Guardian: “men are pretty terrible people” piece is half right

The Guardian’s “It’s time to do away with the concept of ‘manhood’ altogether” reads as if it were a caricature written by a MHRA but unfortunately is not satire.

https://archive.is/caNt9

The extreme misandry is there right from the first sentence, “men are pretty terrible people”. The wars men have been sent to die in (including wars based lies that Hillary Clinton voted for?) All men’s fault, the Guardian tells us.

But I think the MHRM, as I’ve said before, is taking the wrong approach by disagreeing with the headline. The content of the piece is a false misandrist smear, but the headline, we should agree with and re-define clearly what it means.

“Manhood” means in the real world that men’s lives matter less than women’s

“Manhood” means that men get sent to die in wars ahead of women

“Manhood” means boys are told to STFU when they cry, girls are attended to

“Manhood” means misandrist crap like this, which I am not making up:

Boys become men when they
1. follow you when you walk out
2. call you back when you hang up
3. hug you when you punch him

from an actual image on the web that I found in a blog post by a woman who was criticizing some of the B.S. that society puts into women’s heads about men..so it’s highly doubtful it’s from some MHRM satire, she is writing to argue against what she said she sees all over the web as messages women get from societ . Back to the list:

“Manhood” means men are expected to “be a man” and suck it up in relationship disagreement

“Manhood” means men are expected to apologize most of the time

“Manhood” means paying for kids, not having custody

“Manhood” means men are “Responsible” so get far more harsh sentencing than women for the same crimes

“Manhood” means never being allowed to hit back when a woman hits a man as we saw above, it means even “hug” her when she slaps of even “punches” him.

“Manood” means males are seen as deserving less sympathy in general

“Manhood” means taking a knife to the genitals of a male baby as would never be seen as ok in western society if done to a female baby

“Manhood” means the burden for making money, for risking lives, the responsibility for making sure the heterosexual partner enjoys herself sexually or romantically and lots more – is on men’s shoulders.

“Manhood” is a world based on Male Expendability

“Manhood” means everything society molds men into, forbids men parts of their humanity, and pushes men into dangerous or destructive situations, while shaming and blaming them.

I’d like to see the MHRM say that, and then add: Yes, it’s about time society abandoned the extremely misandrist “Manhood” concept as we see above. And it’s not “Patriarchy hurts men too” B.S., dear feminists, it’s misandry, and if you imagine the genders reversed and read the above list of items, one after another, one by one, and imagine a world where with opposite genders and it done to women instead of our world where it’s for men, then the conclusion is clear, it’s misandrist. Yes, women in Saudi Arabia should be allowed to drive and there are other examples, but none of those negate the above list, showing that ours is a hugely misandrist world.

Of course the mainstream framing is “men are pretty terrible” I suppose if someone said “poor people or black people” are “pretty terrible people” due to higher crime rates from their terrible social conditions they live under, we’d know what classist or racist view the writer comes from.

4malelib@gmail.com

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Liber Namuh

Liber Namuh, sometimes posting as "4malelib" or 4ML, is a progressive human rights advocate proud to proclaim membership in the broad Male Human Rights Movement, has been thinking about how double standards hurt men since the 1980s, and believes and intends to demonstrate how the MHRM can be made more strong, and its tactics not more powerful, through civil, polite but proudly unapologetic dialog with and challenges to the mainstream. Liber Namuh believes that there is plenty of room for entirely appropriate outrage,but that if we focus on what we're against to the point of too little inclusion of what we're for, and if we neglect putting love at the center of what we do,then we are not underestimating misandry or our opponents, but are instead underestimating the rightness, beauty, and righteousness of the cause of male human rights advocacy.