Calling them tools of the patriarchy. It caused a bit of a PR problem for them and the strategy was abandoned.

Even Gloria Steinem happily participated in transphobia and only recently issued a kinda-sorta half-fast apology for it claiming she was just misunderstood.

This crew isn't exactly wading in the deep end of the intellectual pool.

are transgender. It probably makes a LITTLE more sense now, right?

They think men want to see them in bathrooms so badly that they will take their sick penises and drew them up like ladies just to sneak into bathrooms and the like.

so I'm gonna get a Theon Greyjoy special just to get into the MWMF?

No offense, but nobody needs to see the Indigo Girls THAT bad.

You'd be surprised.

it's ALL CONNECTED, MAN!

this time I followed the link and it didn't help a bit.

As is frequently remarked-- the internet has proven that those people we thought were out there are really out there.

If you go looking for the worst sort of behavior, it's out there.

Why do some want to distinguish themselves as "rad feminists" as opposed to "feminist" given that this is what is out there from self-named "rad fems"?

Is there something insufficient about "feminist"?

Personally, I tend to think that both more moderate and more radical voices working together - if not necessarily directly - are necessary for social change. Think of MLK vs. (or more like "along with&quot Malcolm X.

Which isn't to say that I take folks like the ones in the OP at all seriously. I mean, there's "radical" and then there's... well, honestly, just laughable...

the same. And as for the "obnoxious" vs. "respectful" thing, I guess I'm of two minds - on the one hand, there is definitely some truth to the "honey"/"vinegar" theory, but on the other hand, sometimes anger or outrage is not only justified but necessary. If a person has been mistreated, abused, and then shouted down when they tried to say something about it, then I don't blame them for being pissed.

I don't see it as so benign. Some people learn young that the louder and more frequently that you tell all passers-by that person X says/believes/does Y, the more impressionable those passers-by become.

I don't have any hides on my transparency page (100% chance of serving on a jury) but judging from my mail, I get alerted on a lot for really trivial things. The alerts all sound remarkably the same. "... long history of hating women and it's long past time that this (insert adjective here) should be PPR'd".

The last time I had a post hidden (6 months ago?) the issue was immediately brought to MIRT by a prominent HoF figure with the same "... long history bla bla bla" language.

But "alert trolling doesn't exist"

... so you gotta play the ball where it lies. And it lies a lot.

misogynists have been shown the door here.

Hate should be marginalized, and if hate is necessary for social change, one should be questioning if the social change the haters desire is really somewhere we want to go.

You may not, but some folks do take haters seriously. Sheila Jeffreys is a shitbag transphobe of the first degree, yet even policy makers in some countries cite her writings. Radical Feminism is full of haters. The RadFem conference for the last two years has been cancelled because the venues they have chosen refuse to allow hateful speakers and rather than disassociate with those speakers the organizers have instead chosen to call the whole thing off.

Many posters here have frequently linked to a web site which publishes this. At least one linked to that same site in their sig line for a long time. It isn't hard to connect the dots to hate, yet many posters here frequently refer to other DUers as "MRA" which they use in the pejorative to associate them with haters even though no such associations exist. I find it quite ironic that the very same people who are trying so desperately to associate some DUers here with hate have much closer associations to hate themselves.

change. Nor do I think "hate" is necessary for change to occur either. And even if I tend to regard complaints of "misandry" as rather silly, the transphobia of many radfems certainly is appalling.

As for the DU wars, I'd say both sides have been guilty of caricaturing one another, and of putting words in each other's mouths. So I think it would be a bit disingenuous to consider either one victims of the other.

Both misandry and transphobia(in this context) are hate of those who were born with a penis, yet you consider one "rather silly" and the other "appalling". While it's certainly true some transphobes base their hate on things other than being born with a penis, those who are within this context don't. So I'm not sure how you can have it both ways here.

in the same way that trans people are, which is why I'm less likely to take claims of "misandry" seriously. For similar reasons as I would tend to dismiss claims of "reverse racism." Certainly anyone can be a hateful asshole, that's not in question here, but hate without any real institutional power behind it just doesn't have the same sting, or the same aura of danger.

