Is there a men's rights movement now afoot?

[Blouman Empire]

And the loudest voices I have ever encountered arguing AGAINST me on every single one of those topics? Self-identified MRAs. They're the ones arguing that women are "naturally" better able to love and care for children. They're the ones who inform me that a man's role is to provide and he can't possibly be a father to his children if his wife makes more money or if (god's forbid) the family situation would work better if he were a stay-at-home dad. Who insist that it's sex discrimination when courts award custody to the parent who has been taking care of the children for their entire lives. Who insist that no man wants to pay child support for his own fucking kids. On and on and on.

And of course all fathers are like that

[Freelanderness]

And the loudest voices I have ever encountered arguing AGAINST me on every single one of those topics? Self-identified MRAs. They're the ones arguing that women are "naturally" better able to love and care for children. They're the ones who inform me that a man's role is to provide and he can't possibly be a father to his children if his wife makes more money or if (god's forbid) the family situation would work better if he were a stay-at-home dad. Who insist that it's sex discrimination when courts award custody to the parent who has been taking care of the children for their entire lives. Who insist that no man wants to pay child support for his own fucking kids. On and on and on.

And of course all fathers are like that

What?

[Tahar Joblis]

I don't think the problem lies with me. I do understand what the word "reduce" mean. I do understand that it doesn't mean eliminate in all cases - which is what you're claiming.

No, it isn't.

You're confusing the "at all" of the individual with the "at all" of the collective.

All of which are working against women receiving prison sentences at all, under circumstances in which men do indeed receive sentences.

Which means there are [some] circumstances in which men receive prison sentences, under which these groups wish [some] women to not go to prison at all.

See, if a man and a woman are convicted of the same crime, and at least one goes to prison, we could have:

• Man receives no prison sentence at all.
• Man receives lighter prison sentence.
• Both receive equal prison sentence
• Woman receives lighter prison sentence [what actually happens in the cases that these groups are concerned about, in particular drug charges and the like]
• Woman doesn't receive a prison sentence at all [which is what they would like to change it to in those circumstances].

From your link:

My link provided a positive review of Scrubs' portrayal of male nurses, and not just a negative one. Which I quoted. You might note that the website offers divided views.

You might also notice that your complaint talks about the decline of young people entering nursing before shifting gears to talk about men; you might also notice that the website generally speaks glowingly of the show before winding around to complain about a specific episode.

Because it would be impossible for me to interact with people from the US

No, it makes it that much less likely that you're telling the truth when you reply not very long after, suddenly claiming to have had such a conversation. There are people whose honesty I trust on these forums; who I expect to be forthright, in spite of the fact that they are wrong. You are not numbered among those.

[Snafturi]

Because it would be impossible for me to interact with people from the US

No, it makes it that much less likely that you're telling the truth when you reply not very long after, suddenly claiming to have had such a conversation. There are people whose honesty I trust on these forums; who I expect to be forthright, in spite of the fact that they are wrong. You are not numbered among those.

Yeah, it's not at all possible that someone he spends a lot of time with, who used to hang out on NSG all the time (and still lurks) might have talked to him about the nonsense they saw you post.

Or are you still of the opinion that I am not real??

[Tahar Joblis]

Which is why I think you're making shit up.

You know, I've been called a lot of things over the years, but "made up" has never been one of them.

Ah. There you go.

I see Gravlen found a quote a little more relevant (coming from a man and all), but I would be the female who worked in healthcare in the US he talked to.

Also, your claim that the years of schooling has gone up for nursing is a little odd since the RN degree went from a 4 year to a 2 year degree (well, you can get a 4 year degree still, but that's more if you want to go into admin-type stuff). Yes, there are NPs, but the education requirement for them has never changed. Or at least, as of 4 years ago, it was the same.

Historically, the most common nursing degree has been an associate's degree. The rise of the bachelor's degree in nursing and the rise of nursing practitioners is, historically, a fairly recent phenomenon.

And the latest phase, according to my male nurse relative, is to start pushing doctoral programs in nursing. He's skeptical of it.

The claim might seem a little odd in the context of "Oh, let's look at the last five, ten years," but my "short term" picture is thinking about income and education trends in the profession over a span of twenty years, and "long term" being fifty to a hundred. You can't really get a good picture over whether or not more men are actually entering the profession over a span of less than ten years.

