Transcript for my video, "Response to 'The Men's Rights Movement' by Brave the World"

The video can be seen here: https://youtu.be/HIG6KMnFjg8

The following text may differ slightly from the video in a few places because while reading I added thoughts or skipped things I'd written, but for the most part it's an accurate representation of the video's content.

TRANSCRIPT:

This is in response to the video "The Men's Rights Movement" by youtuber Brave the world.
I want to start out by saying this is one of the most ridiculous examples of the middle ground fallacy I've seen yet. You've used a combination of strawman attacks, entitlement to dictate other people's standards, and repetition of already disproved claims to bolster your own belief that "both sides of the conflict between MRAs and feminists are dysfunctional and damaging their own causes." While that approach is pretty common, your version of it is particularly shallow and sweeping, with an unusually blunt display of the bigoted belief that conditions of adversity magically have less impact on men who experience them than on women.

There is so much fail in your video that it's hard to respond to all in one statement, though what I've said so far can be taken as a decent summary.

However, I think a bit more in-depth analysis of your assertions is merited, so here goes:
The men's rights movement is not a reaction to feminism. This is a belief feminists have put forth as a way of disparaging the movement. In fact, it exists to address discriminatory conditions which men face, whether related to feminism or not, and not all of them are. The conflict between MRAs and feminists is not in a belief that "women's rights" have gone too far, but in areas where feminist lobbying has exploited discriminatory attitudes toward men for political benefit, or where feminist groups have opposed men's advocacy for relief from discrimination.

Your assessment that men's advocacy has become radicalized seems to rely on a failure to differentiate between men's rights activists and other groups which, by their nature, touch on men's issues. I would also point out that you are mistaken in thinking those groups originated from men's rights activism rather than evolving on their own, and that they're a response to feminism. Like men's activism, other male oriented groups you're calling reactionary are a response to discriminatory social and legal conditions faced by men and boys. Approaches taken by various groups within the spectrum of male responses to that environment range from treating it as a danger and abandoning it (as Men Going Their Own Way do) to advocacy for legal balance and evolution of social attitudes (as Men's Rights Advocates do) to largely bad advice with a sprinkling of knowledge about people, purporting to help young men navigate said environment while attempting to find companionship (see the Pick Up Artist community, who feminists often portray as men's rights activists against the protests of both groups.

As for your statement about the death of feminism, that movement killed itself without any help. From having had to study feminist history to respond to their territorial attitude toward myself and other women, I can tell you that feminism has never been about rights. It's about politics. And it's never been about equality. It's always been a gynocentric approach to genderless issues, treating all women and only women as victims and only victims... and men as both gods and devils. Its ideology promotes the view that female experiences and interests are uniquely relevant and meaningful, women and girls are uniquely deserving of relief or protection from discriminatory law and policy, and men and boys are uniquely guilty of causing that discrimination and accountable for providing that relief.

That combination of toxic ideology, along with an unhealthy dose of collectivism, has quite naturally evolved over time into the level of entitled pettiness that you see today among 3rd wave feminists. Seeing everything through that filter mentally "justifies" advocating for discriminatory law as long as it's men who are discriminated against and women at least appear to benefit.

One significant difference between feminism and men's rights activism is the focus. Where feminists fight to gender government response to genderless issues, MRAs fight for a genderless approach that treats the underlying issue, not the sex of the people involved, as the priority. While feminists consider female experiences and interests uniquely relevant and meaningful, and female needs paramount, MRAs want to see male experiences, needs, and interests given equal consideration; to treat everyone equally in their activism, and to see the law reformed to do the same. It's an uphill battle for us, largely because many people fail to see certain areas of discrimination as discriminatory.

Next, you threw in a series of supposedly predicted men's rights assertions, none of which would actually ever originate from men's rights advocacy positions. The closest you got was on the backlash against modern women expecting men to buy things for them as was traditional when middle & upper class women didn't work. Why should men treat women like we don't have any money when we can all earn it just like they do? Are you really that entitled?

The funny thing is, if you reverse the genders, you did mirror some feminist positions. In particular, the idea of being entitled to romantic attention despite being unattractive; feminists use the fat acceptance narrative to call straight men who have a preference for attractive, healthy women "sexist." Often, however, their belief that having standards for aesthetics is sexist does not extend to women's standards. Men who argue against those standards are labeled "creeps."

There is not only EVIDENCE that there's as much physical violence from women, there's EVIDENCE that there is more. Your claim that men (and only men) who report domestic violence are lying, or that the assaults women commit don't matter because men are stronger absolutely is a gender bias. It is intellectually dishonest of you to use the inclusion of self-reports in the data as an excuse to dismiss the data when self-reports - often well after the events described in them - are the basis for the vast majority of existing statistics supporting the belief that partner violence against women is common and pervasive in our society. Either self-reports are to be believed, or they're not. Believable when you want and unbelievable when you don't like what they imply is not a choice.

It's also a sad statement that you buy into the gender myths that
1) all men are bigger and stronger and all women are smaller and weaker and
2) being smaller means being less capable of doing damage.

Some violent women are bigger than their partners. Some use weapons, solicit proxy violence from friends and family and sometimes law enforcement, and even attack using household objects.

I know a guy whose ex-wife used to throw pots and pans, small appliances, and movable light fixtures at him. I used to know a guy whose ex-girlfriend cracked his skull with an heirloom solid glass paperweight he kept on his desk.

One friend of mine had to defend his current wife against his approximately 5 and a half foot waif of a wife, who picked up a motorized push lawnmower and threw it at her.

Another was convicted of assault for putting his hands up to block a woman trying to stab him in the throat with a pencil, because when he did he caught her in the jaw. The woman was not even arrested... because gender made him popping her once in the jaw a worse offense than her repeated attempts to murder him with a sharp object.

Another case involved a woman who blocked the only exit to an upstairs room with her body and threw every small but heavy object within her reach at her husband. When he squeezed past her to flee the conflict, she called police and he was arrested, later convicted, and spent 18 months in jail.

Domestic violence victim's advocates consider it battery when a man slaps or pushes a woman even if it leaves no injury, not even marks. There is no reason the same condition should not be considered domestic violence when a woman is the perpetrator.

Further, violent women don't just slap and quit. They push and nag and hit and harass until the guy can't take it any more and responds. And restraining her is, by many advocates, considered domestic violence as well - so he's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't... and that's if he doesn't end up like Travis Alexander at the hands of his murdering girlfriend Jodi Arias.

When a woman is the victim, advocates label this type of continued, prolonged attack "emotional abuse" and treat it as a direct cause all kinds of dysfunctional behavior in the victim, from withdrawal from social connections to addiction to co-battery and even criminal behavior against third parties, all on the basis that the pattern of abuse affects the victim's mental state. Where do you think you get off denying that the same experience might have the same impact on men?

