Why I Need Men's Rights

An MRA by the name of Oratorasaurus recently posted this admirably comprehensive piece that deserves a far wider & better readership than the fetid cesspits of Tumblr from whence it flowered. One of the commenters there called it 'a factual nuclear bomb', & that about sums it up. Read, ruminate & redistribute:
 

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There are a number of feminists arguing that the solution to men’s issues is more feminism. All issues that men face are due to patriarchy and toxic ideas of masculinity, which feminism fights. Therefore feminism is the answer. 

In fact, the complete opposite is true. Feminists fight AGAINST men’s rights.

Here are some examples to prove my point:

Father’s rights group want shared parenting (equal custody) to be the default if both parents want custody and neither parent is unfit. They feel that men should not be punished for being men, and that women should not be awarded custody to their kids simply for being women. Currently women are awarded primary custody almost all the time, even if the husband was the stay-at-home Dad and the woman was the breadwinner.

Feminists fought against this. You can read NOW’s own statement here. Also note their usage of anti-male lies, i.e. “fathers are abusive, don’t give them custody.” That is from 1997, but still remains valid today.

Men want protection against false rape allegations. They feel that a man’s life should not be ruined simply on the allegation of a woman who may be a vindictive liar. Currently, a woman can accuse a man of rape for no reason, and the man’s name is splashed in the paper and his life is ruined. So, they fought for laws granting men anonymity until charged with the crime of rape—not convicted, just charged.

Feminists fought against this, causing it to fail. Also see here, the London Feminist Network campaigning to defeat the proposal.

“The London Feminist Network is a campaigning organisation uniting London based feminist groups and individuals in activism.”

Men want an end to the justice system favouring women simply because they are women, and giving men harsher sentences simply because they are men.

Feminists fought against this, arguing that no woman should be sent to jail, even women who had murdered multiple people.

Men want equal treatment when victims of domestic violence, and to not be arrested for the crime of “being male” under primary aggressor policies.

Feminists fought against this by trying to suppress evidence showing that half of domestic violence is done by women, by threatening the researchers with bomb threats, death threats, etc. Modern, younger feminists are doing it as well.

And sadly, they were successful in this effort of propaganda. For decades, and continuing today, violent men are (rightfully) convicted and punished by the state, while violent women are left to freely terrorize and harm their partners.

The feminist definition of domestic violence has skewed arrest and prosecution philosophies, resulting primarily in having only male batterers criminally pursued.
Men want female rapists to be arrested, charged, and convicted with rape. In Western countries, women are rarely punished when raping men, due to the biased legal system. In some countries, women cannot be punished when raping men, since rape is defined as a male-perpetrated crime.

Feminists fought against this in India, arguing that “there is a physicality [in] rape” and that it would make things “more complicated for judges.”

Feminists fought against this in Israel, claiming that changing the law would result in men filing false rape claims.

Men don’t want to be thrown in jail because they lost their jobs and temporarily cannot pay child support.

Feminists fought against this, trying to lower the amount to $5000 before a man is guilty of a felony for not paying child support. If a man loses a decent-paying job, he will now be a felon, go to jail, lose his right to vote, AND be unable to find future jobs—if he cannot regain an equal-paying job within a few months.

Men want equal economic support and help from the government. When the recession hit, male-dominated fields like construction lost millions of jobs, while female-fields like education and healthcare gained jobs. So the government proposed an economic stimulus for those fields.

Feminists successfully fought against this, arguing that it was discrimination to support men, and caused the government to give money to women who didn’t deserve it.Hundreds of professional feminists complained against the “sexism” of helping men (who had lost jobs) and not women (who had gained jobs).

As you can see, the claim that feminism fight for men’s rights is a blatant lie. Don’t believe any feminists that say that. Feminists fight for women’s rights. That is a good thing. Feminists also are happy to harm men’s rights, as shown above. That is a bad thing. Feminism is about female privilege, not equality.

Some may argue that these cases of feminists harming men is not “representative” of feminism. I ask you: Are there any cases of feminists helping men? No. Yet, there are many cases of feminists harming men.

It is reasonable to conclude from these facts that feminism fights to harm men.



In 2008, a law was passed in England and Wales that allowed long-term domestic violence victims who killed their abuser to be charged with the lesser charge of manslaughter, but this only applies to women. Disregarding the fact that women are just as violent in domestic partnerships as well as dismissing the victims in domestic violence that are gay and trans.

In California and Montana, a woman can name any man she likes as the father, he gets a letter in the mail, if he does not prove he isn’t the father within 30 days—(suppose the letter gets lost by the USPS?)—he is now the father and must pay. He cannot contest it. And DNA tests to prove paternity are not considered proof by the courts.

