Such a strange take. Support groups can be labeled as hate groups now? I'm trying to get my head around it, but I just can't get there. Maybe drop the troll act and make an actual point, because right now you look a little ridiculous.
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Because 99% of "men's rights" bull#### is a reactionary "US TOO" cry because women are getting too uppity.
The vast majority of these things get shut down not long after approval due to lack of interest and non-use.
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Originally Posted by PsYcNeT
Actually, I said their intentions are impure, not that the issues they are publicly jerking off over are a waste of time.
Reading comprehension is important.
The only way these issues get resolved is by providing means of support and removing the social stigma that men don't deserve emotional support. Culture changes very, very slowly, just because it doesn't immediately gain traction is no reason to dismiss it outright.
I'll have to brush up on my reading comprehension, seems pretty clear to me.
So you're not volunteering for a cause you seem so impassioned about?
Are you saying you are just simply getting mad on the internet and have no real intention to help those you feel are so trod upon? Say it isn't so!
Great argument. "Unless you've fought in a war, you can't have a say in any future/current wars!" "Unless you've helped make a movie, how dare you critique one!" Many valid insights can be seen/gathered from people all over the spectrum. Just because someone doesn't donate to a charity that comes to your door looking for money doesn't mean they don't believe in the plight that similar charities are seeking to address.
Please elaborate on what harm can come from people thinking about and discussing an issue without having a membership to your volunteer club? Do people have to volunteer for every interest they have or can they pick and choose without having their interests/thoughts invalidated?
I wonder if there is an alternate reality where we could see the validity in both sides: that men need support for the toxic culture of masculinity to change, and that there exists groups of toxic people that distort these types of groups to push their own harmful agenda (on both sides)?
Because of course one, and of course the other, and the acknowledgement of one doesn't need to negate the other.
I imagine a lot of men have a "not all men" mindset when it comes to a lot of problems that get brought up, but there's no argument against being labelled as one homogenous entity when you do the same to "leftists" and "feminists" and whatever else. It seems fairly plain to see that if we, as men, want to escape the negative label put on us, that we should fight fiercely against those men who are responsible for it.
There's no shame in acknowledging the toxic culture of masculinity that brought us to this point, and it's probably essential to do so if we ever want to move past it. Responses like "argh! Regressive left! Full ######!" do more harm than good, and if you actually cared about men's health and the unique things that effect them, you'd fight fire with water, not more fire.
It's the same lesson (slowly) being taught to the "regressive left," that, hey, we can get to where we want to be without making enemies of everyone else. And just because someone tried to make an enemy out of you, doesn't mean you have to respond in kind.
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The only way these issues get resolved is by providing means of support and removing the social stigma that men don't deserve emotional support. Culture changes very, very slowly, just because it doesn't immediately gain traction is no reason to dismiss it outright.
I think there are some very important mens' and boys' health issues that tend to get swept under the rug, particularly in regards to addiction, mental health, as as both victims and perpetrators in the cycle of abuse. But when the men's rights movements are so frequently pointing to feminism as their enemy, I don't see the potential for positive cultural change; I see a perpetuation of the same cultural problems that they claim to want to break.
Like you say, cultural change is very slow. Feminism (in its modern form) is a relatively new part of our society; it's not a perfect movement and it can be guilty of a lack of empathy for other groups of victims. It needs to be allowed time to grow and be comfortable with its relatively new-found power that it's needed to fight so hard to achieve.
Start by accepting that feminists and their allies are not your opponents (even those that see you as their opponents); they are fellow advocates for change, and sometimes fellow victims. They aren't always going to see your side of the story, and that's okay. They're going to be justifiably suspicious that your motives are not sincere but are for a return to a pre-feminist society (because that's certainly what Elam and others like him have advocated for). You aren't going to get anywhere by trying to tear them down. Just keep trying to have legitimate conversations about health, education, and abuse, and over time common understanding will prevail. Any approach other than that is doomed to fail.
