I have read your FAQ, your posts, your comments. Men have a voice. Men have no problem being taken seriously. Men are listened to... even when they aren’t making any good points. People listen to men when they have absolutely nothing to say. This is because of male privilege, which I will get into in a moment. After collecting all of the knowledge I could absorb on your movement, I find that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of feminism as a whole, which makes your whole movement based on a false pretense. I see the radical “feminists” you oppose. They are not feminists. I know this and I want you to know this, equality is the true meaning of feminism. When you joined this movement for men’s rights you started something foul. You see, true feminists understand that men have problems and don’t just cause them. We are not bigoted man-haters. True feminists want equality for both men and women. I am sorry that some extremists claiming feminism have forced you to create your own movement as you feel your problems are not being addressed. They should be. But, starting a movement that is taken as the opposition of feminism is not how we should be addressing these problems. The people who focus on feminism as an extremist population are not the worst of your bunch. The worst of your bunch are the ones who put men’s rights ahead of women’s. In your FAQ you imply that men have less rights/privileges than women. You see women standing up for themselves and can’t support them. For whatever reason, you feel the need to steal attention and focus only on yourselves. Men have problems we need to address, but women in general have the short end of the stick. We-dare I say it- generally have it worse. The fact that I can’t say that without fear of men coming in and saying that they in fact are the most oppressed individuals on earth proves my point on it’s own. Equality of the sexes begins with women’s rights, as we are the ones who are considered the lesser sex. We have a problem addressing the core problems as a society because we can’t handle not having all of the attention and privilege all the time. But as a society, women’s issues need to be addressed, and saying that men have problems too does nothing to address those issues. Moving feminism forward will help men’s problems as well. When women are finally thought of as equals, men will have less problems with hypermasculinity, and the need to suppress the feminine, or “weak” side. When women are finally viewed as equals, men will not carry the pressure of child support or being the breadwinner. This just takes some initial recognition that men have it better in most places. As the cliche saying goes, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one. Pushing the men’s rights movement ahead of feminism hurts people. Men have rights. It’s like giving a toy to one child then offering one to another child, but the first child sees this and gets jealous. Why? They already have a toy. Men already have privilege where women do not. Denying male privilege doesn't help anyone. You can accept your privilege and still work on your problems. It helps a lot in terms of credibility when you can outwardly accept that you have a voice. Because you do. And you can use your voice, but you have serious problems using it now. Because of your image problem, people have trouble listening to you and respecting your arguments.
Men’s rights activists have the same image problem that feminists do. When MRAs are brought up, especially from reddit, the image of an overweight pale man in a fedora creeps into view. Probably in the same way that when you think of feminists you think of stereotypical masculine lesbians. We both know this is not true for the majority of either of our groups. In fact, there are many male feminists. Many men are capable of recognizing their privilege and using their voice to help women. This is similar to how white people should recognize their privilege and use it to help black people. There can be an element of guilt associated with accepting the fact that you’re privileged and I assume that’s why MRAs don’t do it. Or can’t do it. This isn’t claiming superiority, this is acknowledging the fact that society was crafted in order to benefit you. When you realize that society was made to benefit the white male, you can start to look at the people with worse problems than yours and have sympathy. This is not the denial of men’s problems. This is about the needs of women. This is about the goal of feminists. We strive towards an unattainable perfection, trying to get as close to it as we can. There is an idea of a utopia where society is absolutely perfect, men and women are equal, racism is gone, and all other societal problems, and this idea is what pushes us forward. We continue to try to make changes towards a better society for the future of the world. We would like this future to include equality and solutions. Right now, with men’s rights activism, we are a society of bickering and denial. Not real progression. So, /r/mensrights, please think about what I’ve said and try to spend less of your time opposing feminists and more of it seriously working on the progression of equality. Oppressing women, ignoring women's lack of rights, and bashing feminism aren't very logical ways to increase equality. Comment your opinions, if you'd like. I'd like to hear your thoughts and I will try to answer all of your comments. Sincerely, Julia Cote
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The hashtag #Meninisttwitter contains many offensive and sexist tweets, but some of them have an underlying point to them. They often vaguely point out a cultural problem that should be addressed. Although they may elicit a response, their rhetorical strategies are often ineffective in promoting change. This could be because change isn’t really what they want. Back to you, AdamToday I am analyzing a tweet found on #meninisttwitter, posted by twitter user Adam DeShong. His statement is simple, asking “why can a woman force a man to be a father but a man can’t force a woman to be a mother?” This is regarding how in society today, when men and women have sex and conceive, the woman can make the decision to carry the baby to term or not. When the woman decides to carry a baby to term, the man she had sex with becomes a father and may pay child support or become responsible for the child. He finds this fact unfair, and says a man should have the ability to make a woman carry a baby to term. The injustice is apparent, he points out a flaw in the system that should be addressed. Should a man have to pay child support if a woman makes the decision to carry the baby to term? Should a man have a say in abortion? He definitely has a point to make, but his rhetorical strategy fell flat. Why not both?