Then there are the Primary Aggressor laws that were put into place due to VAWA, which results in the man being arrested even though 50% of domestic assaults are mutual, that women are 80% more likely to use weapons during domestic assaults, are more likely to kick, bite, slap, throw objects, and hit with their fists during domestic assaults, and that there is no support for the idea that women only use violence to defend themselves from physical violence.

Or the number of women who falsely accuse a man of rape, who would be sent to prison for 10+ years if convicted, and yet the woman only gets fined or a slap on the wrist.

There is also the gender bias in the Probation Departments:

A higher score on the Probation Assessment Tool (PAT) means a recommendation that could lead to eventual dismissal of charges. A lower score means probation or lockup, not to mention the juvenile delinquent tag. [Judge] Hunt claims PAT routinely rewards girls with 14 extra points for gender alone, while boys get 0.

Proof of courtroom bias against men.

Then there are studies that show women who fail to pay child support are incarcerated only 1/8th as often as men with similar violations.

There are women’s only colleges and these are protected by federal law. But men-only colleges are not allowed in the US.

The Federal criminal sentencing guidelines struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 required that males and females who commit the same crime and have the same prior criminal record be sentenced equally. Using data obtained from the United States Sentencing Commission’s records, we examine whether there exists any gender-based bias in criminal sentencing decisions. We treat months in prison as a censored variable in order to account for the frequent outcome of no prison time. Additionally, we control for the self-selection of the defendant into guilty pleas through use of an endogenous switching regression model. A new decomposition methodology is employed. Our results indicate that women receive more lenient sentences even after controlling for circumstances such as the severity of the offense and past criminal history.

Teen boys who commit a crime are 46 times more likely to be charged and arrested than teen girls who commit the exact same crime.

In the Western world, men are oppressed equally, if not greater, compared to women. You may find that hard to believe, but the facts below speak for themselves.

1. Women are treated better in all aspects of the legal system. For instance, women receive lighter sentences and a higher chance of acquittal, simply for being women.

2. Men are significantly more likely to be the victims of violent crime (of which rape is included) than women.

3. Despite domestic violence being equally committed by women, for the most part only male perpetrators are arrested:

4. The feminist definition of domestic violence has skewed arrest and prosecution philosophies, resulting in having mostly male batterers criminally pursued, and female batterers left alone.

5. It is legal to circumcise male babies against their will. In some places, laws have been passed which forbid any attempts to make male circumcision illegal. Meanwhile, female circumcision is completely illegal, even though some types of female circumcision are equivalent in harm to male circumcision, and other types (a symbolic prick to draw blood) are non-harmful.

6. Men comprise 95% of workplace deaths.

7. Men commit suicide at over triple the rate that women do.

8. The vast majority of prisoners are men.

9. Men are doing worse in all aspects of the educational system, from kindergarten to university.

10. Men who are falsely accused of rape can have their names published and their lives ruined even if they are not convicted or charged - their accuser is protected and is likely to face no punishment, or a light one.

11. Reproductive rights. Men have none. Simply read this story.

12. Parental rights. Men have virtually none. See below.

A woman can name any man she likes as the father, he gets a letter in the mail, if he does not prove he isn’t the father within 30 days—(suppose the letter gets lost by the USPS?)—he is now the father and must pay. He cannot contest it.

A boy who is the victim of statutory rape must pay child support to his rapist.

A man who is raped while unconscious must likewise pay child support.

A man who fathers a child and wishes to take custody may have his child adopted out against his will and essentially kidnapped

13. The overwhelming majority of homeless are men.

14. Despite men’s need being arguably greater than women, government spending to help women is 10 to 100 times greater than that to help men. That figure is unrelated to medical spending.

15. In 2009/2010 it was $1,516,460 toward men and $57,562,373 toward women. In 2010/2011 it was $3,740,800 toward men and $48,331,443 toward women. In 2008/2009 the province dedicated $561,360 toward men’s resources and $98,983,236 toward women’s resources. (figures are for British Columbia, Canada, but representative of Western society).

16. Female-owned businesses get free government money for literally no reason other than being a woman (i.e. all other factors are equal, same size of business, same income, etc. etc. but the owner’s gender is different = money or no money.

17. On some airlines, men were banned from sitting next to kids on airplanes, simply because they were men. Why? Because men are pedophiles, obviously. This ban remains on some airlines, such as Air New Zealand.

18. Under a recent federal directive, men are convicted of rape in university campuses if the investigating board finds that the chances they committed the rape are at 50.00001% or greater.

