After being called an MRA here numerous times, I decided to try define that term

[galileoreloaded]

help me if I missed something as I want to see how others here define the label:

i must believe in a "patriarchy", which loosely means a world domination of women by men.

by requiring empirical evidence and logical discussions about social issues, i support rape and a "rape culture" which is apparently defined as somehow my "privilege" for having a penis and my willingness? to support those who are also rapists by virtue of having another penis. my god all the penises are taking over!

not a supporter of authoritarian themes like gun control. that makes me an MRA too I guess.

what am i missing? i want to be labelled for all my flaws, not just a few lazy jabs.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Don't let others define you.

Especially on an internet discussion board!

Did someone also call you a hopolophobe?

If so, I am sorry, it's not a term I'd use, nor would I call someone an MRA.

[galileoreloaded]

2. lol. i think its a riot, but I just want to get myself defined all proper like

so I can assume the throne of whatever dark kingdom I purportedly reign.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. or, you could just change the light bulb in the john.

That's what I do, when my throne room gets dark.

[opiate69]

13. Ah, but when you play the game of thrones, you win, or you die.

Last edited Thu Jun 20, 2013, 06:18 PM - Edit history (1)

There is no middle ground.

[galileoreloaded]

3. Adding to the definitions:

believes Wikipedia is a right wing organization.

[Major Nikon]

4. I doubt that many who throw around the MRA label as a pejorative would accept the mirror argument

[Warren DeMontague]

6. I've been accused of being some sort of fucking MRA Grand Poop-bah, because I dare to say things

like

1) I think Andrea Dworkin clearly had some profound mental problems,

or

2) the idea that "objectification theory", based upon film-school notions like "the male gaze", describes some hard scientific physiological brain process whereby men confuse sex with women and working with power tools, is goofy...

or

3) I espouse the horribly dangerous notion that in an obstensibly free society, consenting adults should be free to fuck in front of a camera for the purpose of other consenting adults watching it.

That's where the bar for not just MRAness but apparently being some sort of MRA Grand Wizard is.

I don't fucking get it, but, whatevs.

[opiate69]

34. Know what else apparently defies explanation?

The fact that us evil "MRAer" dudebroz actually get along with those other feminists (you know... the fauxmenists) that don't continually insult us by fallaciously calling us "MRA", "misogynists", yada yada... shocking.. who woulda thunk that "treating others with a modicum of respect" and "others treating you with a modicum of respect" were somehow correlated?

[nomorenomore08]

7. To me the hallmark of an MRA is that he considers himself disadvantaged in society, as a man.

Which, as a man myself, I think is a patently absurd belief. We may have made significant strides toward gender equality, but nowhere near the point of "reverse sexism" - which I think is just as silly, in concept, as "reverse racism."

[Warren DeMontague]

8. I would agree, although pretty much everything I've learned about "MRAs" has come from people

Last edited Thu Jun 20, 2013, 04:45 AM - Edit history (2)

complaining about them on DU.

Taken by themselves, I don't really think you're talking about a very big demographic. Unless the demographic includes a general sort of being-full-of-shit-on-the-internet, which is a VERY big demographic, albeit not limited to any sort of group or gender or philosophical orientation.


What I think has happened, traditionally, on DU is that some people have conflated what you're talking about, with any sort of divergence from or objection to the most radical strains of 2nd Wave Radical Feminist thought (not to be confused, again, with the larger venn circle that is "Feminism&quot and decided to label that "being an MRA". Of course, that means that there are a lot of so-called MRAs out there, including all self-identified sex positive 3rd Wave Feminists.

And as has been shown way too often for me to belabor the point, some folks here are awfully attached to their favorite labels, to which I try to patiently mansplain cough remind them, that the labels are only subjective categorizations for more or less arbitrary groupings of viewpoints or phenomena; ascribing too much objective "realness" to them can be a mistake.

[nomorenomore08]

15. Exactly. Some people apparently feel the need to divide up the entire world into "good guys"

and "bad guys," and of course they themselves are always one of the "good guys." This isn't a phenomenon specific to any group, of course, anyone can and does do so.

[Warren DeMontague]

20. Indeed.

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. Let's explore this.

Which social and institutional privileges do you hold and how do they manifest themselves in your daily life?

I can think of two;
1) When I choose to do something stupid, I'm accorded the respect of being called stupid as opposed to a victim.
2) No one will step in to prevent me from doing risky things. In fact, if a risky thing needs doing, people look for me, and consider this a form of respect.

The downsides of these attitudes should be obvious.

And there's no such thing as "reverse" sexism. It's all one thing. The treatment given the Duke Lacrosse team was sexist, not "reverse" sexist.

