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[Angle]

1) Do you think a male equivalent of feminism should exist, and if so, why? Yes, definitely. We've allowed our gender roles, as presented by society, to become toxic and constraining.

2) Do you believe that civil rights issues for men exist? Ehh... Maybe. I don't believe our laws constrain us significantly, just our social norms. There may well be minor issues, though, i haven;t researched this issue thoroughly.

3) Do you believe sexism towards men exists? And prejudices? Yes, I've encountered plenty of it myself. I don't think women are to blame though, such sexism is usually propagated by other men.

4) Do you believe that grouping and labelling people is wrong or at least unadvisable?  Of course. Stereotypes are a very crude and poor way of understanding the complexities of human identity.

Well at any rate, I suppose I'm stuck writing a research paper and a thesis paper now. So, forgive me if I procrastinate. I think I'll need to rename and move the thread if we're getting into this instead of advice. I was really hoping I wouldn't have to spend the majority of my time explaining why I need help rather than getting it, but I knew what I was doing opening this can of worms. Can't say I didn't try to make things simpler.

Mmm, sorry- But surely you recognize that we can't be certain your motives are decent unless we go over this, and we have a responsibility to not give you advice that could hurt people.

[alway]

1) Do you think a male equivalent of feminism should exist, and if so, why? Yes, definitely. We've allowed our gender roles, as presented by society, to become toxic and constraining.

2) Do you believe that civil rights issues for men exist? Ehh... Maybe. I don't believe our laws constrain us significantly, just our social norms. There may well be minor issues, though, i haven;t researched this issue thoroughly.

3) Do you believe sexism towards men exists? And prejudices? Yes, I've encountered plenty of it myself. I don't think women are to blame though, such sexism is usually propagated by other men.

4) Do you believe that grouping and labelling people is wrong or at least unadvisable?  Of course. Stereotypes are a very crude and poor way of understanding the complexities of human identity.

Yep, one needs look no further than the ironically named "men's rights" groups which are nothing but patriarchal bullshit mongering reinforcing gender stereotypes about men. Their whole 'every man should strive to be an assertive alpha masculine gym-hulk' bullshit is basically just gender-reversed Cosmo. I have every bit as much a right to be in the kitchen as a woman, thank you very much.

So then, which groups actually are pushing for men's rights? Feminists. That's what equality means. Bridging the gap until no gap remains. Women as men, men as women; that's equality. So yes, there should be, and there is, a male equivalent to feminism, and it is feminism.

[Phmcw]

Yeah, the fanatic branch of internet feminism can be pretty annoying, and doesn't look like something healthy. Good on you for helping her.

>Yep, one needs look no further than the ironically named "men's rights" groups which are nothing but patriarchal bullshit mongering reinforcing gender stereotypes about men.

That's pretty much reducing feminism to Dorkin. I read a bit of Cristina Hoff Sommers and what she wrote wasn't dumb.

Yet I feel like both side have too much time on their hands, and watch their own ombilicus waaaaay too much. Worst, they tend to be extremely intolerant of other viewpoints, which is very unhealthy, and it doesn't take much time, in either groups, to find hate.

[Angle]

Yeah, the fanatic branch of internet feminism can be pretty annoying, and doesn't look like something healthy.

Again, people keep talking about this "Radical Feminism", but I just haven't seen it. The closest thing I can think of is Trans Exclusive Radical Feminism, and the most odious thing they do is bash trans women.

[Phmcw]

If you don't see radicals in a group, you may be a radical yourself. Or not.

Anyway, there are plenty of forum on the internet where you can find peoples going on and on on MRA, the partiarchy, and the evil of cis-white able bodied christian men. Mostly fuelled by groupthing and self importance. Usually they raid and get raided by the neighborhood MRA groups that spend their time explaining how feminist ruined everything since Lilith. Reddit is a good example, with /srs and /MR.

[Angle]

Well, I see lot's of conversation about "Radical Feminism" and MRM, but no sign of "Radical Feminism" itself...

Also, really?

If you don't see radicals in a group, you may be a radical yourself. Or not.

You might be better off just dropping me a link.

[Phmcw]

Send the link by pm. I don't think it's a good idea to link directly.

[Cheeetar]

So I guess what you're effectively asking us for Captain is a way to separate a woman you know from the idea of being a feminist, because she participates in online discussion about it. That's... much more doomed to failure than what I was dreading you were trying to do, so I'm relieved to know the truth. Thanks!

[Angle]

Well, I viewed your link, an I still don't see any sign of Radical Feminism. I do see a few individual stupid people saying stupid things, though.

[Phmcw]

What I meaan by "radical" is that there is some poeples that see everything through the eyes off their ideology, and is ready to go far to get poeples to conform tho their views. If you stay around a bit, you'll find of examples. And Believe me, if you scratch a bit, you'll find peoples ready to use techniques that border on violence or is violent within any of those groups. An example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWgslugtDow some of those pulled a fire alarm to prevents a "MRA" speaker from, well, speaking. For added irony, the spearker in question is a woman : Janice Fiamengo.