19. The DOE policy in practice: Caleb Warner was accused of rape and expelled from the University of North Dakota, then his accuser was charged with filing a false report. He remains expelled as of June 2011.

20. Selective service. Enough said.

Pretty sure there’s more, but I’m getting tired.

You will notice that I have not even touched “social discrimination” such as a group of women, on a popular talk show, cheering and laughing about a woman who cut off and destroyed a man’s penis simply because he was divorcing her. Or gender stereotypes forcing men to work to their deaths, treating men as predators and pedophiles, that sort of thing.

That is because I recognize that though social discrimination is bad, ultimately you still have choice and agency. People can mock you for being a male who likes sewing, but ultimately you can still choose to do it or not. But that pales in comparison to actual oppression, where you genuinely have no choice about the matter.

Note the numerous examples of governmental and legal discrimination against men.

These are examples of real discrimination, where there is literally nothing you can do about it. Not “discrimination” where women do more housework.

Most of the discrimination against men described here is government-enforced discrimination, which is involuntary, non-consensual, and inescapable.

For instance, if you are a male victim of domestic violence, you cannot simply choose to walk into a government funded men’s shelter - they don’t exist. You cannot choose to call the pro-male police who fairly punish female batterers; there is only one police, and they are likely to arrest you if you make the call.

In contrast, a lot of discrimination that feminists discuss is what I call societal discrimination, which is voluntary, consensual, and less significant.

Feminists state, as evidence of discrimination, that women do more unpaid housework due to societal norms. Even if that is true, given that surveys are biased and do not include male work like car repair, exterior house repair, etc. that is not discrimination since women are choosing to do more housework. They are choosing to be involved with men who do less housework, and choosing to tolerate such a state. They make that choice freely, without coercion. That is why it is not discrimination.


• I need men’s rights because when she changed her mind the next day, I went to jail for 5 years
• I need men’s rights because I was the victim of abuse but nobody believed me
• I need men’s rights because I am less likely to go to college, and if I do, I will make less money than my female contemporaries
• I need men’s rights because the president sees the shrinking number of men in colleges across America as “a great success”
• I need men’s rights because people question if I am a predator when I am alone with my child
• I need men’s rights because a man’s appearance, height, and weight has a greater affect on his income than it does for a woman
• I need men’s rights because saying “it’s impossible to discriminate against men in our society” allows people to discriminate with impunity
• I need men’s rights because traditionally masculine characteristics are virtues not flaws
• I need men’s rights because the likelihood of my death coming by suicide is four times higher than it is for women, though I receive little support
• I need men’s rights because it is not considered bigoted or sexist to deny me a male safe space at my college by those who have possessed their own safe spaces for decades
• I need men’s rights because it is assumed that a meeting of men in a male safe space is automatically going to devolve into hateful sexism and violence
• I need men’s rights because broad gender-wide slurs against men are socially accepted
• I need men’s rights because my life, career, reputation and connection with my family can be easily destroyed by a single, false and anonymously whispered accusation
• I need men’s rights because when women stumble blame rests on society, but when men stumble it is their fault
• I need men’s rights because in my physically demanding career, I am expected to do much more work for “equal” pay
• I need men’s rights because it is fine to call me a “dick”, a “cock”, or a “prick” on the street or on television; a woman must never be called a “cunt”
• I need men’s rights because talk-shows think it’s funny if I am wounded or sexually mutilated by a woman
• I need men’s rights because while the rape of a woman is properly regarded as a crime, the rape of a man is funny
• I need men’s rights because mutilation of male infants is considered normal – and those arguing for the protection of male infants from mutilation are regularly slandered as anti-semites and bigots
• I need men’s rights because my sexuality is routinely characterized as violent pathology, rather than as a natural part of my human identity
• I need men’s rights because women assume it’s my fault if I am assaulted by a woman
• I need men’s rights because people think it is irresponsible to have me work around children
• I need men’s rights because I have the right to the same sexual sovereignty given to women
• I need men’s rights because I believe that the feminist idea that a woman in the United States is equally oppressed as a woman in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia is absurd and insulting
• I need men’s rights because I should not be ashamed of my sexuality
• I need men’s rights because women who find me unattractive will shame me, can call me creepy for politely interacting with them, and they will be praised for this cruelty
• I need men’s rights because I was sexually harassed by several drunk women twice my age and everyone at the party thought it was funny
• I need men’s rights because my size and strength is commonly used to pretend that I am violent, which I am not
• I need men’s rights because if I am small or weak doesn’t mean I have a Napoleon complex
• I need men’s rights because I have the right to associate with other men without legal action forcing me to allow women, too
• I need men’s rights because if I am assaulted by my spouse, and I attempt to seek help, I risk arrest, imprisonment and life-long censure – even if I do not defend myself, even I am seriously injured while she is untouched
• I need men’s rights because I earned my accomplishments; they were not given to me by a fictitious masculine conspiracy
• I need men’s rights because I have a right to be a father for my own children
• I need men’s rights because, as a man, I am much more likely to be physically assaulted than a woman
• I need men’s rights because I will be chastised as a coward, and a failed man if I do not sacrifice my life to save a woman in a time of crisis
• I need men’s rights because laws exist that demand harsher penalties for men for the same crime
• I need men’s rights because I have no lobbying voice in congress;
• I need men’s rights because, as a man, I am more than 9 times more likely to be killed at work than a woman
• I need men’s rights because I am more likely to die young, and much less money is being spent on my health problems
• I need men’s rights because, if I am killed in an accident, people will care less than if a woman or a child is killed. News readers make this clear every time they utter the phrase “women and children”
• I need men’s rights because society believes that my life is worth less than a woman’s
• I need the men’s rights movement, because I am a human being.