Fact of the matter is, though - whether or not you like Scrubs, and whether or not you think Scrubs' irreverent role in medical comedy has managed to bring in men - the number of men in nursing is on track to very slowly increase.

Very slowly. And it remains strikingly more gendered a profession than nearly every white-collar "masculine" job; you have to go far up into "hard" specialties, or far down to the grungy awful jobs, to find jobs as masculine as nursing is feminine. Engineering is substantially more feminine than nursing is masculine, by population; and the entry bar for becoming an engineer is ... let's call it not appreciably lower than the entry bar for going into nursing.

The reason being, of course, that we've poured a lot of time and money into bringing women into engineering; but next to none in bringing men into nursing.

[Bottle]

And of course all fathers are like that

What?

He was helpfully providing another example of how MRAs have far less respect for men than feminists do. See, when I talk about how a SUBGROUP of men do something crappy (like how the self-identified MRAs are actually the ones actively opposed to men's rights in many cases), he reads this as being about ALL MEN (or, in this case, all fathers).

It's like how whenever a feminist posts criticisms of rapists, MRAs read this as the feminist hating on ALL MEN. Because, see, they believe all men are creeps, rapists, dead-beat dads, etc., by their very nature, while feminists believe that most men are good people and it's the subset of jerkwads that need to be called out and corrected so that the rest of humanity (men and women alike) can have a better world to live in.

[Bottle]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain what guys have to "Give" to feminists for them to stop acting like every person with a Y chromosome is out to get them.

Well, given that feminists will find that to be so flimsy a strawman that it's not worth engaging with, and given that the anti-feminists insist that feminism is the belief that every person with a Y chromosome is out to get you, I really have no idea who you expect to answer you.

[Loyal]

did you know bronies are fans of my little pony and they are male? yeah there is a mens rights movements

[Ashmoria]

did you know bronies are fans of my little pony and they are male? yeah there is a mens rights movements

this should have been posted on the first page! where have you been for the life of this thread?

[Snafturi]

You know, I've been called a lot of things over the years, but "made up" has never been one of them.

Ah. There you go.

I see Gravlen found a quote a little more relevant (coming from a man and all), but I would be the female who worked in healthcare in the US he talked to.

Also, your claim that the years of schooling has gone up for nursing is a little odd since the RN degree went from a 4 year to a 2 year degree (well, you can get a 4 year degree still, but that's more if you want to go into admin-type stuff). Yes, there are NPs, but the education requirement for them has never changed. Or at least, as of 4 years ago, it was the same.

Historically, the most common nursing degree has been an associate's degree. The rise of the bachelor's degree in nursing and the rise of nursing practitioners is, historically, a fairly recent phenomenon.

And the latest phase, according to my male nurse relative, is to start pushing doctoral programs in nursing. He's skeptical of it.

The claim might seem a little odd in the context of "Oh, let's look at the last five, ten years," but my "short term" picture is thinking about income and education trends in the profession over a span of twenty years, and "long term" being fifty to a hundred. You can't really get a good picture over whether or not more men are actually entering the profession over a span of less than ten years.

Fact of the matter is, though - whether or not you like Scrubs, and whether or not you think Scrubs' irreverent role in medical comedy has managed to bring in men - the number of men in nursing is on track to very slowly increase.

Very slowly. And it remains strikingly more gendered a profession than nearly every white-collar "masculine" job; you have to go far up into "hard" specialties, or far down to the grungy awful jobs, to find jobs as masculine as nursing is feminine. Engineering is substantially more feminine than nursing is masculine, by population; and the entry bar for becoming an engineer is ... let's call it not appreciably lower than the entry bar for going into nursing.

The reason being, of course, that we've poured a lot of time and money into bringing women into engineering; but next to none in bringing men into nursing.

RNs being an associate is a fairly recent thing (well, maybe not fairly recent. God, I'm getting old. Happened after I turned 18, so recent in my perception of time). Before that, the LPN was the associate degree. Thus contributing to the increase in RNs. Granted, I haven't been working in healthcare in the US for the past 4 years, so maybe this has changed, and maybe it was different in my neck of the woods, but the 4 year RN degree wasn't very popular. I can speculate that there will be a rise in the people completing the 4 year RN degree as the RNs burn out and wish to pursue an administrative role (and burnout is fairly high in the profession).

