
What I Learned as a Woman at a Men's Rights Conference - stevesalevan
http://time.com/2949435/what-i-learned-as-a-woman-at-a-mens-rights-conference/
======
pdabbadabba
I wish that men's rights advocates could see the obvious when it comes to
parental rights: this is just another result of the traditional gender roles
that feminists have been fighting since the beginning. This just happens to be
a case where it disadvantages men instead of women (or, maybe, men as well as
women).

The irony is, though, that instead of fighting these traditional gender roles,
some men's rights activists seem to embrace the roles and then confuse
diminution of those gender roles with the diminution of men. If more of them
could embrace the goal of the abolition of traditional gender roles, and stop
speaking in stereotyped terms about the need to promote and respect
"masculinity" as though it were synonymous with male-ness, I think they would
find that feminists (good ones, at least) are their greatest allies.

(This applies only to the "men's-rights" activists who don't say things like
"All the cold-hearted jerks who run the world came out of the vaginas of women
who married a–holes" and "Doesn’t no mean yes?" Clearly some men characterize
themselves as "man's-rights activists" because it provides, in their view, a
framework for legitimizing their antecedent misogyny.)

~~~
wiejfjiwioef
Family courts "do not just happens" to disadvantage men. There is duluth model
and other literature produced mainly by feminists largely responsible for
that. On any proposal such as child payments to be accountable or visitation
rights enforceability, feminists screams rape.

MRA are making many efforts to cooperate with feminism. Many MRAs are
feminists shamed and kicked out for not being radical enough. So far we got
only acknowledgement that "men has issues too", that is kind of success.

I will not comment on article itself. I could go on any feminist conference
and cherry-pick many statements.

~~~
pdabbadabba
Also, what does this mean?

> Many MRAs are feminists shamed and kicked out for not being radical enough.

Is feminism an institution? I was not aware anyone could be "kicked out" of
feminism for not being sufficiently radical. I would know, being a not-
particularly-radical feminist myself.

At any rate, this is quite dubious. The only MRAs I know of are not even close
to being merely "insufficiently radical feminists," except perhaps in the same
sense in which Catholics are insufficiently radical atheists.

Note that by "MRAs" I mean people who self-identify as part of the MRA
movement. There are, I'm sure, many people out there who are aware of and
interested in men's issues who could also qualify as feminists. Such people,
such as myself, choose not to be identified with the MRA movement because of
all the misogyny that travels with it.

I suppose you might make the argument: "why not refuse to be identified with
the feminist movement for the same reason"? There are (at least) two reasons.
First, feminism is less associated with a small particular people and
institutions than MRA. This may just be because feminism is bigger. But,
whatever the cause, I don't feel that identifying myself as a feminists as
closely associates me with objectionable activities at the fringes. More to
the point, I simply don't think most feminists generally are as virulently
anti-man as MRAs are anti-woman. Again, maybe this is attributable to the size
of the movement. I know that there are feminists who are virulently anti-man,
but I think they make up a small fringe of the overall feminist movement.
Ultimately, though, this is just a question of what labels one is or is not
comfortable taking on.

~~~
wiejfjiwioef
Yes, feminism is pretty much religion today. You can be "kicked out" for being
men or not agreeing with some 'axioms' such as rape culture or patriarchy. One
link for demonstration:

[http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&sl=auto&tl=en&u=h...](http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://se.avoiceformen.com/allnews/nathatade-
feminister-transexuell-man-till-dods/)

Feminism is not just 'bigger' it is multi-billion dollar industry. MRA is just
a few web forums which barely managed to organize single conference.

If you disagree with some radical feminists, perhaps it is time to tell them,
instead of bashing on MRAs.

~~~
pdabbadabba
Next time I see a "radical feminist" posting on HN I'll be sure to give him or
her a piece of my mind.

Also, you'll need to do better than an article from, of all places,
avoiceformen.com that merely assumes the existence of a feminist institution
that you can be kicked out of and blames it for a man's suicide.

I'm certainly not aware of any such institution and I'm a feminist! Perhaps my
membership card has just been lost in the mail? Or _gasp!_ maybe it's because
I'm a man and the mother ship is just not giving me the time of day? That
explains a lot, actually...

~~~
wiejfjiwioef
There are many feminists institutions, that guy got kicked out from FEMEN
Sweden. Others got kicked out from campus groups or web forums. If you want go
to MRA forum and just ask.

Perhaps you have no membership card because you never applied anywhere. But
some people are more involved.

~~~
pdabbadabba
Ah ha. There are, of course, organizations that identify themselves as
feminist. And yes, you can get kicked out of them, I suppose. But this is not
at all the same thing as getting kicked out of "feminism," as you have been
alleging to have been the case.

This is more than a mere semantic distinction since any arbitrary feminist
group can have whatever arbitrary rule or prejudices it likes without those
views' being imputable to all feminists. I certainly don't accept that FEMEN
Sweden speaks for all (or even many) feminists or that being kicked out of
FEMEN means you can't be or aren't a feminist.

------
filoeleven
If anyone is interested in a place where issues of particular importance to
men are being discussed by a variety of writers (and not just men), I
recommend checking out The Good Men Project.[1] I've found a good number of
the articles there to be timely and thought-provoking, and the general spirit
is one of cooperation rather than the antagonism that seemed to be underlying
the conference detailed in the article.

Some of the topics frequently written about include the changing perceptions
of masculinity, child rearing, friendships, dating, sex, work, community,
race, self-worth and fulfillment. That's painting in very broad strokes, but
with such a diverse collection of articles (and a narrower yet similar
variance in quality) it's hard to give a more specific description without
linking to individual articles, which I will not do since I am at work.

[1][http://goodmenproject.com](http://goodmenproject.com)

------
nobodysfool2
It seems to me the men were laughing because the woman was objectifying
herself in her selfie...

In any case, the woman in this article had her own experience, yet it is only
a single person's experience, and as I can see, it is colored by her own pre-
conceived notions and judgements. I appreciate that women are willing to
listen to the message, but disappointed that she chose to focus on one thing
she considered negative to ridicule their points of view and make ad hominem
attacks on the speakers.

~~~
CocaKoala
What do you feel is the one thing that the author "considered negative" which
was used to ridicule the points of view of the presenters, and what do you
feel are ad hominem attacks made by the reporter?