And finally, I need the men’s rights movement, because when I attempt to address any of these issues, my co-workers, my government, my media, my peers, my family, and the larger society I am a part of rises in unanimous voice to condemn me as a monster – simply for claiming my humanity.

- See more at: http://oratorasaurus.tumblr.com/post/40998585103/discrimination-of-men-facts#sthash.59sHr3zJ.dpuf  
http://oratorasaurus.tumblr.com/post/42207573181/why-mens-rights-activists-are-needed#sthash.AtQZHAXC.dpuf
http://oratorasaurus.tumblr.com/post/48845216537/potatoxprincess-but-what-about-the-men-yes#sthash.6GOmL9Al.dpuf
 http://oratorasaurus.tumblr.com/post/50147759527/correct-for-every-one-innocent-man-in-jail-there#sthash.sBT2mfyK.dpuf 

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All Women Are Homophobic!!!!

The thing that stands out most to me about this quote - fantastically wrong on so many levels - is how clearly it demonstrates something I've been saying for quite some time, and that is this: All women are 'homophobic'.

Yes yes I know the etymology of the word but whether the men being prejudiced against are gay or not is kind of beside the point - all women, to a greater or lesser extent, at the very least display the 'symptoms' we attribute to said condition when manifested in men: overt caution, fear and/or disdain of men.

The woman originally posting this foolishness is quite happy to burble forth the conviction that all men should be treated as potential sex criminals - by both sexes. The only thing that marks this out as even slightly unusual in our present era is that she appears to be excusing or even encouraging distrust of homosexuals in order to make her greater point of distrusting all other men. Apparently the key thing to remember here is just so long as you are hating men (gay or straight), you're good to go.

Female 'homophobia' is so normalized in our society that treating every man you meet like 'Schrödinger's Rapist' is considered an ordinary, common sense fact of life - just so long as you are a woman. But if a man feels at all uncomfortable around another man sexually, he is generally branded an evil bigot for behaving the way all women do at all times.

Not that behaving that way is a healthy way to be, of course: hating  anyone - homosexuals, lesbians, heterosexuals, women or men simply because they are homosexuals, lesbians, heterosexuals, women or men, is a pretty woefully unenlightened way to go about one's life. But even if we were to accept that the reaction being discussed (which often comes down to no more than a heterosexual disinclination to celebrate homosexual acts) is a pathology of some kind, a 'phobia', like arachnophobia, or nomophobia, or ouranophobia even, it must surely be the only medical condition we know of for which the only recommended treatment is to be treated with contempt and ostracization by everyone you meet.

Still, if it works, I suppose. Maybe it's homeopathic or something.

Homophobia is the one kind of misandry you're presently not supposed to consider worthwhile and deserved. All the others are still fine and dandy, though.

What I find so strange about the times we are living in is how we compartmentalize bigotries, and label them either 'good' or 'evil'. Whereas, before this Maoist theory-derived age of Political Correctness, we used to just tell people 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you', or 'treat people the way you want to be treated yourself'. We used to call this 'The Golden Rule'.

And isn't that better? I mean, if you really take those words seriously, wouldn't that actually make you a better person than one who can be manipulated into hysterical overreactions over the difficulties facing one group of human beings while congratulating themselves for openly expressing contempt for another? Wouldn't that be a better way to have spent one's life, in the long run?