Also, I wasn't commenting on the posting habits of any specific individual, but rather what I see here on a larger level. A lot of people seem to rely on strawman arguments to one degree or another, whether said strawman is "You hate men/sex!" or "You hate women/feminism!"

The problem with trying to quantify such disadvantage is men and women are both privileged and disadvantaged in different ways. Conflating gender discrimination with race discrimination seems to be quite common with those who try to explain the former, however those two things couldn't be more different.

disadvantaged, as have women of all races. While I do question many attempts to precisely conflate racism and sexism, on a basic level I don't think they're terribly dissimilar - each is a combo of personal animus and institutional power.

There are few if any privileges associated with being black. You can't say that about being male or female. On a basic level they couldn't be more different. Personal animus exists for both men and women and institutional power as a function of gender is irrelevant to 99% (or more) of the population who don't have it.

So I'll ask again. How would you quantify cis-females as a socially disadvantaged group? If I asked you that question and substituted blacks, that question would be very easy to answer, no?

Lifepan? Health? Victimization? Wealth? Injury? Education? Justice?

Women are on the losing end of very few (if any) of those metrics of disadvantage.

To say that women are disadvantaged like racial minorities are requires two definitions of the word "disadvantage".

violence. Those two, at least, are rather serious disadvantages in life, I would think.

Men experience more violent victimization than women.

In fact, for the most recent year that NCVS data are available, whites in general experience higher rates of rape and sexual assault than blacks in general. Would you say that this constitutes a meaningful measure of black privilege?

Why not? An IMHO reasonable answer is that one metric doesn't detract from the bigger picture of disadvantage.

http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=nvat

If so, I just don't see much of a rational basis for that belief at all.

Otherwise it's not rational.

Yes, I'm definitely saying that there are privileges associated with being a woman.

I'm also saying that when you balance the privileges the sexes experience, the net result is (at best) a wash. If male privilege was deterministic of anything meaningful in life, you wouldn't find such close alignment between the measures of social health that men and racial minorities experience.

One last thing.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2449454/More-men-raped-US-women-including-prison-sexual-abuse.html

And I feel like we're both seeing what we want to see, to some extent.

With all due respect, I think you're seeing what women are telling you other men are experiencing.

The most cogent answer that men give me who believe strongly in the pervasive nature of male privilege is; "I don't have to feel afraid". My answer is "why the heck not? You have ample reasons".

Abso-freakin-loutly, man. You are so right on the money, I can't even tell ya...

When one considers all forms of violence(including sexual assault), men are unquestionably disadvantaged. If you consider all sexual assault, including that which happens in prison, women are not far more likely to be sexually assaulted and arguably less likely.

So you've named one, not two, and women still retain the advantage when you consider all forms of violence. Men are 3 times more likely to be victims of homicide, for instance. In 2012, for serious violent crime men had a 9.4 victimization rate per 1,000. For women it was 6.6.

Advantage: women.

seriously injured by an intimate partner - in terms of hetero relationships - which is arguably a distinct type of violence because of who performs it, i.e. someone the victim loves and trusts.

Look, I know you can come up with arguments for why either gender has it better than the other - and I think we're both being somewhat selective here - but I figure the tremendous historical advantage enjoyed by men has to still be meaningful, on some level. How does something like that - and its effects - just disappear in a generation or two?

As I've said many times, both genders are privileged in different ways. There are all sorts of different categories of violence, many of which are quite distinct. Is a man who gets shot in the street any less of a victim than a woman who gets severely beaten by a significant other?

To answer your question, some of it has unquestionably disappeared. Women graduate high school more often. Women graduate college more often. Women outnumber men in college enrollment. Women receive more educational funding. The opportunities once denied to them now aren't, and many of which are protected by law. Laws which disadvantaged women are gone. Furthermore many of the privileges that women have always had are largely unchanged. Women live longer. Women receive more health care funding. Women suffer occupational injury and death at far lower rates. There are less homeless women. Women are still disparately represented in prison and receive less punishment by the justice system for identical offenses. Women still do not have to register for selective service.

