Why the "Men's Rights Movement" is misogynistic
Put simply, men are not systemically oppressed. Only disadvantaged, blamed and ignored, right? Whilst it's true that most male individuals are oppressed as members of the working class, and might also be oppressed as people of colour, members of sexual minorities, migrants, trans people, disabled people, etc., men as a group are not systemically oppressed. Through the governments as well as throughout society, we can see evidence of men being moved deeper into roles as second-class citizens to women. Often feminists will trumpet claims that "your privilege is showing" if they think you're using too much science or logic. We can say that men have been ignored as the one who commit more suicides, and make up most workplace deaths and war-time deaths.Women might make assumptions about them or be unduly suspicious of them because of their gender, but this is not systemic oppression and is largely a result of women's oppression. Men might be expected to be promiscuous, dominant, emotionless, physically powerful, but this is a direct cause of women's oppression and oppresses women more than it does men. The naturally inclined gender roles of men and women are not a system designed to oppress women. In the natural roles, men take on risks, and are the ones seen responsible for the family unit's success. This system is designed to protect women, as the sex with the higher biological value in reproduction. Men who are seen as "feminine" might be shamed, but this is because femininity is seen as inferior and is therefore even more inseparable from women's oppression. When men are seen as feminine, this is in most cases apart from homosexuals due to the feminist influence in numerous avenues of life. Femininity is not being seen as inferior, and by the way, the author ignored the cases where women are seen as being manly, but whatever. In our water (xenoestrogens), the food we eat(soy), the 'knowledge' spread by governments in what we should eat, as well as societal acceptance in numerous cases, we can see attempts to make men less independent and accepting of authority. It is natural that some see this decline and oppose it.
Now let's look directly at the so-called men's rights movement's flagship issue: the family courts. That's usually the first to be brought up, though there are others that could be seen as our top issues. They cite the alleged bias of child custody cases against the father as an example of "female privilege". Indeed.
A woman is the party filing for divorce in about 66% of divorce cases.
http://www.pobronson.com/blog/2006/07/will-this-marriage-last-who-wants-out.html
“How often was it that many more of women wanted the divorce more than the men?
2/3. The same as the amount responsible for divorce filings. And yet another study of divorced couples found that the majority of divorced wives and husbands both agreed it was the wife who wanted out.”
Women receive custody in about 84% of child custody cases.
In the spring of 2002, an estimated 13.4 million parents had custody of 21.5 million children under 21 years of age whose other parent lived somewhere else. About 5 of every 6 custodial parents were mothers (84.4 percent) and 1in 6 were fathers (15.6 percent), proportions statistically unchanged since 1994
(Table A).
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-225.pdf
Source: Here
I don't have the time to go searching through media reports and statistics which themselves are skewed as often as not and try to sort the fact from the fiction, so I don't know if such a bias actually exists or to what extent... but that isn't the point. If such a bias exists, then in the big picture it's a rational bias in our existing society in which men are all-powerful in sexual and relationship politics. So your misguided beliefs about relationships somehow justifies the bias shown against men in family courts? In courts in general? It's taken for granted that men are the active, and usually dominant, partners in any heterosexual relationship... so much so that a lot of heterosexuals see the more active partner in a lesbian relationship as "the man"; this assumption is rarely challenged, and any time the reality deviates from it, society does its best to make it into a badge of shame for both parties. I would be interested to see any evidence of gay people protesting other gay people who are versatile. Any woman, particularly a heterosexual woman, who takes charge of her own sexuality is shamed as either a "slut" or a "prude" - often both, as paradoxical as that is. At other periods in time, it could seen as advantageous for a woman to be promiscuous, however in this time, with the threat of STIs and the significant issue of 'choosing the father' it is not smart or natural for a woman to act in such a manner. http://www.avoiceformen.com/women/a-slut-by-any-other-name/ As has been said before: "Mommy's baby, Daddy's maybe." And the contrast between young girls being largely discouraged from any strenuous physical activity and young boys being constantly bombarded with the "need" to be good at running, good at sports, strong in the arm, above all good at fighting, means that the natural physical advantages of most men over most women are even more pronounced. Last time I checked, the issue was that children needed more activity in general, I don't see any being discouraged, simply not motivated. In this context, it's scandalously easy for a man to be both an abusive partner and an abusive parent, and certainly far easier than for a woman. And yet the stats showing women as more likely to be the abusive parent as well as the instigator in domestic violence means what to you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5lHmCN3MBMI http://www.avoiceformen.com/video/male-victims-of-domestic-violence/ http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/how-feminists-corrupt-dv-research/ "30.8 per cent (almost one in three) victims of domestic assault were male." "The SA Interpersonal Violence and Abuse Survey (1999)[4] found that 32.3 per cent (almost one in three) victims of reported domestic violence by a current or ex-partner (including both physical and emotional violence and abuse) were male." http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/feminist-lies-feminism/on-male-victims-of-domestic-violence/ So to campaign for family courts to be "less biased" to women without offering a better solution, How about fair sentencing based on the evidence from each individual case? How about not indoctrinating the family court judges in private courses where the material is kept secret from public? How about violence and abuse actually being held up to a standard like "innocent until proven guilty" so they are not just cards a woman plays in divorce to get more. whether any individual campaigner is aware of it or not (and I don't doubt that many "men's rights activists" genuinely believe that men are persecuted and are blissfully unaware of their complicity in women's oppression) is to campaign for the last legal recourse of heterosexual women in abusive relationships to be undermined. Straight women have more power than that in a relationship. If you ask police in numerous areas, they would tell you that they are instructed to arrest and remove the male in any cases where domestic violence and/or abuse are called in. Therefore, women have the ability to call proxy violence upon men, both in relationships, and in society, ex. false rape accusations. Any honest campaigner for an equitable family court system should be first and foremost a campaigner for women's liberation. Any logical, honest, and/or well-informed campaigner for an equitable family court system would campaign for equity, that is, no bias or propaganda, only fair treatment of men and women under the law.
Every way in which men are "oppressed as men" is inseparable from women's oppression, and can only be solved or mitigated either through women's liberation or by oppressing women further. People's rights and the law surrounding them are not in any way a zero sum game. To liberate women does not take from men, and to oppress women does not give to men exactly. Society is more complex than that. So every "men's rights activist" who is genuinely not misogynistic A tired false statement. Opposing feminism does not mean someone or thing is misogynistic. should be primarily a women's rights activist. Unfortunately, the "men's rights movement" as a campaigning community almost never mentions women's rights except as a token or in an attack. The MRM as a campaigning community seek to reach for a more egalitarian world by opposing misandry that seeks to imbalance the world further, and encourage both throughout legislation and society, a fair and peaceful relationship between men and women. Ergo, we are not misogynists, and neither is our movement.