There's a blogger by the name of Chelsea Fagan who wrote something in response to that original quote, but I find it also tidily addresses the perils of the underlying 'rape culture' narrative that feminism has promulgated for at least the past 50 years. In her conclusion she says:

 If we lived in a world where to show even a trace of sexual or romantic interest in another person was somehow a reproachable or even criminal act, could you imagine the consequences? How could we fall in love, marry, reproduce? How would we break the barrier with someone we are interested in? We all start off as strangers, and to make someone’s innocent flirtation or starting of a conversation into a justification for homophobia is absolutely repugnant.

A man — gay or straight — respectfully hitting on another person is not a cause for bigotry, it’s not a cause to treat all men as potential predators, and it’s not a cause to reinforce hatred. This quote has successfully justified a young man in his homophobia, reinforced the idea that all men should be treated as potential predators until proven otherwise, and demonized the act of flirting with another person as something that should be feared and, ultimately, reviled.

Sho 'nuff.

Anyhow, to recap:

If any men behave like all women do all the time, they are to be considered very bad people. That's all your society needs you to remember at this point in time.

And once again I am forced into the philosophical position that it sure is a funny old world. 

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The Skatepark

I walk past it most days.

On sunny days sometimes I stop & I sit & watch the BMXs & skateboards hurtling around. There are always at least 15 or 20 boys there, any time of the day, practising their moves. On the sunniest days I guess 50 or 60, & it's seldom I've seen the same face twice.

It's a weird little world I'm not really a part of, & I wonder sometimes where they all practice, because in all the years I've wandered by I've never seen a bad fall, a cut, a broken wrist. I guess it must happen, just not here.

The age of the park's inhabitants can vary anywhere between the under-10s to I guess the late 30s, from little kids to tattooed men with salt & pepper in their beards. But the one thing they all have in common is they are all male. Unlike, say, the children's playground that sits beside it, which is always half & half, there are never any girls in the skatepark.

True, mothers & girlfriends sometimes stand around or sit off to the side on the benches & watch their boys soaring through the air like birds in flight, but in 15 years or so of walking past & taking note, I can only remember one time seeing two little pre-teen black girls riding a scooter, very slowly & methodically making their way over a mound. Then one would stop & hand it over & the other would climb aboard, & cautiously ride it back over the same hump. No-one was teasing them or laughing, or rolling their eyes. They were treated just the same as everyone else.

I've seen photographs of skater-girls, so I know they exist, but in my life, in this country, I can honestly say I've only seen maybe three? Four? The disparity is so great it seems to me an estimate of anywhere up to even a thousand-to-one might not be far off the mark.

Now, nothing is stopping the girls from coming & riding about on the ramps - the skatepark never closes, there's no fence around it, it sits there open in the park, day & night. I've even ridden around it myself of an evening. There's plenty of space, & the boys are friendly & considerate of one another & those around. And I bet you, if a teenage girl turned up who could skate anywhere near as good as they can, those boys would flock around her like honeybees to a dandelion. Nothing is preventing the girls from taking part anymore than anything is preventing them from playing with Lego: they simply choose not to. They'd rather ride ponies, go to ballet classes, & play with hula hoops.

Why should this be? Every girl I know rides a bike, so it can't be through lack of knowledge or opportunity. They all ride bikes, they just don't ride them through the air. They don't do stunts on them. They don't ride around on them with no hands, the way I do. Similarly, I've probably in my life seen more girls in rollerskates & rollerblades than boys, but again: they don't use them to do anything dangerous or extraordinary: they're not the ones doing somersaults & jumping through the air on them, or competing to be the best at all costs.


It's begun striking me lately what a great microcosm of male/female differences & preferences all this is. Just as the perceived 'pay gap' between the sexes can be best understood by looking at the differing goals & priorities men & women at large have & the choices they therefore make - rather than believing in some mythical 'glass ceiling', & a universal conspiracy to keep women 'in their place' - many other pronounced differences between the sexes likes & dislikes can best be understood not through 'patriarchy theory' but by focusing on the choices the majority of us make due to innate, biological imperatives.

It's been established that one of the ways in which male & female brains differ is in spatial awareness & abstract thinking. The latter is responsible for all the great mathematical theorems, the great symphonies & architecture of the world, whereas the former explains the greater male attraction to football, cricket, guns, golf, martial arts, parkour... - the fascination in passing objects (or oneself) through the air with skill & precision.

