Does The Men's Rights Movement Have A Future?
Does The Men's Rights Movement Have A Future?
Inspired by this essay https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/d504rr026
The parallels between the contemporary MRM and Environmentalism are striking, and elucidated sharply in the writings of dissidents within The Green Movement, similar to those expressed in the link above. Just a few parallels
Quote: "There is a paradox at the heart of contemporary American environ- mentalism. On the one hand, its organizations are generally larger, stronger, bet- ter funded, and more knowledgeable than ever before. Membership has grown in recent years; there are now more than eight million dues- paying members of the major national organi- zations—and many more in local and statewide organizations—compared to about two million in 1980. Moreover, polls consistently show very high levels of public support for environmen- tal protection, levels that would be the envy of many progressive movements."
In a similar fashion, "men's issues" have, in a sense never enjoyed the sort of exposure that they enjoy today. While MRA organizations aren't necessarily larger and stronger than they were in the past, more of them exist than was the case at the beginning of the 2010s, especially at the local and state level. Similarly, polls consistently show that public support for initiatives like shared parenting legislation, criminal justice reform, and restoring due process on university campuses is high
"And yet: environmentalists find themselves playing defense far more than offense, devoting time and resources to fighting proposals such as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, rather than forging new responses to crises such as climate change. Indeed, noth- ing that these large and expert organizations accomplished during the Clinton-Gore years— to say nothing of the present Bush years—com- pares to such landmark victories as the Na- tional Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, which a much more inchoate movement won a generation ago."
We here at The MRM have similarly been playing defense more than offense since this iteration of the movement began in the mid-10s. During the movement's heyday between '15 and '19, our activity was mostly confined to Triggering The Libs on social media, and issuing rebuttals to things like The Gillete Ad and Brie Larson's comments( https://variety.com/video/brie-larson-crystal-lucy-awards-critics/ )via YouTube videos, rather than forging fresh responses to crises like under and unemployment in America, a phenomena which disproportionately affects men. The present MRM's achievements during The Trump years(an era which was ostensibly more friendly to MRA talking points) aren't remotely comparable to the legislative and social victories of a more inchoate movement during The 90s and The 2000s https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10183 https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-06-30-9102270767-story.html https://reason.com/1994/07/01/man-troubles/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d28usWdvmSg Robert Glover published his seminal book No More Nice Guy in '02 https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20020509&slug=niceguy09 , and Marc Rudov published his book around the same time https://www.amazon.com/Mans-No-Nonsense-Guide-Women-Succeed/dp/0974501719
James Cook and David Levy won imperfect yet monumental legislative victories, while advocates like Baber, Kammer, and Arst gave us what The Woke Warriors over at The Take now lament as The Post-Feminist late 90s-2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBxgEIcMB6o Ya know, the days where Askmen.com was writing from an unapologetically male standpoint ( https://uk.askmen.com/top_10/dating/top-10-signs-youre-too-good-for-her.html https://www.askmen.com/dating/dating_advice_60/80b_dating_tips.html https://www.askmen.com/top_10/dating/top-10-signs-shell-be-a-bad-mother.html https://au.askmen.com/top_10/dating/things-women-do-to-emasculate-men_3.html ); loudly as today's Ayatollahs Of Red Pill Theology doth protest to the contrary, they haven't said anything new.
Starting in the early 2000s, public willingness to acknowledge that women were just as prone to murderous acts as we men are led to the creation of the series Snapped, which didn't portray the gals they profiled as anything but the criminals that they are. In '09, one of NPR's flagship programs-Talk Of The Nation-brought the terrific Ned Holstein on to discuss the fraud that is The Duluth Model https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106820029 , and even Tyra Banks devoted an entire hour to female on male DV, in which the perpetrator wasn't given a free pass because she was female https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdC0a_agt0E By contrast, the present day MRM is largely seen as sideshow unto itself, more famous for it's association with non-troverseries like Gamer Gate and Comics Gate than anything else. Here in '22, Third Wave Feminism still exerts the stranglehold over the mainstream media that an earlier decade of feminism did during the late 70s-the late 90s, and there's no signs of this stranglehold loosening it's grip anytime soon
"The same polls that regularly show high levels of public support also reveal this support to be quite shallow. The environ- ment rarely rises to the upper levels of con- cern. This may help explain why, despite the gulf between George W. Bush’s and John Kerry’s policy proposals, environmental issues generated almost no attention during the presi- dential campaign."
