So remember the /r/xkcd members realizing that a mod was a racist and MRA and had /r/mensrights and /r/conspiracy linked in the sidebar despite no relevance to XKCD? Well he deleted everybody disagreeing with him and even added /r/theredpill (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
388 ups - 96 downs = 292 votes
164 comments submitted at 00:36:40 on Aug 6, 2013 by Spam4119
shit's 'bout to go dowwwwwwwn
just saw this comment and lold at the -50 vote karma after reading the first sentence:
>Hi folks, /r/MensRights mod here.
http://np.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/1jm5dx/whyisrmensrightsinthesidebarithasnothing/cbg4d5z
Loved this. Thanks. It was hard, but I found one that was actually sensible:
>I'm sorry that the fact that patriarchy and its concomitant essentialized gender roles and stereotypes hurt men too, runs contrary to your preferred victimization narrative.
>But it's, well, a fact: patriarchy hurts men too. Feminism, by opposing patriarchy, is fighting to rectify the very issues MRAs complain about, because those issues are rooted in fundamentally patriarchal assumptions about masculinity.
>I mean, consider, say, child custody cases. The reason mothers are disproportionately awarded sole custody ultimately has its roots in the false assumption that mothers are inherently better caregivers than fathers. However, this assumption is patriarchal at its core: it is an artifact of the patriarchal assignment of separate spheres to men and women, which traditionally placed men in the public sphere controlling the wealth and political power, and consigning women to remain at home.
>By opposing this patriarchal assumption, feminism actually undermines the ideological basis for the unfair treatment of men in child custody cases.
I have to disagree with the idea that just because a perfect feminism would fight against these issues that there is no reason for MR as a concept to exist. Quite frankly, not enough feminists focus on men's issues in a satisfactory way, and most feminist theory today is just too restrictive in its definition of male dominance for it to fight male gender roles effectively. Anybody who tries to fight these roles in a way not pre-approved are shouted down, like Warren Farrell and the like. In a few cases feminists worked against men's issues, but that was largely an artifact of the first and second waves.
Still though, a lot of feminists have a long way to go before they can be said to be fully accommodating of men's issues, and until then, the whole MRM thing has a legitimate reason to exist and a legitimate reason to be skeptical of a lot of feminists when they dismiss or belittle men's issues, or otherwise address them the wrong way. (I will say, however, that the vitriol that internet MRAs have towards feminists is overblown, counterproductive, and in the cases of some of them, outright reactionary and sexist. This is partly why I straddle both camps for now.)
the reason the men's rights movement is not taken seriously is because it is full of the type of people who frequent /r/theredpill. Aka crazy misogynists who think there is a conspiracy against them by women and "beta males"
Feminism is definitely not the same way.
/s
See www.tumblr.com for more details.
I'm tired of this citing of Tumblr as some sort of evidence that feminism is full of batshit crazies.
Tumblr's userbase is mainly frustrated teenage girls who're looking for a community and some sort of cause- it makes sense that due to the last two aspects they'd gravitate towards feminism, and the fact that they're teenagers will mean that of course, they'll ratchet it up to stupendously ridiculous heights. Actual feminist activists are much different from the whole SJW stuff we see on the internet so often.
The same goes for men's rights on Reddit, too, only with 18-22 year-old white guys.
You could say the same thing about reddit, the men's rights movement and sexually frustrated loners.
That's why there was that 4chan/tumblr thing a few years back- all the lonely male virgins and all the lonely female virgins.
Valiant up ther just cited the red pill as prove that MRM is full of batshit crazies.
What gives....
> I'm tired of this citing of [subset] as some sort of evidence that [the whole] is full of batshit crazies.
You and me both, Idiot. You and me both.
Except there are no more Men's Rights Activists. Except those in the big forums and blogs that advocate harassing women in real life.
Feminists have NOW, Emily's List, and large national sororities. MRAs have... Elam. Eww.
Except for CAFE, the boyhood project, the proposed white house council on boys and men, and the good men project
I know about the last two, and I'm pretty sure that they're not MRA ops. I mean, half the writers for the Good Men Project call themselves feminists, y'all's arch-enemies.
Tu quoque is not a good place to live in.