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It seems fairly plain to see that if we, as men, want to escape the negative label put on us, that we should fight fiercely against those men who are responsible for it.
I like this part but don't actually feel like it needs to be gendered. Everyone should keep crazy misogynists in check. Everyone should keep crazy misandrists in check. Crazy is crazy, on both sides.
We might disagree as to where the problem stems from and the best way to combat it, but we should be able to have the conversation without downplaying either side as Psycnet is prone to do.
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Starting a "men's rights" group and starting a university club designed to deal with issues men specifically face too entirely different things. The Men's Rights movement largely is garbage. However, that doesn't mean college kids shouldn't have access to therapy, counselling, and support groups that affect them specifically. This club doesn't need to be tied to "men's rights".
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Start by accepting that feminists and their allies are not your opponents...
Feminism as a political movement in 2017 is rooted in Marxist dogma, and is hostile to classical liberalism. So anyone who is a classical liberal - who believes people should be treated as individuals, tolerate the widest possible scope of opinion and expression, and freedom should usually win out in the trade-off between freedom and security - are correct in identifying feminism as an opponent (along with religious fundamentalism, ultra-right nationalism, and other authoritarian dogmas).
Feminism has come to represent a narrowly dogmatic worldview and political program. There's a reason fewer than 25 per cent of Canadian women self-identify as feminists, even though over 90 per cent believe women should have the same rights and freedoms as men. The ideological underpinning of third and fourth wave feminism simply isn't very convincing or attractive to most women.
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Last edited by CliffFletcher; 06-14-2017 at 11:01 AM.
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Everyone should keep crazy misogynists in check. Everyone should keep crazy misandrists in check. Crazy is crazy, on both sides.
The problem is that the moderates aren't speaking or acting. It's the extremes that are crying foul and forcing knee jerk reactions out of people and institutions terrified of bad PR.
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Feminism as a political movement in 2017 is rooted in Marxist dogma, and is hostile to classical liberalism. So anyone who is a classical liberal - who believes people should be treated as individuals, tolerate the widest possible scope of opinion and expression, and freedom should usually win out in the trade-off between freedom and security - are correct in identifying feminism as an opponent (along with religious fundamentalism, ultra-right nationalism, and other authoritarian dogmas).
Feminism has come to represent a narrowly dogmatic worldview and political program. There's a reason fewer than 25 per cent of Canadian women self-identify as feminists, even though over 90 per cent believe women should have the same rights and freedoms as men. The ideological underpinning of third and fourth wave feminism simply isn't very convincing or attractive to most women.
Hmm, where are you getting your 25% figure from? An Ipsos poll from earlier this year says:
"A majority of Canadian men (57%) and women (62%) define themselves as feminists, as is the case for Baby Boomers (64%), Gen X’ers (55%) and Millennials (60%)."
Feminism as a political movement in 2017 is rooted in Marxist dogma, and is hostile to classical liberalism. So anyone who is a classical liberal - who believes people should be treated as individuals, tolerate the widest possible scope of opinion and expression, and freedom should usually win out in the trade-off between freedom and security - are correct in identifying feminism as an opponent (along with religious fundamentalism, ultra-right nationalism, and other authoritarian dogmas).
Feminism has come to represent a narrowly dogmatic worldview and political program. There's a reason fewer than 25 per cent of Canadian women self-identify as feminists, even though over 90 per cent believe women should have the same rights and freedoms as men. The ideological underpinning of third and fourth wave feminism simply isn't very convincing or attractive to most women.
How can you be against the succumbing to tribalism, but for the labelling of feminists as opponents?
They're just a loose group with a common ideology, and as a group they are not homogenous and deserve to be treated as individuals. Isn't it more fruitful to count them as your brothers and sisters than opponents?
So many people preaching individualism and shouting down things like identity politics, and yet so few who can avoid parsing the population into friend and foe. Having an ideology that is contradictory to yours does not make someone your opponent, it's a lesson I myself am trying hard to commit to learning.