Also, I think the rise in NPs (and PAs) can be attributed more to the way healthcare is changing, but I think that is a separate issue for a separate thread. But in short, I think the demand for them going up has increased the interest in the degree.

I think the perception of nursing is changing now that people are understanding that RNs aren't really the butt wipers and sponge bath givers that they were in the past. People now are realising that RNs actually do fun stuff. This will appeal to both men and women, but I think the impact is going to be higher on men who now see that nursing isn't this stereotypically female profession.

I reacted strongly to Scrubs because Nurse Flowers is an offensive character, and I have yet to see any proof that such a caricature is in any way responsible for an increase in male nurses. Nurse Jackie? Sure, I'd buy that. Those nurses are real people and not offensive, stereotypical parodies.

And it's not a matter of me not liking it, it's a matter of me disbelieving it because reenforcement of negative stereotypes doesn't really affect change. This opinion is not only based on my experience, and I did go through my schooling at a relevant time for me to comment on this, but based on what I've read since you posted that.

[Natapoc]

Yes, there certainly is a men's rights movement going strong in my country: it's called "feminism."

Here's a list of what I, as a feminist, did for men's rights in 2012:

Worked with an organization that is lobbying to basically create an updated version of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which would help guarantee better paid parental leave for men (and women).

Helped with the campaigns for marriage equality in Minnesota and Maine (donated money only for the Maine one, but donated time and work and money for MN because it's my home state).

Did some data analysis and consulting with the Families and Work Institute in regard to their Fatherhood Project. The numbers I was crunching had to do with relating the impact of transportation infrastructure on parental (specifically father's) involvement, basically looking at whether a man's access to a car vs. mass transit had an impact on how able and willing he was to be involved in parenting his children. Ultimately I didn't really like the study design because there are too many confounding factors the way it was set up, but I want to continue looking into this topic because infrastructure issues are also high on my list of priorities.

Got involved with a local community group that is tackling some really bitchy re-districting issues regarding the public schools. Short version is, a small wealthy neighborhood in a local town wants to "secede" so that they can instead join the neighboring town (they share a border) because the other town has better schools. This would really hurt the school district, obviously, since the property taxes from those rich homes would then go to the other district, not to mention that it's just a transparent example of "white flight" in this case. This is a men's rights issue because low-income boys are the ones who are most at risk of failing and dropping out already, and are also most at risk of ending up in prison if they do so. Not that low-income girls have it made, but they are (for a range of reasons) still more likely to stay in school, and are more likely to stay out of prison.

Related to the above, I also increased my involvement with prison reform organizations. Understandably, this is a major men's rights issue. I've always been appalled by how prison rape is the go-to joke for many people in my country, so I found it quite natural to incorporate my anti-rape activism with fighting to improve conditions for prisoners, ensure improved prevention of and prosecution of sexual assault in prison, and start undermining the revolting prison-industrial complex that is making such a horrific mess of our system in the USA.

And, of course, I participated in countless forums (both online and off). I spoke up when people made sexist comments like how men can't take care of their own homes, or how men just can't control their penises, or how men are innately less good with language than women, or how men are pigs, and so forth, even when it was my own friends (sigh) who said this kind of shit. I spoke up against the "dropped the soap" jokes whenever I heard them, even when doing so got branded me a humorless bitch. I had a come-to-Jesus moment with a friend of mine who was freaking out over her 3-year-old son's love of the color pink. I lived 2012 as an "out" feminist, and even if you set aside all the concrete activism shit from above I honestly think that just by living my life as a feminist I did more for "men's rights" than the entire AVfM site did in 2012.

This is why I feel so bad for the men who are turning to the "Men's Rights Activists"...the MRM does fuckall for men. They don't DO anything. They schedule failed "debates," they post mean things about their ex wives, they rant a lot, they harass women and feminist activists, and they generally contribute to the impression that anybody who utters the phrase "men's rights" is a bitter deadbeat dad or a creepy 40-year-old virgin who harasses teenagers in the mall. There are a lot of problems facing men today, due largely to our fucked up sexist society, and it's a pity that men are so viciously discouraged from checking out feminism (wouldn't want to be a faggot or a mangina, would you???) because there really isn't anywhere else to turn at this point. Nobody else is on the ground, doing the hard, thankless work of addressing these issues. Would that the world were different!

