The 8 Biggest Lies Men's Rights Activists Spread About Women [View all]

[boston bean]

1. Feminists hate men, and are out to turn the world against them.

Misandry is too often employed as a catch-all to belittle women's arguments surrounding the patriarchy. But, as Shailene Woodley recently discovered, feminism has nothing to do with hating men. Feminists don't like misogyny and sexism, and sometimes men may be proponents of both, unwitting or otherwise. It's important to recognize this when it happens. see link for additional info.

2. Feminists are hypocrites, because chivalry is a female privilege.

There's a popular meme that says feminists call differential treatment chivalry when we like it and sexism when we don't.

This is false. The supposed "perks" of being a lady are largely the result of "benevolent sexism," a set of behaviors shown to be harmful to both women and social activism specifically because people often fail to see them for what they really are: practices steeped in restrictive stereotypes of masculinity and femininity that hinder gender equality by keeping men in a position of dominance over women. see link for additional info.

3. The courts are biased against men and in favor of women in custody disputes.

One of the biggest sticking points for the MRA community is the argument that the courts actively discriminate against men in custody disputes. While it's true that women more often get custody, it's far more complicated than a systematic bias that turns dads into the real victims of custody battles (as opposed to, you know, the children).

Most disputes* are settled out of court, meaning that custody placement does not rest in the hands of judges (most of whom are men, by the way). Just 4% of cases actually go to trial. And mothers often get custody in large part because, on average, they're still the primary caretakers of children. That's not bias, and it's not even necessarily a good thing. It's just a fact. see link for additional info.

4. Male circumcision is just as bad as female genital mutilation.

Thoughtful consideration of the medical and philosophical implications of circumcision are not without merit, but there is no equivalence in terms of harmful long-term effects between slicing off a young girl's clitoris (and in 80% of cases, the entire labia minora as well) and removing a baby's foreskin. Indeed, 15% of global FGM/C cases involve removing all external genitalia, and sewing up the vaginal opening. see link for additional info.

5. Avoiding conscription is a female privilege.

Many feminists don't support conscription — for anyone. But regardless of whether you agree with a draft in theory, it's important to remember that military action (including the decision to go to war in the first place) has been legislated almost entirely by men, and that women historically have shown less support for war.

Moreover, the exclusion of women from the draft was based on essentialist stereotypes that painted them as weak and with a duty to the home. These stereotypes are, yet again, inherent to patriarchy, and a large part of why women in many countries have had to fight for their right to serve today (and, as the Women's Research and Education Institute points out, remain barred from certain positions "necessary or advantageous to advancement and promotion&quot . see link for additional info.

6. Men's media depiction is worse than women's.

Nearly every time an article is published about women's media representation, some commenters will inevitably point out that men get objectified, too. As Men's Journal notes, men are held to increasingly demanding standards of physical masculinity. But — here we go — these standards are again based upon rigid, patriarchal stereotypes of what it means to be a man. And while it's true that men are increasingly seeing chiseled images of their gender in advertising and media (deemed by AdWeek to be "hunkvertising&quot , men do not face equal expectations of physical attractiveness. see link for additional info.

7. False rape allegations are endemic.

No one denies that false accusations are terrible to experience. But the fear some men appear to harbor of being falsely accused is wildly out of sync with the actual rate at which this occurs. Worse, this excessive paranoia can lead to the silencing of survivors — of any gender — who fear they won't be believed if they come forward. see link for additional info.

8. Feminists want to turn everything into rape.

Also inherent to the fear of false rape allegations is the idea that new conceptions of rape are terribly murky and complicated, resulting in the criminalization of "hookup culture" and supposedly well-intentioned guys getting accused of violating willing (read: drunk) women. see link for additional info.

I wanted to try and give a little snippet to each point, but there is a lot more info and explanation at this link:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/90131/the-8-biggest-lies-men-s-rights-activists-spread-about-women

Please try to give it a read prior to responding, so we are all on the same page as to what is being said, with the hope we can have a better conversation.