When Men's Rights Advocates Misread Feminism

“The men’s rights movement misunderstands feminism. The claim of feminists is not that men have all the privileges and women have none. Only the most banal, liberalized, and co-opted forms of feminism even bother making the claim that women are more oppressed “on average” than men. While certainly true, it really misses the point. You see, modern feminist theories state that patriarchy isn’t just man dominating woman but a very specific kind of man dominating society. That specific kind of man is the warrior, provider man that defines the traditional male gender role. This stands in contrast to the traditional female role of nurturing care-taker. When the prevailing paradigm is that men should go to war and provide for their families while the women stay home to raise the children, you are living in a patriarchy. On feminist theories, then, we should see a society where not only are the major institutions for political and economic decision-making controlled predominantly by men, but also where men and women are both required (either by social convention or by law) to conform to their respective gender roles. Here’s where the men’s rights movement starts to look strange. Most forms of discrimination cited by MRA’s as evidence of the need for a men’s rights movement comes from men being required to fulfill their gender role in a society dominated by men, exactly as feminist theory predicts.”

TravellingJourneyman comments on a sexism thread on Reddit


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