What a hero for you are bottle! Yes you're right, all legitimate concerns that would fall under "mens rights" are solved by feminism and being worked on by feminists.

Meanwhile the so called mens rights movement has as it's primary concern a desire to destroy feminism and accomplishes nothing.



Men should be feminists too. The true "mens rights" movement is called feminism.

[Bottle]

What a hero for you are bottle!

Much as I enjoy the acclaim, the truth is that I'm a slacker compared to most "active" feminists. I tend to contribute mainly in terms of my money, and I only get off my duff and personally do feminist work when something really grabs my interest.

I wasn't trying to brag, so much as pointing out that the amount of work that I, a female feminist person, do for men's rights should probably be a BARE FREAKING MINIMUM level of work for someone who self-identifies as a "Men's Rights Activist." But...it's not. It's about 50 times more work than what I've seen so far from any MRA.

If nothing else, I think men should be pissed off about that. The people who are claiming to be fighting for men's rights are actually doing jack shit.

Yes you're right, all legitimate concerns that would fall under "mens rights" are solved by feminism and being worked on by feminists.

The thing is, I don't have any problem at all with men wanting a submovement of their own which focuses on issues from a male perspective. Just like I don't have a problem with people of white European decent wanting to have clubs to celebrate their cultures and advocates for their interests.

The problem is that everyone likes to feel like they are the bold outsider fighting the good fight, because that narrative brings groups together and inspires a lot of passion and unity, and so you end up with White Power groups and MRAs who want to cultivate that feeling among their own groups. And since white people and male people hold disproportionate power in reality, the only way they can achieve that martyr status is by devaluing non-whites and non-males. Which is shitty.

Meanwhile the so called mens rights movement has as it's primary concern a desire to destroy feminism and accomplishes nothing.

I wish there were a way to "take back" the men's rights movement, but honestly I think this is one thing that won't be fixed but with time. We're experiencing massive anti-feminist backlash right now, and until people become comfortable with treating women as full human beings I don't think there will be a way to have a men's rights movement that doesn't get taken over by the bitter woman-hating ideologues. That sucks, seriously, and I don't think it's fair to men (or women!) to have that be the case. It just seems to be how things are right now, and is another example of how Patriarchy Hurts Men, Too.

[Gravlen]

I don't think the problem lies with me. I do understand what the word "reduce" mean. I do understand that it doesn't mean eliminate in all cases - which is what you're claiming.

No, it isn't.

You're confusing the "at all" of the individual with the "at all" of the collective.

All of which are working against women receiving prison sentences at all, under circumstances in which men do indeed receive sentences.

Which means there are [some] circumstances in which men receive prison sentences, under which these groups wish [some] women to not go to prison at all.

See, if a man and a woman are convicted of the same crime, and at least one goes to prison, we could have:

• Man receives no prison sentence at all.
• Man receives lighter prison sentence.
• Both receive equal prison sentence
• Woman receives lighter prison sentence [what actually happens in the cases that these groups are concerned about, in particular drug charges and the like]
• Woman doesn't receive a prison sentence at all [which is what they would like to change it to in those circumstances].

He ain't heavy, he's my goalpost...

I repeat: You haven't shown that a number of feminists "actively work against women receiving prison sentences at all". But I do see that your new claim is that some groups - not necessarily feminists - work against women receiving prison sentences in some cases (where men recieve prison sentences) - in some cases because their mandate exclusively concerns women in prison.

Which, of course, is irrelevant to the question originally posed.

From your link:

My link provided a positive review of Scrubs' portrayal of male nurses, and not just a negative one. Which I quoted. You might note that the website offers divided views.

So now you're over to divided, and you have utterly failed to show that Scrubs has had any positive effect on the recruitment of male nurses.

You might also notice that your complaint talks about the decline of young people entering nursing before shifting gears to talk about men; you might also notice that the website generally speaks glowingly of the show before winding around to complain about a specific episode.

...which is why they give the series 1,5 out of 4 stars (Nursing rating) and describe its portrayal of nurses as "fairly poor overall"

Because it would be impossible for me to interact with people from the US

No, it makes it that much less likely that you're telling the truth when you reply not very long after, suddenly claiming to have had such a conversation. There are people whose honesty I trust on these forums; who I expect to be forthright, in spite of the fact that they are wrong. You are not numbered among those.

Not my fault you confuse "someone else being right" with "being dishonest". And between the two of us, you're the one caught verifiably lying before.