Edit : added an article : http://metronews.ca/news/ottawa/1000093/protestors-shut-down-u-of-o-professors-mens-rights-talk/

[Angle]

Mmmm, well that is poor behaviour. Doesn't seem like much more than that, though.

I was googling the topic and I found this.

Oddly enough, by that definition, I'd be a radical feminist. Though I'd personally focus more on the ways that patriarchal views oppress men, especially young men, because that's what I'm familiar with. The best example would be the draft, and the way men are presented in much of the media- as thunderfoot noted, protagonists frequently mow through swarms of male enemies without any sign of remorse. This is because our society tends to prevent men, especially young men, as being violent and expendable. This isn't something perpetuated by women exclusively, though- this is a common cultural meme, put forth by men and women alike, and largely enforced by men.

[Phmcw]

Oddly enough, by that definition, I'd be a radical feminist.

Well you kinda are, exept that you can see why silencing peoples that disagree with you is bad.

As for your point, let me just observe that we, in Belgium, don't see any less violent action movies and yet have a much lower murder-rate than the US, while being more densely populated, poorer on average and with a bigger share of immigration (and a derelict justice system so underfunded that it have trouble functionning). We don't have urbain hell like Detroit, though.
So maybe your time may be more usefully employed promoting education funding for everyone (please no race segregation , that's a bad idea either way) rather than analysing the gender of peoples killed in movies.

[Angle]

I think the fewer people killed has more to do with relative levels of wealth and gun ownership. The effect of violent movies patriarchal gender roles is much subtler.

And besides, I don't spend my time analyzing people killed in movies- that was a reference to a Thunderfoot video. I spend my time arguing on the internet.

I still don't see what all the fuss about adical feminism is, though. You've shown one example of feminists people shutting down a talk by a MRA. even if we take that as evidence of an ongoing campaign by feminists to silence MRAs (Which seems really extreme to me), it still doesn't show what the underlying disagreement is about.

[Phmcw]

 "Radical feminism views patriarchy as dividing rights, privileges and power primarily by gender, and as a result oppressing women and privileging men."

It's basically a blatant oversimplification that usually lead to completely flawed reasonings. Beside it's argue to argue that the opression of women is something that come from "above" when feminism is so broadly accepted and is recognised and empowered by so many western governments and powerstructures. You cannot really argue that you're being supressed when you have your entries in the White house, the European commission and the UN.

Reducing genrder role to a social construct is a bit pointless given the gender dysmorphism of our specie and the abundance of gender roles in nature. Reducing gender roles to injustice-causing practices is also short-sighted, and you disagreed already on the fact that is only priviliege men.

To me traditional gender roles are short sighted and obsolete, but I wouldn't say that every gender roles should be abolished or that historically they only privilieged men. Also I don't see them as a major problem right now. Most of our stuff is made by peoples that are basically slaves, and worker's rights are being restricted left and right while the states are expending their surveilliances network at a frantic speed. I find those problems to be way more concerning than the remnants of the old patriarchy.
 

[Angle]

"Radical feminism views patriarchy as dividing rights, privileges and power primarily by gender, and as a result oppressing women and privileging men."

Mmm, see, I don't think that's an accurate representation. I'd put it more as "Radical feminism views patriarchy as dividing rights, privileges and power primarily by gender, and as a result oppressing both women and men in different ways."

It's basically a blatant oversimplification that usually lead to completely flawed reasonings. Beside it's argue to argue that the oppression of women is something that come from "above" when feminism is so broadly accepted and is recognized and empowered by so many western governments and power structures. You cannot really argue that you're being suppressed when you have your entries in the White house, the European commission and the UN.

Oversimplification? Not really. It's not the whole picture, no, but it's an important part of it. I don't think feminism is as widely accepted as you say. It may have such positions, but that doesn't mean it has the influence to match. And besides, are we talking about feminism or radical feminism? Cause there's no way the second is anywhere near that influential.

Reducing gender role to a social construct is a bit pointless given the gender dimorphism of our specie and the abundance of gender roles in nature. Reducing gender roles to injustice-causing practices is also short-sighted, and you disagreed already on the fact that is only privilege men.

I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding here. The conventional view is that there are two restrictive gender roles. People seem to think that feminism wants to merge these into one restrictive role. That's not the case. The idea is to recognize that people do not fit into neat roles like that, and that any roles need to take into account this variety.

To me traditional gender roles are short sighted and obsolete, but I wouldn't say that every gender roles should be abolished or that historically they only privileged men.

If they're short sighted and obsolete, then why shouldn't they be abolished? And no, I wouldn't say they only privilege men... But they mostly do.

Also I don't see them as a major problem right now. Most of our stuff is made by peoples that are basically slaves, and worker's rights are being restricted left and right while the states are expending their surveillance network at a frantic speed. I find those problems to be way more concerning than the remnants of the old patriarchy.

I think those are concerning too, sure... But I don't think they're the only issues worth talking about. And I definitely don't think that pursuing feminist goals harms such things in any way.