It does rather point out that who has been president of the united States might not be the best metric for modern society.

If mown's statistic is correct then that means something like 95% of sexual assault committed by females on males goes unreported. If you include sexual assault committed by males on males, then it is clear that the vast majority of males who are raped are ignored.

Our culture makes it difficult for a woman to admit to being raped and it is a lot harder for men to admit to that.

This is clearly a serious issue that men face that deserves attention.

Just because it has been exclusively men who have held positions of power in the nation does not mean that it is okay to ignore rape victims because they are men. It is absolutely appropriate for activists to pursue justice for these men.

it is a metric of who has power, though. the fact that we live in a world where a black man has become president of America represents progress. we are in a more racially tolerant world than we were, say, a century ago, and Obama's presidency is an example of that. the problem with Mown's assertion is that it assumes that a single sign of progress is the same as a complete solution. just because things are better doesn't mean we're done.

it's like the Bechdel test. the Bechdel test is an insanely low bar for including women in stories. a reverse Bechdel test, where two men talk about something other than a women, happens in basically every movie ever made. and yet, despite being laughably easy, a huge portion of movies fail to meet it. and sure, some corner cases like Gravity slip through. whatever. but a lot of it is just a failure to even consider telling women's stories.

similarly, having a woman president wouldn't mean the end of sexism. but the fact that we have an unbroken record of male presidents going back centuries is indicative of just how much sexism we have left to overcome.

no feminist* says men and boys who are victims of rape should be ignored. most survivor and domestic violence services also provide services to boys and men; i have literally referred men to such services. the feminist movement created domestic violence shelters. these were not services that existed before feminism, these organizations were not funded or protected by the government until feminism made it happen. these organizations were also the first to do something for male survivors.

feminists today talk and write about how the culture of masculinity, created by sexism, are toxic to boys and men. pro-feminist men start groups to have conversations, often under the umbrella of a larger feminist organization. genuinely engage with a feminist organization, talk to service providers, volunteer with a men's group or a shelter. if you find that you can do this work within an mra organization or a third party, fine, but you will not find feminists scoffing at male rape victims and the idea that this can be a common attitude from feminists is wild.

part of the point of feminism is naming and describing how we create gender and how we use that to ascribe bio and cultural capacity to people. this work uplifts men too.

*outside of potential outliers, which most self-described feminists would reject

i agree

I never asserted that. door is the one saying we don't need to campaign for the rights of men, since presidents in America have been men (or so I assume. You tell me what the sarcastic remark is meant to imply.)
If I made any assertion, it would be that the achievements of individuals can not be used to justify our views on oppression within a civilization. How do you know that our lack of female presidents are from sexism, and not other factors? You don't.
Is the 90% workplace fatality and the majority of homeless people being men also a metric of who has power?

It is commonly believed in MRA circles that the first support shelter for men by Earl Silverman received no funding in large parts because of feminism. What is your view on the incident?
I think there's also sentiments that feminism activists have perpetuated a stereotype of women as better caregivers, which have had negative influences on men in civil courts when it comes to divorces, but I can't remember anyone having talked about it in great detail.
Either way, many MRAs strike out towards feminism because they believe it is actively disadvantaging them as a gender, which I do not believe is entirely unfounded, but I would need to research more thoroughly.

What are the aspects of toxic masculinity, and why does feminism never address aspects of toxic femininity? Culture is not perpetuated entirely by only half of the population, especially since most kids with single parents grow up with a mother, not a father.

I could probably find you a handful of popular feminists that have redefined sexism to be a phenomenon that can be applied exclusively to females (emphasis being on popular, not handful.)

In the interest of seeing both sides, if you have any spokespeople you feel somewhat-accurately represent your views on feminism as a whole, could you link them to me? Ideally one who makes video or participates in debates, since reading is tiresome, but I can do with articles as well.

are you DS

@Door: do you think that it is bad for a group to lobby under the title of men's rights activism to try and spread awareness about the reality of male rape victims

I feel like moderate feminist movements have done more for male abuse victims than the MRA will ever achieve.

I'm only aware of dumb people thus all people are dumb.

#NoTrueScotsman

Honestly, when discussing SJWs the issues themselves aren't that much of an importance. The issues have been discussed since forever, whereas SJWs are a recent phenomenon that only came to be with the growth of social networks as we know them. To discuss or attack SJWs based on issues alone also doesn't deal with the fact that many SJWs also have conflicting views and many times hate each other with a passion (e.g., radfems vs. transfeminists, "liberal" feminists vs. revolutionary feminists, etc).

Which is why I believe that Social Justice Warriors are defined more by how they view the world than by what they view in it.

If I go any deeper in the subject it will be turned into a really big rant with sblocks and such. Because SJWs are the worst. And I see a lot of people who either don't outright condemn them or even support them because they are well-meaning and I get that because every decent person's first instinct when they see someone being treated unfairly (or saying they are treated unfairly) is to empathize and take their side. I mean, what is the harm in empathizing? What is the harm of being nice? But it is like a variant of the Geek Social Fallacies at work here, and in the long run such attitude ends badly for everyone.