Jennifer  Langhinrichsen-Rohling   stated in her report, Rates of bi-directional vs uni-directional intimate partner violence: A comprehensive review, published in Partner Abuse, vol. 3, no. 2, 2012, that 58% of violent relationships are bi-directional, and 28% are uni-directional perpetration by women against their partners, leaving only 14% of domestic violence as the uni-directional male-on-female partner violence feminists portray as the majority.

Not only do women engage in domestic violence against men, the CDC's National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence surveys have found that a higher percentage of lesbian relationships than heterosexual relationships are violent. According to the CDC's 2010 NISVS, the Lifetime Prevalence of Rape, Physical  Violence, and/or Stalking by an Intimate Partner was 43% of lesbians vs 35% of heterosexual women, and only 26% for gay men. Approximately 1 in 3 lesbian women vs 1 in 4 heterosexual women reported at least one form of severe physical violence from an intimate partner, vs approximately 1 in 6 gay men. If men were naturally more violent than women, the most violence per capita would be found in relationships with two men, not those with two women.

Women also are more likely than men to be violent toward their children. Health department data shows women as the majority of perpetrators during the last decade, with a decline in their percentage concurrent with a decline in overall perpetration as paternal custody has slowly increased during that time.
Why does all of this matter? I'll bet if you took the time to watch this, you're sitting there thinking, "But I agree with you that men deserve equal remedy! Why are the numbers important if I say men deserve help getting out of abusive relationships?"

I have three  answers for this.

First, it's the truth, and the truth matters, even if confronting it is uncomfortable.

Second, feminist lobbying groups which have established themselves as expert advisers to legislative and other policy making bodies have used the claim that men rarely experience domestic violence, and when they do it's usually not serious, to deny men equal assistance. They made that argument in 1978 when they lobbied Congress for domestic violence law.

The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act of 1984 provided funds to states for programs to prevent family violence and provide shelter to family members attempting to escape it, but didn't give feminists the gender-specific stipulations they wanted. They spent the next 10 years trying to get congress to make the law gender specific on the basis of their claim that women are the vast majority of victims and deserve the lion's share of funding. Lobbying for the Violence Against Women act of 1994 included the same claims made in 1978, despite the existence of information contradicting them. Feminist lobbyists succeeded in persuading congress to gender the language of the law to follow the Duluth model which presumes family violence to be mainly male perpetrated and female experienced, so that the vast majority of shelters would be women-only.
They also succeeded in persuading congress to create a funding incentive for mandatory arrest, prosecution, conviction, sentencing, and sentence enforcement policies guaranteeing an accusation-to-prison pipeline that feeds on men involved in family conflicts, whether they're the actual primary aggressor, or not. They also persuaded congress to fund research based on traffic through these women-only shelters, guaranteeing the production of a body of bias-created "evidence" to support their claims that family violence is gendered. Victims should not be denied either assistance in recovery, or justice, merely because of their gender, or because of of the gender of their perpetrator... but male victims are, especially when victimized by women, and a large part of the reason is that feminists have worked so hard to marginalize them.

And third, if you need a self-serving reason, that would be because reducing female violence would result in an overall reduction in domestic violence from both sexes, as a large percentage of two-way violence involves the female partner assaulting and emotionally abusing the male partner until he snaps and reacts violently. Many women feel entitled to slap or hit if they feel offended, and to push the other person involved in a conflict until they get the response they want. Girls don't grow up with the same admonition to refrain from hitting the opposite sex that boys are given; for them, hitting girls is taboo. For girls, it's not only accepted, it's widely portrayed in television and movies as normal behavior. That mirrors prevailing social attitudes.

When a man hits a woman, the standard response of others is to rush to her aid.

When a woman hits a man, the standard response is to wonder what he did to deserve it.

With such a pervasive attitude of acceptance in our society, why wouldn't women hit the opposite sex more than men do? Do you think that women are just naturally more ethical and caring because of their gender? If you do, why don't you recognize the sexism inherent in that belief?

If women had the same taboo against hitting men that men have against hitting women, and it was enforced with the same level of social shaming and legal ramifications, female-initiated partner abuse would be greatly reduced. And it doesn't matter if you think it's more immoral for a man to hit a woman than for a woman to hit a man. The practical result is unchanged by the gender bias of your morals.

But let's explore for a moment whether if it were affected, your morals would change the importance of acknowledging and addressing female-initiated partner violence.

You seem to think women who initiate are exempt from defensive violence and to consider it to be domestic abuse when the defender is a man, even though it's commonly asserted by domestic violence victim's advocates, when discussing female victims, that self-defense should not be considered abuse... even if she escalates the violence. In fact, that's the entire basis for the use of battered women's syndrome as a defense in assault and murder cases.

The reality is that female violence is at least as provocative as male violence, and in some cases more. When it involves a pattern of repetated, frequent, persistent, or enduring violence accompanied by emotional abuse and aggressive baiting such as getting right up in the guy's face and refusing to allow him to disengage, it is shocking and extremely distressing, and can cause the same fight or flight response a woman experiences in response to

[There is a jump scare at this point in the video]

See, reflexes aren't necessarily optional. To assume a man can just shut off that response because the willfully aggressive person eliciting it is female is not just gender biased, it's a heartless attitude toward men, especially if you're using that assumption as the basis for claiming it's not important to acknowledge that deliberately acting to elicit such a response from your partner is abusive.

Enough on that.

Let's move on to your statements on rape. First I'll address your assertions about prison rape vs prison guard perpetration.

The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 requires the Bureau of Justice Statistics to develop national data collections on the incidence and prevalence of sexual violence within adult and juvenile correctional facilities. To fulfill that requirement, BJS statisticians have begun surveying incarcerated youth on their experiences of sexual violence while in custody.

Two reports made from these surveys are available on the BJS website: Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2008-09 and Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2012.

The two surveys produced similar results.

Staff at the surveyed facilities was 42% female, 58% male in 2008 and 44% female, 56% male in 2012.
92% of respondents in 2008 and 89.1% in 2012 were males reporting sexual activity with female staff only, and another 2.5% in 2008 and 3% in 2012 said they had been victimized by both male and female.

88% of youth reporting staff misconduct in the 2008/9 report and  85.9% in 2012 reported more than one incident. The 2008/8 report states that 27% of this group reported more than 10 incidents. The 2012 report states that 20.4% reported 11 or more incidents. In both reports, approximately a third of youth reporting staff misconduct reported misconduct by more than one staff member.

Based on those and other statistics listed in the report, a significant portion of this exploitation took place in broad daylight, in common areas where it should have been easier to spot and stop.

Interestingly, the majority of female respondents reporting sexual misconduct in those studies were assaulted by other (female) inmates, not male guards.

News stories about similar abuse in adult prisons describe the phenomenon as if the prisoners are responsible, and the guards are being seduced. With that as the attitude of journalists, how would you know if there is a significant difference in sexual violence perpetration by female guards against juvenile and adult male prisoners?

