I First heard about the MRM through some link on Wikipedia. It seemed really reasonable. Its platforms included equal divorce laws, acknowledging men as victims of domestic abuse and rape, the establishment of men’s shelters, and freedom for men wrongly accused of rape. It even said that most MRAs also identify as feminists, which seemed only natural to me. All in all, it was a movement I could get behind. I didn’t really think about it much after that, but I sorta liked it.
Fast forward a couple years to when I find the /r/MensRights subreddit, basically a reddit forum on men’s rights. I thought it was pretty good, and started contributing to it a bit. I would find some truly infuriating bits of misandry, like this one saying that defendants accused of rape (presumably only male ones) should be presumed guilty until proven innocent. I’d post them and we’d all rage together.
But then I started reading it more. I noticed some weird trends. They seemed to actually hate feminism, rather than see it as a potentially strong ally. I saw a lot of articles not so much about actual abuses of men’s rights, but misandrist comments made by random people on the internet that didn’t seem to have much of an audience. There were almost no articles about the victories of men’s rights, or any drives to raise money for a men’s shelter or to protest unfair divorce laws. I guess I figured that it must not have been happening, so I had all the more reason to get mad. The comments on the links, made by members of the subreddit, were often pretty misogynistic, throwing hate at feminists and women in general rather than just the people in the article. I never saw anything as bad as the remarks quoted in Futrelle’s article, but there was a pretty unsettling hateful tone to the comments. I wasn’t sure if the articles and comments that were being posted were what made them angry, or if they were posting them so they would have an excuse to rant about women. In the end, I ended up not enjoying the subreddit at all; the articles showing clearly unfair treatment of men and the needlessly misogynistic comments were like a two-front war on my emotions, getting me pissed from both sides.
The real end of my involvement with the subreddit, and by extension the movement, came when I saw a comment that said “i got a unique method for the nagging wife, its called ‘shut your mouth, you fucking bitch’ or SYMYFB. Many clinical studies show that this technique actually gets better results from men than nagging.” I knew it was meant as a joke, but it didn’t come off so much as making fun of misogynists as much as phrasing an actual misogynistic belief in the form of a joke. I wasn’t too alarmed; it now rests at 20 downvotes, but it didn’t seem too far off from the most of the comments I had been seeing during my time there. So I posted a link to the comment urging the people of the subreddit to maybe be a little more mature if we wanted to be taken seriously. I got a few positive responses, but a good amount of the comments were basically telling me to get over myself.
We’re not into censorship here. Everyone is free to say their peace, regardless of their political inclinations. I think the fact that you seem to expect censorship is more disturbing than the opinion of some random idiot. If you’ll note, they’re downvoted into oblivion. The poster doesn’t reflect our general opinion. The ability to allow dissenting voices shows strength of character and resolve. It’s when we need to resort to censorship that we should be worried.
Oh no!, some randomer called Offensive_Brute turned up and said something offensive in our sub reddit, clearly this is all a lost cause guys, let’s call it a day.
Get over yourself. If I thought any of this shit was taken seriously, I’d censor myself a little more. Its not. Its just random strangers writing random shit.That last comment, while downvoted, was from one of the subreddit’s top contributors, and it spoke to my biggest problem with the subreddit and the movement as a whole. “We aren’t in a position to write policy, we are in a position to make jokes on the internet.” Then why do I see photos of feminist rallies all the time? Petitions for feminist issues? The early feminists were in much less a position to write policy. They didn’t even have the vote. But they still managed to get things done.
We aren’t in a position to write policy, we are in a position to make jokes on the internet and those who are interested or disenfranchised will naturally find their way here.
Unlike much of the women on here, I can take a joke. Even at my expense.
So I stopped considering myself an MRA. I still support men’s rights, and will still speak out when I see them being abused, but I can’t truly use the acronym for a couple reasons. One, it’s more or less the official name of a movement that I found good on paper but somewhat unsettling in practice. Two, it wasn’t activism; it was a rage-fueled internet circlejerk. I still have hope for this movement. The first two waves of feminism were often terribly transphobic and hurtful. A movement takes time to grow. Men’s shelters have already begun being established in some European countries, and hopefully that will continue to happen elsewhere. But mostly, the best thing the MRM could do is to drop the irrational hate of feminism and instead see it as an ally. Both sides are ultimately fighting for gender equality, and while men are definitely a privileged group, there are still some areas where their rights aren’t being completely respected. But honestly, I’ve seen more feminists than MRAs point out that men can be victims of rape too, and usually in a more rational way than the MRAs. So maybe someday, if the MRM decides to ally itself with feminism, I’ll rejoin it. But until then, I’ll continue speaking out against gender inequality from both sides, and wait for the MRM to come to its senses.
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