Not much of a rewrite required here. The polls also indicate that while public support for making shared parenting legislation the law of the land, criminal justice reform, and enforcing due process on campus are high, that support is also remarkably shallow, and rarely coming anywhere close to the Top 5 worries which are foremost in the minds of most Americans. This may account, at least in part, for the fact that neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden said much about men's issues during the last election cycle, despite The MRM having enjoyed 18 minutes of fame during the mid-10s, during which time they were often blamed for Trump's victory by the mainstream media
For all of they hype around Cassie Jaye's documentary The Red Pill upon it's release, it was also largely a phenomena among self-proclaimed Anti-sJWs(the contemporary MRM is an outgrowth of this subculture, much in the same Environmentalism is an outgrown of of this subculture, much in the same Environmentalism is an outgrown of The Counterculture of The 60s)and their followers. The general public still continues to view The MRM as little more than a gaggle of socially inept and neck bearded man-babies, who blame all of the disappointment sin their lives on women, feminism, The New World Order, The Lizard People, etc etc
I could go with the parallels, but I'm not sufficiently motivated to do so. The rest of you all read Meyer's essay, and let me know where you agree with me or think I'm flat out wrong
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I have always been suspicious of any "rights" movement among those with power. Whether it's "White rights," the "rights" of corporations, the rights of the property class and wealthy, or Men's Rights. It is not that such rights do not exist or that there are no grievances deserving of redress, it's that they too often are self-serving attempts to retain or increase power.
I am of the opinion that the vast majority of legitimate male grievance against society would be better addressed by bringing to heel the corporations, the wealthy, and those who seek political power for personal gain.
Yeah, I've understood this community and similar ones to be about social norms, not rights. Your rights aren't being violated if someone tells you boys don't cry, but that person sure is being an asshole spreading bs and we should tell them they're wrong and push for better social norms
That leads to an entirely separate subject... The most pressing challenges today aren't ones of "rights", but matters of human development and individual choice
spoiler
sdfsaf
None of which is relevant to anything we've been discussing on this thread
I don't think that you can put any of this down to individual choices. Individual men aren't the ones making choices that it's 'gay' to cry when you feel sad, or that being a Real Man (tm) means that you bottle up your feelings and push through the suck until you can't anymore and eat a shotgun for breakfast. These are societal-wide issues that are guiding people into the 'right' choices based on their presumed gender. While there is certainly some biology involved in how people act, those expressions are heavily shaped by society, and aren't within the control of any single person.
I mean, yeah, it's a patriarchal system, and that system causes harm to men also, and limits the ability that men have to express who they are as individuals, in the same way that it harms women, and limits their expression of self (and overall power within society).
"I don’t think that you can put any of this down to individual choices. Individual men aren’t the ones making choices that it’s ‘gay’ to cry when you feel sad, or that being a Real Man ™ means that you bottle up your feelings and push through the suck until you can’t anymore and eat a shotgun for breakfast"
No one forces us to do such things. If these aren't individual choices, who's making us do them?
