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Comment by booruguru | Hacker News Reader

The problem is we can't talk this "men issues" without being called "anti-feminist." In fact, any attempt to talk about the struggles of being a man is invariable associated with anti-woman rhetoric. It's as if feminists want to have a monopoly on victimhood.

It's an incredibly bizarre situation.

EDIT: The downvotes only further illustrate my point.

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EDIT: The downvotes only further illustrate my point.

No, as thoughtful comments to you that preceded my comment in time[1] point out, your statement "In fact, any attempt to talk about the struggles of being a man is invariable associated with anti-woman rhetoric" appears to be factually incorrect, because a woman who appears to be a feminist is the main source interviewed for the article submitted here. A comment that deals more directly with what the submitted article says may perhaps help bring about more thoughtful discussion here, which is always the goal on Hacker News.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7669982

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7670097

This is a bad Hacker News comment, as are several others here. They responded to a substantive article with indignant ideological complaints that were guaranteed to derail the thread, and did.

Part of the problem is that any legitimate "men's issue" attracts misogynists and anti-feminists like moths to a flame, and they discredit the discussion by their association.

This is a near-universal problem with social issues. People tend to remember the angry shouting of the Westboro Baptists and TERFs of the world and forget about the calm, reasoned arguments buried under the rubble.

The downvotes only further illustrate my point.

They don't - the downvotes (none of them mine) are because this is a somewhat dismissive mischaracterisation of the issue.

No reasonable person or group objects to discussion about issues that affect men. What they do object to—quite reasonably—is the often-associated attitude which runs along the lines of "Men suffer from <any problem> too, it's not a feminist thing!", which isn't really helpful.

The idea suggested by this article is that men are actually approximately as likely to suffer from sexual assault as women are. That's a perfectly valid possibility, and it's likely true.

But what's the general goal of a "feminist," if you can use such a broad term? Let's keep it simple, and say that "a feminist's goal is to further the cause of equal rights for women." Given that, why would we expect feminists to be talking about the effect of sexual assault on males? It's not their responsibility to do so, and I'm absolutely certain that most feminists would not object to male campaign groups which highlight the problem of male sexual assault. The problems which affect both genders, even in this area, are actually quite different!

The problem with these discussions is the ease with which one can focus on outspoken minority groups. The vast, VAST majority of feminists are not "anti-male"; that vast majority of men are not anti-feminism. It's easy to get carried away by overemphasising the views of minority groups.

Your comment is ultimately a meta version of that - in truth, there's very little opposition to discussing men's issues, but instead a fair bit of opposition to discarding womens' issues because "men have it bad too."

The trouble is that in a way, feminists talk about the effect of sexual assault on men all the time. Much of the feminist campaigning on sexual assault and rape is based around the claim that they're gendered forms of violence against women that don't generally affect men. Indeed, quite a lot of feminists use the exact 2010 CDC report mentioned in the article as evidence that men don't get raped (usually by not counting men who are "forced to penetrate" despite saying they consider this rape). Yet because feminism is supposedly not about men, anyone who challenges these claims is accused of making everything about men and derailing the discussion away from women's suffering, because "it's not about the men".

Quite a lot of the feminists who do this don't even realise that they're not including many men who meet their definition of rape, simply because the issue was never mentioned by anyone with a wide audience until a few months ago.

Also, despite men's issues not being a part of feminism, quite a few feminists loudly insist that feminism is the real movement helping men, that anyone who disputes this is obviously just out to disparage feminism and not really trying to help men, and that because all men's problems are caused by patriarchy it's unfair to call feminists out for supporting those supposedly patriarchal ideas. So the net result of all this is that most feminists are helping perpetuate the shitty status quo for men whilst having convinced the world that they're actually challenging it. Needless to say this pisses people off.

>Given that, why would we expect feminists to be talking about the effect of sexual assault on males?

Because "feminism fights for men too!" is something we hear all the time.

>It's not their responsibility to do so, and I'm absolutely certain that most feminists would not object to male campaign groups which highlight the problem of male sexual assault.

You'd definitely be wrong about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWgslugtDow

This is incredibly false. Any feminist will tell you that most rape does not fit the "large stranger overpowers a woman in the streets" scenario. This is what people are talking about when they talk about rape culture.

>Any feminist will tell you that most rape does not fit the "large stranger overpowers a woman in the streets" scenario.

If that is truly the case, then why do many feminists believe that every man on the street must be treated as a potential rapist?

example: http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-sch...

If that is truly the case, then why do many feminists believe that every man on the street must be treated as a potential rapist?

Let's be clear - the phrase "many feminists believe" is a weasel phrase worthy of being placed alongside Fox News and their infamous "some people say" thing.

You've demonstrated that one woman is so concerned she's going to be attacked that she assumes every man is a rapist. That's a terrible state of affairs, but not for the reasons you think.

Please explain how "many feminists" is a "weasel phrase."

>That's a terrible state of affairs, but not for the reasons you think.

Explain.

Because it's a passive statement meant to cast aspersions on feminism as a whole by associating the movement with these hypothetical feminists you speak of, while at the same time citing no evidence whatsoever to back up the statement. It's a typical tactic used for demagoguery and yellow journalism, allowing the author (you, in this case) to make an inflammatory statement without having to take credit for originating a ridiculous idea that most of the time can only charitably be considered anything but an outright fabrication.

>these hypothetical feminists you speak of

>citing no evidence whatsoever to back up the statement

>outright fabrication

I provided a link to the source. I recommend you review both it and the hundreds of comments agreeing with it. Most major feminist sites picked up on it at the time as well, and it is also listed as a source on the "geek feminism" wiki.

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Interacting_with_women

That's not a source demonstrating that many feminists are afraid of being raped. Its a piece of evidence that a woman fears this, and a lot of women agree with her. By conflating their gender with the feminist movement, you're intentionally conflating the two, and implying that non-feminist women are not afraid of being raped, and further that feminism is itself at the root of their fear.

>By conflating their gender with the feminist movement

...what? The author is a feminist. The whole site is.

From the site's FAQ:

"Feminism and fat acceptance have always been, and will always be at the heart of this blog."

>you're implying that non-feminist women are not afraid of being raped

wat

Please stop.

I would never go so far as to claim "feminists want to have a monopoly on victimhood," but talking about these types of issues from a male perspective requires walking a thin that can easily be misconstrued as more 'red pill' ranting.

The author of the study is described as a feminist and specifically says we need to talk about sexual assault as experienced by men. Let's applaud feminism that's aimed at that kind of equality!

Let's not applaud ANY feminism. Would you applaud a chauvinist for being a chauvinist? No, you wouldn't. Do not accept sexism from anyone. I do not consider recognizing a biological and quantifiable difference as sexist.

Next time you read the word feminist, think chauvinist and see if you feel differently... I'm sure you will.

Now, if someone said "respect the author, despite being sexist", I'd support that.

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