I don't believe that men have ever been systematically oppressed by women, no. I know this upsets some of the Men's Rights Activists but I just don't really agree with that. I mean, there is mistreatment towards men, but as overall oppression from women? No, that's just not really true.
Some people misunderstand me because of where I stand on gender matters. People seem to think I must be a MRA just because I challenge things in the gender world and don't agree with every 'forward-thinking' idea out there when it comes to women, but I've never expressed any agreement with an idea of systematic mass injury towards men. I do at times have some sentiments like MRAs and I do believe that 'misandry' DOES exist and that it's wrong to hate men in general but I honestly don't subscribe to the idea that we've been oppressed on a wide scale. It’s true that we've been victimized by women in matters of divorce, child custody, and even sexual harassment and pedophilia - being victims at the expense of individual women’s sins and actions, but in general we haven't been systematically oppressed by women in terms of women being the ones with dominant authority. However, that’s still not to say that women can’t or shouldn’t be held accountable.
I'm not in full support of feminism either. I support the basic idea that women should have most equal rights, it's that simple. But for the most part, I feel that feminism is no less whiny than Men's Rights' Activism. It's made up of a lot of well-off females who were trained to spot misogyny while they were in college, and to whine about issues that have only affected them as far as being "successful career women," and to want to go on YouTube posting a bunch of cat call street videos to make a point of God knows what, as if it's really gonna make a difference but seems more like they just want you to think this is something happening to them millions of times a day by millions of men. These women don't even face half the struggles the average person does! So she feels she needs to cry about something to be relevant.
Feminism also encourages separation by continually highlighting violence against women and feeding numbers upon numbers in female college students’ heads of male sex offenders yearly, and all other kinds of stats regarding male violence against women, to the point where young women are programmed to stand away from a guy/guys at bus stops, to even almost cringe or be defensive is any male says anything to them non-related to sex or flirting. Then we start hearing all the melodramatic lines from young women: “You have no idea what it’s like to be a woman alone at a bus stop/walking down the street/ at a club!” The evil that feminism teaches young women about men is actually very similar to the thought-processing in racist whites who teach their kids that all black men are thugs, thieves, and killers and should be avoided.
I'm still not in full agreement with feminism because for the most part it has been a movement made to advance Caucasian women. For decades white feminists have been depicted as caring about all kinds of women, but that's not really true. I've studied the history. During the suffragist movements in the 1920s, white feminists didn't want their black female servants and supporters to be beside them in their march, only in the back. During the Civil War Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her crew didn't want blacks to get the right to vote before white women did, while Lucy Stoner and her group felt that blacks should get it FIRST. It just goes to show that even race could hold back a feminists compassion. It's for reasons like these that women of color and other ethnic women have created their own groups, calling themselves either womanists or black feminists, which I think is fine.
Still yet, I don't entirely buy into the argument of women's oppression throughout history either. True, men have restricted women since ancient times, but still where women have not wanted to be oppressed and abused, they have often had no problem contributing to it or supporting it for other groups through the ages, or at the least being indifferent to their suffering - like with feminism as I mentioned. This is something I didn’t realize until some years ago during my studies of women in history, and when I did realize it, it troubled me greatly. While it has exclusively been men who have oppressed and abused women, women have still assisted men in hating and oppressing people of other ethnicities, cultures, and beliefs, so there's really only but so much 'compassion' I can have.
What is probably the most ironic case for me is women in the Arab world. You have Muslim women in the Middle East who want to be treated and acknowledged as human beings, want freedoms, powers, and opportunities, yet hate Africans, and also Israel and Jews and agree that they should be “wiped off the map,” as some Middle Eastern leaders have put it, in the midst of their own aggressive oppression and persecution by men. And what’s worse is when you have Muslim women who become suicide bombers to attack Israel or Jews in the name of Allah, based on fundamental and political attitudes, or they support other suicide bombers with the same conviction, yet don’t like that Muslim men oppress and restrict them in the name of Allah. How can you have this both ways? Anat Berko, who studied and interviewed women suicide bombers in Palestine for some years, discovered that many of these women act in violence against Israel hoping to be arrested because they would prefer being in an Israeli jail over living a life of oppression and misery in their own culture. I find this terribly ironic! These women will hate their neighboring nation and support violence against it - by mainly their men - up until they can’t stand what their own men do to them anymore, then it becomes more favorable to be in Israel’s arms than in their homeland! We’re supposed to take this seriously and look on these women with compassion and understanding, yet overlook the contradiction of it. I remember once knowing a Palestinian girl on another networking site who would tell me how “hateful and sexist” my gender posts were and who even had the nerve to advise me to take my pictures down because according to her I shouldn’t want to show my face after saying such things, yet she openly hated Israel and frequently blogged about how it shouldn’t exist, but didn’t want to show her own face!
That's just one example. But it's hard for me to take feminism seriously if you're gonna hate other people in the same way you don't want to be hated and put down.
So with where I stand on gender matters, I'm not in whole agreement with a Men's Rights idea, but I'm still not a full subscriber to the stuff we've been taught that women have been significantly injured above all others either.
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actually there not many things left that guys have better than girls in this day and age. There are lots that girls have over guys though. Like school. I forgot the statistics from the mens right guy who got them but if you would like the link to him debating I can link you too it. THIS doesn't MEAN THAT WOMAN DONT HAVE PROBLEMS. There are still some things at women aren't equal to men in yes, but in this 3rd wave feminism they aren't even focusing on them, they are trying to earn more privileges. Lots say that we live in a rape culture which isn't true in the slightest. If a feminist argues that we do, I dare them to go to the middle east where rape is being legalized, girls can marry at age 9 now, the man has complete control over them women. If you ask a feminist about that they say they are fighting for them too but I have NEVER seen a rally or anything to help them, only ones to help the people in western countries to get more privileges. I dont mean to rant but I have nothing else to do so sorry : /
And you put it brilliantly, my friend. All things I wanted to put in this post but would've been too long.
No MRA I know has ever said that women oppress men, they've always admitted that it's mainly men in power - doesn't mean they can't oppress men below them.
However, I also am not an MRA. I used to read a lot of the stuff and agree with it, they do a good job of exposing feminist hypocrisy, but what turned me away were the ways they were similar to feminists. I'm quite a masculine man and I believe in traditional gender roles - MRAs support the push for androgyny. Men and women aren't the same, never have been, never will be, we'll never have true equality and trying to force it is going against nature. Feminists complain about everything, claim victimhood and beg the government to help them, and the MRA response is to do the same thing by trying to paint themselves as bigger victims to garner more sympathy, so they argue over who has it the worst and play victim olympics, and I think that's pathetic.
Yes! Exactly why I'm not one either! MRAs see how being a victim has worked for feminists, so then they want to use the same tactic, but it doesn't work.
look up mens rights and how they where treated back in the day women oppressed men too
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