When I was on , I’d argue every day with the “Men’s Rights Activists” on the circumcision subreddits. It would range from dishonest shit like “most doctors doing circumcision are women” to really unfair attacks like “why aren’t feminists protesting about male suicide” (answer: because MRAs are fucking assholes and feminists have their own problems). In the end, it was those guys that drove me out of Reddit for good.
I was just super embarrassed, because any normal person would see their conversations and think that anti-circumcision people were massive turds.
I don’t get that one about protesting. Why aren’t MEN protesting about male suicide rates? I’ve never even heard of one protest in regards to it.
It reminds me of the line racists use about the black community. “Why don’t black people do anything about black on black violence?” And that one is easy because… they have and are. They protest. They form community action groups. They pressure local governments. They speak out. There is so much movement in black communities across America to address poverty, violence, education and more. White people just don’t see it or hear about it because the media does not care and does not show their efforts but it is there.
Never identified as an MRA but, having dipped my toe into the waters on that shit a bit, straight up I honestly genuinely unironically think they don’t actually give a shit about male suicide rates or “men” in general at all. They are for one reason or another as a whole: deeply selfish bitter reactionary people who don’t care about community and they are basically cosplaying like they have one.
And really that isn’t surprising because the truth is that if you actually ARE serious about digging into and addressing any of the grievances they claim to be concerned with you will actually start to realize that essentially ALL of them are symptoms of cis white male patriarchy under capitalism. Take family court for example. Half of MRAs probably think there’s some kind of feminist cabal out to persecute fathers but the degree to which family court favors mothers (if at all) is the result of:
1: Old crusty white male judges who decided centuries ago that a woman’s role is to be nurturer and a father’s role is to work a job.
2: The reality that men are in general not conditioned to build and maintain support networks through friends and family which in turn makes the logistics of childcare more difficult.
I was there when the men’s rights subreddit was created. It was actually posted about and promoted in the socialism reddit for like a week. That’s about as long as it took to become reactionary. The first few days there were a lot of feminists there ready to address men’s issues and evaluated it just like this. They were all pushed out quickly. It’s almost a case study how that community formed and developed.
Ultimately you are right, though. There is so much about it that is steeped in patriarchy and are issues that women are fed up with, too. I think feminism has a place for men’s issues because feminism is a way to tackle human issues and that space could have been a great place to spread that. It seemed it might have been for a day or two even. But the reactionary elements of the MRA movement are either deaf to it or actively undermining it.
I know this isn’t you but imagine them saying this. “We want to change the social stigma around this and bring attention to it but we never protest or demonstrate about it.” Uh, then you don’t care.
Therapy helps plenty of people, but to each their own. The point still stands that blaming other people for your depression and subsequent refusal to treat it is not okay.
Therapy is one very distinct and expensive form of treating depression. As I said if depression is being caused by an environment that can be difficult for people to change.
Men would rather blame women for their mental health than get therapy.
When I was on
, I’d argue every day with the “Men’s Rights Activists” on the circumcision subreddits. It would range from dishonest shit like “most doctors doing circumcision are women” to really unfair attacks like “why aren’t feminists protesting about male suicide” (answer: because MRAs are fucking assholes and feminists have their own problems). In the end, it was those guys that drove me out of Reddit for good.
I was just super embarrassed, because any normal person would see their conversations and think that anti-circumcision people were massive turds.
I don’t get that one about protesting. Why aren’t MEN protesting about male suicide rates? I’ve never even heard of one protest in regards to it.
It reminds me of the line racists use about the black community. “Why don’t black people do anything about black on black violence?” And that one is easy because… they have and are. They protest. They form community action groups. They pressure local governments. They speak out. There is so much movement in black communities across America to address poverty, violence, education and more. White people just don’t see it or hear about it because the media does not care and does not show their efforts but it is there.
Never identified as an MRA but, having dipped my toe into the waters on that shit a bit, straight up I honestly genuinely unironically think they don’t actually give a shit about male suicide rates or “men” in general at all. They are for one reason or another as a whole: deeply selfish bitter reactionary people who don’t care about community and they are basically cosplaying like they have one.
And really that isn’t surprising because the truth is that if you actually ARE serious about digging into and addressing any of the grievances they claim to be concerned with you will actually start to realize that essentially ALL of them are symptoms of cis white male patriarchy under capitalism. Take family court for example. Half of MRAs probably think there’s some kind of feminist cabal out to persecute fathers but the degree to which family court favors mothers (if at all) is the result of: 1: Old crusty white male judges who decided centuries ago that a woman’s role is to be nurturer and a father’s role is to work a job. 2: The reality that men are in general not conditioned to build and maintain support networks through friends and family which in turn makes the logistics of childcare more difficult.
I was there when the men’s rights subreddit was created. It was actually posted about and promoted in the socialism reddit for like a week. That’s about as long as it took to become reactionary. The first few days there were a lot of feminists there ready to address men’s issues and evaluated it just like this. They were all pushed out quickly. It’s almost a case study how that community formed and developed.
Ultimately you are right, though. There is so much about it that is steeped in patriarchy and are issues that women are fed up with, too. I think feminism has a place for men’s issues because feminism is a way to tackle human issues and that space could have been a great place to spread that. It seemed it might have been for a day or two even. But the reactionary elements of the MRA movement are either deaf to it or actively undermining it.
I mean the why here is the same reason for why male suicide rates are so high. The shame and social stigma associated with it.
I know this isn’t you but imagine them saying this. “We want to change the social stigma around this and bring attention to it but we never protest or demonstrate about it.” Uh, then you don’t care.
Leave it to men on reddit to pivot the conversation from “why circumcision is bad” to “evil women think circumcisions aren’t enough!”
Laughable fuckheads.
Therapy fuckin sucks, blaming women obviously isn’t the solution though.
Therapy helps plenty of people, but to each their own. The point still stands that blaming other people for your depression and subsequent refusal to treat it is not okay.
Therapy is one very distinct and expensive form of treating depression. As I said if depression is being caused by an environment that can be difficult for people to change.