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IMO there's nothing wrong with Men's Rights as a cause, but if you look at, for example, /r/mensrights on Reddit an absolutely toxic hatred of women pervades th

• p_l 7y ago
  Such communities are easy pickings for exploitation, which is how they get infiltrated and made toxic to hell. See also "incel", something that started out from a woman's blog and turned from self-deprecating to a bit of mutual help, to finally a toxic hell hole.
  • untog 7y ago
    Yeah, it makes me really sad that (particularly in the incel case) young men looking for a support community basically end up being radicalised. Lessons for society as a whole, I suppose.
• dTal 7y ago
  I think if you looked at the early years of feminism, you would a similar hatred of men. Only people who have been pushed to the absolute brink are prepared to break the social taboos. The sooner the world accepts that there needs to be a conversation about equality going both ways, the sooner that anger will be defused. Arguing about who has it "worse" is probably counterproductive now. (All of this applies mainly to the western cultural context. Some places in the world are still at the stage of needing suffragettes)
  • untog 7y ago
    > I think if you looked at the early years of feminism, you would a similar hatred of men. I'd be fascinated to see a historical account of that. Many suffragettes (including the founder Emmeline Pankhurst) were married. Perhaps they all hated their husbands, but I'd be interested to know more. > Arguing about who has it "worse" is probably counterproductive now. It's kind of unavoidable, though. Encouraging women to report domestic violence, and taking action when they do, has a knock-on effect of there being more false accusations and innocent men punished. So it's a direct tradeoff. The key is to try to minimise those tradeoffs as much as possible.
    • adrianN 7y ago
      I think being unmarried as a woman was a recipe for a live in poverty back then.
    • alexandercrohde 7y ago
      > I'd be fascinated to see a historical account of that. Well, not a hard-source, but having been alive in the 90's most women didn't consider themselves feminists in the 90s. And if pressed they'd say things like "I believe in equality but I wouldn't call myself a feminist." Anecdotally, there was a perception that those who most loudly and immediately identified themselves as "feminist" (not unlike those who most loudly and immediately identify as men's-right-activists) had a HUGE emotional investment in the topic and saw unfairness/oppression everywhere. Additionally, with 90's feminism at least, some women associated loud self-proclamations of feminism as a move more common to "butch" women. Hopefully the conversation on treatment of men will make as much progress in 20 short years.
      • lonelappde 7y ago
        Maybe because there was oppression/unfairness everywhere? Where not being sexually assaulted at work was a rare privilege?
        • dexterdog 7y ago
• honestoHeminway 7y ago
  I actually doubt this narrative to be true. Woman had there way of getting "saved" by other men, institutions and religion for all this time. The only thing always there was the victim narrative. Source: Grew up in a evangelical household- woman always held the hidden strings, and used most of the males (who choose this lifestyle) as shields and pawns to play.
• cheez 7y ago
  > That said, historically women have been on the receiving end of physical violence from men far, far more often than vice versa and were told to suffer in silence Statistically, this is not true. In relationships where there is one-sided violence, the violence is (something like) 70/30 with the woman initiating the violence. In relationships where there is two-sided violence, the woman initiates the violence more than half of the time. These studies are hard to find and often have no funding because they get shouted out of the mainstream consciousness. Here is a study that covers part of this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/ Ask yourself why you've never heard of it. If you are speaking historically, surely you are not suggesting incarceration of men as reparations for things we didn't do?
  • untog 7y ago
    > The authors say they have no intention of minimizing the very real problem of serious domestic violence — the classic male batterer. The survey did not cover the use of knives, guns, choking, or burning, and it was not concerned with the kind of situation that can drive a woman to seek shelter outside the home. The view of the authors is that most intimate partner violence should not be equated with severe battering. Domestic disputes that turn physical because of retaliation and escalation do not have the same causes or the same consequences as male battering. Couples counseling is generally regarded as ineffective for batterers, but if the violence is moderate and the injuries are minor, both partners are involved, and they want to stay together, it makes sense for a therapist to work with both of them. https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/In_Brief_Domestic_violence_Not_always_one_sided https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/In_Brief_D... The article's own summary suggests against making the kind of conclusions the article you linked to makes. > If you are speaking historically, surely you are not suggesting incarceration of men as reparations for things we didn't do? Not even slightly and it's an absurd reading of my post to suggest that I am.
    • cheez 7y ago
      > The article's own summary suggests against making the kind of conclusions the article you linked to makes. Of course, they have to. Do you think 30% of men murder their wives? No, clearly it's some small percentage that severely batter. Therefore, those are the statistics that I would ignore and rather focus on the remainder who are the men that suffer as a result of this type of conflation. It's politically easy to conflate the two, of course. But it isn't intellectually honest. > Not even slightly and it's an absurd reading of my post to suggest that I am. So why should historical events I have no responsibility for serve to restrict my freedom? In an argument with my wife, I am the batterer, in divorce court, I am simply a pocket to be picked. Let's make sure we understand the power dynamics at play. This is about reducing my autonomy to benefit a certain segment of society.
• hyperpape 7y ago
  Generally agree with you. However, I don't think "overcorrected" is the right term for issues around childcare and family dynamics. The idea that women are always better caretakers is something most feminist theorists would call "benevolent sexism". It has some advantages for women, but it also hurts them in the workplace, and promotes unreasonable divisions of labor in private life.
• 50656E6973 7y ago
  >historically women have been on the receiving end of physical violence from men far, far more often than vice versa and were told to suffer in silence. Historically, men have been on the receiving end of violence far, far more than women. Far more likely to be assaulted/murdered on the street, convicted for a crime they did not commit, or drafted into and killed in war.
  • untog 7y ago
    What's your actual point here? That domestic violence shouldn't be discussed because men go to war?
    • 50656E6973 7y ago
      >They still suffer far more You're creating a false dichotomy by claiming women suffer more from physical violence from men. History and context are important for understanding reality as a whole (as best as we can). In all honesty we should be framing these issues as human problems. Creating false dichotomies, dividing men against women, and then trying to play victim olympics under false pretenses is disingenuous not helpful to humanity.
      • untog 7y ago
        And you're selectively quoting me. I did not say "women suffer far more", I said "women suffer more from violence by men than vice versa". If you're going to debate a quote at least be honest about it. Framing things as human problems is a lovely concept, but disparities exist. Ignoring them by labeling them a "false dichotomy" and talking about "victim olympics" does not help solve any issues. You can't solve an issue without identifying its causes. Otherwise we end up asking "how do we solve violence as a human problem" and guess what, nothing ever gets solved.
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• bubblewrap 7y ago
  "historically women have been on the receiving end of physical violence from men far" Without the "from men" it would presumably not even be true. And the "from men" doesn't really justify retaliating against modern men in general. Some men are rapists, most men fight rapists and many risk their lives in the line of defense (policemen, fire fighters, soldiers...). Yet they also get blamed for the deeds of the rapists. It's just weird.
• belorn 7y ago
  > That said, historically women have been on the receiving end of physical violence from men far, far more often than vice versa It is funny how statistics works. If we look at questioners, women and men report the same amount of physical violence from partners. If we look at households the rate of police reports for domestic violence is identical regardless of what gender the inhabitants has. There is no gender difference in who is on the receiving end of physical violence. There is however a gender difference in the method of physical violence. Women mostly use knives and makeshift weapons. Men mostly use their hands. As is, knives and makeshift weapons don't actually do a lot of damage on average when wielded by someone not trained. Fists however almost always causes damages, especially when repeated.