[Tahar Joblis]

Ah. There you go.

Historically, the most common nursing degree has been an associate's degree. The rise of the bachelor's degree in nursing and the rise of nursing practitioners is, historically, a fairly recent phenomenon.

And the latest phase, according to my male nurse relative, is to start pushing doctoral programs in nursing. He's skeptical of it.

The claim might seem a little odd in the context of "Oh, let's look at the last five, ten years," but my "short term" picture is thinking about income and education trends in the profession over a span of twenty years, and "long term" being fifty to a hundred. You can't really get a good picture over whether or not more men are actually entering the profession over a span of less than ten years.

Fact of the matter is, though - whether or not you like Scrubs, and whether or not you think Scrubs' irreverent role in medical comedy has managed to bring in men - the number of men in nursing is on track to very slowly increase.

Very slowly. And it remains strikingly more gendered a profession than nearly every white-collar "masculine" job; you have to go far up into "hard" specialties, or far down to the grungy awful jobs, to find jobs as masculine as nursing is feminine. Engineering is substantially more feminine than nursing is masculine, by population; and the entry bar for becoming an engineer is ... let's call it not appreciably lower than the entry bar for going into nursing.

The reason being, of course, that we've poured a lot of time and money into bringing women into engineering; but next to none in bringing men into nursing.

RNs being an associate is a fairly recent thing (well, maybe not fairly recent. God, I'm getting old. Happened after I turned 18, so recent in my perception of time). Before that, the LPN was the associate degree. Thus contributing to the increase in RNs. Granted, I haven't been working in healthcare in the US for the past 4 years, so maybe this has changed, and maybe it was different in my neck of the woods, but the 4 year RN degree wasn't very popular. I can speculate that there will be a rise in the people completing the 4 year RN degree as the RNs burn out and wish to pursue an administrative role (and burnout is fairly high in the profession).

Also, I think the rise in NPs (and PAs) can be attributed more to the way healthcare is changing, but I think that is a separate issue for a separate thread. But in short, I think the demand for them going up has increased the interest in the degree.

I think the perception of nursing is changing now that people are understanding that RNs aren't really the butt wipers and sponge bath givers that they were in the past. People now are realising that RNs actually do fun stuff. This will appeal to both men and women, but I think the impact is going to be higher on men who now see that nursing isn't this stereotypically female profession.

I reacted strongly to Scrubs because Nurse Flowers is an offensive character, and I have yet to see any proof that such a caricature is in any way responsible for an increase in male nurses. Nurse Jackie? Sure, I'd buy that. Those nurses are real people and not offensive, stereotypical parodies.

And it's not a matter of me not liking it, it's a matter of me disbelieving it because reenforcement of negative stereotypes doesn't really affect change. This opinion is not only based on my experience, and I did go through my schooling at a relevant time for me to comment on this, but based on what I've read since you posted that.

Fair enough; but that still leaves it as no less helpful than the feminist movement has been in de-gendering the nursing profession [essentially nil].

[Typhlochactas]

I'm a man. I can't think of any rights that I don't have that others do. From that, a men's rights movement seems pointless.

[Freelanderness]

What?

He was helpfully providing another example of how MRAs have far less respect for men than feminists do. See, when I talk about how a SUBGROUP of men do something crappy (like how the self-identified MRAs are actually the ones actively opposed to men's rights in many cases), he reads this as being about ALL MEN (or, in this case, all fathers).

It's like how whenever a feminist posts criticisms of rapists, MRAs read this as the feminist hating on ALL MEN. Because, see, they believe all men are creeps, rapists, dead-beat dads, etc., by their very nature, while feminists believe that most men are good people and it's the subset of jerkwads that need to be called out and corrected so that the rest of humanity (men and women alike) can have a better world to live in.

You're once again mirroring my thoughts. Can I marry you or is that too patriarchal? (I kid, feminist jokes )

I'm still waiting for someone to explain what guys have to "Give" to feminists for them to stop acting like every person with a Y chromosome is out to get them.

Well, given that feminists will find that to be so flimsy a strawman that it's not worth engaging with, and given that the anti-feminists insist that feminism is the belief that every person with a Y chromosome is out to get you, I really have no idea who you expect to answer you.

I engaged and he ran away. Surprisingly, no one even combatted with my response. Apparently my feminist ideals and that scary after all.