On top of this, males higher testosterone makes men naturally more heroic, competitive & prepared to take risks. Men's perception of, & relationship to, their own bodies is much more one of utility & acceptance of self-sacrifice: all over the world males evolved to be stronger so as to better take care of the women & the children. Men had to evolve a disregard for their own safety or else we simply wouldn't be here now: our great great+ grandfathers would have simply abandoned the incapacitated pregnant women & tiny tots when the tigers turned up & saved their own skin. But they didn't, or at least the ones we are descended from didn't. And there still is no culture today where the women are sent off to war while the menfolk stay home & play with the kids, where the women go out to hunt while the men tend the fire. So, males are both societally & biologically conditioned to care less about their own immediate safety & well-being than a woman, or a dream, a cause, a higher ideal.

This is, incidentally, why there will never be a female 'Jackass' on TV, showing videos of girls hurling themselves off buildings into bushes & kicking each other in the genitals. Women's innate drive for self-preservation makes such behaviour incomprehensible to them. Women move away from possible harm because instinctively they know that to risk damage to their bodies means to damage the ground from which the next generation will be grown.

But boys, everywhere in the world, love doing shit like that, it goes across all time zones, all societies. And 'The Patriarchy' didn't make us this way, only Mother Nature.

So the skatepark is a little, solitary island of maleness, where the boys there are left alone to feel the power & capabilities of their own bodies, doing something crazy & dangerous & sometimes sublime. Where they are left alone to just be boys. And there are so few places like that left, they go there in their thousands, & keep on going back, even once their hair turns grey.

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Misandry With A Sad Faced Smiley

So I've been seeing a few of these posters around (without the title I've added, of course) where I live, & whilst I am touched by the lip service of at least pretending to consider the difficulties experienced by both sexes, you will note that all the boys ‘problems’ here presented are actually how they can facilitate grrrl ‘empowerment’ by unmanning & 'de-powering’ themselves, how they can rise above all that overwhelming male ‘privilege’ & resist the ‘dictation’ of their natural male desires.

As if the major issues & inequalities facing boys today are not being 90% of the homeless, 80% of the suicides, 94% of all deaths at work, false rape accusations, far longer sentences than women across the board for exactly the same crimes, institutionalized misandry, institutionalized genital mutilation as infants, being told your whole life you are going to grow up to be a rapist or child abuser simply because you were born with a penis, the knowledge that if you have children, you are enormously more likely than a woman to lose access to them after divorce, the knowledge that in time of war only your sex will be considered disposable cannon fodder & forced to murder other boys or be murdered yourself…...

No no no… none of that... the main issues boys have today is that they would like to cry, bake cookies and paint their fingernails once in awhile.

This poster purports to be speaking out on behalf of both males & females but in actual fact is wholly about the wimminz, & only the feminist wimminz at that.

Because its author is incapable of seeing even the existence of the actual issues boys growing up have to face - much of it generated (or exacerbated) by feminist lobbying itself - this is just more of the same old feminist hate, blame & shaming language dressed up on this occasion with insincere compassion & a sad face smiley.
 

Why I No Longer Trust Feminism

I came across this post on Tumblr by a young lesbian egalitarian by the name of  'LoveLogicRainbows' detailing what led up to her disenchantment & eventual break with feminism. I can surely sympathize with her tale & I'm sure many others will recognize their own journey in this story as well:

So, most of you guys have seen my posts about how I refuse to call myself a feminist anymore and have given up on the movement. Rampant homophobia, transphobia, and misandry added up and the last straw finally came.

But most of you don’t know that I was already near the breaking point long before I started posting about men’s rights issues on here. So, now I’m going to tell you.

Once upon a time, I was one of “those feminists”. I posted on a feminist site and checked sites like feministing eagerly every day. I didn’t think sexism against men existed. I thought that any claims of misandry were lies, that any claim of feminists hating men was just a red herring from misogynists to get everyone to hate feminism. Meanwhile, I also laughed at the idea of men facing sexism. My mom would tell me “but men face issues too”, and I’d laugh and say, “no they don’t, and if they do, they deserve it.” Because I’d been fed the lie that men had oppressed women for centuries, and I was mad. I thought that men were responsible for all the evil in the world.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I’ve mellowed out a bit. I don’t know what brought it on, but I’ve started to realize that yeah, men do have issues. So, not knowing what a hornet’s nest I’m walking into, I make a post on another site that says basically that men have it hard too, especially when it comes to rape.

And all hell broke loose. I started getting cruel comments calling me a terrible person. I had people sending me awful private messages about how I was a terrible misogynist and on and on. It got to the point that I couldn’t check my email without having a panic attack. THAT is how bad it got.

They would post anonymously, and any time I showed up to defend myself, would accuse me of trying to stir up trouble even though I never made the first post. They told me I deserved the mental issues I was battling at the time, then flat-out denied it and called me a liar. They accused me of faking a medical condition for sympathy, and then, when I went as far as to post a picture of my pills, told me to “stop stealing my grandma’s pills” and made jokes about me having murdered my late grandmother. The kicker? One of them told me I should swallow all my pills at once, and a couple of other commentors jumped in to agree that the world would be better if I killed myself. And then they accused me of planting the comments for sympathy.

