Major TW for violence against women, misogyny

Men’s rights activists have missed the point of feminism entirely



Online forums that claim men are demonised by feminism only serve to propagate a lamentable and dangerous form of misogyny, writes Andrew Lowry



“Last week, 18-year-old Ben Moynihan was found guilty of attempting to stab three women to death in Portsmouth over the summer of 2014.

During the spree, Moynihan taunted police with a series of bizarre notes that blamed his actions on his inability to lose his virginity. Women were "fussy”, he said, adding that he’d “[grown] up to believe them as a more weaker part of the human breed”.

Just in case you were about to mistake him for a misunderstood romantic, he helpfully added: “All women need to die and hopefully next time I can gouge their eyes out.”

We’ve been here before. Just last year, the similarly virginal Elliot Rodger killed six people and himself after uploading to the internet a rambling manifesto detailing the various “slights” he’d undergone at the hands of women. In 2009, George Sodini killed three women and himself at a Pittsburgh gym, having given his motive as not having had sex since 1990. There have been others.

These killings have coincided with a rise in online campaigning on behalf of ‘men’s rights’, the ironic-ish ‘meninism’ movement and a wider sense that men – young men in particular – are leading a backlash against feminism. They argue that the movement to promote women’s place in society has resulted in the demonisation of all men as sexist pigs at best, incipient rapists at worst.

To which you have to ask: what world are these people living in?

Trying to argue that men have become a class of disfranchised nobodies is like trying to argue the sky is red because you don’t like the colour blue. Huffing and puffing about humourless harridans who are trying to deny the lads their banter doesn’t change any of the systemic realities in our society. And turning the progress women have made into an excuse for quasi-politicised self-pity is just pathetic.

Resentment and confusion reign: resentment at women having, you know, their own agency; and confusion that they have - shock - the right to choose their sexual partners. Hence troubled young men who struggle to find partners – like Moynihan and Rodger – begin to blame women for their problems, not the wider culture at hand.

Feminism is not a zero-sum game, where every breakthrough for women means a loss for men. The sooner angry young men realise that, the better off we will all be.“



Read the full piece here