[Tahar Joblis]

I repeat: You haven't shown that a number of feminists "actively work against women receiving prison sentences at all". But I do see that your new claim is that some groups - not necessarily feminists - work against women receiving prison sentences in some cases (where men recieve prison sentences) - in some cases because their mandate exclusively concerns women in prison.

Who are already being treated much better than men are by the justice system.

So; you could have an advocacy group for all convicts. This would likely not change much.
You could have an advocacy group for only male convicts; and such a group could not help but improve the cause of gender equity if they have a positive effect.
You could have an advocacy group for only female convicts; and such a group could not help but exacerbate the current gender inequities in the justice system.

So now you're over to divided, and you have utterly failed to show that Scrubs has had any positive effect on the recruitment of male nurses.

Which means it's doing at least as well as feminism.

...which is why they give the series 1,5 out of 4 stars (Nursing rating) and describe its portrayal of nurses as "fairly poor overall"

Hm. I may have jumped to conclusions too quickly; but it does have plenty of positive things to say. You, however, are jumping to conclusions not much more quickly. You don't provide the context for that rating, and context is required to say how good or bad 1.5 stars really is.

Now click here. Note that 1.5 stars is the median score for currently running shows they review; and that of completed shows, four have higher ratings and ten have lower scores. The three star "artistic" rating they give it is also above average.

To the degree that website rags on "Scrubs," the website rags on all medical television.

... which is why I found so many positive reviews of "Scrubs" on that site and quotable quotes.

But more seriously, any churn is good churn when it comes to men in nursing. Now, let's suppose - for one moment - that one out of ten men who saw "Scrubs" funny, and became nurses at the same rate that women do, while nine out of ten men found it offensive and decided they would never ever consider being a nurse.

What would happen?

Well, since less than 6% of RNs are male... that would increase the percentage of men in nursing. Scrubs could be egregiously bad and still help the cause of men in nursing, in other words.

Because there still aren't very men in nursing.

Which is because programs designed to bring men into nursing were lacking, and it's hard to crack into a field that's dominated that heavily by the opposite gender.

Which is because the feminist movement didn't lift a finger, and there was nobody else with political capital, perceived legitimacy to address gendered issues, and the inclination to lift a finger.

[Tahar Joblis]

What a hero for you are bottle! Yes you're right, all legitimate concerns that would fall under "mens rights" are solved by feminism and being worked on by feminists.

Which is why most of them have seen minimal to negative progress in the last forty years?

Nursing is still over ninety percent female. Teaching has actually become more female. The sentencing gap remains enormous. Women subjecting men to non-consensual sex are still largely not classed as rapists, and their victims are still laughed off. And are required to pay child support if their rapist got pregnant off them. And men are now falling behind in education at every level from kindergarten to doctorates.

And at this point, it seems like male victims of domestic violence are more likely to get arrested than female perpetrators.

Feminism as a movement has shown no evidence of being inclined to fix any "men's issues" unless a direct benefit to women is apparent; whether or not some feminist individuals have been helpful, others have been harmful.

[Tahar Joblis]

If nothing else, I think men should be pissed off about that. The people who are claiming to be fighting for men's rights are actually doing jack shit.

See, this being increasingly false is one reason why I'm asking if there actually is a movement now.

Because avoiceformen is engaged in advocacy in court cases now. /r/MensRights is often full of threads where people are coming to ask for advice on the tactics to use to handle anti-male discrimination they see in their life. We've had multiple threads on men's rights activism spilling out into real life in the last year.

This is action, in other words, that we are starting to see. And it isn't all advocacy, legal wrangling, and filing assault charges against feminists for being violent towards MRAs - the year before last, men's rights joined the anti-war movement as one of the few political movements in the US to have someone immolate themselves on government property as a method of protest.

[The Lone Alliance]

I engaged and he ran away. Surprisingly, no one even combatted with my response. Apparently my feminist ideals and that scary after all.

Or maybe people have things to do during the week. I mean seriously your wrote a lot and so I have a lot to counter. And for that attitude I will be extra sarcastic to you in response.

[Mikland]

Overall a men's rights movement is ridiculous. I have been to one of these websites, and they dont complain about anything important.

[Blouman Empire]

What?

