Inside the Men's Rights Movement—and the Army of Misogynists and Trolls It Spawned (Trump)

New York Magazine recently published a quiz asking, "Who Said It, Donald Trump or a Men’s Rights Activist?"

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/05/who-said-it-donald-trump-or-an-mra.html

This quiz brings up the gender resentment that Donald Trump is catering to. When Trump attacks successful women whether they be Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Megyn Kelly or Susana Martinez, he is definitely not picking them based on their ideology. Rather, it is the fact that his supporters feel resentful of the success of high profile women. This is why Trump can brazenly act like a misogynist. Indeed, Trump's candidacy legitimizes the concerns of many men that women have it easy.

Even Trump's pandering to gain Bernie supporters is aimed at portraying the Democratic party as hostile to men by describing a man, Bernie Sanders, being oppressed by two women.

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement-on-debating-bernie-sanders

Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher. Likewise, the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case, women’s health issues. Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders - and it would be an easy payday - I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be.

In 1993, Farrell published his full-throated manifesto, The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex. The book tackled a number of pressing issues affecting men. It also took some bizarre turns: At one point Farrell pondered whether the American male was the new "nigger." ("When slaves gave up their seats for whites, we called it subservience; when men give up their seats for women, we call it politeness.&quot He took a sledgehammer to bedrock feminist ideals, claiming that women have themselves to blame for unequal pay, that domestic violence is a two-way street, and that government programs to benefit women only exacerbate inequality.

Farrell also argued that female sexual power was eclipsing any societal advantages that men might have. "The powerful woman doesn't feel the effect of her secretary's miniskirt power, cleavage power and flirtation power," he wrote. "Men do." And thanks to feminism, he argued, when women felt ill-treated they could now more easily pursue sexual-harassment or date rape charges—a notion that carries strong currency among today's men's rights activists. "No one has taught men to sue women for sexual trauma for saying 'yes,' then 'no,' then 'yes,'" Farrell opined. "Men were left with less than one option. They were still expected to initiate, but now, if they did it badly, they could go to jail."

The Myth of Male Power struck a chord among a new generation of would-be activists for whom "male disposability" became a rallying cry. "It's their bible," says Michael Kimmel, a sociologist who studies gender issues at New York's Stony Brook University. "It's really the foundational text."

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Elam, who had been working as a drug and alcohol counselor, became convinced that his field was rife with anti-male bias. "We began to identify and treat masculinity as the disease and the cure for it was misandry—the hatred of men and boys," he would later write. "Men's groups devolved into sessions of shame, clinically applied and charged for by the hour." Elam began raising unsettling questions, such as why women checking into the clinic were routinely asked whether they'd been battered while men were asked whether they'd hit their wives. His colleagues' reaction was "incredibly hostile," he told me, which only stoked his rage. Eventually, he waded into the manosphere. While he was put off by the bigotry and conspiracy mongering, he believed the internet could help rally scattered men's rights activists into a formidable movement. In 2009, Elam, who was now working as a truck driver, launched A Voice for Men from a laptop in the cab of his 18-wheeler. "I aimed to attract the kind of people who could make a movement," he said, "women, people of color, gay men—anybody regardless of demographic, as long as they were aware of and concerned by issues of men."