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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Julia CoteGeorgia Southern Pre-Vet Student, nature enthusiast, avid movie watcher, animal-lover, and feminist. Archives
November 2015
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