We see all over twitter different profiles dedicated to mocking feminism. A simple search of #meninist provides far too many results. The prevalence of this topic is not trivial. A hoard of posts have been made mocking feminism in the name of “meninism,” and they are not ignored. Feminists see them, meninists see them, and so does the rest of the world. Currently, twitter user @MeninistTweet has over 1 million followers. That is 1 million people retweeting, favoriting, and reading their posts, 1 million people who may start to believe that feminism is ridiculous and unnecessary. 1 million people who are actively being told that women’s problems are a joke. @MeninistTweet may think that their jokes are harmless, but in reality they promote oppression of women and promote the idea that feminism is a worthless movement.
A term originally coined in the early 2000’s, meninism started as a term for male feminists. The original meninists believed in the equality of the sexes. This humble and reasonable beginning radically changed course in the past few years. Modern meninism is now associated with men’s rights activists, a group of people who only recognize the shouts of radical feminists and disregard the real meaning of feminism. This misconception led to the idea that feminists hate men and don’t care about or address male problems. True feminists should be willing to discuss men’s problems too, seeing as many of men’s masculinity problems stem off from the fact that women are looked on as “lesser” beings. Men do have actual valid problems. Now, we need to discuss meninism as a problem for both men and women. Why should we care?This movement has a huge following. Twitter accounts, tumblr pages, merchandise, reddit subcategories, articles, and other social media accounts have been dedicated to meninism. The prevalence of this phenomena should worry you. Meninism contradicts a positive movement in a way that people blindly follow. With a twisted, anti-feminist logic, meninism created a mainstream following. Even women follow this trend, claiming “they are fed up of feeling judged by feminists.” This should worry you.
In summary...In the post “Message to My Freshman Students,” Keith Parsons suggests in so many words that freshmen are wholly unprepared for any change and are in no way ready to receive his profound knowledge. He argues that society leaning towards non-lectured learning is ineffective and an insult to his academic integrity. Suggesting the only real way to learn is to be talked at. Students should change the way they learn to be deemed teachable. He believes that college is meant for deeper learning and following passions, and freshmen as an entirety have an incapability to grasp education on this level. None of this is the professor’s fault, and the professor needs not take any steps towards improving their students. The students must adjust to the ancient academic norm or be left to fail. He adds to his rant, “We should not foolishly expect them to listen to us, but instead cater to their conditioned craving for constant stimulation” (Parsons). He claims that it is not the professor’s job to update their ancient methods, they should not have to keep up with the changing generations. If students just go to college to earn credentials, they won’t enrich their lives or change the world at all. From a Freshman's Perspective Frankly, Parsons' widespread negative assumptions about my generation and his condescending sarcasm make me want to discard him as just another angry old man who never learned how to use an iPhone. Society remains stagnant by maintaining ancient ways, to progress we must adapt and challenge these norms. His generalization of freshmen is appalling, and his attitude towards us is an unproductive way to deal with change. I do not deny that college is a new and challenging experience for everyone, but to say nobody is prepared to learn is a major assumption to make. I think that just because my generation has a generally shorter attention span does not mean that we are all ignorant blockheads with no will to learn. Yes, some students will be quick to fail when faced with new challenges, but I’m certain his generation had just as many people who were not meant for college. This does not make them a lesser form of human beings, simply ones who possess different talents and have different callings. Personally, I don’t believe that everyone was made for college, and to frown upon those people is to discredit a whole group of people. |
Julia CoteGeorgia Southern Pre-Vet Student, nature enthusiast, avid movie watcher, animal-lover, and feminist. Archives
November 2015
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