Empathy is zero-sum in a situation in which two or more parties are involved, and if you empathize with someone in some regard you are de-empathizing with the people in the opposite position. The more you empathize with a victim the less you empathize with the victimizer. And if we rely on empathy as a general rule to solve interpersonal conflicts, then well, the whole fabric of society falls apart, because we lose track of any objective criteria we use to deal with each other. You can notice it even because of the infighting among social justice people: the whole thing is slowly devolving into a race to win the Oppression Olympics because empathizing -- and thus being in a situation that demands empathizing -- is the be-all end-all way of evaluating things.

And what's worse, there is no way to actually verify where one stands in the OO; you can't quantify a given individual's "power". If SJWs begin to fight each other there is no way to tell who is right and who is wrong because their whole line of argument is based on a total inability of communication between so-called oppressors and oppressed.

So I'm ranting already. I'm going to prepare the sblocks.

Omg this thread.

"SJW" is a pejorative group categorization. People who are comfortable bandying about pejoratives cannot be reasoned with, ever.

thats a generalization rstfriend

what if they campaign to spread awareness about the reality of male rape victims while also campaigning about whatever right-wing nonsense you dislike

So, this thing exploded while I was gone.

Some basic things I want to say:
Re Tevish's post a while back that kicked up dust: I cast a skeptical eye on several of those claims, and would, like Garren with one, like an expansion on pretty much every one of those six points.

Riorvard also brings up a point that I think is pertinent: that with the entire overarching group of social justice supporters, which to my understanding is casting an even greater net than feminists, being composed of fallible as well as disparate human beings, will argue within itself and the people which compose it will find others within it contemptuous for various reasons. Riorvard obviously makes it easier to understand by saying simply "many SJWs also have conflicting views and many times hate each other with a passion".

My point in zeroing in on that is this point yet again: that it's the most actively evangelical of any group, even of SJWs (which as a term is generally looked at as the most evangelical of social justice supporters, I feel), that are generally both unbearable and do the worst things. For instance, I didn't start hating Anita Sarkeesian on my own. I watched her videos, I watched videos by people very anti-Anita, like The Amazing Atheist (who gave me the impression he's an major in a Spaceball ship), and I still didn't hate her. When I started hating her was when I came across fellow feminist Liana K's video about how Anita basically bullied her into almost quitting writing entirely.

I think a major failing in these types of discussions is the broad categorization of topics. Nothing makes me roll my eyes than someone talking about "right-wing", "left-wing", "conservative", or any similar broad stroke stereotype.

It ties directly into the SJW discussion too. SJWs is just an amalgam created by people who fear change which will make them look intolerant and ignorant. It isn't an actual group, so you can't really discuss it. It's an idea perpetrated by people who are afraid of being shamed on social media for thoughts which may or may not be correct. For instance, I have questions regarding aspects of transgenderism but don't feel comfortable discussing them because, even though I would simply want education, the discussion would be viewed as an attempt to oppress by some. Rather than deal with the hate which would be spewed my way for seeking that education through discussion, I just silently go along with the movement because "it's not really hurting anyone." But then I can't educate people when they believe the movement is hurting people because I don't have the education to fully understand and discuss the topic. Its the fear of being the next Justine Sacco that solidifies the SJW as a "threat". Most people don't disagree that Ms. Sacco made a tasteless joke, but they disagree with the fallout the joke caused. People begin to fear there is a witch hunt going on that doesn't tolerate misunderstandings, mistakes, or uneducated individuals. Then the idea is fed by people who have never seen the problems of the other side, but have experienced the problems of their side, and are afraid that their efforts in life will be minimized and they will suffer at the hands of progress (poor white males are a good example and the whole "I started with nothing and had to work hard for everything and now minorities are being lifted up by the government and using my hard earned taxes for it. Where was my hand out? I had it just as hard as them!" or the idea that life is unfair for everyone because I've only ever heard men complaining about the problems men face in society.)

The idea is also fueled by truly contentious issues like abortion, where I do think men should have a say (when it doesn't involve rape/sexual assault/sexual harassment obviously). There is nothing that would crush my soul more than having a child of mine aborted without my viewpoint even considered.

Then we get into the intense hate for the left or right wing. Which is utter nonsense. Both sides have good ideas and good intentions, but I see so many people just blindly spewing hate at the opposing side. It drives politics away from genuine progress and more into a scenario where they are just trying to shut down/silence the other side.

So then you get questions like Shippo's which force people to confront one good idea with a voltron of hate created in their mind against a group and it can't win. It isn't even the "right wing" they hate, its a small group of people who claim to be right wingers and who embody the worst of that particular ideology and that's who they see when they discuss the topics.

going to have to disagree with you ideologically then. I think the important thing is that there are people bothering to do the research and spread the information. If those people happen to be douchebags and are also doing other sketchy things then its a mixed bag, but my inclination would still be to take the good while denouncing the bad.

i guess if you wanted a flashy tag it would be "I don't care about the context, there are real victims and real issues that these groups are helping and that's enough for me.", although the bigger picture is obviously a concern.

For me the totality of the groups statements have to outweigh the negative impact. If it doesn't, then we should be condemning the group. If it does, we should stress the positive aspects and condemn the negative one.

Either way, genuine issues need to be addressed genuinely. I don't think it's appropriate to tell people to shut up because they "don't have it bad enough to complain."

that is also fair. I don't know a lot about MRAs but based on the cursory research i did for this thread my impression of the reality of their actions is probably different from door's.