TIL about Earl Silverman, a domestic abuse survivor who founded a shelter for men. It was denied funding from the government and he was ridiculed. The shelter went bankrupt and he died by suicide
TIL about Earl Silverman, a domestic abuse survivor who founded a shelter for men. It was denied funding from the government and he was ridiculed. The shelter went bankrupt and he died by suicide
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Hmm, now I have concerns after watching this thread unfold. OP created their account 2 days ago and this thread is the only thing they've posted. They haven't even made any comments here or elsewhere.
And, different from the beginning, this thread is quickly becoming just the usual whinging from the bigoted MRA types that hate all women.
This thread feels like it was a setup.
Even if the messenger might have dubious motives, I think the message deserves to be heard.
Yeah, I'm glad to know about it. I just hate that this might be a further example of Silverman's life and work being taken advantage of by the bad parts of the men's rights movement.
🤔 So we need to focus on solutions.
What do you think would solve the problem of domestic abuse as a whole?
I mean, the most straightforward way that would have the best outcome is if all domestic abuse claims are treated as credible and investigated equally. The current issue with how domestic abuse victims that are men are treated, which itself is rather tied into the long-term stereotypically viewpoint on men that the bad parts of the MRA groups have perpetuated, is the idea that men can't be abused, raped, or anything like that.
Changing that perception socially is the key to better treatment and outcomes being available, for organizations like what Silverman made to be taken seriously.
into the long-term stereotypically viewpoint on men that the bad parts of the MRA groups have perpetuated, is the idea that men can’t be abused, raped, or anything like that.
Huh? That's...never been a position I've ever seen taken seriously in MRA spaces. The opposite actually.
It's not as bad as it used to be once upon a time, but once upon a time (still in the 21st century, but I'm probably older and been in this kind of conversation longer than most of you) it was mostly feminist types claiming that men couldn't be victims, or minimizing what that meant (like Mary Koss describing a man being drugged and forced into vaginal intercourse with a woman against his will as just "unwanted contact" rather than assault or rape just 8 years ago).
Are you getting MRAs confused with incels or the grosser flavors of PUAs?
this thread is quickly becoming just the usual whinging from the bigoted MRA types that hate all women.
Where, exactly? Is pointing out men have issues that get ignored (by women and men alike) equal to hating women? Because in 200+ comments i’ve seen maybe 3 or 4 actually hating on women.
One of the top comments is all about calling feminists "shitbags", as just one example.
True feminism is absolutely fine, as true feminism would be for such a shelter existing. Feminism is about equality between the sexes.
In this case “feminists” didn’t like this. So, yeah, fuck those “feminists”.
This is the only comment in the thread with the word "shitbag". And there is only one upvoted top comment who even mentions feminists, saying "There is a lot (of) feminism that really just amounts to men-hating". Coincidentally, from a trans girl praising a woman.
Really, I don't get where those "bigoted MRA types that hate all women" are supposed to be in this thread.
It's weird that I have to inform you on how Lemmy/Kbin comment sections work, but when they get long enough, multiple pages of comments are made. They aren't all viewable on the same page.
Look for the second (or more) page buttons at the bottom. It might blow your mind.
You're looking for a top level comment by Binthinkin, by the way.
Oh, you mean the comment that got removed by mods, doesn't show up in the thread, and is at a -24 score looking at it from their profile? Modlog shows it's been removed 2 days ago so it wasn't even up when you started commenting. Not sure how did you even find it, definitely not just by "looking at the second page".
But absolutely, this thread is a setup and one removed and heavily downvoted comment out of 200+ is definitely proof.
EDIT: I see you're from kbin so I'm guessing it was a federation error not syncing the mod action. Still, unless kbin doesn't show downvotes, it should be pretty clear it was far from a popular opinion anyway.
I can still perfectly see this comment, which is sitting at a +20/-2.
I can't see that without a kbin account. This is how it shows up in Lemmy instances. If the difference is so big and it's a federation issue as well there has to be some manipulating going on, pretty much every reply to his comment is pointing out how unnecessarily aggressive they were to feminism as a whole.