I don't see many self-proclaimed "classical liberals" representing liberalism very well. They just seem to represent another side of the constantly bickering coin, where the response to major issues is always worth fughting about more than the issue itself.
It is possible to spread the values you find important without resorting to stuff like "universities are ######ed" and "feminism is basically nazism," because you only succeed in convincing people who already agree with you.
Talking about what's wrong with someone else's position isn't an efficient way of spreading what's right about your position. The natural, logical truth seems to find a way through, despite the pendulum swinging past it a few times along the way. Preaching the value of the Middle seems a lot more effective than labelling opponents and talking about what's "wrong" with everyone else.
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The problem is that the moderates aren't speaking or acting. It's the extremes that are crying foul and forcing knee jerk reactions out of people and institutions terrified of bad PR.
I tend to think that the moderates are just tired of the BS, and know that no matter what they say the extremes on both sides are so firmly entrenched that King Arthur himself wouldn't be able to pull them out.
Its also about both extremes screaming out
Quote:
I want to talk about me
Want to talk about I
Want to talk about number one
Oh my me my
What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see
I like talking about you, you, you, you usually, but occasionally
I want to talk about me
I want to talk about me
Men's issues, come on that's white guy stuff woman's issues mean a lot more
Woman's issues? Give me a break man, men suffer more then any woman
Welcome to far politics in the 21st century where the people in the middle just don't care anymore.
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Hmm, where are you getting your 25% figure from? An Ipsos poll from earlier this year says:
"A majority of Canadian men (57%) and women (62%) define themselves as feminists, as is the case for Baby Boomers (64%), Gen X’ers (55%) and Millennials (60%)."
The main difference between the Chatelaine survey and the Ipsos one I posted (the Chatelaine is sampling from a much narrower selection of women, sampling only one generation, and is a couple years old but otherwise the methodology looks fine), is that the Ipsos one defined what they meant by the term ("someone who advocates and supports equal opportunities for women") as part of the question. The Chatelaine one leaves seems to leave it open to interpretation (I can't find the exact wording), which seemingly scares people off from adopting the label. The version of feminism that you, in this thread, are attempting to use as your definition of modern feminism is the definition that scares people away from identifying with it. It is also likely the definition with which fewest people relate. But if we give it a reasonable definition, then people are happy to accept the label. Stop branding it as a marxist political movement or other narrow, non-representative definitions, and the number of women (and men) who identify as feminist will increase.
You did qualify that definition that you were speaking specifically about feminism as a political movement, but most men's rights arguments don't articulate that difference; they broadly paint feminism as negative and feminists as their opponents, and since most people accept the idea of feminism as actively supporting equal opportunities for women, it comes across that men's rights are against equal opportunities for women.
Again, all of which is separate from the idea that men's health needs are important and need addressing (and I'm partly to blame for derailing this thread away from that discussion).
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Starting a "men's rights" group and starting a university club designed to deal with issues men specifically face too entirely different things. The Men's Rights movement largely is garbage. However, that doesn't mean college kids shouldn't have access to therapy, counselling, and support groups that affect them specifically. This club doesn't need to be tied to "men's rights".
This can't be stated enough, especially because the accepted support networks for men dealing with emotional problems are other men of the same age, who largely have zero idea on how to handle these problems too, and dispense simplistic answers that do nothing to alleviate the problem. What you have is the blind leading the blind, with whole generations of men growing up without the requisite skills to process emotions effectively, largely letting it affect their lives by delving into substance abuse, or worse, turning around and physically abusing people either emotionally or physically.
It only makes sense that if we want to lessen the ills of men causing harm to others in society, wouldn't it be a good idea to give them tools to deal with life in a non-destructive way?
I present to you this problem in a pop culture reference that was depicted by Cameron Crowe and John Cusack decades ago when a heartbroken young man tries to grapple with his emotions in a meaningful way and has to rely on other young men to guide him.
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