But let's say for a moment that the majority of male victimization in the adult detention system is perpetrated by other men. What makes you think that's a reason for you to be so dismissive of their experiences? Do you think that sharing the same gender makes them responsible for being victimized, or maybe that it's not as harmful when a man does it to them? Do you think prison statistics, which come from an entirely different environment than rape statistics on the outside, have any bearing on perpetration in the general population? Do you acknowledge that a percentage of prison rape is perpetrated by prisoners who would not perpetrate if they were not locked up? Are you aware that you have singled out the phenomenon of male prison rape as if the phenomenon of female prison rape doesn't exist and shouldn't be factored in to your beliefs about the tendency to perpetrate? Or are you so bent on denying the female capacity for predation that you're willing to selectively consider and present information in order to maintain your outlook?

With respect to the general population, the U.S. Centers for Disease control contradicts your claim that when men are raped, men are the vast majority of perpetrators. However, to find that contradiction, you have to actually look past statistics to the methodology of the NISVS itself, which defines rape as "other sexual assault" when a woman is the perpetrator in order to not record female perpetration of rape in the numbers it would show if it were accurately defined. This alternate definition for female perpetration of rape was established by Mary Koss in the 80s and has been used in every survey-type study on sexual violence done by feminist or feminist-leaning researchers since. It was described in her paper,  "Detecting the Scope of Rape : A Review of Prevalence Research Methods" in which she stated, "Although consideration of male victims is within the scope of the legal statutes, it is important to restrict the term rape to instances where male victims were penetrated by offenders. It is inappropriate to consider as a rape victim a man who engages in unwanted sexual intercourse with a woman."

How long would feminists' hissey fit last if rape of women were described as "unwanted sexual intercourse with a man" and victims were described as having engaged in it?

The significance of Koss's definition is that it prevented the type of rape most likely perpetrated against men by women - that in which the victim is forced to penetrate rather than being forcibly penetrated - from being included in rape statistics. According to the 2012 & 2014 NISVS reports, equal numbers of men and women reported in those matching categories for the previous year. Why is the previous year significant? It's the time period likely to be most fresh in their memories. As Alison Tieman reported in her article, Manufacturing female victimhood and marginalizing vulnerable men,

"Researchers into the field of traumatic memory recovery note that the longer the period of time a person is asked recall a traumatic event, the less likely they are to remember it. How this works is that surveys that ask about a traumatic event in the last six months get less false negatives than those that ask about a traumatic event in the last twelve months which, itself, gets considerably fewer false negatives than lifetime prevalence.
For men this effect is even more pronounced.

16% of men with documented cases of sexual abuse considered their early childhood experiences sexual abuse, compared with 64% of women with documented cases of sexual abuse. These gender differences may reflect inadequate measurement techniques or an unwillingness on the part of men to disclose this information (Widom and Morris 1997). Only 16% of men with documented case histories of child sexual abuse disclosed that abuse on a survey intended to capture child sexual abuse. Sixteen percent of men compared to sixty-four percent of women. That amounts to a disclosure rate of child sexual abuse four times higher in women than in men."

I bet you're wondering, just as with numbers on domestic violence, why this is so important if you're acknowledging that rape happens to men. Of course, the same main reason applies: The truth matters. The same second reason applies, as well. Men who seek help after being subjected to sexual violence find scant resources and few willing to believe them. That sparcity and disbelief are even worse when the perpetrator is female, and just as with domestic violence victim's resources, feminists have fought hard for the last 40 years to reserve rape victim's resources, including law enforcement, for female victims. Again, victims should should not be denied either assistance in recovery, or justice, merely because of their gender, or because of of the gender of their perpetrator... but male victims are, especially when victimized by women, and a large part of the reason is that feminists have worked so hard to marginalize them.

Another reason is vulnerability. As long as female perpetration of sexual violence remains an invisible problem in society, female perpetrators can feel comfortably able to act with impunity. Men and boys are made vulnerable to female predators by society's denial of their experiences. Continuing to deny them is tantamount to promotion of female on male rape.

Finally, if you need a self-serving reason, multiple studies have found a high rate of victimization by female sexual predators in the history of men who rape women. While not all men and boys raped by women or girls go on to become rapists, that prevalence in the histories of those who do indicates that their experience contributes to or compounds whatever dysfunction motivates them to engage in sexual violence.
Another self-serving reason: Female victims of female perpetrators are also marginalized.

Look up a documentary called "She Stole My Voice." Don't watch it unless you can handle rape scenes graphically portrayed, but there is plenty of information about the documentary available online that you can read, and understand. Political bias and the fear of being accused of making the experience up, or being labeled homophobic, or having one's sexuality mislabeled because of one's stated objection to the experience can cause victims of lesbian rape to fear reporting. The denial of female perpetration makes it harder for any victim of a female perpetrator to come forward.
 
Regarding your scientific explanation of - to paraphrase your point, "why men are horrible rapey bastards!"
There are a few reasons why your carefully crafted explanation is bullshit, starting with the fact that testosterone is not confirmed to cause physical aggression and therefore a testosterone increase would not be a contributing factor to anyone's decision to commit rape. In fact, the claim that testosterone causes physical aggression was based on flawed or limited scientific study. The conclusions from those studies can't be sufficiently duplicated to support a definitive claim of a relationship between testosterone and physical aggression, particularly not a one listing testosterone as a cause of it.

However, there is a 2009 study, The role of testosterone in social interaction, (Eisenegger, Haushofer and Fehr) which describes evidence that high levels of testosterone would make a man more likely to seek higher social status, which arguably would make him less likely to commit rape. Risking the stigma that comes with the label "rapist" would not be consistent with such a goal. 

Even if testosterone could be confirmed to contribute to it, your conclusion that that would make men want to rape women is flawed. It relies on treating testosterone as the only thing that goes on during sex, ignoring the fact that you're talking about an extremely complex organism with a multitude of chemical changes taking place in and outside the nervous system during the act. It also relies on treating the male experience of sex as one-dimensional; no emotional attachment, no need to feel wanted or loved, just a primal urge to fuck, and a complete lack of standards or conditions for when or how it should happen. That is a profoundly disturbing prejudice you display with that line of thinking.

Rape is not a natural manifestation of either gender's sexuality. It's a dysfunctional response to psychological and emotional damage. Read some research on the subject, such as "Reports of Rape Perpetration by Newly Enlisted Male Navy Personnel" by McWhorter, Stander, Merrill, Thomsen, and Milner, and Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists by Lisak & Miller. Feminists have wrongfully touted both papers as evidence that there is an epidemic of serial rapists on modern campuses, when much of the research was not done on university students, but what it actually shows is that sexual violence is not a common behavioral issue. According to the research, it is is generally committed by a small percentage of the population, usually people who display an overall greater tendency toward criminal violence, not your average person, male or female. If testosterone were a cause, the percentage of male perpetrators would be significantly higher than the research found, and the number of victims exponentially so.

