Did The Young Turks nearly come over to the Men’s Rights side?

By Deecosis

Like many others with the start of Anita Sarkesien’s series “Tropes vs Women in Video Games” I finally noticed that smell of bullshit coming from feminists and this pushed me to YouTube channels like Thunderf00t and HoneyBadgerRadio. I realised that all these men’s issues that had bobbed around in my head over the years were just as valid (putting it nicely) as any issue feminists were bringing up.

With this now awoken sight for men’s issues it was a shock to see The Young Turks starting to address some of these topics. The very same Youtube channel that literally shouted down men’s rights activists like the time Cenk Uygur interviewed Karen Straughan.

But in a video released in February “Should Women Have To Sign Up For The Draft?” Cenk said things like:

“So if women are allowed to serve then sure they should have the same exact rules as the men, I don’t even see it as much of a controversy”

And his co-host Ana Kasparian replied:

“I absolutely agree…”

Here we had them saying women should be held to the same legal standard as men. A step towards real legal equality. Had their eyes finally started to open? Ana even admitted:

“I didn’t even know if this was happening in the US. But if you are of age and male in the US you have to sign up for the draft…”

Then it happened again one month later “Should Women Get ‘Period Leave?’” They discussed a UK company that had implemented days off for female employees who were having particularly bad periods, because women were unable to work under these conditions. I could not believe as I watched Ana be in favour of this and describe that for some women:

“…you have a lot of discomfort and it’s hard to concentrate on your job”

And then for Cenk to pipe up and question whether these women should be paid the same as others who don’t have these days off!!!

“What if women say, well ok I’m gonna take, you know, an extra day or two off every month… now I want you to pay me the same amount as the guy who’s not taking one or two days off, or the other women…”.

They can’t really now be seeing these holes in the pay gap statistics?

Then another 3 days later “’Male Abortion’ Is Now Being Considered”. I thought this was incredible. In such a short period of time they suddenly sat up and were addressing real equality issues. But surely they won’t be in favour of this one.

Cenk:

“This is pitched as being some crazy idea and way too liberal, even in Sweden they say. I don’t understand why it’s crazy, I think it’s actually fairly sensible.”

Ana:

“Yeah”

She then later went on to say:

“Ultimately I think that consent and choice is important for both parties and if a guy decides, you know what? I don’t want to be a father to this kid and I wanna make a decision as well. I do believe he should have that decision or make that decision.

Cenk:

“I think it’s fair to ask both parties and give both parties a choice”

So I thought this was it. TYT is turning away from their social justice warrior stance and understands that no one is immune to oppression. Just because you are born with certain traits (white, male or cisgendered) doesn’t mean you can’t have equality issues.

But it all came crashing down the very next day with “John Boyega Is A Male TRAITOR, According To MRA Haters”

In this video Cenk and Ana throw all the sympathy they have gained for men’s rights away. They use comments about the Star Was actor and Ana Kasparian’s International Woman’s Day posts to rag on Men’s Rights Activists, without a shred of proof MRA’s said these things.

When John Boyega said:

“When Women support each other, incredible things happen”

Ana quoted buzzfeed, and the response being:

“Other commenters wrote things such as ‘Traitor!’, ‘you’re a man’, and ‘what about men.'”

Now I get it, hijacking his post and trying to steer the discussion to men during International Women’s Day is tacky, but where does it say these are Men’s Rights Activists? And ‘Traitor,’ that seems to me to be a joke referencing his character’s betrayal of his side in Star Wars. Ana then couldn’t help making this story about her and plugged her instagram account. She discussed comments she got from “a few guys” for her International Womens Day posts:

“’what about International Mens Day?’… International Men’s Day is pretty much every other day, right?”

What Ana fails to realise here is her audience is asking, “if you’re for equal rights for men and women why are you only posting in support of one genders International day?” It’s a fair question. Her comeback about all days being International Men’s Day just belittles men’s issues and suggests they are dealt with all the time.

Of course Cenk chimed in with the SJW script:

“You’ve got to for god sake understand the difference between people who have historically not had power and people who have...”

And then when referring to MRA’s and Karen Straughan, the only MRA they have had on the channel Cenk droped these bombshells:

“…some of them are crazy enough to say women have always had more power than men”

“I think, like when that woman was on our show… I don’t know what their insane argument is. Anyway that’s why you do International Women’s Day to say hey it’s great we are making progress. Now we got more equality let’s celebrate that. You don’t need International Men’s Day ’cause men have been in charge for a long long time... that’s what bothers them, they don’t want equality, that’s what gets under their skin.”

There we have it folks. They can admit men have legal inequality as they address them one by one but as soon as they get a whiff of MRA’s, even when there’s no sign of one, they grab for their pitchforks and start foaming at the mouth and making them out to be the boogie man. How can Cenk and Ana ever expect the men’s issues they agree with to be corrected if those who actually try to act on them are portrayed so negatively? I think it’s finally time for me to unsubscribe from TYT channels as I think their answer would look something like this “Feminism addresses men’s issues too, though once women have equality of course”