I agree. I wait for the day that the movement gets to the point where it can fracture and shed off the bad part, or that feminism as a political entity is able to absorb the good part.
People in real life are a lot more accepting and sane, from what I've found. Hopefully we see more activism and discussion in real life in the future, because the internet really fails as a platform for meaningful discourse on this topic.
That's totally sensible. In theory, feminism is about equality for the sexes. I've always considered myself a male feminist, and because of that feel sometimes unaware of issues and other times at an advantage in understanding issues. From my own experience, I've been able to impress female feminists with insight into how hard it is not to seem like a predator or a creep as a male, despite not doing anything to deserve such treatment. The important thing to understand is that the problem is two fold, like anything else. I don't disagree at all that your average female feminist may not understand these issues right away, but I would say that the newest wave of feminism has begun to embrace this pretty well. No female feminist I've spoken with has been offended by my insight as a male feminist. I wasn't doing more than enjoying the quote I quoted above, but for my opinion, personally, The Men's Rights movement seems, to me, a little too antagonistic towards feminism, which really should be an ally. That said, I wasn't trying to make any absolute judgment on the MR movement. I just shared the comment insight because it reveals what I find obvious, which is that feminism means equality between the sexes. To judge feminism by some extremists, especially earlier waves, is to completely misunderstand the movement. But I wasn't trying to make any claim about the MR as a whole. I don't really know much about it.
That rings of sense to you? "The Illuminati did it"?
Why are you upvoted? This is non-sequitur. There is nothing in the comment I called sensible about the illuminati. Yet you put it in quotes with the implication that I not only agree with it, but that it was something already mentioned. If you feel the comment I quoted was in some way conspiritard worthy, I would suggest you actually try to explain, rather than just create and obvious straw man.
Patriarchy : Illuminati :: Feminists : NWO Conspiracy Theorists
Cool, so you put colons next to what you've decided are like terms, without any explanation. Do you expect me to have a better understanding of your view, now? Seriously, explain yourself. I am obviously committed enough to try and understand.
"The patriarchy" is characteristed as a nefarious, shadowy force that influences society from behind the scenes in ways that the "uneducated" cannot perceive, seeking to further its own agenda of benefiting the people who perpetuate it, to the detriment of everyone else. Feminists attempt to inform the public of its existance and seek to combat it publicly.
"The illuminati" is characteristed as a nefarious, shadowy force that influences society from behind the scenes in ways that the "unenlightened" cannot perceive, seeking to further its own agenda of benefiting the people who perpetuate it, to the detriment of everyone else. Truthers attempt to inform the public of its existance and seek to combat it publicly.
The dude already explicitly described himself as a "male feminist," so you shouldn't necessarily expect to get anywhere trying to explain things to him.
>"The patriarchy" is characteristed as a nefarious, shadowy force that influences society from behind the scenes in ways that the "uneducated" cannot perceive, seeking to further its own agenda of benefiting the people who perpetuate it, to the detriment of everyone else. Feminists attempt to inform the public of its existance and seek to combat it publicly.
This is not how it is characterized by feminists or academics, those who more commonly use the term. Your made up definition is convenient, however, in that it fits your interest in making it about conspiracy. Patriarchy, if you actually look it up instead of making up your own convenient definition out of nowhere, is defined as a system, usually societal but can also be governmental. The word system is not equivalent to shadowy nefarious force that works from behind the scenes. A system is the scene. It is created naturally, without thought, out of necessity, or deliberately, for many reasons including but not limited to necessity.
Most agree that patriarchy is a cultural system developed within social structures out of necessity. As hunter gatherers and in agricultural groups, and the fact that women were the ones that bore children and men tended to need to be the big muscly laborers, the gender roles that developed are no surprise. And, like any aspect of cultural history, it leaves behind remnants in the present. It's not a bunch of people behind the scenes pushing an agenda, it's a natural sociological development. The average feminist is, naturally, trying to combat the built-in remaining systemic problems in our complex culture and push for a future of equality.
You've professed to come at this with an open mind or at least an attempt to understand, and I've woken up in a good mood, so I'll give you one more shot.
My isssue with it is that it's often viewed, or used, as an attempt to blame society's ills solely on a few men at the top, and then extrapolate that blame to all men everywhere.