Further, although it's far from a direct cause and effect link which dooms all molestation victims to future perpetration, multiple sources indicate that a history of sexual exploitation by females during youth is a significant risk factor for later perpetration of sex crimes by men. If you want to prevent rape, don't attack testosterone levels in men. Admit the far-reaching consequences of female sexual predation, and stop being part of the widespread force of public attitude that has made it so difficult for advocates to get that issue addressed in law and policy the same as male perpetration is.

Prison sentences
Guess what: It's still sexism, regardless of whether judges are "used to" seeing female criminals or not. It's institutionalized sexism, in fact, and it actually spans the entire justice system, not just the courtroom. This is described in a report from Sonja B. Starr University of Michigan Law School, titled "Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases." Social attitudes hold women less accountable for their actions, often blaming the nearest associated man. Women's actions are also treated as less impacting, even when there is evidence to the contrary. According to the report, such attitudes and beliefs affect the decisions of officers, prosecutors, and judges. Women are less likely to be arrested, prosecuted, convicted, sentenced, and made to serve their full sentence. And while these prejudices and these tendencies are partly a pre-existing part of society's general attitudes, feminists have fought to capitalize on them by advocating against equal treatment in the justice system... even to the point where some advocate closing women's prisons in favor of psychiatric treatment. 

As for men committing more violent crimes, how would we know? Earlier in your video, you gave a prime example of why we don't, when you showed a willingness to dismiss the seriousness of female violence on the assumption that women are not as skilled at it as men. This attiude's prevalence in society likely covers up a significant portion of female violence. Before a violent woman doesn't get equally sentenced, she may not get convicted because her actions may not be taken as seriously. Before she doesn't get convicted, she may not be prosecuted because a city prosecutor may judge the seriousness of her crime by how the public will perceive his choice to prosecute her. Before she doesn't get prosecuted, she may not be arrested because a responding officer may not even see what she's done as genuinely violent, where the same behavior in a man would result in an arrest. And before she doesn't get arrested, her behavior may not even be reported to authorities, because her victim or witnesses to her crime may, like you, dismiss her violent behavior as less damaging, less hurtful, and therefore less of a threat.

Under the circumstances it's unlikely that any conclusion drawn from existing data on the prevalence of female perpetration in society will be accurate. It's impossible to honestly say that criminal behavior is significantly more prevalent in one gender than the other when the available data does not accurately reflect the perpetration rates of either.

Unplanned pregnancy.
Let's start with the fact that the thing you called fucking retarded is available to women twice if they should become pregnant when they don't want to raise a child... three times in nations where abortion is legal and widely available. But it's her overall set of sexual activity, partner, birth control, and post-conception choices which really justifies the men's rights position. Based on those choices, becoming a single custodial mother in the nations where MRAs advocate for paternal surrender is always a choice, even if pregnancy isn't, and even if live birth isn't.

By the time a woman reaches single custodial mother status, she has chosen:

Whether to have sex

Who to have it with

Whether to use birth control

How much birth control (1 method, or more)

Available to her are multiple choices for barrier methods, spermicides, combinations of those two items, intrauterine devices, hormonal birth control, and combinations of those two items

Whether that entails insisting on condom use

Currently, a condom is a man's only birth control option and the only option he can confirm is actually being used.

If pregnancy occurs, whether or not to use an abortion drug early following the conception

Whether or not to abort if she has passed up the drug

Whether or not to relinquish custody to the father or another family member

Whether or not to opt for adoption instead of raising the child herself

Whether or not to use a safe haven abandonment drop off

With that many choices behind her, there is no excuse to portray a single custodial mother as a victim... or for that matter, anything but totally responsible for her circumstance. As such, nobody owes her anything for her situation.

She's not only 50% responsible for her situation. She chose it; she picked up that responsibility, she is 100% responsible, and complaints on her behalf are pitiful and sexist.

When custody was traditionally passed to men following divorce, women were not expected to pay them child support. Men were expected to maintain their households themselves, even while having to pay for childcare so they could work. The only reason why the requirement exists when a woman has custody is that in the past, women weren't expected to earn the wages a man earned and therefore weren't considered capable breadwinners for their families.

Today we know that women can earn a living just like men can. It is dishonest to pretend that the inability exists and justifies the need for a man to support her if she chooses a circumstance that makes supporting herself more challenging. She would only need that if she weren't capable of doing the work required to earn a living.

Further, the creation of the modern child support system was influenced by divorce, which in the early 20th century was perceived as abandonment of a dependent wife and children by an uncaring husband and father. A woman choosing to become a single custodial mother in the face of a host of other options is a totally different ballgame. She doesn't need protected. You're arguing for her to have the right to drag a man who does not want that circumstance along with her into it against his will; essentially, you're arguing that she has the right to demand that for the duration of the baby's childhood, an unwilling man be forced to work to financially support both her choice to retain custody, and her unwillingness to take responsibility for that choice by doing the work herself and earning a living wage. In other words, you've advocated enslaving a man if a woman wants to raise his child herself, against his will. And, I might add, you've used the very same arguments anti-abortion advocates use to tell women that it's not necessary for abortion to be legal or available to women at all. 

And let's be honest; the safety net you're trying to preserve is one of the reasons unwed single motherhood is so prevalent in societies where it's mandated. Women take advantage of the combination of welfare and child support to engage in bad decision making knowing that the potential consequences will be mitigated by making the man they chose to have sex with 100% financially responsible for the result of their entire series of choices.

On a side note, no, the pullout method is not as fool-proof as you claim. Precum can have sperm in it even when the urethra is clean. And your advice regarding what to do about a lack of trust is terrible. Women with entitled attitudes like yours prove that the best practice for a man is to avoid sex with women he can't trust. 
Now let me explain something to you about that narrative you're promoting. You've made yourself a tool in a dehumanization campaign against men; an effort by a political movement’s influential members and leadership to reduce the perception of men's humanity, not based on exhibited behavior, but based on generalized flaws insinuated upon them defined by the inference of a common trait or common traits. Men are violent. Men are abusive. Men are rapacious. Certain things are only bad when men do them. Treating destructive traits as inherently male traits allows influential feminists and feminist leaders to level a perpetual, consistent and ever-escalating attack on male society. The general public is slowly trained to view men only as a group and a set of characteristics, rather than as individuals with unique and broadly varied personal traits. This leads to a subtly and eventually overtly bigoted perception of and response to them. The result is a combination of ‘team’ loyalty, an unsupported us-vs-them mentality, and a distorted view and growing hatred and fear of men. That, in turn, leads to being disposed to accept legal, political, and social treatment of men and boys in ways the individual would otherwise consider unfair, unjust, immoral, unethical, and inhumane... such as imposing homeless with draconian child support laws, or legally and socially marginalizing male victims of intimate partner and sexual violence.

