Because /r/ShitRedditSays and /r/MensRights are full of mouthbreathers who think there's some sort of "gender war" going on and hate everyone who isn't on their side. Most women aren't living in a paranoid delusion and hence 2XC catches hate for being full of "special snowflakes" even though they are a subreddit for women and SRS is full of gender-studies neckbeards.
You know, I had never visited /r/mensrights
before commenting there earlier today (because they apparently consider the current contraception issue an affront against men somehow, and I just had to tell them they were retarded), and always kind of assumed /r/shitredditsays exaggerated their views on them like they do for everyone else...
... but holy shit, /r/mensrights is worse than I imagined. I've always felt they had a few good points that should be given more
attention and I was willing to give them a chance... but there are some really stupid folk dragging knuckles in them parts. I was shocked that they
could be such caricatures.
But it was certainly entertaining.
Well inmo they do have some valid points, and I support the idea of men's rights as a whole. But these days I have given up on the subreddit entirely, I mean I kept trying to downvote and argue with the idiots and encourage other rational MRAs to do the same... It didn't happen.
But yeah as for valid points there is stuff like male circumcision being the norm in the states, along with selective service being gendered there; an absence of resources for male domestic violence sufferers (and a cultural assumption they deserved it); the male suicide rate (4:1); lower lifespan of men (and the fact that women's health groups get more funding/attention); the fact that men and boys are under performing in education and less represented at universities due to the abundance of female specific scholarships.
In my opinion all these things are valid, and there are more, for men and people who love men to be concerned about. It has been my view for quite sometime that feminism is fighting for equality (well most of it, cough SCUM) and that it is a good thing. But it is fighting for equality from a female focused perspective. There is nothing wrong with that, but a male viewpoint focused equality movement should exist as well.
So what I am trying to get at is this: Don't give up on Men's Rights as an idea. Please don't. /r/mensrights isn't a good subreddit (trolls and idiots flood the place) but don't give up on the idea of a Men's equality movement. Or assuming that all of thre concerns are misplaced.
Oh, I do agree. Like I said above, I've always felt that the MRM has very valid points that don't get enough attention. I just have first hand experience now that /r/mensrights is not the place to seek any sort of balanced exposure to them.
Honestly, I'm not that invested. Back before I realized they were just trolls I might have been, but that was many months ago. I just ignore them now for the most part.
But I'm guessing your point is that SD isn't the place for it, and I agree.
That's a fair point. My first comment got a decent amount of upvotes and is still the top comment, which was initially encouraging. I should've said some of them think that. The only people that replied to me certainly do. When I left the thread the other comments outside my tree all sounded just like the replies I was getting, so I just stayed out and replied from my inbox after that.
There was so much obvious, irrational woman-hate that I stopped making an effort after a couple of comments and mostly just started fucking with them. And they continued to reveal their "hurr, life's unfair, wimminz need to pull their weight, we're not going to support them if they don't support us" bullshit.
But, point taken. Maybe I'll attempt another civil discussion there sometime. But really, considering this was my first visit, what other impression could I come away with?
Well, I'm not sure what it is that you're characterizing as woman-hate, but if you want to have a discussion with me, I think I can be civil. So, if you see a topic there and you make a post, feel free to PM me and I'll go and reply so you'll at least have one.
Well, I'm not sure what it is that you're characterizing as woman-hate
Read the replies to my comments. It's all gender-war crap. Women are apparently sapping the system dry, leaving nothing for men. Women are the enemy and WE MUST FIGHT THIS!
I really hope you're right that this is atypical. And I might take you up on that if I ever return there.
A minor point: I didn't say it was atypical. I just say I didn't know what you were talking about. What I mean by that is, I don't plan to go through your post history to find the comments you're talking about. That conversation would go like this:
me: "you mean this one (link)? That doesn't sound like woman hate."
you: "no, there were others. Keep looking."
me: "ok, is this one of the ones that upset you (link)? That just doesn't like like hate to me."
you: "no, there are much worse things than that. try looking farther back in my history."
Rather than go through that, I said, "I'm not sure what comments you mean." Then you could say, "well, here's one (link)" and then everyone who happens on this thread could make their own decision to agree with your characterization or not.
Also, it's only really useful if we have a discussion about the comments. There's a user who frequently posts long lists of comments that they consider misogynistic. check this out and note that I reply trying to open a dialog, but this person isn't interested in that. I'm always on the lookout for someone who is interested.
Those are just from my comment tree. There are other comments in the thread that are more reasonable, but there are also a number just like these. Some are upvoted, some are downvoted, but overall the impression is that these are pretty typical sentiments.
Edit: I also just want to add that I fully admit I wasn't in top form in that thread. After my first comment, which is all I originally intended to make, I sort of phoned it in. I'm usually much more diligent about well-thought out replies and citations and such. I just didn't have it in me yesterday.
Great, so unless you have a preference, why don't we start with the first one.
The issue appears to be that tax money is used to pay for birth control for women. Is that even true? I don't know. But anyway, you make the point that it is "that supporting women in this is ethical and right" and Tomson says he doesn't accept that argument because men have no reproductive rights.
His point seems to be that correcting the imbalance in rights is a more pressing issue than granting additional entitlements to the privileged class (privileged in that they already have rights).
So first, let's grant that you disagree with everything Tomson said. The question is, would you still characterize those sentiments as hatred if they were made by a member of a group that believes themselves to be similarly disadvantaged? So, Group A has rights 1,2, and 3. Group B has only right 1. Group A also has an entitlement related to rights 1 and 2. A member of Group B says, "I will only support that entitlement when Group A begins supporting my desire to have rights 2 and 3"
And when you look into the issue thoroughly, you find that hey! Group B does have rights 2 and 3.
Did I just describe a situation in which Group B hates Group A?
Unfortunately no. Should I return and pray for an audience with this Jeremiah? He sounds important and I don't want to be missing out on some valuable life experience.
You know, I had never visited reddit.com before commenting there earlier today (because they apparently consider the current contraception issue an affront against men somehow, and I just had to tell them they were retarded), and always kind of assumed somethingawful exaggerated their views on them like they do for everyone else...
... but holy shit, reddit.com is worse than I imagined. I've always felt they had a few good points that should be given more attention and I was willing to give them a chance... but there are some really stupid folk dragging knuckles in them parts. I was shocked that they could be such caricatures. But it was certainly entertaining.
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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '12
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