By using a word that specifically means "male-dominated" you are implying not that gender roles are the way they are because "during less developed times these gender roles were necessary to ensure survival" (which is an explanation I find no problems with), but that gender roles are the way they are solely because society is "male-dominated". You are reversing cause and effect.
The average man feels no kinship with politicians or CEOs. You are immediately alienating just under half of your potential allies by painting them as colluding with the people who also make their lives harder, purely because of their gender. Feminists could have chosen any word to explain what they mean by this outdated social framework, "tribal hierarchy" or anything at all, which per your explanation I assume is what they blame for society's ills in the arena of gender role perception (because let's face it, the only ones legally disadvantaged anymore aren't women); but they had to specifically choose one that made reference to the gender of those at the top (completely ignoring their own theory on why those people are at the top, and the gender of those at the bottom as well). Blaming all men for the actions of a few is no different than assuming all blacks to be criminals because of the actions of some.
"Patriarchy hurts men too" is the argumental equivalent of grabbing someone's wrists and forcing them to punch themselves in the face while shouting with fake concern "stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!" Outdated stereotypes and outdated gender roles hurt men, yes, but to assume those things exist because of society's top members being majority male is lunacy. The top being male is also a result of those same gender roles and not the cause of it, because the risk-taking behavior that hunter-gatherer men were mandated to shoulder the majority of now results in taking risks with money as CEOs or investors and in the few cases of success, reaping the rewards for it. That's the modern "charging a mammoth with a pointy stick" behaviour.
On paper, I should be a big ol' feminist ally; I'm a gay man who does not conform to any sort of masculine stereotype, and yes, that's gotten me a fair amount of grief through the ages. I do not feel "Patriarchy theory" adequately explains why I have had those experiences; indeed it seems like hatred veneered with a thin layer of pseudo-academia in order to lend legitimacy to itself and consider itself beyond reproach.
There's also the argument that even though you admit that this social system was developed out of neccessity, it's often dismissed out of hand the idea that in order to be an effective social system it must have benefitted women in some way too; and therefore still does. The notion of female privilege is laughed out of feminist circles, even though we're told that having privilege makes one blind to it (much in the worrying manner of Original Sin, but that's another rant for another time).
If male privilege is born of a social order that was necessary to ensure the survival of the species, a social order that protected the species could not effectively do so by disadvantaging half of its population, especially when that half of the population is most responsible for the continuation of the species in the first place. Males were made to take the big hunting risks because they were less important -- crudely, one man can reproduce with many, many women, but women can only have one pregnancy going at a time, making them more valuable for the propagation of humanity. In a society where 90% of men are wiped out hunting mammoths (10 men 100 women, let's say), you could still have 100 children, because each of those men can impregnate 10 women. But with the reverse (100 men 10 women) you only get 10 pregnancies. This is what led to women becoming a protected class, and the remnants of this thinking are why women are discouraged from being front-line soldiers and suchlike. Society affords "traditional women" as many (if not more, due to feminism) advantages as "traditional men" (because I assure you I get near zero of them), and this is female privilege in action. To deny it is to reject your own social theory.
Traditonal women are protected from danger in front-line duty, are provided for by their partner and therefore have no need to work strenuously at a job, enabling them to spend more time with their children. Just because it's not an advantage these feminists want does not mean it isn't an advantage for those who do want it. They are blind to their own privilege. I don't fuckin' want most of the things assumed of me due to my gender to be assumed of me either, especially not that I'm somehow responsible for the perpetuation of these stereotypes.
And that's why I think patriarchy theory is bullshit, at least in name and application as used by most feminists. There are a wealth of other problems with it (such as the fact that not everyone uses or subscribes to the definition you provided me above; some really do treat it as "the illuminati of gender", and the fact that feminists use it as a reason to ignore male societal problems entirely while berating menf or trying to fix their problems on their own) but this has gotten long enough already, and I'll leave it there.
What is patriarchy?
It means a male dominated society. A good example would be "the man of the house". The expectation that the father is the working person of the family "bringing home the bacon", whereas the mother stays at home and takes care of the kids. This is an incompete example, but should get the gist across.