So while some of the effects you mentioned have unquestionably disappeared, for men this is not the case. So the question becomes at what point do we acknowledge that the scale has gone the other way, if ever? If we can't quantify those things the answer is never. At best we have reached a point of parity as far as privilege goes and the idea that men's issues are real and quantifiable has no merit.

realities so much of the time. We see this with racial issues as well - Jim Crow was officially ended a half-century ago, yet plenty of white Americans still pine for the "good old days."

And it's not that I think specific "men's issues" don't have merit - I think young American men (and I am one) nowadays are pretty much screwed, albeit perhaps in a somewhat different way than young women. Rather sad, then, that the supposed spokespeople for "what men want/need" wind up being the basement-dwelling reactionary misogynists who largely populate the so-called Men's Rights Movement.

I've already explained the pitfalls of that analogy. Men also suffer the negative effects of cultural attitudes. Have you never been stereotyped as a simian brute that is a slave to your penis? If you haven't, I'd say you are quite lucky, and even if you haven't all you need do is turn on the TV or even read a few DU postings if you want examples of sexism directed at men. They aren't hard to find. And the idea here is not to claim that men have it so bad, but rather that both sexes suffer their own forms of sexism when it comes to "cultural attitudes". Opportunities and outcomes speak for themselves and aren't that hard to measure.

I also reject the notion that reactionaries largely populate the men's rights movement. Even within the feminist community there's no shortage of women who fully support the idea of gender parity and shared responsibilities. A small minority of shitbags posting from mommie's basement no more represent men than the small minority of homophobic shitbags who claim to represent women with their own forms of hate.

I know my experiences aren't necessarily universal, but I, personally, have never felt discriminated against, in any way, because of gender. Granted, being a male of my generation (~35 and under) also doesn't necessarily confer huge advantages, but I've never seen any specific need to defend my rights as a man, as if said rights were somehow under attack.

I also realize that racial discrimination and gender discrimination, in some ways, aren't perfectly comparable. One reason being that neither men nor women are a numerical minority - they're roughly 50/50 each. It's also impossible to ignore the importance of race and class here - e.g. are working-class men of any color "privileged" in comparison to middle-to-upper-class white women? Not in any meaningful way, I wouldn't think.

There's all sorts of discrimination that I have never personally experienced. That doesn't mean I can't advocate for those who have. That's what being a liberal and a progressive is all about. A rising tide lifts all boats. As far as I'm concerned it shouldn't be about the rights of men or women. It should be about gender parity.

gender parity - no argument there. I just can't help but notice that most (not all) of the alleged issues raised by MRA types seemingly have to do with re-gaining their traditional dominance over women.

Mutual fairness, recognition, consideration and reciprocity would be a good, albeit ambitious, starting point.

Do I want women to experience 50% of workplace deaths? If I'm honest, I'd say not really and I think almost everyone would agree with me. The natural consequence of this conscious choice is that women avoid the truly dangerous jobs and will therefore accept the pay that goes along with safe, engaging and satisfying ones.

Otherwise, though, I agree with the sentiment. I don't know what "perfect equality" would even look like, let alone whether it would be desirable in practice. I think liberating both women and men - maybe even more so the latter, in some ways - from the constraints of prescribed gender roles, is a better objective all in all.

The raw pay gap is something like 22%. Roughly 75% of that gap (16%) is an artifact of fewer work hours, different jobs and fewer years in a career.

Higher-paying jobs pay more because of a shortage of labor willing or able to do it.

http://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/Behind-the-Pay-Gap.pdf

See page 18.

Except: "Higher-paying jobs pay more because of a shortage of labor willing or able to do it." I'm not going to say that that's fundamentally untrue - because it most likely isn't - but it does strike me as being a bit overly simplistic, somewhat along the lines of libertarian "invisible hand" type arguments. For instance, is it only because of "supply and demand" that unskilled laborers' wages have declined in this country?

I can't claim to be an expert on any of this stuff. But I'm always suspicious of seemingly pat explanations that bolster the status quo, intentionally or not.