As I said, men's rights activism is not a response to feminism. It does include, however, response to prevailing attitudes like the ones expressed in your video which are harmful to both sexes. Acceptance of female violence and lack of accountability has created a host of issues that need to be addressed, and the discrimination they cause ended. Mischaracterizing those issues and the advocates who fight for remedy to them isn't helpful.

From the lowbar:

This is a response video to one by Brave The World, titled
"The Men's Rights Movement."
http://youtu.be/svBWhzkZl30

For more information about some of the issues I discuss in this video, check the following links. I've tried to include links to everything I mentioned in the video, plus some additional sources. Some of my sources are linked in other pieces of writing, linked below.

Domestic Violence:

http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/feminist-lies-feminism/more-equal-than-others-bias-in-intimate-partner-and-sexual-violence-victims-advocacy/

http://www.saveservices.org/2012/02/cdc-study-more-men-than-women-victims-of-partner-abuse/

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/280897-vawa-must-be-reformed-for-domestic-violence-rates-to-come-down

http://wordpress.clarku.edu/dhines/files/2012/01/Douglas-Hines-2011-helpseeking-experiences-of-male-victims.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_SOfindings.pdf

http://breakingtheglasses.blogspot.com/2013/01/vawa-is-not-like-that.html

https://youtu.be/56Agy4bTv6Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EglxuSgZmY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3bIXDTr0o8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKT9FBghfKg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRCS6GGhIRc#t=2m15s

http://www.springerpub.com/media/springer-journals/FindingsAt-a-Glance.pdf

Rape

http://www.genderratic.net/?p=836

https://youtu.be/0ncjGFIFPJI

http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/2015/06/26/u-s-incarcerated-boys-report-high-rate-of-exploitation-by-female-staff-while-in-custody/

http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/the-new-yorkers-jeffrey-toobin-cynical-and-devious-male-inmates-abused-female-guards/

http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/dangerous-rape-myths-part-1

https://archive.is/zFO75

https://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2013/09/04/the-startling-facts-on-female-sexual-aggression/

http://www.batteredmen.com/batrsexcoer.htm

http://www.menshealthaustralia.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=341&Itemid=95

http://www.rmdglobal.net/she-stole-my-voice/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MXMs-1Lsxw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37U9YgyZdHU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7dW--_m4HU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ar3vPOny0A


In response to "testosterone causes rape"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091208132241.htm

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ouwdOsRvC4oJ:https://www.princeton.edu/~joha/publications/Eisenegger_et_al_TiCS_2011.pdf+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/cognoculture/testosterone_and_human_aggression_or_180520

https://web.archive.org/web/20110719215946/http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/cache/documents/1348/134851.pdf

https://www.ncherm.org/documents/McWhorterVV2009.pdf

Child Support

http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1281&context=cjlpp

https://www.schr.org/action/resources/unable_to_pay_child_support_poor_parents_land_behind_bars

http://racism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1514:fathersbehindbars&catid=53&Itemid=176&showall=&limitstart=3

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/26/locking-up-parents-for-not-paying-child-support-can-be-a-modern-day-debtors-prison/

http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/2015/03/19/custody-and-child-support-facts-vs-feminists/

http://breakingtheglasses.blogspot.com/2014/09/stupid-question-of-day.html

Great discussion about ways in which men are discriminated against:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/3nhjwz/list_of_ways_in_which_men_are_institutionally/

Shedding some light on the subject

Discussing gender issues with feminists is like being in a complicated light bulb joke.

Of course it couldn't be an ordinary light bulb joke, because feminism can't produce anything that straightforward.

Instead, it would be a long meandering series that ends with a vague loop back to the beginning, probably something a lot like this:

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None. Feminists don't do that.

No, it takes dozens of second wave feminists to bitch that incandescent is the wrong kind of bulb until men take action to update it to an LED light.

Later, they will insist feminism be credited for the change, and say that everything was dark for women until feminists came along and invented light bulbs.

Social Justice ideologues in entertainment and journalistic media will shade their narrative to promote the feminist version of light bulb history, and it will be threaded into school curriculum, exposing the next generation.

Third wave feminists will cast the canard into debate and consider any challenge to it, no matter how much factual information is provided, to be an assault on women's light.

The light debate will burn on for years with the same arguments being exchanged while establishment feminists successfully lobby for affirmative light and lamp shade laws. Feminists will not acknowledge the dimming nature of these laws and will blame the darkness caused by their enforcement on "patriarchy." They will then suggest embracing feminism as a solution to the light discrimination they'll claim is inherent in the patriarchal system.

New-age hippie feminists will contend that artificial lighting is an invention of the patriarchy, to be rejected by all women in favor of using candles. It will not occur to them to consider men's involvement in the invention of candles, the reduced illumination candles produce, or the possibility that human manufacture of candles makes them an artificial light source as well.

Establishment feminists will respond to the controversy by suggesting that equal light could be achieved if straight white men were required to live in the dark 23% of the time.

Radfems will criticize other feminists and social justice warriors for their soft stance on patriarchal light oppression and float a plan to kill or gouge out the eyes of 90% of the male population to mitigate the danger created by men living in women's light.

Establishment & radfem bloggers will write posts celebrating illuminated women and extolling the virtues of lighting tools for women. They will write other posts painting men's need for light as shady or harsh, peppered with terms like male glare and shadow masculinity.

"Nice" feminists will talk about how The Patriarchy has kept men in the dark, and offer feminism as a remedy. Reminders of the feminist light lobby will be treated as an attack on women's light, or responded to with "not all feminists are like that."

Christina Hoff Sommers will write an article patiently explaining the actual, documented history of light bulbs and make an easy to understand video explaining why the feminist light bulb narrative is bullshit.

Social justice warriors will criticize the video's format and graphics to avoid discussing the facts, and write whiny posts about Sommers in remote and dusky internet "safe spaces" where they don't actually have to engage in any debate. They will refuse to discuss the video anywhere else.

Men's light activists will fight among themselves over the best approach to the light bulb controversy and debunking radiance myths.

Some will strive to enlighten the public. Others will participate in heated debate. Still others will get fired up and engage legislators.

Left and right leaning activists will each blame each other's political parties while proclaiming the brilliance of their own. 

Traditionalists will call life easier when men bring home the light bulbs and women see to it that they're screwed in right & properly replaced when they burn out.

Men Glowing Their Own Way will argue that women can touch the light bulbs, but not take any of them home.

"Moderate" men's light advocates will promote adopting the false feminist narrative on light bulb history in an effort to befriend them and get them to join a coordinated effort at promoting equal light today.

Everyone in both movements will criticize "flick up artists" for discussing ways to turn on the light even when the switch is difficult to flip.

Feminists will use associating men's light activism with flick up artistry to distract men's light activists from the issue itself.

David Futrelle will spotlight the controversy in his blog, framing the post in the feminist narrative on light bulb history along with the presumption that light belongs to women and men are interlopers even when invited. That will lead into portraying men's light activism as an attempt to roll back women's light, wrongfully gain access to it, or both. The writing will include mischaracterized quotes, fabrication, hyperbole, childish name calling, and dishonest barbs directed at various men's light blogs, forums, and news sites.