Another way of thinking about all of this:
Much of what’s said here https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/peter-pomerantsev-how-to-win-an-information-war/ Is equally applicable to turning the tide of public receptivity to “men’s issues”
7:05-7:13 We here at The MRM have been operating under the (uninterrogated)belief that Intersectional Feminism’s proponents are nigh-omnipotent sorcereresses(occasionally sorcerers), who turn docile plebs into blood thirsty misandrists, just by uttering magic lies from behind their microphones. Turns out, the explanation for their success at winning public influence may be simultaneously more prosaic AND more profound:
Intersectionalists provide their prospective converts with not simply one, but SEVERAL roles to play, within the framework of what appears to be, at first glance, a heroic saga… Powerhouse career women and their male allies, who successfully balance lucrative corporate careers with bravely campaigning for social justice, and thwarting the bigots’s schemes to establishing world domination. Bombastic, yet highly seductive and exciting
By contrast, The MRM really only provided our potential converts with one role, in an extremely dreary, unusually unattractive tale… Societal dropout, who’s idea of fun is endlessly griping over all the shit in modern life he disapproves of, yet rarely if ever discussing his/they’re goals and desires. Or a vision of the world they’d like to see
9:50ish-12:00 We’ve been, dare I say, Blue Pill in our understanding of the way many Intersectionalists operate, especially in their speeches and writings. To a large degree, they’re acting whilst doing so. We know this because the Susan Danuta Walters’s of the world(An admitted angry lesbian slithering through the halls of academia, who leads a highly bohemian lifestyle, even when she’s off the clock)really are a microsliver of the human race. The vast majority of Intersectionalists are themselves mostly upper middle class-all points beyond, leading highly “traditional lives”. Including marriages to people of the opposite sex, and raising kids of their own. At first glance, these folks are indistinguishable from those who comprise The Heritage Foyndation’s executive board
Those gigantic crowds who erupt in orgies of virulent rage during Intersectionalist soeeches? They’re almost certainly playing a role also. That Woke sympathizing grads of The New School like this chick https://youtu.be/lZs-Eb6H5BU?si=Gkq5Pj8IphUjWfBH 5:20-7:00 still yearn for a white picket fence house, kids(Plural), and a loving husband of her own is testament to this
This misreading poisoned fatally the way most MRAs conceptualized the extrenal world. That in turn tanslated into their/us pursuing a strategy which failed to convince The 80% of the public who’s still on the fence-and thus amenable to persuasion-to support us
26:19-26:43 It may behoove those of us who are Post-MRM to imagine ourselves having similar conversations with our descendants, at some future date:
-“Daddy, Mummy says you were an activist back in the day. Does that mean you were kinda like Iron Man or a Jedi Knight”
-"No, sweetness: I was pretty much a real life equivalent to The Continental Op. Go Wiki that name, and pay close attention to this paragraph: “The Continental Op is a master of deceit in the exercise of his occupation. In his 1927 Black Mask story “$106,000 Blood Money” the Op is confronted with a dilemma: should he expose a corrupt fellow detective, thereby hurting the reputation of his agency; and should he also allow an informant to collect the $106,000 reward in a big case even though he is morally certain—but cannot prove—that the informant has murdered one of his agency’s clients? The Op resolves his two problems neatly by manipulating events so that the corrupt detective and the informant get into an armed confrontation in which both are killed”
That’s how I and most of my peers rolled… We used highly innovative tactics in the neverending quest that is enhancing and safeguarding the cause of liberty for one and all. Both you and every other child today enjoys a richer, freer life than those of who’ve lived prior, largely thanks to your predecessors’s iron commitment to pragmatism and the pursuit of concrete, tangible objectives"
29:56-30:43 The current iteration of The MRM similarly has, since it’s inception, operated under an assumption which goes something like: “We need to provoke a psychosocial revolution in the human species, the likes of which rids Normie society of all it’s prejudices and biases towards men. THEN, when can go about not simply changing laws and policies, but building A Red Pill Kingdom Of Heaven on Earth, free of all tragedy and pain”. Such an assumption fails to take cognizance of at least one inconvenient reality though… System Justification https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-21802-017 Or, as Morris Fiorana has observed: “We humans are hardwired to be politically liberal, and socially conservative. That is: We want to live our lives and pursue our desires without being hassled or impeded, AND we’re also not automatically inclined for life to change drastically, in a very short period of time”
Thus, it’s not surprising that The MRM’s dream of awakening The Revolutionary they believed to be asleep within an alleged silent majority found itself shattered beyond all salvation by 2019, just as The BBC’s attempt to trigger a liberal democratic revolut against The 3rd Reich in Nazi Germany fell flat on it’s face, never to get back up
Severely diminishing the influence of not just Feminisism, but that of Illiberal Wokeness over the public is a far wiser and more achievable goal for those of us who are Post-MRM to pursue
31:00-31:46 There’s nonetheless a deep commitment to the principles of textbook liberalism(Equality before the law, unimpeded access to opportunity, and prosperity for one and all. Regardless of skin color, ethnicity, gender, creed,or sexual orientation)at the core of The Post-MRM. We just realize that continuing to screech “Feminisism/Gynocentrism/Hypergamy bad!!” hasn’t been especially effective at winning widespread public support
And that the way to do so is quite simple, even if not easy: Start hammering home all the ways in which many current laws and policies(Quite a few of them brainchildren of lawmakers and lobbyists who are under the influence of Intersectionalisism)aren’t just harmful to men, but actually hamstring the most basic ambitions of the majority of the female population:
-Snagging solid, reliable husbands
-Having kids of their own
-Accessing a career which grants her the flexibility to split motherhood and work, 70/30
-Acquiring affordable housing in a pristine neighborhood for her to raise her children in
Thanks. I don't understand much of what points they're trying to make and disagree with some aspects of what I do understand.
