Just what are ‘mens’ rights’ and why does the activist group ‘A Voice For Men’ believe mens’ voices aren’t heard in society?

By Anika Chapman

At first glance, the men’s rights movement might seem like a natural counterbalance to feminism: supporting the rights of men to exist in an equal society. But even a shallow dive beneath the glittery surface of pseudo-logic, reveals deeper, murkier waters of blatant misogyny.

Because the men’s rights movement is not about men at all, it is about women: controlling, oppressing, and cutting down women.

But first, let’s back up. What is a men’s rights group? What does it do?

According to the coalition A Voice for Men (AVfM), the mens’ rights movement targets but is not limited to:

The dissemination of information that will expose misandry on all levels in our culture.

To promote an end to chivalry in any form or fashion.

To address the variety of problems faced by men and boys under feminist governance and attempt to ameliorate those problems.

To push for an end to rape hysteria, DV hysteria and false allegations.

Basically, they believe that society is governed by feminists who mask their power by shouting the loudest about patriarchy, drowning out the under-valued and under-funded Masculists in their attempt to unveil the truth of misandry to the rest of the world.

It might be tempting to dismiss such a mission statement as a joke, given the unquestionable historical and continued struggle of women for rights – be they voting, employment or basic civil – but these ideas plant seeds of misogyny and violence in men and boys.

In Australia, 1 in 3 women have experienced violence at the hands of a partner or family member.Domestic violence is the leading cause of death in women under 45. One woman is murdered by her current or former partner every week.

That is not to say that mens’ rights groups are solely to blame for such violent hatred and denigration of women, but the way they talk about women – as an enemy to be brutally suppressed – provides dangerous motivation for anti-social and hostile men to act out their abusive tendencies on women.

Because misogyny is not innate, it is taught.

These half-truths and whole lies of the mens’ rights movement, spread globally by AVfM, do nothing for the modern man.

They do not tackle the serious issues of binding gender norms and the limited space for men and boys to express themselves within the rigid social gender structure, nor do they look to largely ignored men’s issues like mental health and the surrounding cultural stigma.

Instead, groups like AVfM espouse unverified and fear-mongering theories on ‘paternity fraud’, women who are just ‘begging’ for rape, and widespread misandry in society, which leader Paul Elam claims is evident in men struggling to keep themselves out of prison for child support arrears and courts repeatedly failing to sympathise with male perpetuators of rape.

Each of these topics specifically targets women, casting them as Gone Girl-type psychotics scheming to physically and fiscally ruin all men.

It is up to the 99 per cent of men who do not support this violent misogyny masquerading as equality campaigning to fight groups like AVfM: to stand up and say the mens’ rights movement does not represent them, does not represent men in general, and has nothing to do with mens’ human rights and everything to do with the right of men to dominate women, culturally, socially, financially and physically.

It is men who can and must fight the mens’ rights movement.