Men’s Rights Activists – Law Street https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com Law and Policy for Our Generation Wed, 13 Nov 2019 21:46:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8 100397344 MRA Group Making Waves: What’s Up with all These Return of Kings Meet Ups? https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/culture-blog/mra-group-making-waves-whats-up-with-all-these-return-of-kings-meet-ps/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/culture-blog/mra-group-making-waves-whats-up-with-all-these-return-of-kings-meet-ps/#respond Thu, 04 Feb 2016 22:15:03 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.com/?p=50461

Well this is terrifying.

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Image courtesy of [Bartek Kucharczyk via Flickr]

You’ve probably seen some coverage of it in the last few days: a man named Daryush Valizadeh, more commonly known as Roosh V., has been advocating for international meet ups of his readers this weekend. Roosh V. founded the site called “Return of Kings” and purports to be the leader of a movement called “neomasculinity,” as well as an accomplished “pick-up artist.” But his arguably most controversial position–the legalization of rape on private property–drew international attention. In light of the widespread criticism, leaders and advocates rallied against the meet ups, and they have since been cancelled.

The meet ups were supposed to be on February 6, all over the world. According to the Return of Kings site, there were to be 165 meetings in 43 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. While Return of Kings originally publicly gave instructions for how to find the meet ups, after protests began, the organizers began to privatize the meet ups and required that prospective attendees prove that they were legitimately fans of the site (or one of Roosh V.’s other exploits) by one of three means:

  • If you’ve left a non-hater comment on ROK or RooshV.com using your Disqus account before January 15.
  • If you have an active account on RVF that is at least three months old.
  • If you can provide a screenshot receipt of one of my books (Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, Paypal, etc) that was purchased before January 15.

Eventually, the meetings were cancelled altogether; according to a message posted by Roosh V. yesterday:

I can no longer guarantee the safety or privacy of the men who want to attend on February 6, especially since most of the meetups can not be made private in time. While I can’t stop men who want to continue meeting in private groups, there will be no official Return Of Kings meetups. The listing page has been scrubbed of all locations. I apologize to all the supporters who are let down by my decision.

Roosh V. actually claims that the article in which he argued that rape should be legal on private property was satire. It’s hard to tell whether or not that’s true, but it’s certainly not the only worrisome thing on his site.

Return of Kings, and the offensive and factually dubious viewpoints written on the site, have been floating around for a while now–every couple of months another one of its articles goes viral, sparking outrage among the general public. Greatest hits (according to the sites’s own list of the “Top 35 Most Important Articles on ROK”) include: “The Equality Movement is Allowing Women to Tyrannize Men,” “40 Pictures that Show the Decline of the American Woman” and “The Intellectual Inferiority of Women.” According to BBC:

The group’s community beliefs state that ‘a woman’s value significantly depends on her fertility and beauty’, whereas ‘a man’s value significantly depends on his resources, intellect and character’.

So, Return of King’s views shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone. But, the move from the screen to possible in-person activity prompted many to create petitions to urge authorities to stop the events from taking place.

While the meetings for this weekend are officially cancelled, the site got a nice publicity bump from the controversy; Shaun Davies and Milly Stilinovich of BBC News actually made a compelling argument that the entire thing was just a publicity stunt to gain more name recognition for Roosh V. and his site. So, I doubt that this is the last we’ll see of the man who has all but made hating women into a brand.

Anneliese Mahoney
Anneliese Mahoney
Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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]]> https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/culture-blog/mra-group-making-waves-whats-up-with-all-these-return-of-kings-meet-ps/feed/ 0 50461 Misogynists Are At it Again, Now With T-Shirts! https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/culture-blog/meninist-misogynists-are-at-it-again-and-now-they-sell-t-shirts/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/culture-blog/meninist-misogynists-are-at-it-again-and-now-they-sell-t-shirts/#comments Thu, 22 Jan 2015 15:30:37 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.wpengine.com/?p=32456

The Meninists are here. And they're NEVER GETTING LAID.

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Image courtesy of [Charlotte Cooper via Flickr]

Did you watch President Obama make the Republicans cry Tuesday night?

Yeah you did! Because you’re smart and well informed and give a crap about where this nation is headed, am I right?

Obviously.

So today, instead of reacting to the SOTU—because let’s be real, you’ve read a thousand of those pieces by now already—we’re going to talk about something a little less official. A little more ridiculous. A little more—Meninist.