When I mentioned my siblings’ experiences in an argument, they told me I was a terrible person for “using them” and that they felt sorry for my siblings for having me. They called me soulless, evil- every variation you can think of. (When I showed my sister the comment that invoked that, she actually laughed and said that was the furthest thing from using she could think of.)

I was a wreck. The anxiety got worse and I began to do extremely unhealthy things in an attempt to cope. (I’d rather not give specifics, but I will say it involved harming myself.) I eventually became suicidal, though that was as much due to other issues as this- this was just the last straw. I could barely use the internet at all without either panicking or bursting into tears.

I still go to the site sometimes, but stay away from the community where that happened. Once, I saw an argument eerily similar to the one I got in (this from someone saying they are pro-life, but do not want abortion criminalized and consider themselves a feminist) and I still had a panic attack. To be perfectly honest, there were times when I found aspects of internet social justice to be triggering. I don’t mean triggering as in “upsetting”, I mean it as in “gave me terrible panic attacks and urges to engage in self-destructive behaviors”.

Feminists, the ones who claim to be supporting and helping women, almost drove me, a lesbian- and an underage one at the time- to suicide and played a part in me developing an anxiety disorder.

I was angry and bitter. So I searched things like “feminists are sexist” just to see that others had the same thoughts about feminists that I did. And lo and behold, I found a Tumblr with just that. And I started reading more and more, and the arguments were so rational, well-thought out, and well sourced that my views completey changed. I was still hesitant about feminism, but decided I could still call myself a feminist even with all the bad ones.

But then I saw more and more. I got sick of it. The last straw came when I realized how little they cared about me as a member of the LGBT community. I gotta say, I have faced so much awful shit for being a lesbian… but feminists have never cared about any of it, only things they coud spin as misogyny.

And I have never seen a single feminist apologize for what happened to me, or even call out the people who were so terrible to me.

When MRAs step out of line? We “collect our people” as the SJW phrase goes. We denounce them, we call them out, we tell them to knock it off and it isn’t okay. I have never seen a feminist take responsibility for what has been done to me in the name of their movement. Not once. I have ony ever seen them telling me that they weren’t real feminists and that I’m misguided or even a bad person (such a recurring theme among feminists encountering something they disagree with) for not being a feminist.

YOU drove me away, feminists. I wanted to support your movement. I support equality for women. I know women have been disadvantaged in many ways, and I want that to stop, along with stopping what men face. But with what you did, how can you honestly expect me to trust you and feel safe in your movement again? How is it at all reasonable to ask that of me when I’ve never even gotten an apology?

I’m never going to feel safe with you. You don’t fight for me. You aren’t helping me. YOU ALMOST KILLED ME. You don’t get to call yourselves women’s advocates when some of you encouraged a teenage womant to commit suicide for disagreeing with you and the rest of you stood by and let it happen.

I’m never going to be a feminist. I will be a woman’s rights activist and men’s rights activist, egaliarian, equalist, or whatever else I feel like calling myself. And I’m still going to be a better feminist according to your definition of feminism than you ever were.

http://lovelogicrainbows.tumblr.com

A Letter To O2

Here's the response I sent to one of the representatives of O2 that contacted me in regard to their blocking of this site. No reply as of yet.

------------------

Hi Bob,

thank you for your reply, it was a good deal more courteous than I had expected, so that was appreciated.

The two explanations I have received from you and others at O2 for why my anti-hate, pro-equality website should be - somewhat bizarrely - listed under O2's 'HATE' classification are as follows:

1) It “includes anti-feminism and covers hostility to individuals or groups on the basis of gender”. 

OK so, first off, these are obviously two separate things: feminism, after all, is not 'women'  or even 'equality', any more than 'communism' is 'the working classes'. It is simply a political ideology, like anarchism, libertarianism, communism, capitalism, fascism, whatever, with its own particular beliefs, goals, and agenda. To criticize a communist regime does not mean you hate the working class. To criticize radical feminism - a political and social movement with, after all, an enormous number of male adherents - does not mean you are spreading hatred of women. The two things simply do not follow.

On top of that, labeling criticism of any political ideology as 'hate speech' can only help push society towards a situation in which all political criticism is silenced, under the guise of concern that somehow, somewhere, someone might be offended.

So that's a huge flaw - or at least a grievous misunderstanding of 'anti-feminism' on the part of the O2 policy-makers - right there.