Patriachy is a very traditional societal and family structure. I believe the reason the femminist movement has started recently is because of a large shift in technology levels, including the proliferation of information, standards of living, and the resulting cultural trends.
A patriarchy system, could be argued, was a preferred method of human survival and societal structure in the pre modern era. Which such a system can be argued is no longer necsecary. However, traditional beliefs persist and this is causing the conflict.
I don't understand why anyone would take issue with the idea that we live in a male dominated society.
A lot of people take issue with that, including men. Feminism is not about eliminating or eradicating the "traditional family model", but rather removing its status as the pre-ordained "right" way to live for both men and women. Feminism aims to eliminate the idea that some particular role in life is more or less acceptable or appropriate for a particular person based on their gender. Men are supposed to be tough, not cry, be assertive, learn a trade, get a job and a career, and take care of a wife and kids. Women are supposed to support their husbands, take care of the home, and have babies.
Of course, if a more traditional woman wants to live this life, that's perfectly okay - a lot people think feminists hate women who would choose to live this "inferior" life - which is not true. The problem is when women who would otherwise follow different ambitions are pressured into this life by society and notions of femininity.
TL;DR: Gender roles that are reinforced and built into society don't give a fair shake to those who don't want to play by the rules - and there can often exist a stigma against them.
>a lot people think feminists hate women who would choose to live this "inferior" life
Are you seriously saying this doesn't happen?
'Low Hanging Fruit' flair generally = subreddit dedicated to taking issue with obvious aspects of reality.
I had an argument with someone on Reddit the other day who refused to acknowledge that men were in power through thousands of years of history ಠ_ಠ
To me a Marxist critique makes a lot more sense. Males do not dominate the society, people with money do.
Is it better to be a poor man or an upper-middle-class woman? Which has more options for their life, more recourse to the law, better outcomes for their loved ones?
Uh, women didn't have money because they were property. Even when they were monarchs, they'd be shoveled aside as soon as they gave birth to a boy. I mean, that's the entire reason Queen Elizabeth never took a husband or had children.
Sure, black slaves didn't have money either. Not because they were poor, because they were slaves.
Marxist critiques are very handy, but you're going about it wrong. They're more useful to discuss how remnants of obvious sexist institutions (women as property) manifest today economically (i.e. how stereotypically "female" jobs are still devalued in the marketplace because everyone assumes they're easier or that a woman has a primary breadwinner at home).
That is a Marxist-feminist critique, not a Marxist critique.
Which is precisely my point: a pure Marxist critique (everything can be reduced to the struggle of the ownership caste and the laborer caste, whatever form they take) is erroneous. To establish why women were thought of as property has more to do with gender roles and socialization than it does the labor/owner divide.
because it's only dominated by powerful men
The problem comes when crazy fringe members of groups start using the term for things it's not or for anything they find to be unsatisfactory. The concept of patriarchy and it's effects on both genders is actually a pretty reasonable concept with basis in several of the social sciences. The problem comes when fringe groups start shouting about the patriarchy anytime anybody disagrees with them about anything.
The same thing happens with the term privilege. The concept of some people having an elevated status or a set of circumstances available to them that others don't based on something like race, gender, or orientation is pretty easy to grasp but things like the "Thin Privilege" or "check your cis-privilege" makes the term toxic on places like Reddit.
It's a classic example of the crazies bringing down everyone with them.
Patriarchy (rule by fathers) is a social system in which the male is the primary authority figure central to social organization and the central roles of political leadership, moral authority, and control of property, and where fathers hold authority over women and children. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination. Many patriarchal societies are also patrilineal, meaning that property and title are inherited by the male lineage. The female equivalent is matriarchy.
Relevant definition: Matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership, moral authority, and control of property. It is also sometimes called a gynarchy, a gynocracy, a gynecocracy, or a gynocentric society. The term for males is patriarchy, but, in feminist theory, it is not exactly a parallel term.[1][2]
Basically, the idea that it is a "man's world".
>man's world
Patriarchy explained
I always thought that it was the tradition of everybody automatically being assigned their paternal last name, but I guess there's more to it than that. I do know that just saying the word will act as a dog whistle for both sides of the gender debate.
Man I hate this whole "gender debate". Debate about what? How men and women are destined to forever hate each other? How there's a secret gender war or something? Ugh, it's such meaningless bullshit.
