti-MRA enough'. Perhaps I'm guilty of the same error that I'm being critical of and being overly skeptical from one too many cries of 'wolf', but I don't just trust that because people say it's pro-MRA or not a feminists, it's true. I'd rather be guilty of giving people too much benefit of the doubt than not enough.
Again, we know the arguments of the MRA's. We know who Paul Elam is. In that goofy interview she is working hard to legitimize and defend him. This, again, should clue you into the goal, here.
The interview where she specifically says she disagrees with his tactics?
All of the legitimate issues cynically and self-servingly raised by MRA's are being handled by better, less misogynistic people. I have no more interesting in hearing about these beautiful little snowflakes than I do participating in the PR redemption tour of David Duke.
Pretending like they're an unknown quantity is absurd.
No one is pretending they're an unknown quantity.