2) The second explanation I received was:

"The ‘hate’ category is a very broad category that covers a range of topics. Any web site that is shown to be displaying aggression to any person or group of people will be assigned to this category. Your site includes information about domestic violence and feminism. And whilst you’re campaigning against this rather than advocating it, the category would remain the same. This is to prevent people under the age of 18 from viewing any content related to ‘hate’."

Again, this makes very little sense: as I have written to you before, if you can point to anything I have written on my website in which I am "displaying aggression" to anyone I will a) be very surprised, & b) be happy to take it down, as I am unaware of it being there in the first place.

The question that logically follows on from both these is, of course: are ALL sites that cover the topic of domestic violence being blocked or only those that mention violence against men and boys? Checking your 'website status checker' site I found popular feminist sites such as
http://manboobz.com/ and
http://feministing.com/
that daily express extremely hostile, hateful and insulting opinions towards all males - regardless of their beliefs or actions, or the groups they belong to (though especially those asking for equal treatment in the eyes of the law), as well as regularly writing about domestic violence - are not blocked but free for anyone - including children - to see at will.

I have not checked yet whether any of the even more radical feminist websites are being allowed through the filter, but if that is the case then plainly this is a prejudiced and partisan silencing of freedom of expression, and I and others will have to begin taking steps to publicize the situation and bring such bias to the public's attention.

Also, even more seriously, domestic violence support sites such as
www.dvmen.co.uk/
& sites for divorced fathers trying to deal with family court such as
http://www.fathers.bc.ca/ and http://f4jquebec.org/

have also been blacklisted and blocked by O2, which is extremely disturbing, as these are resource centers for people in genuine need, being stopped from accessing help and support by a censorship policy which appears to be skewed, arbitrary, blatantly flawed and in all probability unlawful.

A statement on this matter would be appreciated, though I know you probably have very little input personally over the decision-making - I don't want to make you think I'm trying to try hold you individually responsible for the actions of a entire corporation.

Anyway, thanks once again for taking the time to reply,

Best wishes,

L. Byron

Boycott Norton / O2 / Symantec

So I found out a week or two back that Trigger Alert is on the list of Men's Rights sites that are now being blocked by O2 & Symantec.

The list now includes more than 100 sites & is growing, so I wrote to the company to ask why I was being blacklisted & received two very polite, illogical & Kafkaesque replies telling me my blog had been classified a 'HATE' site(!) due to its critical analysis of feminist ideology & occasional glance at the reciprocal nature of domestic violence in order to better understand it & thereby lessen its harmful effects on all society.

Yep, that's all the 'hate' you need these days, it turns out.

In another age, this Orwellian doublethink twaddle would actually be funny, & this very post dismissed as a particularly far-fetched piece of dystopian satire. And the people in that age would laugh if they heard someone believed it was actually true, & probably say to one another "You couldn't make this shit up!".

But no:

I note, by the way, using O2's own URL checker, that this is not also being applied to a good number of radical feminist sites that actually DO quite openly & unashamedly hate one whole half of the human race & disseminate false information about interpersonal violence only to exploit the fear & hysteria that generates to further their own particular ideological goals just about every single day.

Funny, that.

Anyway, this is just a brief one to urge you to boycott any of those three names if you have dealings with them at all, in the name of free speech.

It's not a big ask, anyway, as Norton is by some distance the worst piece of bloatware it has ever been my misfortune to come across & the first thing I've taken off of every computer I've ever bought. In terms of mobile/cellphone coverage, there are plenty of other alternatives out there these days to O2 so it's very little trouble to switch providers.

Even if you are not in a position to do this yourself at present, please spread the word - twitter is apparently a good one but social media generally is a good way to get the light shone on the shady politics of internet giants. Remember - it may be us today, but could be you tomorrow:

First they came for the Jews,

& I didn't speak out, because I wasn't a Jew

Then they came for the communists,

& I did nothing, because I wasn't a communist

Then they came for the gypsies,

& again I said nothing, since I wasn't a gypsy 
Then they came for the religious,
& I said nothing, because I was not religious
Then they came for the athiests,
 & again I would say nothing, because I never called myself an athiest,

Then they came for my neighbours,
& I said nothing, because at least it wasn't me.

Then they came for me

And there was no-one left to speak out

*

One last thing: if you have this site bookmarked or linked, please change to:

www.triggeralert.blogspot.co.uk

if you do not have it down as that already, as the blogspot.co.uk domain is apparently still free from this ridiculously misguided censorship at present.

That's all for now, thanks for stopping by.

Normal service will be resumed shortly.