Several years ago, I wrote about my impression of the subreddit /r/MensLib. It is a pro-feminist space for men created as a counter to /r/MensRights. As such, MensLib views men’s issues through a progressive and feminist lens. Non-feminists and non-progressives are allowed to participate as long as they do not question feminist or progressive theories.
As I mentioned in my initial post, it did not take long for MensLib to devolve into the usual heavy moderation, comment deletion, bannings, and anti-male sentiments that typically appear in pro-feminist male spaces. However, MensLib is unique in one regard: an peculiar need to “reclaim” male victimization. Specifically, an attempt to control the narrative about male victims by filtering men’s experiences through a feminist perspective. This is similar to what The Good Men Project tried to do.
This creates an interesting conundrum as feminist theory rejects the notion of male victimization as a legitimate issue in and of itself. Male victims only have value within feminist theory to the extent that they can be seen as an ironic result of men’s power, a sort of karmic backfire. Outside of the perspective, male victims cannot be acknowledged as their existence counters the feminist narrative that violence is a patriarchal tool of oppression reserved for females. This is primarily because most people who abuse males are female, and feminists argue that females lack the power, both physical and institutional, to truly harm males.
So what do you do when males are beaten or raped? Contrary to the feminist narrative, we now have decades of evidence proving men and boys are abused at about the same rate as women and girls, again, predominantly by women and girls. It is no longer possible to deny this without sounding insensitive or dishonest.
Well, if you are MensLib, what you do is acknowledge the abuse occurs and say all the proper things to make it appear that you are concerned for male victims. However, underneath that veneer of compassion lies the truth: you are not really concerned about the male victims at all. This is simply a means subtle indoctrination.
Get male victims to think you are on their side and legitimately want to help them, and then slowly convert them to your ideology. Granted, it gets tricky if the man was abused by a woman, in which case one must be careful not to reflexively tell those men “not all women” or remind them “women have it worse” or they should not “hate all women”. That is the typical feminist response to male victims of female abusers, however, those responses would run the potential converts away.
So it is the subtle route, gently reminding the male victims that all women are not abusers and suggesting through innuendo that male victims of female abusers must not be angry over their abuse and certainly not project that anger towards women, even against their abusers or other women behaving in abusive ways. The idea is to get the male victims to realize that their abuse is nothing compared to what the average woman experiences, but to do it under the table, to make it almost subconscious, so that the male victims do not leave once they realize that the people at MensLib essentially do not care about them.
Of course, everyone did not get the memo. Enter the zen viking. This person decided to chime on a post about male victims of sexual assault. The original post focused on female perpetrators, so many of the comments revolved around that topic as well. Most of them admitted there was a problem with how male victims of female perpetrators are treated. A few had some of the subtle nudging I mentioned above. The zen viking, however, decided to forego the subtleties and say what some feminists merely implied:
Lots of young men see women literally as sex objects to use and pursue for sexual gratification. It’s ludicrous in their mind that that object can then make unwanted or unconsented advances on a man. These people are the ones more likely to walk the line of acceptable behaviour because they don’t;
- Respect women as people
- Think their pursuit and success is acceptable and accepted by men who “understand”
Happens all the time at work (personal trainer) and it’s pathetic. Don’t let these guys label you as one of them
In short, male victims of female abusers feel bad because they were abused by people they see as sex objects, not because they were sexually violated. The people men wanted to abuse abused them first, and now they are upset.
One would think such a statement would receive condemnation from people who supposedly support male victims, however, one would be mistaken. The comment received two dozen upvotes, and the criticism of the comment was deleted by a moderator, who I will get to in a moment. Let us, however, address the above comment.
The zen viking argues:
Lots of young men see women literally as sex objects to use and pursue for sexual gratification.
This is a very common feminist trope, and while it is true that some men see women as “sex objects” in the sense that they seek out interactions with women primarily or solely to have sex with them, it is uncommon for men to dehumanize women to nothing more than something for sexual gratification. Most men do not do this, so the notion that “lots” of young men “literally” see women as nothing more than a sex object strains credibility.
How this relates to male victims of sexual violence is unclear. The zen viking, however, tries to link it:
It’s ludicrous in their mind that that object can then make unwanted or unconsented advances on a man.
That makes no sense. For this to be true, one must assume that these sex-obsessed men have never encountered women they find unattractive or uninteresting who want to have sex with them. This too is a common trope, so it seems unlikely that men could not fathom a woman making an unwanted or non-consensual advance.
It is more likely that such men would assume that if a woman made any unwanted advance that he would be able to stop her from going further. In other words, that regardless of the situation, he would still be in control. No woman could “make” him have sex.