Social justice leaning news blogs will reference Futrelle's blog in articles demonizing the men's light movement as a call for a return to the dark ages.

Fringe establishment media will widen the spotlight, referencing the news blogs. 

Corporate run establishment media will reference the fringe and then later each other, effectively eclipsing the origin of the narrative behind layers of consensus.

Feminists will reference the articles in debate as evidence that men's light activists are demons from hell bent on plunging the world into darkness, while failing to realize they're content to live in it themselves.

And the Sunny Badgers will highlight the entire debate on internet radio for deconstruction.

The PUA cheese touch strikes again

The men's rights movement is no stranger to the tactics feminists try to use to silence viewpoints they oppose. Those tactics have been written about for years, well before the movement was as large as it is today, and well before it ever received media attention. If you're not familiar with them, read Exposing Feminism's post "The catalog of anti-male shaming tactics."

These tactics are a manifestation of a sense of entitlement to control the dialogue based on one's own belief in one's position. I'm right, so your argument must be rooted in objectionable characteristics. They're designed to put the target on the defensive against unmerited charges in order to distract from existing debate. An example would be a feminist leveling the accusation that you support due process rights because you hate women, or an attack on your masculinity in response to your discussion about female perpetrators of sexual violence and their male victims. These tactics are a window to feminism's underlying hateful attitude. Their basic premise is that agitation for any remedy to conditions which are oppressive to men is unneeded, undeserved, illegitimate, and an affront to women.

Many times, activists are able to spot these tactics and call them out when their feminist debate opponents use them, effectively rendering them useless. However, the community at large has failed miserably at this when the shaming involves an attempt to pit us against the pick-up artist community. The most recent version of this failure is an attempt to distance the two groups from each other in response to a feminist diatribe about a recent blog article by Roosh V. Here we go again, handing feminists control that they do not deserve, allowing an unmerited, illegitimate attack on the movement to put us on the defense.

Roosh's article is not bad for the men's rights movement. The feminist reaction is bad for feminists, or at least it would be if MRAs would take a step back and view it without the filter of feminist shaming language through which the article complaining about it is launched. Remove it and the complaint would largely disappear. It can be clearly identified as a vehemently worded charge of misogyny, with a layer of "by association" thrown in.

The only reason feminists feel like this tactic works is that MRAs run scared every time they do it. This is what happens when you give feminists control over the dialogue; their first impulse is to silence views they disapprove, rather than to engage. Feminist use of shaming tactics does not make MRAs or even PUAs bad people. It shows that feminists are so bigoted they can't handle the existing debate, that they must resort to mudslinging and distraction tactics, and they'll use any kind of misrepresentation MRAs are willing to accept.

Letting feminists put the movement on the defensive by carefully framing their own over-reaction to cherry-picked factors and then associating them with the MRM invites this. Capitulation is asking to be slandered again. The behavior tells the shame-thrower, "Hey, look, an enormous target! Shoot here and we'll scramble for damage control just like you want, rendering us totally ineffective for a time."

All they have to do is get MRAs to treat their outragegasm as legitimate and an accurate representation of what they're responding to, and you let them achieve that by panicking without question over the terms in which they frame their complaint. They don't have to be accurate, honest, or even remotely rational, so long as their accusation is sufficiently scandalous, because even though they've demonstrated over and over again a determination to hate, oppose, and slander the movement, there are MRAs who continue to seek their approval.

You're not going to get their approval because their approval doesn't rely on what's right, on logic or reason, or on genuinely equal treatment. It relies on you keeping your head down and saying "okay." It relies on your agreement to subjugate your advocacy to feminist interests. It does not matter if you condemn 1000 PUAs, agree with feminists calling drunk sex rape, even let feminists define all of the terms of the dialogue. None of that will earn you a more open, friendly discussion because you are dealing with people who don't want to have it in the first place.

The Raw Story writer was not really complaining out of a belief that Roosh's article means MRAs want to legalize rape. Feminists do this because they know it will shut you up about men's issues for a while, as you're tied up with damage control. They know that leveling the right accusation the right way will spread hysteria throughout the community.

And over what? The article itself is simply using the style of A Modest Proposal to point out that ideology isn't an effective shield against crime. Contained in it is a paragraph driving home the point that rape is bad and the author understands that. The reaction to it is a typical female chip-knocked-off-the-shoulder knee-jerkin' temper dance. And what's the first thought the responding writer had after reading it, but how it could be used to silence advocates for boys in education, male victims of intimate partner and sexual violence, children's right to a relationship with their fathers; to muzzle opponents of debtors prisons and discriminatory law and policy and eclipse efforts to raise awareness of male suicide. How hateful!

The rush to frame this discussion in the most inflammatory way, light it on ideological fire, and throw it at the MRM isn't a misunderstanding. It's a bigoted attempt to enforce feminism's self-assigned entitlement to control the gender issues dialogue. And it'll continue to happen until MRAs stop falling for it. You want feminists to quit using PUAs as mud to sling at the men's rights movement? Take the benefit out of it! Stop giving them the reaction they want. 

Thoughts on "patriarchy"

Feminists try to excuse their dismissal of men's issues as not as important, big, or impacting as women's issues on the claim that women are oppressed by "patriarchy," which in turn benefits all men. They conclude that men are never oppressed, discrimination against men isn't discrimination, and men who are abused don't suffer as much as women who are abused because all men have this phantom benefit to offset any suffering they might experience.

At the same time, feminists excuse their dismissal of the need for a men's rights movement by claiming that men's issues are caused by "patriarchy," and since feminism is fighting "patriarchy," feminism fights to make things better for men, because "patriarchy hurts men, too." They conclude from this that there is no need for a men's movement, because feminism has its function covered.

Putting the two side by side really makes their incompatibility obvious. If all men receive some suffering-eliminating benefit from "patriarchy," and therefore no men are oppressed, then "patriarchy hurts men, too" doesn't make sense. If "patriarchy" hurts men, too, then men's issues cannot be dismissed with "but 'patriarchy,' so women's issues are worse," because if "patriarchy" hurts both sexes, then its influence on women's experiences doesn't make them any worse than men's experiences, which feminists claim it also impacts.

These incompatible concepts really need to be addressed with feminists who use them as arguments against men's advocacy related to men's issues, not because feminists need to get their shit together and narrow it down to one argument, but because the fact that they do regularly throw both of them out there indicates that their objection to men's human rights advocacy is completely unrelated to its legitimacy - they're simply willing to say anything to shut MRAs up.

Yes, All Feminists ARE Like That

Videos of feminist protests at Toronto University have apparently put on display some prime examples of a serious pest problem within the feminist community: an infestation of extremists who, according to other feminists, don't represent the movement.