They seem to be saying that intersectionality is a dilution of power welcomed and promoted by the powerful. In fact, intersectionality as a philosophy of struggle was invented by the financialists in the 1970s as they struggled for their very existence. They applied a number of different labels over time, the most common of which is "big tent conservatism". It is how they gathered everyone from Christians to social conservatives into a battle against taxes, publicly funded social programs, publicly owned infrastructure, regulation of corporate activity, and the employee class.
The usual thing is for the right to steal the language and symbols of the left and turn them into insults and symbols of their own power. It happened with the swastika, it's currently happening with the Canadian flag, and "woke" has been turned into an insult so egregious that the original owners now fear to use it.
Intersectionality is, for a change, the left stealing from the right. Given that the financialists invented this philosophy, it should come as no surprise that they know how to twist it to their own ends. But that doesn't mean we should let them divide us for conquest.
"They seem to be saying that intersectionality is a dilution of power welcomed and promoted by the powerful"
I'M pointing out that Intersectionalists/Feminists have proven themselves to be far more skillful propagandists and salespeople than advocates for "men's issues" have
That is just a natural consequence of the length of time spent in the struggle and in the study of the problems faced and the most effective strategies and tactics for addressing those problems.
As men's movements come to understand their goals and the true causes of their problems, they, too, will develop effective strategies and tactics to achieve those goals.
I only hope that as the variations rights movements mature, they come to realize that the problem is not who limits our opportunities for success on our own terms, but that anyone does. The intersectionalists get closer than "closed" groups, but many still make the mistake of trying to gain access to the halls of power rather than destroying the very halls themselves. The powerful don't actually care who finds their way into positions of power as long as the power structures themselves remain intact.
"The intersectionalists get closer than “closed” groups, but many still make the mistake of trying to gain access to the halls of power rather than destroying the very halls themselves"
We only alter those halls by gaining access to them
We only alter those halls by gaining access to them
To a first approximation, no person or group who has entered the existing halls of power has done more than cosmetic redecoration.
We need complete renovation or destructive replacement. We do not get that by playing their game by their interpretation of their rules, but by forcing the creation of new interpretations, new rules, and even entire new games.
We do that not by aspiring to join their club, but by exercising the power inherent in mass movements in opposition. We don't need to change who holds the reins, we need to discard the very harnesses that bind us.
"To a first approximation, no person or group who has entered the existing halls of power has done more than cosmetic redecoration"
Alternate interpretation: Progress is incremental and imperfect. It's easy and pedestrian to view this as "cosmetic redecoration", and fantasize about an Apocalyptic overhaul of the existing social order, then setting up The Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth
We're still retelling Bible stories, even in the ostensibly secular age we inhabit
"7:05-7:13 We here at The MRM have been operating under the (uninterrogated)belief that Intersectional Feminism’s proponents are nigh-omnipotent sorcereresses(occasionally sorcerers), who turn docile plebs into blood thirsty misandrists, just by uttering magic lies from behind their microphones. Turns out, the explanation for their success at winning public influence may be simultaneously more prosaic AND more profound:
Intersectionalists provide their prospective converts with not simply one, but SEVERAL roles to play, within the framework of what appears to be, at first glance, a heroic saga… "
wow, who would've guessed that they don't actually understand the ideas they're pushing back against. They're fighting caricatures and straw-people rather than actually trying to understand what's going on, so then when good ideas convince people of something that they don't understand (or ideas that are mostly good but get taken too far), they just see it as magic lies that offer a framework of heroism. Sounds like they might have been won over by the framework of heroism and noble rebel offered by mrm, and are projecting 👀
and to be clear, I'm not saying lies can't convince people. But at least understand why the lies are convincing, what hidden premises they might be built on, what common bias they target, etc, instead of just treating them as magic words.
