Tag Archives: MRA

I'm a man, and I'm against 'men's rights activists'. Let's face it- the problems that men face are a backlashing side affect of the same system of gender roles that disproportionally advantage men in other areas. A lot of these problems all come back to how we've constructed gender roles and how we shame men for deviating from a dominant, public role that refuses to admit vulnerability. MRAs sometimes come so close to realizing this, sometimes really start to critique the unspoken and damaging Guy Codes, but always fail at the source- they blame it all on women... But, these are not gender roles women forced on men; for the most part, they're gender roles men enforce on one another. We're a homosocial culture. Men don't avoid vulnerability or feminization to get the ladies (though a lot of men fool themselves that that's the reason)- they do it to avoid ostracism from men. If we want to change the things that disadvantage men, we should start by challenging the way we men police each other into those gender roles. If we want to bring about a better world for everyone, including men, we need to provide a way for men to talk about gender and gender roles without falling into the misguided, angry, misogynistic trap of the current 'men's rights' movement, and into a framework of gender discussion that looks at the whole system of gender norms and honestly, without self-defensive pride, with a capacity for self-criticism, assesses how gender works in our society. Fortunately, we've already got a framework of thought that does that. It's called 'feminism'.