We hear it after every action they take. As MRAs discuss the violence and vitriol, the attacks on free speech, the irrational statements and spewing of venom, feminist apologists trickle into these discussions to offer the same sorry, tired, worn-out old argument:

Really?

If not all feminists are like that, what are the other feminists like... and where the hell are they? Because all of the overt, effective action we've seen has involved feminists who are exactly like that.

We've seen feminists lobby for discriminatory law and policy.
We've seen how some of those laws and policies are abused, often up close and personally.
We've seen feminists advocate for discriminatory social standards.
We've seen feminists attack the due process rights of men.
We've seen feminists attack men's speech rights... and consistently, at that.
We've seen feminist violence, even attempted murder.
We've seen feminists attack and condemn discussion on ways to prevent boys from falling behind in education, and other men's issues.
We've seen feminists oppose the success of civil rights efforts unless they're allowed a free ride on another movement's coat tails, even at the understood risk of derailing the entire effort.
We've seen feminists fight to deny assistance to abused men.
We've seen that fight extend into an overt effort to deny facts and hide existing factors related to abused men.
We've seen feminists propagate a culture of tolerance for female sexual violence against men by denying its existence, denying its severity, and when all else fails, denying its significance in relation to its gender counterpart.
We've seen feminists actively, deliberately vilify the entire male gender, treating the dysfunctional behavior of some as if it were a gender characteristic.
We've even seen them use the slander of innocent men in their campaigns.

The one time feminists point to as an effort to promote equality, they didn't advocate to remove a discriminatory factor from impacting men, but instead moved to become equally abused: When presented with the opportunity to advocate for the abolition of the United States Selective Service's outdated and unnecessary mandate that men make themselves available to be drafted into the military, feminists instead fought to be included in it. It was more important to them to be included than it was for them to right a wrong. I have often seen this effort presented as an argument that see, feminists care about men's rights, too. In reality, it's an example of the solipsistic nature of feminism. Rather than realize how important it is to end this one remaining vestige of overt slavery in the U.S., their main concern was their own exclusion from it. This was not an effort at elevating the treatment of men, but instead an effort at removing an area where the discrimination was obvious.

On a side note: I bet most feminists who have argued for "joining" the "draft" haven't gone to the level of effort that this one did. I don't think MRAs should take any feminist assertions on women in the military seriously until feminists do this en masse. If they really, honestly are for this, then they should be expected to back it up with action. If they won't do that, then we're justified in assuming that their advocacy on this is completely hollow and meaningless.

Back to our regularly scheduled topic: As stated, we have seen various feminist group attacks on men, men's rights, masculinity, and the public's perspective thereof. We haven't seen feminists put any effort into curbing the rampant and blatant extremism in their movement.

Think about what feminists do when they have a cause to promote or a factor to oppose. They don't sit around and simply deny association with it.

They act.

They march en masse, in protest, with shouted slogans and carried signs.
Social media campaigns spread outward from the central effort like ripples in water disturbed by a dropped rock.
Their various activist groups organize media contact efforts to promote their position.
They execute email, phone call, and letter-writing campaigns to government officials.
Public influence efforts include blogging, vlogging, and extensive discussion in the comments under each.
If the issue is with an entity, such as a business, university, or other organization, there are social pressure campaigns targeting the entity, as well, using anything from stern criticism to threats of boycott and public shaming.
If legal action is an option, it is taken, as well.

So, if "nice" feminists are the mainstream... if "nice" feminists represent the majority opinion, the majority effort, and the majority of activists within the movement... why haven't we seen any action from the "nice" front?

Why has not one feminist from anywhere shown up to these events to stand up against this "extremist" position?
Why have none of the Feminists who are Not Like That raised a counter-protest against those embarrassments to their movement?
Why have none of the Feminists who Support Men's Rights shown up to escort men through these pickets, protect the human rights posters, shout down the vitriol, and assert their place as the mainstream of feminism?
Where are the feminist-written blogs condemning the acts of harassment, violence, and vandalism that these "extremists" have committed?
Where are the popular, widely viewed "mainstream feminist" blog and vlog posts arguing the right of men to address and discuss men's issues among themselves, and on their own terms?
Where is even the slightest public "mainstream feminist" criticism of this type of behavior?

Have any feminist groups created information campaigns to help correct this imbalance in their movement?

Where are the "Real feminists don't abuse men" graphics?
Where are the "Real feminists don't deny issues" messages?
Where are the "Feminists can stop male-bashing" campaigns?
Where are the anti-harassment posters with messages like "Hatred is not a feminist value?"
Where is the "mainstream feminist" statement to any major media outlet, condemning the choice of "extremists" to treat the MRM as an enemy force instead of a cooperative effort toward the achievement of social and legal equality?
In fact... where is the mainstream feminist end of that cooperative effort? Is denying association with the part of the feminist movement which effects change all these apologists are good for, or are they going to put their money where their keyboards are, and stand up to those they not-so-openly condemn?

We've seen feminist groups take dramatic action in response to causes they support, or issues they oppose. If "nice" feminists are doing nothing in response to "extremism" within their movement but denying association with it, that doesn't signify opposition. It doesn't even signify separation from it. It signifies tolerance, and acceptance. The lack of action is still a choice - the act of subtly condoning the behavior.

Dissociation of the self from that behavior is not a meaningful argument. It's not enthusiastic dissent. It's a way of letting someone else do the dirty work, so that one may reap the benefits when that work is successful, but have plausible deniability when the hateful nature of it is noticed by others. Denial of association doesn't make up for the continued tolerance by self-titled "mainstream" feminists for these displays of hatred, bigotry, vitriol, and abusive attitudes. It doesn't erase the willingness to continue using these so-called "extremists" as a means of attempting to silence or suppress resistance to the human rights abuses advocated for by feminist groups.

It only shows one's willingness to be unabashedly dishonest about it.


Relevant:  “Nice” feminists: grassroots of a hate movement

Feminism, your hypocrisy is showing.

There is a story I came across writing a recent post which just... stuck with me. I knew as I read and re-read the post, trying to figure out why it remained on my mind, there must be a reason. When I compared it to recent events, and recent discussion, I realized the detail which had been tugging on my attention.

At one of the links, a woman describes her experience of, after telling a man no, being beaten and subdued by him, forced onto a table, her legs tied apart, being drugged, and having foreign objects and his hands inserted into her vagina against her will.  
   
The story came out in 2011. I only learned about it recently as I dug into the story I was highlighting in the post, about that man's lucrative business endeavors and their relationship to feminist activism on a specific topic.   
   
So, there's this story, out in 2011, describing this horrendous experience which is obviously violent, forcible rape. It made national news - ABC published it. I have not seen a single blog post, comment, call to action... nothing from feminists.

Total. Radio. Silence.  
    
Why? Why let something so heinous slip by? Where is the outpouring of support for this woman? The calls for prosecution? The demonization of the perpetrator and anyone with anything in common with him, as feminists tend to do with such cases? 
  