The term MRA has been so co-opted by right wing politics that I can't identify with it. When MRA groups advocate for passage of the equal rights amendment, I'm in full agreement. That fact seriously brings into question who has the high ground here.

[galileoreloaded]

10. yeah but its not about equality is it. its about replacing an idea, male primacy or "patriarchy"

with a feminine primacy. thats what I see manifesting anyway. its completely understandable to want as much power as you can acquire, but we need to call out blatant abuses in mis-characterizations and flat lying in the quest to achieve it lest people think that this is normal behavior that any but a few relentless and loud voices exhibit.

[lumberjack_jeff]

12. The main problem I have with it is selective primacy.

Instead of wealthy men sending poor boys to die in war, "equality" demands that wealthy women be the ones to send poor boys to die in war.

[nomorenomore08]

18. Which is why addressing gender inequality all by itself is never adequate.

Because if "equality" simply means giving an elite few women the chance to be as greedy and ruthless as the wealthy male elite, then that's no equality worth fighting for in my book.

[nomorenomore08]

17. Sure, you can find legitimate exceptions to almost any "rule." Generalities are just that,

generalities. I'll certainly agree that, even though men as a whole still have the upper hand in this society, there are exceptions such as the ones you named.

I think a lot of MRA's probably start with a legitimate - if ultimately minor - grievance, but then they take that grain of truth and blow it up into this whole huge conspiracy theory which has little to no resemblance to reality. They take their experiences with one, or a few, "bad" women and blow it out of proportion to the point that it seems like the whole female gender is out to get them. Hence the kind of dudes that that ManBoobz guy likes to make fun of.

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. "Men as a whole" = cop out. I asked about you.

Barack Obama and Bill Gates aren't "men as a whole", and no one, including you or I are empowered to speak for "men as a whole".

I asked you a fairly simple question about your experiences with a phenomenon that you describe as patently obvious. The question should have some immediately apparent answers if your response is based on something more than conventional wisdom. Are you personally paid more than your female co-workers because you're a man? You were handed a CEO position? You got drafted into congress? You go to the front of the line at the doctors office? You get a discount on your taxes? You get government benefits that are not available to women? You didn't have to register for the draft but your sister did?

This is the fattest pitch down the center of the plate on this topic imaginable. This is your opportunity to knock it out of the park. How is your personal, daily experience enhanced by your position of social privilege?

The best manifestation of the patriarchy is the Vietnam wall. 58,272 names... 58,264 of them men's names. Patriarchy<>male privilege.

[nomorenomore08]

21. Okay, sorry. I guess I misunderstood slightly.

I suppose ultimately, the most obvious manifestation of what one might call "privilege" is the relative lack of fear that I feel, both day to day and in specific situations. Which is certainly not to say that all women live in fear at all times. And I may feel less afraid in part because I happen to be a relatively large, perhaps intimidating, man. But knowing the statistics on male victimization of women, combined with the fact that women on average are smaller and physically weaker, I do probably feel safer out there in the world, than I would as a woman.

Now, this is largely my own gut feeling, and as I said, there are always exceptions. And intellectually, I know that men are more likely to be murder victims than women are. The difference is, men murder and sexually assault women at astronomically higher rates than the reverse. Which is not to say that all, or even most, men should be seen as dangerous or threatening. But I suspect that were I a woman, I would have a certain wariness toward (male) strangers that, being a man, doesn't even cross my mind now.

And I do think you made a very valid point with your mention of the Vietnam Memorial. Were the 50,000+ young American men who lost their lives in a foreign country "privileged"? Not enough to save their lives anyway...

[Major Nikon]

22. Privilege is not a feeling

It is an advantage that one class gets at the expense of another.

[nomorenomore08]

24. I know that. I was just trying to tie it to my own subjective experience, in a tangible way.

And I realize that my perceptions of the world are just as fallible as anyone else's.

[lumberjack_jeff]

27. If privilege is subjective, it is bullshit. n/t

[nomorenomore08]

28. I wouldn't say it's "subjective." But it is relative, and encompasses much more than gender.

Hence why the notion that a working-class man - such as those who died in Vietnam, or those who suffer crippling on-the-job injuries - has greater privilege than a middle-class, college-educated woman, is demonstrably false. But I would hope that no one but a few sheltered, insular academic feminists actually believes said notion.

What complicates things is that nearly all of us, on a relative scale, possess greater privilege than some people and less than others. Which isn't to say that ideas like "male privilege" or "white privilege" can't be discussed as generalities - they certainly can - but they don't apply to all people, at all times, the exact same way.