Comsidering feminists led the charge to get it shut down, thats a fair claim.
It's especially sticky because "Men's Rights" is a bait-and-switch, ripping off "Men's Liberation."
Men's Liberation is associated with feminist movements, because patriarchy hurts everyone. That's not to equivocate between the extents to which men and women suffer under it (or any group under systemic bigotry), but liberation and egalitarianism would help us all.
So Men's Rights does the thing where it appeals to people with genuine grievances, but offers them a bullshit solution that benefits grifters and people in power. It's not this systemic problem, it's this group of people, and if only we could deal with them, everything would magically fix itself. In this case, "It's not patriarchy, it's not capitalism, it's feminists, and women in general. If only we could get them back in their place, your life would be back on track. So vote for me/sign up for my course..."
So, bringing up the ways in which men also suffer under sexism can kick up some dirt to muddy the waters, intentionally or not. Some will be bad faith actors who just want to shit on feminism. Others will be taking the feminist side on this. And those in the middle, who see things turn toxic, can go any way—but if they stay neutral, or especially move right, then the reactionaries gain some ground.
So I don't know what's in OP's heart. But, at least from way too many fights online, I've found that the best course of action is to assume good faith, and give reactionaries enough rope to hang themselves. They don't have the better ideas, and they don't have the better plans, but they're good at shit-flinging. If you just make a good case, they tend to unmask pretty quickly and fall apart. There's no point trying to convince a die-hard bigot, but you can play to the audience by just making the better case and helping bigots embarrass themselves.
In my opinion, at least, for whatever that's worth. Sorry for the rambling!
This is why I like Leftwing Male Advocates instead.
Men’s Liberation is associated with feminist movements,
In my experience, men's lib is like men's rights if the first rule of men's rights was to never question any feminist position, the second rule was to never question any woman's position unless it contradicts the first rule, and the third rule is any men's issue needs to be framed in such a way that it's primarily about benefiting women. Just follow those three rules and you too can discuss men's issues without it being evil altright misogyny!
I actually found it amusing to see MensLib types talking positively about Contrapoints "Men" video, for example. I actually had to go back and rewatch some old stuff to make sure she wasn't directly plagiarizing Alison Tieman since some of her points were so close to things Tieman wrote like a decade before that. Alison Tieman of course being best known for Honey Badger Radio.
I suspect I'm a bit older than most in these conversations, or at least have engaged with it longer. I'll say this, feminism has improved with how they deal with men's issues over the last 25 or so years. Though to be fair, 25 years ago simply claiming it's impossible for a man to be the victim of abuse was the default position, so that's a low bar.
2008 you had angry protests in Canada because a group called CAFE had a speaker giving a talk about suicide in men - if you've ever seen the "Big Red" feminist meme, it came from this protest, she was a protester and was basically shouting a Jezebel article at people and screaming at anyone who dared interrupt her calling them things like "fuckface."
We could also look at Mary Koss, who is kind of a major figure in research around sexual assault in the US. She performed the first real study on the topic, and her definitions and instruments and ones descended from them are still used. As recently as 8 years ago she responded to a question about a man being raped by a woman by asking how that could even happen. When given an example in which a man was drugged and ridden by a woman she outright stated that she wouldn't call that rape but "unwanted contact". https://soundcloud.com/889-wers/male-rape
Also, women's studies and feminist theories aren't about truth but about providing a scholarly veneer backing activism. To quote Kelly Oliver, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University who specializes in feminism, political philosophy and ethics: "feminist theory cannot claim to describe what exists, or, 'natural facts.' Rather, feminist theories should be political tools, strategies for overcoming oppression in specific concrete situations. The goal, then, of feminist theory, should be to develop strategic theories—not true theories, not false theories, but strategic theories."
because patriarchy hurts everyone.
Patriarchy is the wrong way to view it all. Patriarchy theory has it's origins in Marxist class conflict which is a reasonable way to view economic class but breaks down the farther you wander from economic class (hell, the only reason it even kinda works for race in the US is because of what the three largest racial groups are and their economic relationship to each other both historically and currently).
