MRA deconstructed (II)

This is part II on the topic of Men's Rights Activists or MRAs. Let's deal with their first big core tenet.

"Feminism ignores the challenges that men face"

One of the basic tenets of MRAs is that feminists ignore or downplay the challenges that men face as a gender. Not only is that not true, but feminists also have a right to do so. Do we ask a black power movement to please think of the white people, too? There's something dishonest about that, especially because men often only bring up issues that affect men when they discuss women's issues. But let's take a look at some of these issues.

    Glass cellar

As a corollary to the glass ceiling, men deal with the 'glass cellar'. Overwhelmingly, the world's most dangerous, unsanitary and menial jobs are done by men. One reason for this is very similar to why not many women get selected for jobs in the upper echelons of business and politics: the people who select them are men. In other words, it's men who saddle other men with these dangerous jobs, out of the sexist assumption that it's 'men's work'. Secondly, male-dominated environments such as the military tend to be hostile to women, making it less likely for women to choose them as a career path.

What MRAs think it is: Women getting off scot-free from dangerous professions
Actual issue: Employers (mostly men) are sexist to other men, too
Actual solution: Unionisation, reduce hostility to women in male-dominated professions

    Men are more likely to die violently

Male life expectancy is generally lower than female life expectancy. The causes are complex and manifold, but a significant number of these causes relate to violence. The biggest perpretators of lethal violence are men. Violence perpetrated by men is a problem that men must solve.

What MRAs think it is: Men are valiant knights who die protecting women
Actual issue: Men are raised to believe violence (against other men) is acceptable
Actual solution: Raise boys to be less violent

    Men are stereotyped as (potential) rapists

The famous term 'Schrödinger's Rapist' describes the uncertainty women feel when they are spoken to by men they do not know. Some men take offence at this description, but instead of being offended, they'd better realise that some 20% of women in the US alone get raped in their lifetime. As is the case with general physical violence, rape is an important issue that men must address among themselves: the onus is not on potential victims to protect themselves, the onus is on stopping potential rapists. Nothing will subside women's fears more than there simply being less rapists around.

What MRAs think it is: A slanderous attack on the vast majority of men
Actual issue: Rape culture leaves rapists largely unchecked
Actual solution: Stop rape

    Men get the short stick in a divorce case

As a result of the fact that men generally earn more money (which is in itself a result of systematic sexism), they often end up paying alimony. The evidence that the justice system is rigged to favour women in divorce cases is scant. We can assume that men will stop being required to pay child support if pay equality becomes a reality.

What MRAs think it is: Women manipulate courts to advantage them
Actual issue: Income and power disparity, society sees women as mothers
Actual solution: Pay equality, degendering of marriage roles

On to part III.

Are progressive movements antiquated?

The most high-profile progressive cause of today is probably the LGBTQ movement. They fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation and push for equal rights to heterosexual couples. While a lot of countries in the West still have miles to go to achieve true equality, the headway these movements are making is undeniable. It is a more quiet but by no means less vocal movement than the American Civil Rights movement of the '60s, the sufragettes of the '20s and beyond, and the first workers' unions of the early 20th century. Unfortunately, all this progress has lulled a lot of self-described progressive and conservative people alike into a false sense of comfort.

Certainly, if we have to believe the uninformed, the West has moved beyond racism and sexism, unions protect workers' rights and all is well. It's true, progress has been made on many fronts since the start of the 20th century, but to say that empowering movements have become obsolete is misguided at best:

- Violence against women is still a jarringly frequent occurrence
- The 1% continuously try to use their political henchmen to make people believe that unions and regulation are their enemy
- Racism, no matter whether it is dressed up as 'ironic' or not, still prevents people from getting hired and gets exploited by opportunist politicians
- Hostility against sexual minorities, verbal or otherwise, is still commonplace outside of large urban centres and sometimes even inside of it
- Women are still a minority in corporate Boards and high-profile political life

The list goes on and on. To make matters worse, there's a number of groups that insiduously claims that it is now, in fact, heterosexual white men who are getting the short end of the stick. The problem with this statement is twofold:

- Most hetereosexual white men are completely blind to their own privilege because they never experienced anything else
- They focus on petty anecdotes or elements of a patriarchal society that harms everyone, not just them

Progressive movements are certainly not antiquated. In fact, more than ever, in the face of environmental collapse, resurging hard right movements, corporate media manipulation and cynical exploitation of fear, a coherent progressive message is more important than ever. The bottom line is, and this will return in this blog a couple of times, that we are all in this together. Only if we attempt to erase mutual prejudice, we can truly make the playfield level and be societies that offer everyone equal opportunities to succeed in life and be happy - not just the 1%, who is happy to make us believe that 'uppity' minorities are our enemy and the cause of our problems. That is simply not true. The real problem is a deeply-entrenched system of privilege over privilege that finally ends with a tiny amount of white old men.