And I realize that my comments in this thread may seem somewhat vague and contradictory, but I really am trying to put together a coherent argument which nonetheless acknowledges the nuances of the real world. You seem intent on proving that women aren't disadvantaged relative to men, which may be true in some instances, but as a sweeping generalization requires (IMO) a very selective view of things.

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. Burden of proof and remediation.

1) No one can prove a negative. One can't prove that X privilege doesn't exist, so it's incumbent on those who believe it does to prove its existence.

2) I'm down with the idea that wealth brings privilege and that there are significant privileges associated with being a member of the majority racial group. I also agree that as the various factors intertwine they provide infinitely varying degrees of it.
... but social policy is a blunt instrument. All of the laws and social policies which would be invalidated by the Equal Rights Amendment are there to benefit women, to mitigate the believed presence of institutional preference for men.
For instance, scholarships for women long ago fixed the problem they were meant to address. It will be impossible to correct the gender imbalance in college so long as young men have access to only 35-40% of the financial aid.
Social policy works in generalities, and sex is not a meaningful indicator of privilege.

I think your comments are vague and contradictory because the conventional wisdom on which it is based is subjective and defended based on feelings. "Men don't have to worry about being raped! Men don't have to worry about cleaning the kitchen! Men don't have to worry about picking up the kids from daycare!". I have no doubt that many women feel that they have to worry about the kitchen. In my experience, when the kitchen reaches my discomfort level, I clean it up. The fact that my standard of clean is different from my wife's is not a form of privilege.
She doesn't "have to" clean the kitchen, she chooses to. The same holds true for men who have to work overtime to pay the bills. If the bills were as important to her as they are to him, she'd feel obliged to work overtime too.

[lumberjack_jeff]

23. If you feel safer than the typical woman, it's irrational.

Last edited Thu Jun 20, 2013, 10:53 PM - Edit history (1)

It's not just murder, it's all violent crime. The only category of violent crime in which the statistics are close is sexual assault, and it's not at all unlikely that men are more often victimized by this too.



Is the fact that your attacker and her attacker are both likely to be men of any material difference toward the issue of your privilege?

[nomorenomore08]

25. In terms of cold, hard statistics, you may be right.

But I was talking more about subjective perceptions of the world, and as I said, I'm sure mine are just as subject to fallibility as anyone's are. Though I also noted that women are far more likely to be violent-crime victims at the hands of men, than men at the hands of women. So I was suggesting that men don't have the base-level wariness of women, that women do of men, and with good reason. But maybe I didn't do the best job of explaining myself.

[lumberjack_jeff]

26. Subjective perceptions of the world are shaped by phrases like...

&quot men are disadvantaged in society) is a patently absurd belief"

The perceptions are reinforced by endless repetition of gut feeling. So much so that the very measuring of "cold hard facts" is offensive.

I fail to see why the fact that he's more likely to shoot the brother than the sister should elicit a greater base level of fear from the sister.

Here's my theory. The patriarchy holds women's lives in greater value. (e.g. the names on the Vietnam wall) so threats to women's lives are therefore taken more seriously (e.g. more funding for breast cancer research). Therefore, the threats that face women are overestimated and sensationalized because that is the news people want to read about.

Base level wariness is a belief system actively looking for confirmation, and the direct result of patriarchy.

... but not the way the conventional wisdom thinks it is.

[nomorenomore08]

29. I think maybe *some* women's lives are held in greater value than *some* men's.

As far as men of the "lower classes" are concerned, their lives unfortunately aren't exactly precious commodities, as our last several decades of military interventions demonstrate.

But there are women who are considered just as disposable as any man, if not more so. For instance, sex workers - many serial killers in modern times have been able to act with relative impunity, since they were "only" killing hookers. Also worth noting is the stigma often attached to rape victims, who in many cases are almost considered more culpable than the actual rapists, though fortunately I think things have gotten somewhat better in that respect, relative to a few decades ago.

So in short, it's a complex question. I don't think it's simply that "women are considered more valuable than men."

[galileoreloaded]

32. women's lives, by biological necessity are more important than mens

eggs are expensive and sperm is cheap.

simple facts of reproduction for all species.

[nomorenomore08]

33. Very true. And those who consider women so disposable - not on DU, but out there in the world -

would do well to remember that.

[galileoreloaded]

11. i dont feel disadvantaged at all, just not "priveleged" barf. i guess im not an mra then. nt

[nomorenomore08]

14. No, I don't think you really fit the profile. You're not paranoid or belligerent enough.

[galileoreloaded]

16. lol. i do get assertive but it isn't rooted in insecurity

[Major Nikon]

31. Join the resistance