Think of it this way. Every occupation requires the following things, in some proportion;
a) physical exertion
b) time away from preferred activities
c) dexterity and manual skill
d) ethical compromises
e) knowledge (education)
f) natural aptitude or talent (social aptitude and appearance would fall into this category)
g) risk
h) discomfort

There are probably other dimensions, but that's enough for a start.

The jobs that require none of the above are done by volunteers. Petting puppies is rewarding enough that they don't need to pay people to do it.

Surgeons experience all of the above so the competition for their jobs is minimal, (partly because the AMA controls the number of people allowed to acquire the knowledge) so they are paid a lot.

Coal miners need to accept a lot of a), g) and h) and they're disabled frequently enough that the supply of labor is finite so they're paid more than minimum wage. Crab fishermen also get a healthy dose of b) and c) so they're paid quite a lot more than minimum wage.

Prostitution requires pretty much all of the above except e) and perhaps b) so there is little competition and they're paid pretty well.

Receptionist at an art gallery? Reading to kids? "Social Media Manager"? Doesn't require much of any of the above, so there's lots of competition, but the lower boundary of wages doesn't allow the wage to go low enough to find a low bidder, so employers use arbitrary criteria to pick someone. Looks perhaps... or arbitrary levels of useless education - such as art history.

But yeah... a limitless supply of unskilled labor has depressed wages (in 1988 when this article was written, there were about 3 million illegal immigrants in the US. Now there are 12 million).

I might potentially quibble with certain details, but unfortunately capitalism does more or less work, overall, as you describe. Which is why, frankly, we need less capitalism and more socialism in this country.

In fact, the issues get so tainted by the messengers that they bring discredit.

For instance, the below video blogger is interesting and I find this clip to be largely on target. But I have no doubt, given the complete absence of any awareness or discussion of the issue on left liberal sites, that some of her other videos or those of her supporters will be tainted by the "basement dwelling reactionary misogynists"

The root of that "historical advantage" is the role of men to be responsible for the wellbeing of the women and children. That's the patriarchy in a nutshell.

As a parent responsible for kids' safety, you exert control ("no, you're not going to dart across the street&quot . If the women in your proximity are your wards in a comparable way, you'd insist on similar control.

Is that responsibility a privilege? Is it still a privilege when the authority is removed?

It is easy to look around and find the responsibility part of the equation still very much in place.

how you look at it.

To be "quislings of the patriarchy" who served only to lure women into sexually exploitative relationships. They weren't quite Dworkin, but they were consumed by an obsession with oral sex and the "willingly sodomized whores" who engaged in it. They used the word "whore" a lot.

There was a prof who would give bonus points to any male student who attended the "Gender Studies Symposium" and the schism between the two sides was more manifest than the Berlin Wall. One side would give presentations on actual subjects, the others would scream nonsense about how the male architects consciously designed the parking garage as a hunting preserve for rapists or "The Sexual Economy of Trick or Treating", but the subject would inevitably drift into blowjobs, they could find a vector into that from anywhere, and the screaming back and forth would begin.

also seems to be an issue that is obsessed over. Perhaps sexual independence is seen as a threat in some way. And yes, oral sex as well. It seems to be quite demonized as a violent act.

But I think the concept of "penetration" with the inevitable comparisons to "stabbing", "violence" and "invasion" may also be a source for some of the psychic wailing. After all, it could be interpreted or portrayed itself as an invasion of space if you are of that mind. Hell, even just becoming pregnant (as a result of sperm squirting) is a sort of psychological invasion, the implanting of an alien.

It is interesting to think about what psychological issues may be at work behind their free-floating animosity.

I would like to read a book on the subject but such are hard to find that are separate themselves from the more in-your-face obnoxious MRA movement.

Turns out Dworkin, for all her faults as a theorist, was actually a rather talented writer of prose fiction. Either of her two novels would probably be a decent starting point, if you're looking to see what made her "tick."

Feminists are working for the entirely reasonable goal of social, economic and whatever equality of the sexes (or perhaps genders).

Radfems are just going to war for whatever their personal reasons, often with these equality issues as simply an excuse for the war.