It's just a bad model for how gender works. A great example of this is that you can point to all kinds of stats as evidence that the criminal justice system is racist and oppresses black people, but break down those same measurements by sex instead of race and that same argument would suggest that the criminal justice system is sexist and oppresses men, which the same people who will use those measures re:race as evidence of oppression will also tell you is definitely wrong because it's backwards from their presumed hierarchy.
That’s not to equivocate between the extents to which men and women suffer under it (or any group under systemic bigotry), but liberation and egalitarianism would help us all.
My biggest gripe with feminism is that when equal treatment and what benefits women are not the same thing, feminism breaks in favor of what benefits women. See for example pushes for family court to adopt a rebuttable presumption of shared custody, most of the opposition against which would frame itself as feminist. Or the DeVos Title IX policy changes and the anger and backlash at them, where most of the changes were either codifying things schools had been successfully sued over or establishing some frankly fucking obvious notions of fair due process, like that the person representing the accuser's side and the person deciding the result should not be the same person (the DeVos setup requires at least three people aside from the accused and accuser be involved in a hearing, serving roles analogous to prosecutor, defense attorney and judge) or that the accused shouldn't be punished until after a determination is made (instead it calls for non-punitive measures where needed, like adjusting schedules to avoid contact between parties or other things that would minimize issues while not damaging anyone's educational progress).
The problem is that everytime a mens issue comes up, like this thread, we get a bunch of feminists/mens lib coming in and posting shit like this, instead of talking about the issue.
And its not like feminists/mens lib are egalitarian, they mainly fight for women. Thats great, they have a topic and they stick to it. But they dont fight for men.
Imagine if there were a group of men where every time a women's issue came up, they would barge in and started talking about how its really women's fault. Its not a good look. Thats mens lib, and thats why theres more MRAs then Men Libs.
Lay off the conspiracies. I am not a part of MRA or Men’s lib nor do I care to be. I thought this story and the man behind it deserved recognition. I used a throwaway because I (correctly) assumed people would come after me for making this post. It’s ridiculous that you can’t even acknowledge the lack of men’s shelters without people screaming ulterior motives.
The real MVP here
I was thinking the same. Thank you for saying this.
Am i missing something or are you just desperate to defend the claim that women can nothing wrong and men are always the baddies
See, you're proving my point. This thread should be about men's rights issues and focusing on improving treatment and options, like the facility that Silverman setup. But y'all instead are trying to make the subject matter about how all women are bad.
It's especially about how feminism is bad. That's the center point about the majority of the manosphere. They do not care for men or men's issues. They care about anti-feminism. It has gotten so bad that a lot of people now equate feminism with misandry, at least that is my impression from what I read online. Mind you, this is the intended effect of the rhetoric MRA's use on social media.
It’s especially about how feminism is bad.
For some men's issues, feminism is the primary obstacle.
For example, one issue that gets brought up time and time again is family court bias, especially regarding custody. It used to be once upon a time that custody went to whoever could best materially provide for a child (typically the father). Early what I guess you call proto-feminists successfully replaced that with the tender years doctrine (essentially that a child needs it's mother), which later got dropped in favor of essentially whatever that judge happens to think is best decades later when women getting custody by default was deemed part of patriarchy. The problem is that by that point it had enough cultural inertia that a bias remains in favor of it.
The typical MRA suggestion to fight this is formal law or policy stating that family court must start from a position that shared custody is best for the child unless there is a good reason for it to be otherwise - a rebuttable presumption of shared custody. This generally meets opposition from feminists who essentially start arguing about cases that are nearly always also things spelled out as examples of "good reasons otherwise" (such as abuse). In one case, feminist protesters basically described men who wanted more equal custody as the abusers lobby because in their eyes the only reason men would want to see their children more is to use those children as a means to abuse their ex.
A rebuttable presumption of shared custody has actually passed into law in two states, the first was Kentucky.
Well, obviously. Men's issues will continue to be ignored as long as they are used as an emotional cudgel to deny women's validation for theirs, and that's a bitter pull the MRA douchebags need to swallow and fast. That is, if they actually care about men.