Haven't seen the movie, but I'll say that I think the fact that "men's rights" has become some kind of buzzword for minsogynst views is a tragedy. Of course there are men's rights issues and of course they're worth fighting for. And some arseholes being among that number out there fighting for a discussion of those rights or what have you no more tarnishes the entire endeavour than someone like Valerie Solanas writing the insane Scum Manifesto somehow belittles the cause of equal rights for women. But even in this thread there can be no discussion of actual men's issues because it has already devolved into a 'Wow those guys are assholes!' echo chamber.



I'm not involved in anything to do with men's rights because frankly I'm not currently affected by any of those issues. I don't know what the mentioned subreddit is like - I choose not to visit those places. But I don't need to to think that the ridicule and automatic labelling that comes the way of those who speak out on said issues is destructive and unwarranted.



I read the Guardian's comment is free section, and sometimes wonder what kind of feminist articles we'd get if the gender issues were reversed. I can imagine that the difference in life expectancy would get a huge amount of play. "That average women live years less than men with no plans to fix it is implicit proof that men literally hate women - they do not value their lives whatsoever. Add up all the lost years of life of every woman on average and there's an entire generation's worth of life experience lost to hatred." And so on and so forth. But the fact that it's the reverse shows that not all gender inequalities are caused by hatred or fear - men essentially rule the world, and have no reason not to try and fix the lifetime expectancy difference, but don't. It just is what it is. Yet if it was reversed a huge amount would be read into that gap and what it means for gender relations etc.



As someone who lost two friends to suicide as young men I can't help but see this discussion and the way it is systematically shut down as part of a larger symptom of society telling men to shut the fuck up about their issues.