This post is a bit different. It’s more of a thought piece then a personal one but, had to switch it up. My “Mania” or “hyperfocus” has subsided by the way. Will talk more about that another time. For now, enjoy:
A little over a week ago I was hanging out with some friends from nursing school studying. We got on the topic of Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin and their prenup situation. Both of these people I was talking to have beliefs that land them in the Conservative party. Neither have tried to push their beliefs on me in anyway, I think both sides know this will be ineffective and not worth the others time so we dance around the issue, with small comments leaking out from time to time. This prenup conversation was one of those times. After explaining the concept of what a prenup was to Courtney, Jordan and I joked about how she should get a prenup with her boyfriend just in case and then how Jordan and his wife didn’t have one and that she was “stuck with him.” I ended up saying to avoid any of that financial stress, when I get married I would most definitely be getting a prenup at which point Jordan said “Why? You will get everything. You are a woman.” Courtney agreed and I fell into a perplexed state that I haven’t been able to shake since.
I consider myself a feminist. But, like republicans tend to in the trump era I will say I’m not like one of those feminists. I say this as a joke but, also because I know that the feminist movement can give people a bad taste in their mouth, especially if you tend to only get your context about us from twitter. There are people that don’t speak for all. I don’t like Lena Dunham and I don’t like the feminists that have turned this movement into an excuse to stifle others right to free speech. I see the faults in my own movement, it is not perfect, but I think that’s why I’m more willing to tolerate conversations like the one I could have had with Jordan if I had challenged him on his comment. But, I didn’t. I didn’t feel like I really had enough reason to because, he was right. In divorce proceedings, women are often favored. It’s hard to find concrete data on this but, if we look at custody battles, women are more likely to be the custodial parent. I was a bit stumped and the thinking about it made me uncomfortable.
I tucked this idea away, saving it for another day. I am part of the problem at times. Watching shows and reading articles that echo my views back to me. It makes me feel good, less work. Until tonight.
I watched a documentary called “The Red Pill” it was about Men’s Rights Activist groups. It explained their views and their validity, the response of the public to them, and how the documentarian felt about the whole thing.
I need to be honest, after about 20 minutes in I almost turned it off. It was hard to watch my beliefs get challenged. I felt as if the documentarian was being conned by these “MRA’s” the easy acronym for the members of the men’s rights movement. But, I didn’t turn it off. Instead I argued with my television and took notes. I learned a lot and I’m going to share some of it with you.
First, let’s just talking about this movement in general. I don’t believe they are women hating people. They aren’t “Incels” aka Involuntary celibates, and they truly believe what they are fighting for. We are going to dive into a few specific issues.
One of the Men’s Rights Movements major points is the death rate among men. This one activist, Harry Crouch, has this sign in his office that shows these mortality rates. At the top of the sign it reads “PATRIARCHY’S #1 PRIVILEGE” then lists these statistics:
- Combat Deaths: 99.9% Male
- Work Deaths: 94% Male
- Homicides: 76% Male
- Suicides: 75% Male
Men live shorter lives than women and MRA’s say that this is due to the stress that men are under to provide for women and to be functional in society. They argue that men are more likely to die because of an occupational injury. This is supported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics but, I have a theory. One MRA in the documentary said something to the affect of “you don’t see Women’s Rights groups fighting for female representation in jobs like coal mining” basically accusing women of not doing the “hard” and “dangerous” jobs and I guess statistically this is true but why? Well a few things. In jobs that have high occupational mortality rates such as Coal mining, Logging, and Roofing, these are very old school professions and women didn’t really get brought into the workforce until the early to mid 1900s. Also jobs like coal mining are dying or being done by machines. Women just started gaining more equality in the workplace it might be more worthwhile to fight for gender equality in fields that will be around for a long time. And no MRA can deny that walking into the “boys club” that some of these professions have become, could come with a lot of scoffing and eye rolling from coworkers. So, why would women want to work these jobs and would they even be accepted?
Similar concept for the military. An argument from the MRA is that a majority of soldiers that die are male and that’s true but, it could be true just based on the fact that their are way more men in the military than women. Women were not even legally recognized as part of military service until 1948 . The data is valid but, the drastic difference in deaths is partially attributed to the drastic difference of the genders in the military.