"wow, who would’ve guessed that they don’t actually understand the ideas they’re pushing back against. They’re fighting caricatures and straw-people rather than actually trying to understand what’s going on,..."
This is a very human error to make, and also a fatal one, ESPECIALLY when one is trying to persuade several million people to support your own goals and desires. The temptation to concoct and cling to infantile, MCU-esque explanations("Me and those who agree with me on every last point are The Avengers come to life. Everyone who dares to disagree with me or : gasp : OPPOSES me in some way are real life equivalents of Hydra")is something we mortals are hardwired for
"I am of the opinion that the vast majority of legitimate male grievance against society would be better addressed by bringing to heel the corporations, the wealthy..."
Crony Capitalism is a serious problem. As you say, given that this is harmful to not just men but to our civilization at large, the wisdom of approaching such subjects as gendered problems is questionable
Another way of thinking about all of this:
Much of what’s said here https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/peter-pomerantsev-how-to-win-an-information-war/ Is equally applicable to turning the tide of public receptivity to “men’s issues”
7:05-7:13 We here at The MRM have been operating under the (uninterrogated)belief that Intersectional Feminism’s proponents are nigh-omnipotent sorcereresses(occasionally sorcerers), who turn docile plebs into blood thirsty misandrists, just by uttering magic lies from behind their microphones. Turns out, the explanation for their success at winning public influence may be simultaneously more prosaic AND more profound:
Intersectionalists provide their prospective converts with not simply one, but SEVERAL roles to play, within the framework of what appears to be, at first glance, a heroic saga… Powerhouse career women and their male allies, who successfully balance lucrative corporate careers with bravely campaigning for social justice, and thwarting the bigots’s schemes to establishing world domination. Bombastic, yet highly seductive and exciting
By contrast, The MRM really only provided our potential converts with one role, in an extremely dreary, unusually unattractive tale… Societal dropout, who’s idea of fun is endlessly griping over all the shit in modern life he disapproves of, yet rarely if ever discussing his/they’re goals and desires. Or a vision of the world they’d like to see
9:50ish-12:00 We’ve been, dare I say, Blue Pill in our understanding of the way many Intersectionalists operate, especially in their speeches and writings. To a large degree, they’re acting whilst doing so. We know this because the Susan Danuta Walters’s of the world(An admitted angry lesbian slithering through the halls of academia, who leads a highly bohemian lifestyle, even when she’s off the clock)really are a microsliver of the human race. The vast majority of Intersectionalists are themselves mostly upper middle class-all points beyond, leading highly “traditional lives”. Including marriages to people of the opposite sex, and raising kids of their own. At first glance, these folks are indistinguishable from those who comprise The Heritage Foyndation’s executive board
Those gigantic crowds who erupt in orgies of virulent rage during Intersectionalist soeeches? They’re almost certainly playing a role also. That Woke sympathizing grads of The New School like this chick https://youtu.be/lZs-Eb6H5BU?si=Gkq5Pj8IphUjWfBH 5:20-7:00 still yearn for a white picket fence house, kids(Plural), and a loving husband of her own is testament to this
This misreading poisoned fatally the way most MRAs conceptualized the extrenal world. That in turn tanslated into their/us pursuing a strategy which failed to convince The 80% of the public who’s still on the fence-and thus amenable to persuasion-to support us
26:19-26:43 It may behoove those of us who are Post-MRM to imagine ourselves having similar conversations with our descendants, at some future date:
-“Daddy, Mummy says you were an activist back in the day. Does that mean you were kinda like Iron Man or a Jedi Knight”
-"No, sweetness: I was pretty much a real life equivalent to The Continental Op. Go Wiki that name, and pay close attention to this paragraph: “The Continental Op is a master of deceit in the exercise of his occupation. In his 1927 Black Mask story “$106,000 Blood Money” the Op is confronted with a dilemma: should he expose a corrupt fellow detective, thereby hurting the reputation of his agency; and should he also allow an informant to collect the $106,000 reward in a big case even though he is morally certain—but cannot prove—that the informant has murdered one of his agency’s clients? The Op resolves his two problems neatly by manipulating events so that the corrupt detective and the informant get into an armed confrontation in which both are killed”