Then the zen viking makes this argument:
These people are the ones more likely to walk the line of acceptable behaviour because they don’t:
- Respect women as people
- Think their pursuit and success is acceptable and accepted by men who “understand”
Notice the flip here. The actual topic at hand is how male victimization is not recognized, and what the zen viking does is twist it to the men being the victimizers. The notion that women do not respect men as people or think their pursuit and success is acceptable is not mentioned at all. Rather, the comment makes men the abusers who need to be taught not to abuse.
This type of comment is precisely why I have argued for years that we need to keep politics out of the support community. The above attitude does nothing to help male victims. At first glance, it looks like victim blaming. Upon further examination, it looks like an attempt to completely erase any acknowledgement of male victims and female abusers.
Nothing is served by that comment. Of course, the moderator on the thread removed criticism of the comment, and stated:
Gonna tell you the same thing someone in modmail was told:
They were saying that because some men don’t respect women as independent agents and only viewed them as potential sexual conquests, these same men are incapable of seeing men as sexual victims of women. They were explaining why men get victim blamed by other men.
Yet that is not what the zen viking wrote. It is clear from the statement that this person was referring to male victims, not men who victim-blame other men. Indeed, there is no mention of victim-blaming in the comment at all.
The attempt to dodge this criticism is understandable as the comment undermines the subterfuge of concern for male victims. However, let us assume that the moderator’s interpretation is true. What does this comment have to do with acknowledging male victims of sexual assault?
The comment shifts the focus off male victims and places it onto women as victims. The issue then becomes addressing the “misogyny” of these men’s views rather than the attitudes that leads people to ignore women’s violence against men.
More so, why would you shut down the criticism of the comment? Would it not better serve people to see how others misinterpret the comment and allow the zen viking to explain their intent?
This kind of double standard does not help anyone. All it does is prevent open discussion of ideas, ironically by silencing the people most affected by this issue. This too is why I have argued against having politics involved in support services. If you remove the politics, there is no need to have this sort of tit-for-tat comment. One need only address the situation at hand.
Keep the politics in, however, and now feminists will feel the need to chime in with “reminders” that men are sexist, women have it worse, and male victims do not really have it that bad. Certainly some feminists will do this regardless of situation, yet there is no reason to encourage it. After all, the idea is to help male victims, not assuage feminists, right?
Toy Soldiers 
It has been months since I signed on to Reddit. I think that it my be because the threads were so temporary, there was little room for depth. As for r/MensLib, it is my guess that readers will see that it is a dead end. That is the way Freedom of Speech is supposed to work.
As for politics, it looks like feminists have placed all their hope with the Democrats. If they lose a second Presidential election, will that make feminists a political liability?
It’s good to see you posting updates again! I was worried something had happened to you.
Wow,
No sooner had you returned to blogging, addressing the dual issues of false accusations and lack of concern for male victims and female perpetrators and this entire Katie Hill boondoggle erupts. I have to say, they have really, really outdone themselves this time. It’s like a full bingo card of feminist denial.
Hmmm, let’s see. We have an open-and-shut case of a powerful female lawmaker being forced to resign by her powerful female party boss because she violated crystal clear policies in order to abuse both male and female victims and flat out ADMITTED that she both did what she was accused of doing and admitted that that it was wrong (without really apologizing).
How can we possibly find a way to blame men for this?
I know… accuse her ex-husband and/or newspapers for revenge porn!
Never mind all of the nudity in the images in question was blurred, so it wouldn’t even be accurate to call them “porn” in the first place.
Never mind that she is an elected official with no reasonable expectation of privacy, the photos were legitimately newsworthy and that threatening to sue newspapers for reporting on you is obstruction of justice.
Never mind that the language of the California laws in question expressly exempts cases in which the subject is committing a crime, and both of the photos in question showed a crime in progress.
Never mind that many, many, celebrities and politicians have seen tabloids publish pictures when they got caught with their pants down and there is absolutely ZERO historical precedent for charging anyone with “revenge porn” when this happens.
Never mind that if revenge porn laws did work that way they would be an unconstitutional limitation on the freedom of the press.
Never mind that the woman involved was/is a powerful politician and the ex-husband she is attempting to throw under the bus after she cheated on him is an underemployed artist nobody has ever heard of. Talk about punching down.
Never mind that even if his actions were somehow illegal it would in NO way be an excuse for, or even explanation of, her abuses, that she admitted to and we are simply ignoring, and that occurred before the photos leaked.
Never mind that she isn’t being tried or even investigated for any crime in the first place, and the only reason this impacted her career was because she choose to resign.