There won't be any. This woman's experience does not follow the rules. It isn't something they can use to further their agenda without hurting another agenda which is apparently more near and dear to their hearts than preventing rape.   

This rape happened to involve an abortion, one the patient didn't want.  
   
Family members brought her to the clinic against her will. She was in the treatment room when she told the doctor the truth. This is a physician, accountable to the Hippocratic oath: First, do no harm. This doctor, whose job it is to help the patient, instead violently forced her onto the table, stripped her, restrained her, drugged her, and performed the sexually invasive surgery against her will. And not one feminist organization has stood up to protest that behavior. No organized support has been offered to the victim. No organized effort has been made to ensure that this type of atrocity is not committed again.

Feminist groups support victims whose experiences they can use to further their political goals. When a victim's experience doesn't do that, these groups are more than willing to leave her by the side of the road and continue on their quest for political power.  
   
Similarly, feminist groups only descend upon and demonize an individual or group in the context of their advocacy or ideology when doing so provides a springboard from which to further their political goals. Their hatred and ire are reserved for those upon whose broken sociopolitical 'bodies' they can stand in order to feel that they've elevated themselves to a more persuasive position, from which they can more effectively lobby for the enactment of law and policy that suits their political agenda. When an individual or group's dysfunction or malevolence cannot be used in that manner, feminist groups are not averse to cooperation with them, sometimes even willing to offer them some protection, sometimes to the point of sacrificing the interests or well-being of those for whose benefit they are claiming to advocate. They'll compromise everything to prevent said dysfunction or malevolence from staining the image of the feminist crusade.

This is one reason among many why the men's rights movement must not fall for the claims, often made by individual feminists, that the two ideologies are opposite sides of the same coin, one benevolently fighting the good fight to end discrimination against men, the other fighting the good fight to end discrimination against women. It's not true - mainstream, active, real-world-affecting feminist groups do not give a rat's ass about ending discrimination against women. They care about political issues, and they're willing to be as ruthless, heartless, and sexist as it takes to further those goals.

If MRAs start losing sight of that fact, and begin trusting this two-faced, backstabbing, pathological frenemy that keeps trying to invade and control the evolution of the men's rights effort, we'll allow into our midst the equivalent of Tolkien's Grima Wormtongue; a living poison whose only goal is to subdue and control the movement's activism for its own gain, ready and willing to turn on any ally the moment our efforts are in even the slightest conflict, or even just whenever we cease to seem useful to them.

Conflict between feminist advocates and the rest of us

This post was originally a comment I left in reply to an Explain It Like I'm Five post, asking the question, "ELI5: why does the issue of women's rights stir up so much anger?"
It was suggested that I post my answer to that in the Men's Rights Wiki. I looked through the listed categories and could not find a heading under which I thought the comment really fit. There are things I'm working on that might more likely belong there, but those are longer term projects. In the meantime, I'm making the comment an entry here, instead.

____________________________

It isn't necessarily women's rights issues which are the area of conflict, but feminist advocacy. The two are not necessarily the same. My explanation as to why:

Feminists fail to differentiate between having a fundamental need, and having a fundamental right. The pursuit of conditions or factors to meet fundamental needs (eg., putting forth effort to obtain food and shelter) is a human right. The receipt of conditions or factors to meet fundamental needs (eg., having food and shelter provided at the expense of others) is not a fundamental right, but an act of charity on the part of the provider (as long as it's voluntary - otherwise, it's theft by the recipient, even when those things are needed.) With this misapplication of the word "right," feminists treat the condition of being given possession or position as if it were the same as the condition of having one's pursuit not be being wrongfully obstructed.

Another problem which has a side effect upon this is that feminist advocates fail to differentiate between fundamental needs, and dearly valued/wanted conveniences. Food and shelter are fundamental needs. Yummy food and nice shelter are dearly valued/wanted conveniences. Feminists go beyond claiming the right to the pursuit of fulfillment of fundamental needs to claim the right to receive dearly valued/wanted conveniences.
 
One outgrowth of that combination of beliefs is the sense of entitlement to enforce the provision of the fulfillment of needs or dearly held wants upon other human beings; treating as a given fact upon which society must base law and policy, "If A has a need for or dearly held want of factor 1, B must provide it," where A is the individual with whom feminism identifies itself, and B is the individual with whom feminism takes issue.

This is further modified by another fundamental flaw in the movement; Patriarchy Theory, which in short, blames upon male society all issues or conditions which feminists define as oppression of women. Patriarchy Theory makes female society group A, and male society group B.
So you have a group which labels having (as opposed to not being prevented from reasonably pursuing) that which women want or need to be a right, and asserts that as justification for demanding or taking it from men.

Now, the feminist movement has been treated as the architect and arbiter of women's rights advocacy since its inception, even though not all women subscribe to the feminist line of reasoning, much lest feminist theory. Many of us do not believe that there is systematic, institutionalized discrimination against women in first world countries. Antifeminist women do not believe in Patriarchy theory, Rape Culture theory, or even the feminist description of gender roles as male oppression of women. This leads to conflict between groups of women, who do not all hold the same sets of beliefs and values or all perceive society in the same way, over what is or should be defined as "women's rights," and advocated in the name of women in general.

Then, you have men in the western world waking up to the fact that as society has changed, and women's roles have evolved (in part through feminist advocacy, and in part due to advancements in technology and the advent of conveniences which reduce the effort which both sexes must put into simple survival,) society's expectations of men, and the legal requirements accompanying those expectations, haven't relaxed much at all.
 
That realization has been one of the bigger contributing factors to the growth of the men's rights movement, comprised of people who have noticed that the practical application of feminist advocacy in enforcement of male gender roles authoritative societal imposition of provision for women's wants and needs upon men - is in fact a violation of men's basic human rights, particularly the right to liberty.

In some cases this involves a direct transfer of material possessions from men to women (alimony, child support) and in some, indirect (social programs for custodial parents, funded by income taxes; free birth control for women, funded by taxes.)
In other cases this involves wrongfully obstructing men's pursuit of the fulfillment of needs and wants (preferential treatment in hiring and promotion.)
In some, it involves wrongfully unbalancing the application of policy in the justice system (infringing upon due process rights, unequal treatment in civil disputes and criminal cases, for the imposed protection of only women.)

In other words, despite decades of feminist advocacy claiming female independence and female responsibility, the practical application of feminist theory/advocacy manifests in the difference in social and legal obligations between the sexes, where men are expected to protect and provide, and women may be shielded from conditions and responsibilities which men are expected to face and embrace.
 
That's the base issue between those movements, before you even get to the concepts of what constitutes discrimination or oppression, and what constitutes equality. At the very bottom of every area of conflict between feminism and antifeminist women, and feminism and the MRM, is a struggle over that disagreement; the feminist belief that women have the right to demand or take what we want or need from men, and the antifeminist and MRActivist contention that no, we don't. This is the conflict which creates the big hullabaloo over pretty much any discussion on gender rights.