He was helpfully providing another example of how MRAs have far less respect for men than feminists do. See, when I talk about how a SUBGROUP of men do something crappy (like how the self-identified MRAs are actually the ones actively opposed to men's rights in many cases), he reads this as being about ALL MEN (or, in this case, all fathers).

It's like how whenever a feminist posts criticisms of rapists, MRAs read this as the feminist hating on ALL MEN. Because, see, they believe all men are creeps, rapists, dead-beat dads, etc., by their very nature, while feminists believe that most men are good people and it's the subset of jerkwads that need to be called out and corrected so that the rest of humanity (men and women alike) can have a better world to live in.

Got to take the cheapshots when I can.

But I have no idea what you are on about in your first sentance. Not that I know any MRA's

[Blouman Empire]

Nursing is still over ninety percent female.

That's the fault of the patriarchy

The sentencing gap remains enormous.

Nothing wrong with that, well, because it's the fault of the patriarchy

Women subjecting men to non-consensual sex are still largely not classed as rapists, and their victims are still laughed off. And are required to pay child support if their rapist got pregnant off them.

Only men can rape and those men that claim to be raped probably enjoyed it anyway

And men are now falling behind in education at every level from kindergarten to doctorates.

It was the opposite way for many years, these boys deserve it. Besides trying to bring boys performance up to that of girls is sexist just to talk about it.

[Cameroi]

what "rights" to male wasps lack, that any other identifiable groups posses?

[Tahar Joblis]

what "rights" to male wasps lack, that any other identifiable groups posses?

Each of those categories is different, and needs to be treated differently in terms of discussing privileges and legal rights.

White Anglos, as a general category, lack few, if any, legal rights; and have, in general, a pretty positive balance of privileges and disadvantages. Whites are beneficiaries of sentencing discrimination and hiring discrimination in large numbers, though often individually hard to prove. Whites in some cases now benefit from affirmative action programs and race-selective admissions, e.g., over Asian applicants at selective universities.

There is a general sparsity of affirmative action programs bringing whites into predominantly non-white organizations, but the multiplicity of races has required sensitivity to including the "right" number of white people. There is some occasional blatant racial discrimination against whites that flies by in the clear; but generically, being white is an advantage. Overt racism and racist jokes in public, but that's not really a very important imposition.

If you are, however, poor and white, you will have in some cases a harder time finding a helping hand up into [for example] college than a poor and black person of similar overall SES, since many of the programs targeting poor do so by targeting minorities. This is modest, but quite significant; the 'white trash' demographic is nearly the only disadvantaged demographic which it's widely considered OK to publicly bash and ignore in outreach programs.

Outside of political careers, and very particular locations, Protestants are not particularly advantaged or disadvantaged relative to Catholics, agnostics, and atheists; Christians have, generally, a small advantage over non-Christians in that lots of people take off for vacation on their holidays. Muslims and Mormons are the only ones that get special attention [the latter particularly in Utah] on a large scale aside from that.

Males, on the other hand, face the ugly end of sentencing discrimination, which is in the US as strong between genders as between blacks and whites. Domestic violence legislation and protections selectively protect women and selectively fail to protect men; and at the policy level. Parental rights and obligations both lie under the control of women. Statutes and policies protecting against discrimination by gender often are only written to protect one of two genders; with a legal binary instead of a legal multiplicity, the dialogue of "privileged / non-privileged" can dominate protective legislation in a way that is more difficult with a spectrum of racial identities.

Statues describing sex crimes often describe males as the only possible perpetrators; and females as the only possible victims. The result of this is that female aggressors and male victims may not even be theoretically protected by the law. Then you have pedophile panic; under the aegis of which laws, policies, and activity openly discriminating against males on the subject of children have become widespread.

Health care spending, legislation, et cetera widely target women selectively for particular benefits or treatments. We spend much more on keeping women healthy and alive, in other words.

So; to review, males as a class lack equal protection under the law; equal protection by the law; equal protection from the law; and even equal protection within the law. In addition to lacking those rights, males as a class also are subject to a variety of discriminatory disadvantages that have generally gone unaddressed; and which males are not socially permitted to publicly protest in order to have them addressed without being marginalized. To be a male talking about gendered issues impacting men is to be told to shut up; and unless you have Oprah helping you pitch your book, you're not likely to get very far personally.

Even if you do have Oprah helping you pitch your book, you are likely to get a lot of shit thrown at you.