This is not a feminist or female thing-- it is merely one of many examples of how all humans of whatever gender are capable of being annoying, possibly dangerous, assholes.

"Feminist" has such a broad meaning that two individuals considering themselves feminist might have nothing in common, or even consider one another enemies. So a bunch of adjectives were invented to categorize the various types of feminist; "second-wave" "radical" "separatist" etc.

The only thing they all have in common is self-perceived advocacy for women. Which, like apple pie, everyone supports.

In practice, the label is a big Kobayashi Maru - if, because of the multiple mutually-exclusive definitions of the term, you self-describe as not a feminist then it must be because you must hate women. If you self describe as a feminist (without the adjective qualifier) then someone is validated in their view that male babies should be starved or m-f transgender people are just dedicated peeping toms, or sex is oppression or the pay gap for equal work is 77 cents.

subjective. "Hating men" (whatever that means in practice) doesn't make one a feminist, nor does it make them not a feminist. Nor do I subscribe to the idea that a man can't be a feminist, even if I don't claim the label myself.

I do disagree, though, with the assertion that identifying as a feminist validates the crazies. Unless one is going to argue, for example, that liberal Christians - by their very existence - validate fundamentalists, which is not an argument I'm comfortable with either.

I am accused of mocking or attacking Women, Feminists and, specifically, Feminism.

If one criticizes Fred Phelps, are they "anti-Christian"? "Attacking Christianity"?

To be sure, most Christians would say that Phelps does not speak for them. Similarly, Dworkin or Solanas or the repeatedly banned bloggers from the hub who quote them, do not speak for all women or Feminism, as much as they might think they do.

I think the crazies are validated by whatever they choose for validation.

The Westboro church crazies use "we're a Christian nation" as justification for what they do. That doesn't imply that other Christians are to blame for them - but Phelps would deliberately wrap his actions in that cloak if other Christians permit it.

Right.

Plenty of that gets done to people I agree with, as well as to me, and it sucks.

So, I really don't believe unless someone comes out and specifically says "X", they should be accused of saying "X".

OTOH, if other people have said "X", in particularly nasty or bigoted ways, well, that's something else, isn't it?

On the other hand, sometimes it represents something else.

Most are probably smart enough to figure out they would be shown the door if they did.

I agree that everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes it helps to know the dog whistles. It's just one piece of the puzzle which on its own may mean nothing at all, but taken collectively with other pieces the picture may start to become clear. It's not as if this sort of thing is unheard of here.

What the fuck is up with that wallpaper!?! And that couch....

Was that wrong?

There are some discipline-minded Bobbies who would enjoy that, very... okay, now this is getting weird.

Why, one would almost think they were embarrassed of something.

quacktivism.

They won't ever directly address any of these issues, just pretend they don't know any of what is being talked about and attack the messenger.

Very similar to the Dworkin wars when they would claim "No one believes everything Dworkin said or follows her", then wink winking at each other how much they love what she wrote.

I do not believe they have ever had a serious discussion of the transgender view of feminism, and they never will because they know that's a briar patch for them.

I am attacking extremists and I even went to the trouble of stating -at the beginning- that I am NOT accusing anyone on DU as being such an extremist. I wish they were as fair with their constant accusation of "MRA".

Hate speech is hate speech and I WILL go after it and call it for what it is when appropriate.

Why it would bother them, I don't know.

When they tear apart some MRA whackadoodle, you don't see threads here objecting to it.

You also don't see them in the other Gender groups.

There's only a handful of MRA sites that made the SPLC wall of shame and I've never seen anyone here link to them, much less self-identify as MRA (not that all MRAs are haters). Meanwhile you have several people here linking to sites that promote hate, which are coincidentally some of the same ones defaming other DUers with the "MRA" label they clearly are using in the pejorative. Very telling that.

Much like "liberal" is used most often as a pejorative, "MRA" is used as an insult because of tacit agreement.

If I could stomach more than half of the rhetoric at MRA sites, I'd be tempted to wear the label, because no one respects a person who never pushes back and... because I usually choose wrench.