A man must be found to blame. Therefore we must force belief in an accusation that not only lacks evidence; but also strains logic to the point of not even making sense.
Oh, and make sure you make it sound like this is an example of double standard that always hurts women and never men.
*Bangs head against wall*
Glad to see you back. While I don’t usually comment, I’ve read nearly everything you’ve posted here and find your blog to be a valuable resource in researching abuse of boys and men. Could you point me in the direction of your sources for the statement “…decades of evidence proving men and boys are abused at about the same rate as women and girls, again, *predominantly by women and girls*”. Especially the statement, “predominately by women and girls.” I’m familiar with the CDC study that had men reporting similar rates of abuse as women when reported within the category of “within the past 12 months” as opposed to “lifetime” reporting. Is the abuser rate by females in the same study? (Honestly, I have a hard time reading and deciphering statistics…) Or are you referring to other, more recent studies?
Nevermind about that request for studies and stats. Sorry, I hadn’t looked through your site for a while and forgot about a few of the other articles you’ve posted with links to studies. I’ll look through them for the info. Thanks!
Menslib is a joke. They’re a pro-feminist (and therefore gynocentric) subreddit that says it’s trying to help men. Talk about serving two masters.
Pro feminist doesn’t necessarily mean gynocentric, if it doesn’t subscribe to the definition that makes it gynocentric. And the unnecessary dualism of serving two masters. I think feminists and Mra are two different perspectives that can dialogue if open enough and if getting rid of each other’s strawmen (Paul Elam, Julie Bindel, etc). Men’s lib is not about men submitting to feminism for the most part but a reaction fo men’s issues being taken over by a conservative agenda which doesn’t serve well and focus on attacking feminism at every occasion instead of ideas to fix issues, on essentialism which blocks most constructive discussion on changinc culture. The very notion that men can’t be victimizes sexually is not exactly feminist if you read most discussions about it vs most of the manosphere except maybe a part of Mra’s.
“The very notion that men can’t be victimizes sexually is not exactly feminist”
Boys have been raped on an industrial scale for centuries by men and women alike. Our communities always knew it was going on but preferred to make jokes about it. You can do anything you like to boys and feminism is not responsible for this. It certainly hasn’t minded doubling down on it though.
Feminists are responsible for the exclusion of male victims from taxpayer funded services over decades in my country. We’ve learned more recently that thousands have committed suicide.
Feminist words mean nothing and their actions have had consequences.
You first. Feminism is a much larger movement, that spends much more proportional effort trying to demonize, discredit, and silence MRAs than the reverse? MRAs didn’t get a documentary about feminism banned in certain places. MRAs didn’t pull fire alarms at talks feminists supported. MRAs didn’t falsely blame mass murderer Elliot Rodger on feminists. MRAs didn’t write a wildly popular article that claimed they’d love to help women if only women would stop actually complaining about women’s issues.
Your side needs to demonstrate good faith, and a lot of it, before MRAs will come to the table. Because in case you’ve forgotten, most people think feminists are sexist, not just MRAs.
And how convenient that you named a relatively obscure radical feminist, and equated her to one of the biggest MRA names on Earth.
An excuse which would work much better if MRAs and other critics of feminism didn’t often lean liberal, and tend to oppose gender essentialism.
And MLers still hate them anyway.
You mean the discussions by feminists which overwhelmingly treat rape as an inherently gendered crime, as “violence against women (by men)” for decades on end? Or the conversations I’ve had with feminists, who only acknowledged male rape victims when forced to, and even then tried to downplay female rapists? Don’t even get me started on abuse.
Maybe try not to make completely unsupported assumptions about people’s evidence and experience, in the future. There are some feminists without sexist views of men’s and women’s issues – or without much of ’em – but they’re in the vast minority, and mainstream feminists often dislike them.
There’s no way for feminists and MRAs to “work together” – and I am really tired of this DARVO-ish tactic – unless feminists change a lot, including disavowing the vast majority of feminist effort and admitting the movement was wrong to ignore sexism against men. As it is, the movement struggles to even call men’s issues ‘sexism’ in the first place.
/not MRA
* spends a much larger proportional effort
This pedophile teacher’s thong and ass are showing to the Grade 2 students:
When men are abused in childhood, the sheeple believes that such a man is likely to become an incel terrorist, a future school shooter, a pedophile molester or some other negative stereotype.
However, when a woman CLAIMS AND ALLEGES that she was abused AFTER 7ucking the entire Grade One football team, the public shows sympathy for her and tell the young boys that she molested that they were lucky, where were those hot teachers, etc.