There was a clip in the documentary I want to mention too. It was from one of the Democratic debates of the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton was asked if women should be required to sign up for the military draft when they turn 18. She dodged the question...shocker. MRA’s used this as evidence of the disregard for Male lives. In reality it’s not that deep. The draft in my opinion should be abolished anyway why add women to the draft if it’s useless at this point. If the time comes we will figure it out but, the draft is old school. It’s like the chalkboard you still have in classrooms, it’s there just in case you need it but your not gonna revamp it or give it a new coating because that’s a waste of time.
On the same track of men’s lives, men are more likely to be victims of homicide and its higher in the US 77.8% of homicide victims are male. But, men are also more likely to commit homicide so, it isn’t like men are predominantly being killed by women and we just aren’t talking about it on the contrary women are more likely to be killed by men. This doesn’t make it less of a problem, it just debunks the concept that we have the wool pulled over our eyes and women are the real oppressors. And also an interesting part of all of this is that not one of the MRA’s being interviewed were African American even though African American Males make up a large part of the homicide victims the MRA’s were citing... just saying.
As for the suicide statistic, I have no real explanation. And in the US the percentage is actually higher than the sign...it’s 79%. MRA’s say it’s due to societal pressures but I’m not sure about that.
Ok now that we have those numbers communicated and out of the way, I’m here to tell you that feminists and MRA’s agree on quite a few things...I know wild.
They both hate gender roles. Feminists fight the idea that they cannot be the bread winner and that their main job is to stay home, take care of the children, and be confined to the kitchen. MRA’s fight the idea that they must be the breadwinners and receive no parental rights. An easy fix...communication. Both groups basically want the same thing, to share the burdens and joys of life. Bending gender roles will do that but, both sides lowkey need to get their heads out of their asses and realize that the problem isn’t either of the groups. The problem is the people that don’t see that there is a problem. If instead of Men vs Women or Republican vs Democrat, we split people up into Traditional vs Progressive, MRA’s and Feminists (with some toning down of the hateful rhetoric) would fall on the same side. And yet they fight.
One MRA argues that men and women are equal at this point...that it all evens out. He explains that yeah women make less money but, men live shorter lives. And yeah ok women may be discriminated against in the job hiring process but, men are more likely to lose custody battles. I don’t know how he’s made these comparisons like they it’s apples to apples because they are just random. First of all, instead of just saying life sucks for all of us why not try to fix these problems. I mean I don’t know how to extend men’s lives but, pay gap? There’s solutions for that. And custody battles in family court, how about some reform? That’s something we can all get behind.
We will come back to the custody issue but, let’s revisit work discrimination. There is no question, expectations for men and women in the workplace are often different but, I don’t understand the concept of this “burden” men have to provide. I know so many examples of men performing poorly at work and then a women does the same thing and gets fired. Even just by general demeanor. I have a friend who just got fired from her job for basically having an attitude problem. But, interesting the only thing unique to her was the “problem” part of it. It seemed that all the staff had attitudes with management and was at times sassy but when my friend called out her manager for something that was unfair, it was a problem. Now I’m not saying that they fired her because she was a woman, I’m just saying it didn’t help. A perfect representation of the sexism she experienced there happened in a single comment that was said during her firing process. “Maybe if you were sweeter more people would like you,” when she told me he said this to her I cringed so hard my face almost got stuck like that. How blatant must we be? It’s basically the “you should smile more” comment tailored to disguise the hints of condescension. Ok men sure there are societal expectations on you to be strong and protective but, not by feminists or liberals. For example, just about a week ago, Piers Morgan tweeted a picture of Daniel Craig holding his baby in baby carrier close to his chest with the comment “Oh 007.. not you as well?!!! #papoose #emasculatedBond” insinuating that this act of fatherhood was somehow non masculine. The internet roared back at him, condemning his ignorance and send support to Daniel Craig and his fatherhood. Destroying masculine norms, both groups are for that. The problem is not women tearing down men, it’s men tearing down men. Pushing men not to show emotion that’s not feminists.
