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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow the bitter men of the MRA movement ruin things for other guys
One of the weirder developments of the online publishing era is the way a loose confederation of embittered anti-feminists has formed, across social media and the blogging world, under the banner of mens rights activism. MRA is an attempt to reframe old-fashioned misogyny as if its some kind of human rights movement, much like organized racism has periodically tried to reframe itself as a white pride movement. MRAs, who spend most of their activist energy roaming around the Internet, harassing feminists and pushing misogynist myths about false accusers and gold-diggers, are clearly bad for women. But while they claim to speak for men, their rhetoric is just as bad for men as it is for women. Here are some of the reasons why.
1. They sow paranoia about false accusations. One of biggest hobbyhorses of MRAs is the idea that many rape or domestic violence accusations are false. On their blogs, forums, social media, and in any unmoderated comment section under a story about rape, you will see swarms of MRAs claiming that men are in grave danger of having women they sleep with decide to falsely accuse them out of spite.
This is simply false. The FBI estimates that only 2-8% of rape reports are false. Many, possibly most of those never result in an accusation, but instead are women claiming to have been assaulted by strangers. Its so rare that even when MRAs get lucky and a rape story ends up being fishy or untrue (such as the recent Rolling Stone story about UVA) it never fits the model they propose. (For instance, the Jackie in the UVA story never accused anyone specifically and no men were ever under any legal suspicion.)
Its clear that the purpose of spreading this myth is to sow doubts about actual rapes that have happened, since most rapists do attack someone they know and claim it was consensual after the fact. But its possible that young or naïve men could see all this fear-mongering online and start to legitimately believe they are in grave danger of being falsely accused, a belief that might make them fearful of women and hesitant to date with confidence. But the odds of it happening are infinitesimal and exponentially lower than the odds a woman faces of getting raped.
More
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/how-the-bitter-men-of-the-mra-movement-ruin-things-for-other-guys/
AuntPatsy
(9,904 posts)Esteem and self doubt, treatments can vary from one to another, but there is hope...
Warpy
(111,467 posts)They don't want ordinary women. They're outraged because the most beautiful woman in the room isn't falling all over them. Just listen to one of the "nice guys" sometime. He thinks he deserves a Hollywood babe and will whine until he gets one.
ismnotwasm
(42,028 posts)Like, eternal
Warpy
(111,467 posts)when the woman they'd been using until the hot babe came along got preggers and they married her under threat of castration by her father.
They're usually not particularly shy about criticizing everything about her.
Initech
(100,149 posts)ismnotwasm
(42,028 posts)MRA's are incredibly disturbed
Warpy
(111,467 posts)I know that self identified "nice guy" whiners, mansplainers, and outright jerks who demanded sex of any woman with the bad luck to be in their proximity always made me a lot less interested in meeting any more men for a while. All of these twits find ready homes in the MRA/PUA movements.
It was great to turn 50 and become largely invisible to them.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)I'm 36 so I've only had about 20 years experience with the dating/men/women/he said/she said thing.
There's been predators for as long as I can remember.
Predators (To me) = False, suave yet kind and assertive with a phony niceness. I can watch him talk to a woman and notice his quick eye movements to the other "Fish" in the room. (In case that one gets away). He's the type of person that seldom has any close friends.
You always detect a lying, smug wall between you and him.
I had a verbal fight with one once. I finally said something like "What the fuck are you anyway? Some kind of "Happiness disrupter". You treat everybody as a personal challenge to control....especially women. Why is that Phil? Have you ever sat down and asked yourself WHY. Nobody trusts you Phil. Women like you ...for a few hours...then hate themselves for being such fools. But they're not fools, Phil...you can con anybody if you REALLY want to by being a dirty lying-your-ass-off Human. Fuck man..It's not some sort of art form.
So don't act like you're special and that's the sad part Phil...you're not special....You're just another Happiness Killer."
..forgive me...the past came on strong for a minute..
zappaman
(20,606 posts)MisterP
(23,730 posts)especially since the "the Debbil invented sex" neo-Victorian types are doubling down on the whole "us being proved wrong only shows how right we are" megillah
Sen. Walter Sobchak
(8,692 posts)Seeing as they probably fall somewhere in-between independent scientologists and bronies on the list of groups people actively seek out the opinions of.