A question for MRAs/MHRAs- where do you find yourself on the ideological divide?
There seems to be a split brewing in the Men's Rights Movement.
On the one side you have the "traditionalists," who believe the movement should continue as it has up until this point.
On the other side lets call them the "modernists," who believe the movement has to embrace a broader cross section of men's rights. This group seeks to be more inclusive of men regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation...arguing that the challenges that may be unique to men in these groups are still men's rights.
The first group is adamant that the movement should still be called the "Mens Rights Movement" or MRM; the second group seems to be moving towards renaming the movement the "Mens Human Rights Movement" or MHRM.
My question for MRAs/MHRAs is this: with which group do you feel most comfortable and why?
BQ: Do you believe the movement will be better off in the end for hashing out these issues?Additional Details
Just to clarify...when I say "traditionalist," I'm not talking about the traditional roles of men. I'm talking about the traditional advocacy for Men's Rights. The traditionalists that I'm referring to...are basically saying that this is the way the MRM/MHRM is...and we shouldn't change it, no matter what. Whereas the "modernists" are saying "yes, this is the way the MRM is, but the MHRM should project a more inclusive message to all men...including those who traditionally haven't connected with the MRM in the past."
I, Fidelbogen, felt moved to weigh in, or wade in, and did so thuswise:
Those who are not insiders might misunderstand the significance of the "MHRM" appellative. It does not signal a shift toward a "humanistic" perspective so much as a rhetorical/semantic move. The stress is upon MALE, i.e. the MALE human rights movement.
The idea is to block feminist ideology and silence detractors of "men's rights" by adopting a high-ground position that is difficult to argue with. By establishing the idea that "men's rights are human rights", anybody who goes against you is in the difficult position of being against human rights FOR MEN.
One other thing. The original question draws a false picture of the "movement". The movement was never not inclusive of all those extra groups -- in fact, that point was never settled. But the question makes it sound like there was a consensus about these issues all along. No, there was never any such consensus, and the so-called "traditional" MRA (as defined here) is only a construct which the author cobbled together somehow. The "ideological divide" is wrongly mapped by the author.
There is, however, a tectonic split within the non-feminist revolution -- a real one, I mean.
The "traditionalist" group (the actual one, not the author's constructed one) consists of men and women both who favor a return to traditional sex roles and. . . get this!. . . male supremacy. (Or male paternalism if you prefer a more benign term.) This group is not a so-called "MRA" group. In fact, they explicitly reject the "MRA" label. Others may call these people MRAs, but they make it clear that they do not call themselves that.
As for the other group, it might be better to call them "libertarian" until a better term comes along. People within this group do argue amongst themselves about the appropriateness of the "MHRA" label, apparently because some of them have gotten the wrong idea that it signifies an ideological shift rather than a rhetorical stance. I wish they would get that sorted out, and learn to appreciate the tactical advantage which "MHRA" offers.
-------------------------------------------------
Yes, it seems that certain people have childishly simplistic ideas about certain things. So, if any of my wise readers wish to shed some light and clarify some minds, please head over to the Yahoo Answers page in the near future before the question gets settled and closed:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130218115013AAzzbmV
No comments:
Post a Comment