Yep, that’s right. Meninist is a word now. Thanks, Men.

But who is a Meninist, you ask, and what in fuck’s name is Meninism? Sadly, it’s not an adjective used to describe a person who is both a zealous believer in Leninism and also suffering from meningitis.

We’re sorry, Tom Freeman. We like your definition a whole lot better.

Nope. In fact, Meninism is a sad little play on Feminism, because those goddamn men’s rights activists are so fucking convinced that their lives are super hard and women are out to get them.

All together now.

UGH

UGGHHH.

So basically, the Meninist movement has gone something like this, so far.

Men started tweeting at each other with a cute little Meninist hashtag. It started out as a joke (rolling my eyes so hard right now), and then morphed into an outlet where people with penises could bitch about how hard it is to be a man in the twenty-first century.

The first challenge, it seems, is spelling. #MeninistTwitter and #MenimistTwitter are used interchangeably across this little trend, which I think is probably the funniest detail about this whole thing.

Anyway! After these dick-swingers had built up something of a Twitter community, some entrepreneurial folks decided to capitalize on this jackassery and make some merch.

MenTshirt

Courtesy of Teespring.com.

 

And so was born the Meninist T-shirt and hoodie combo. Douche canoes galore are modeling their swag proudly on Twitter.

And some of them are even totally not-ironic women! Because men need equal rights too, guys. It’s just so unfair that they get to make more money than women do, spend less on their cost of living (having a vagina is expensive, yo), participate less in childrearing and other household tasks, and control the vast majority of corporate and governing bodies across the globe.

So much power, so little justice.

Folks, I can’t. And apparently, neither can a lot of you! Because some wonderful feminists also took to Twitter to mock and ridicule these Meninist fuckers, because COME ON. This shit is ridiculous.

 

 

You folks are heroes.

But, all jokes aside, this Meninist crap is genuinely not okay, and here’s why.

A feminist is, by definition, “a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.” Thanks for defining this baggage-laden, complicated term in such a straightforward way, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie! We love you.

So, here’s the thing. If you’re not a feminist—or, if you’re like these Meninist jerks who are actively taking a stand against feminism—that means that you don’t believe in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.

Got that?

You’re cheering for inequality and oppression. That’s what you’re fighting for. That’s really fucking shitty, guys.

Lucille gif ugh

Now, to be fair, a lot of these Meninists don’t seem to be holding up signs telling women to get back in the kitchen. (Although a fair amount of them are pissed off that we don’t want to see their dicks.) They aren’t actively calling for the vag-havers to be oppressed. Instead, they’re just looking for some sympathy.

These seemingly reasonable Meninists are simply saying that equality between the sexes has already been achieved, and so feminism has become obsolete. Anyone who STILL identifies as a feminist is actually a man-hater, looking to reach beyond simple gender equality and over toward flipping the power dynamic, leaving men in the oppressed position that women used to be in before we got equal rights and all.

To those Meninists, I say, UNTRUE.

false

Gender equality has not been achieved. This is not a real thing.

Women are still paid less on average than their male counterparts. Women are still disproportionately at the mercy of domestic and sexual violence, which (not coincidentally) are crimes that are disproportionately committed by men. Women are still responsible for a greater share of the household and childrearing responsibilities. Women are still more likely to live in poverty, more likely to have difficulty accessing quality health care, and more likely to be single parents.

Why are all of these things happening?

In part, it’s because of shitty legislation. The Equal Rights Amendment never passed, meaning that it’s still legal to deny or abridge the legal rights of women simply because they have vaginas. There are also a shit ton of laws out there that specifically bar us from maintaining control over our own bodies or accessing the health care we need.

These are the problems that are officially on the books.

But off the books? We’re in trouble there too.

As a culture, women are almost exclusively valued as objects, not people. We’re treated like ornaments to be admired, fetus incubators to be legislated, pieces of ass to be fucked. When compared to men, women are literally paid less and raped more—and that’s because we aren’t valued as highly as men are.

So, to all the Meninists complaining about how fucking hard it is to be a man in the twenty-first century:

You’re missing the point.

Feminism isn’t about making life hard for you, and if you think it is, then you’re acting like a self-involved brat. Please wake the fuck up.

Women want to be valued and respected. We want to live in a world where social, political, and economic equality is a real thing.

And we want you to stop whining about it and get the fuck out of our way.

Hannah R. Winsten
Hannah R. Winsten
Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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