Comment by enave | Hacker News Reader

Comment by enave | Hacker News Reader

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> the MRM seems to be not limited to trying to make things better for men but also endless attacking women

?? Are you implying that feminism is limited to just helping women? Surely you're not that naive. If we were to play a game where each time you post a crazy thing an MRA has said, I have to post two crazy things feminists have said, I'll win that game. I'll win it easily. I'll win it with politicians and academics and people who have real power in our society while you'll be scouring fringe websites. And if ever I run low on important people, I still have the Tumblr feminists.

So yeah, I don't really know what point you thought you were making, unless the point was to demonstrate the totally different standard that you hold these groups to.

If you think feminism has legitimacy (and it most certainly does) it's because you're choosing to listen to the points that have merit, and disregard those that don't. It's selection bias, sure, but I do it too.

Consider trying the same thing with three MRM

The points that have merit constitute the bulk of the message coming from people self-identifying as feminists. Sure, there's all kind of weird stuff - TERFs, separatist and even supremacist feminists etc - but they're a minority compared to the mainstream.

On the other hand, when looking at the MRA scene (again, going by self-identification of the speakers), the mainstream seems to consist of "incels", red pillers, and the like. So, as far as most people are concerned, the label is firmly associated with that sort of stuff. Consequently, suggestion to listen to "points that have merit", when they come in a binder with "MRA" on the cover, is not going to fly. If you want to be heard, you'll have to break the association by using a different label - or by finding enough like-minded vocal associates to reclaim the label (and at this point it would need to be a supermajority with a hefty margin before we can seriously start talking about this).

You might object that this is unfair, because the label is descriptive and appropriate, and all those misogynists have misappropriated it. Tough luck - descriptive labels get misappropriated all the time. For example, if you happen to be a socialist and a civic nationalist at the same time, a common sense descriptive label would be "national socialist" - but you really shouldn't be using it for obvious reasons.

What "message" are you talking about?

I've associated feminism with "women make $0.67 for every dollar that a man makes for the same job, working the same hours" and equal gender ratio over equal opportunity.

Based on numerous conversations I've had with self-identifying feminists, I would say the primary message seems to be that a person's gender (regardless of what it is) shouldn't decide their opportunities in life. Opinions on the extent or existence of systemic societal discrimination against women tend to depend largely on individual experience (and admittedly, on occasion, misinterpreted and badly gathered statistics) I think. And of course, there are as many versions of feminism as there are feminists because no two people are exactly alike.

Can you give some links where MRM people support women? Genuinely curious.

Can you give some links where feminists support men? Feminists are concerned with women, the MRM is concerned with men, so the majority of their arguments will be focused on their respective gender.

The negation of "attacking women" isn't "supporting women", it's "not attacking women". Not saying anything at all about women is "not attacking women", but it's not "supporting women".

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