Considering the college in question was subject to a federal investigation for its failure to report sexual assaults, I’m not sure there is a legitimate worry that they were over-investigating or reporting them (though it’s possible the new system would result in a stupid backlash). Those reports put a lot of burden on people who were trying to look into rape, but didn’t prove that the system itself had a flaw in it (other than being vulnerable to angry men screwing with it).
False rape accusations is not a cause I have a huge amount of sympathy for. It’s an really awful thing to do to someone (and I personally know a victim of such a complaint) but I can’t believe it happens with anything like the frequency that I’ve seen suggested by MRAs. Both rape and false rape complaints are awful things that are difficult to prosecute and both deserve to be taken seriously. But I don’t believe it is a zero sum game and that’s it how it’s portrayed to me. (I think the justice system in Canada is messed up and the American one seems much worse, it’s a much more systemic problem that goes way beyond either issue)
If you know of MRAs who are making reasonable points and not just being misogynist jerks (you say you followed some) I’d actually like to find out more about them. I probably do judge them unfairly based on a few vocal assholes.
Eh, about three years ago, Reddit’s /r/mensrights was a very different place. They were more concerned with things like men only getting custody in 20% of custody battles (and I understand where they’re coming from when they’re told “that’s patriarchy, that’s a feminist issue”; the situation before feminism got involved was that men almost always got custody. Times have changed, time to change, not sure why we argue about whether it’s a men’s issue or a women’s issue when it’s a What’s Best For The Kids issue, but anyway…they also talked about issues like boys and men tending to keep quiet about abuse and rape, and so on.
Nowadays, that same space is…weird. The same discussions happen, but they get a generous coat of “men have it worse than women”, which I don’t think any reasonable people would agree with, and they seem to worship the ground that Christina Hoff Sommers walks on. Like I said, I used to follow it, but I found them to be too whiny.
Then I tried to follow A Voice for Men…nope. Nuh-uh. I mean, for the future’s sake, I’m a bit concerned with the current notion that the straight white male is the terrible majority by default, because these sorts of things tend to gain momentum (black people are STILL dealing with nonsense that happened a long time ago) but those people are nuts.
I think she’s associated with A Voice For Men, but Karen Straughan makes some reasonable points. I find myself disagreeing with her plenty, but I wouldn’t call her frothing at the mouth or anything.
Last night I listened to a podcast that seemed full of contradictions. It had a group of female MRAs hosting the show. For a guest, they had a male feminist representing a feminist group that had been criticized by other feminists for taking a large donation from members of 4chan. Because 4chan is full of oppressors. The interesting bit is how much both sides agreed with each other. (Pretty sure it has lots of nsfw language).
That actually sounds quite a lot like the 3 strikes system the MPAA keeps pushing for ISPs to adopt. Except worse.