It does seem pretty ridiculous, especially considering that it's something so many people get heated up about here but that's largely nonexistent in the real world.
A way of blaming men for men's problems as well. There is absolutely no way, at all, according to their rhetoric, that women could be the cause of anything bad in the history of the world. It's just men, and if men have issues, they make of them, or they simply say "it's also your fault".
I'm too drunk to define things myself right now, sorry
> What is patriarchy?
As commonly used by feminists, it's the idea that men are evil oppressors of women. Normally if you mention patriarchy theory and feminism together in this subreddit, you get downvoted and told that the two have nothing to do with each other, and in particular that no feminist would ever have anything to do with patriarchy theory.
> I found one that was actually sensible > > patriarchy hurts men too
Feminists pushed for the Tender Years doctrine and the Duluth model.
I hate the historical revisionism quoted above.
Don't blame patriarchy for something feminist orhanizations actively supported.
> Tender Years doctrine
This happened back in 1839, in a time period where women had few individual rights. It has already been replaced 40 years ago. It's not relevant to feminism today.
The idea behind it (that mothers are essential nurturers) is still alive and well, despite the official legal stance moving on to "best interests of the child".
You can't spend a century promoting the idea that the mother is essential to a child's upbringing and then disavow your part in current attitudes about women being expected to take care of children (which would still put the choice of whether or not to have primary custody with women).
>It's not relevant to feminism today.
But it was relevant to feminism then. So it's fucking ridiculous to try to claim that women being given primary custody more often is the result of "patriarchy", when it's a proven fact that feminists advocated for exactly that.
I like that "feminists," a theory that never really got off the ground as woman-led until at least the '20s, is responsible for a law passed in the early 19th-century.
Fuck, are they grasping at straws much or what?
Getting women the vote happened in the 1800s as well. But "feminism" still takes credit for that.
Only the good from history, not the bad, eh?
Wait, what country gave women the vote in the 1800's? In the US it didn't happen until 1920.
Apparently some voting rights were given to some women in some states prior to 1900, so, you know. Pedantry.
> Feminists pushed for the Tender Years doctrine and the Duluth model.
True, they did...almost 200 years ago. At that point in time, most Americans also supported allowing slavery. About 100 years ago feminists hitched their wagons to temperance as a social issue. I don't know too many of them who support it now. Society changes and social mores change with it. The Tender Years Doctrine was neutralized and left behind in the 70s - weirdly enough, in the same time frame as the advent of Second Wave feminism, although the two were by no means causally linked.
>The reason mothers are disproportionately awarded sole custody ultimately has its roots in the false assumption that mothers are inherently better caregivers than fathers. However, this assumption is patriarchal at its core
Patriarchy, before feminists hijacked the term, just meant rule of the father. So the attitude that women are better caretakers is almost THE OPPOSITE of what patriarchy is.
Not only that, but feminist organizations like NOW still go out of their way to oppose equal custody legislation to this very day.
So this whole argument is fucking retarded and it's amazing that feminists keep embarrassing themselves by continuing to parrot this idiocy over and over.
> However, this assumption is patriarchal at its core: it is an artifact of the patriarchal assignment of separate spheres to men and women
This is as best historicism, at worst a conspiracy theory: at some point, men got together and decided that thus should it be, and women didn't get a say, right?
What we assert, is that gender roles have grown. (I'd say evolved, but that evokes associations to biological inevitability that I don't think are justified). Women have contributed to them as well as men. Thus, calling it patriarchy is misleading.
Men and women on the whole love each other. We do! We are biologically inclined to seek approval, admiration and intimacy with the other group - what do you think the world would look like if that was true for rich vs. poor, or black vs. white?
As a consequence of our fundamental, balanced codependence, the gender roles that men and women have hammered out between themselves are not unbalanced by default - but they can easily become so, for instance if they don't keep up with a quickly changing society.
Notice some things about the argument you quote above? Men's grabbing of power and wealth, that's cast as intentional. But women getting more custody, that's cast as an unintended side effect.
Well, I've been to family court, and the law that doomed my hopes of getting equal custody, that has been actively lobbied for by feminist organizations, against father's rights organizations (and some feminists, to be fair) who want to get rid of it.