But, again there are things that feminists need to recognize. Like the fact that yes 1 in 3 women experience domestic violence but 1 in 4 men do too. And there is very little support for men who are victims of domestic violence. Funding goes primarily to women. Shelters are primarily for women and all resources goto women. But, domestic violence awareness would get much more support if we acknowledge the other very large group of people that experience violence from their partner. If we join forces to fight domestic violence as a whole and change the stereotype of what a victim looks like, I bet you there can be real change made. It doesn’t minimize what women who are victims go through by any means it just amplified the voices fighting back. But hey, I’m just a girl writing on an anonymous blog that gets like 5 hits and they are all my friends so what do I know?
When it comes to parental rights, fathers do tend to get the short end of the stick but, that’s not women’s fault...it’s biology. Women have more choices and more power because it’s their body, and they never question whether they are the mother, they don’t have to. And sure I’ll address the MRA’s issue of Paternity fraud. MRA’s accept that at times it’s not intentional fraud you just didn’t know who the father was etc. but, It’s happened, men have been intentionally tricked into parenthood. I don’t know the numbers, I doubt there is data but it is something that occurs and there have been movies and books written about these scandalous acts. But, reproductive abuse happens the other way too. Men trick women also. Compromising condoms, fucking with their birth control. It can go both ways. And I also know guys who emotionally manipulate girls using their maternal instinct. Verbal cues that it would be okay if she were pregnant or that having a baby would be nice just to maybe get in her pants that night, I’ve seen it happen. No one is perfect but, I understand men struggle with parental control. Courts do rule in favor of the women in custody cases most of the time. But, that’s also part of the patriarchy which, I’ll remind you, feminists are also against. The reason why court cases rule in favor of mothers is because mothers are supposed to be the caregiver, they are supposed to be loving and nurturing and the children belong with them because that’s who cooks and cleans. Although, in theory it is a perk for women in the patriarchy, it’s still not right or fair and it needs to be changed.
This brings us back to the concept of unfair divorce proceedings. Jordan is right to believe that women do come out on top in divorces a majority of the time and I know he believes it’s wrong. Which it is, it should be case by case who gets what but, to be fair women make less so they probably would get more anyway but I digress. But, what he doesn’t understand is that that is a feminist view. Yeah ok in divorce proceedings the patriarchy works in the females favor but, is it worth the pay gap or the job discrimination or the prejudgment every time a young woman like me has something to say, no. And for men the in the patriarchy do the positives outweigh the negatives? I can’t answer that for them. The only way we change this wild back and forth is start talking to each other. The men’s rights movement has many radicalists that speak louder than the rest but, at the core there are issues that face men but, the issues that face women do not minimize these. They can both exist at the same time no need to fight over whose is worse because I can’t experience what you are so who am I to say.
At the end of the documentary, the documentarian stated that she no longer calls herself a feminist. My heart sank. She had made the movie and still did not get it. Part of being a human is having belief systems. I have quite a few friends that are religious and over the years their relationship with that religion has evolved, that’s how my relationship with feminism is and how I believe any belief system should be. If you stay stagnant and rigid in your beliefs never questioning, never asking why? You will never grow and nothing will ever change. Instead of seeing the faults in feminism and accepting them she just wrote it off. I was disappointed but, at the end it was her decision and it made for a good film.
I’m still a feminist. I believe in equality of the genders. It’s sad but as feminist women in discussion we are fighting an uphill battle. I’ve realized this many times. The minute my voice raises even in the slightest, I’m crazy. The minute I have one drink and mix up a word, I’m belligerent. The minute I get heated about what I’m talking about, I’m too emotional. Yet in my male counterparts a loud voice equals enthusiasm, a bit drunk equals fun, and heated equals passion. An uphill battle. Wild how this world works.
It’s good to feel challenged, it’s good to watch things and read things you don’t agree with. It’s okay to not know where you land on something and it’s ok to be at odds with your own beliefs every once in a while. In fact I think it’s healthy.
Sincerely,
Your Strong Female Lead