That’s how I and most of my peers rolled… We used highly innovative tactics in the neverending quest that is enhancing and safeguarding the cause of liberty for one and all. Both you and every other child today enjoys a richer, freer life than those of who’ve lived prior, largely thanks to your predecessors’s iron commitment to pragmatism and the pursuit of concrete, tangible objectives"
29:56-30:43 The current iteration of The MRM similarly has, since it’s inception, operated under an assumption which goes something like: “We need to provoke a psychosocial revolution in the human species, the likes of which rids Normie society of all it’s prejudices and biases towards men. THEN, when can go about not simply changing laws and policies, but building A Red Pill Kingdom Of Heaven on Earth, free of all tragedy and pain”. Such an assumption fails to take cognizance of at least one inconvenient reality though… System Justification https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-21802-017 Or, as Morris Fiorana has observed: “We humans are hardwired to be politically liberal, and socially conservative. That is: We want to live our lives and pursue our desires without being hassled or impeded, AND we’re also not automatically inclined for life to change drastically, in a very short period of time”
Thus, it’s not surprising that The MRM’s dream of awakening The Revolutionary they believed to be asleep within an alleged silent majority found itself shattered beyond all salvation by 2019, just as The BBC’s attempt to trigger a liberal democratic revolut against The 3rd Reich in Nazi Germany fell flat on it’s face, never to get back up
Severely diminishing the influence of not just Feminisism, but that of Illiberal Wokeness over the public is a far wiser and more achievable goal for those of us who are Post-MRM to pursue
31:00-31:46 There’s nonetheless a deep commitment to the principles of textbook liberalism(Equality before the law, unimpeded access to opportunity, and prosperity for one and all. Regardless of skin color, ethnicity, gender, creed,or sexual orientation)at the core of The Post-MRM. We just realize that continuing to screech “Feminisism/Gynocentrism/Hypergamy bad!!” hasn’t been especially effective at winning widespread public support
And that the way to do so is quite simple, even if not easy: Start hammering home all the ways in which many current laws and policies(Quite a few of them brainchildren of lawmakers and lobbyists who are under the influence of Intersectionalisism)aren’t just harmful to men, but actually hamstring the most basic ambitions of the majority of the female population:
-Snagging solid, reliable husbands
-Having kids of their own
-Accessing a career which grants her the flexibility to split motherhood and work, 70/30
-Acquiring affordable housing in a pristine neighborhood for her to raise her children in
I'm suspicious of anyone who speaks of "rights" for their own demographic, as opposed to civil rights for one and all, themselves included
"...those who seek political power for personal gain"
Why the hell else does anyone pursue political power?
There are people who, whatever they might gain, pursue political power to serve the best interests of society. I think of people like Charlie Angus in Canada or the former mayor of the village I once worked for.
You lived in a village, which had it's own mayor? Where on Earth was this?
Saskatchewan, Canada. To the best of my knowledge, all villages and even some hamlets have mayors and councils. Many hamlets, and possibly some villages, choose to operate as "unincorporated", essentially putting them under the control of the surrounding "rural municipality" (approximately equivalent to a county).
Rural municipalities have their own councils and Reeves (approximate equivalent of mayor).
The province has the authority to impose an adminstration in the event of malfeasance or lack of candidates.
I think that things are similar across Canada, but I don't know for sure. This may be a historical artifact of pre-Confederation settlement or the exceptionally low population density in Saskatchewan.
I remain astounded that anyone lives in Saskatchewan
We used to have a saying regarding the many perceived negatives of Saskatchewan (climate, scenery, whatever). It keeps the riffraff out. Unfortunately, it turned out that the riffraff make up the majority of who stayed!
I stay because of the low population density. It makes it easy to avoid the riffraff 😉
"I stay because of the low population density"
To say nothing of the superb weather you all enjoy up there ;)