So I've seen a lot of conscious intention the other way. This hypothetical "undermining of the ideological basis for unfair treatment", however, I've seen little of.
thats before mortal kombat was released or after?
It's all nonsensical gibberish which not even you understand, but since it's got buzzwords like "patriarchy is bad", "patriarchy hurts men" and "feminism" you probably think it's awesome.
Unlike feminists, MRA's SHOW STATISTICAL FACTS and legitimate sources to back up their claims. Feminism simply repeats the same allegations without any proof.
That text you posted over here is just a bunch of generic claims with no way to prove them right or wrong, they are nothing but an agglomerate of buzzwords to cause reaction to those who read it.
You should try viewing the other side of the discussion whether to blindly accept whatever sounds most "politically correct" without any backup.
If not, you'll just be like the main dumb audience of Fox News.
This is a classic case of underestimation. I, like any person, am susceptible to manipulation, but I do work hard to continually educate myself and my opinions tend to work in probabilities more, now, than in any complete certainty. If you really think the comment I copied above is convincing based solely in its manipulative buzzwords, it would suit you better to actually explain, rather than make bold claims about my interpretation, about which you know nearly nothing.
Rather than me explaining it to you, I'd think my train of though would be better relayed to you if you understood where I come from.
Read through r/mensrights for a while and tell me what you think of it.
Yes, I will do all the research into your point of view and you can just sit there and make empty accusations whenever I "don't understand" or "do enough research on" your point of view. How about you actually try to articulate your reasoning, like anyone who attempts to make logical claims.
Ok fine, then tell me how the fuck is patriarchy hurting men and men's rights?
Dude. Biased much?
Everyone is biased, he's just biased and disagrees with you. (not that I agree with him, or you.)
>not that I agree with him, or you
I wouldn't expect any less from you Mitler.
Bullshit.
Modern feminists love playing the victim. If the "womyn are poor oppressed victims and need help" is supposedly a narrative pushed by the ~~illuminati~~ patriarchy then modern feminists are the patriarchy's most influential mouthpiece.
Western society favors women, saying otherwise is silly. The only time it's different is when it conflicts with religion (abortion restrictions are made from religious reasons, not misogyny). That's why there has been such a push on non-issues, just look up "cunt" on Urban Dictionary there are multiple top results saying its "the most hurtful word in the English language", or you can look at the Anita crap.
you seem bitter.
did you seriously cite urbandictionary as proof that people are "pushing non-issues"?
>you seem bitter.
Oh sure put me in my place.
And Urban Dictionary is a popular crowd source that has had enough clout to be used in a court case, dismissing from a quick poll on public opinion is pretty silly. Also it wasn't my only example, but that probably doesn't matter to someone who resorts to the "U mad bro? Le troleface!" so quickly.
Edit: after seeing a comment you made elsewhere in the thread pretty much saying MR are a bunch of Redpillers I can see how you might find this a difficult concept that "straw feminists" aren't so full of straw after all.
That's not really indicative of your average feminist, much like most of the MRA stereotypes are probably not real.
You get into trouble when you start assuming that /r/theredpill and and /r/tumblrinaction and shit like that represent the actual average demographics of a movement.
And yet a vast majority would believe the "MRAs are all rape apologists" BS but of you ever point out crazy feminists they're dismissed/not believed and called "straw feminists".
Anyways I probably should be more specific. I'm sure the vast majority of people who identify as feminist are absolutely fine, it's just from what I see the activist side, the people who have made feminism a career, are batshit insane.
Yet a man could never lead a feminism group to fight against these issues. How is it fair to say this and then shut men out of the fight against these issues at the same time?
>>>>Randall sometimes brings up topical men's rights issues in his own way. For one reason or another men are the primary demographic for his comics and gender issues are occasionally a focus. See this[2] and this[3] , and even this[4] and this[5] .
>>>I don't see how any of those suggest any kind of support for /r/MensRights
>>I'm not sure how you inferred that I believe Randall supported men's rights.
>The first sentence I quoted literally says that.
Wat? Since when does bringing up an issue mean that you support a particular side of the discussion?
If I was a disgraced moderator I would go out in a blaze of glory which is what I hope this mod is.