Debunking the Men’s Rights Movement
Every day there are more attempts to “Debunk” the Men’s Rights Movement and Men’s Rights Activism. This isn’t because the message is becoming more radical, but because the message is getting out. The Men’s Rights Movement is starting to really challenge the Threat Narrative of Victim Feminism and it’s adherents are getting nervous that their world view is about to fall apart. This is a great one, It cites sources. So lets look at the MRA claims and the attempt to debunk them.
1:Men commit Suicide more often.
The “Debunk” is that women ATTEMPT suicide three times as often as men. And that about 5% of suicides are Murder/suicides. So just at face value nothing has been debunked. The fact remains unchallenged. How often women ATTEMPT suicide has no bearing on how often men are successful. Well there is a connection, suicide ATTEMPTS are a cry for help. Women that ATTEMPT suicide are not trying to end their lives because they have no hope, they are making a grand gesture pleading for help that they often get. Actually committing suicide is done when there is no hope, no expectation for help, no light at the end of the tunnel. This massive difference in attempts and success isn’t proof that Men’s Rights Activism is Bunk, but that it’s desperately needed to provide men with hope and help.
So debunk #1 proves the need for MRAs.
2:Women get more health care and better results.
The “Debunk” is that YES women do get more Health care, and YES women do get better results. But this means health care for women costs more!!!!! More care means more cost, whoda thunk it? If we where to advocate for MEN and MEN’s rights and have a Men’s Rights Movement then we could convince MEN that it’s worth the time and money to improve their health and health care outcomes. This would balance the cost and benefits for men and women.
So, debunk #2 also proves the need for MRAs.
3:Men are overwhelmingly the victims of war.
The “Debunk” Well men make up about 85% of victims of war, not 99%. So still men are overwhelmingly the victims of war, but just not by as much as the original claim. Also, it’s the war victims fault because penis.
Since the “Debunk” is based upon blaming the victims of war, I say this also prove the need for MRAs. We are at 3/3 of the “Debunks” proving the need for a Men’s Rights Movement.
4:Men are 95% of workplace Deaths
The “Debunk” is that men are ONLY 92% of workplace deaths. Not sure how this debunks the claim. I know, it’s because men are still straight jacketed into outdated dogmatic regressive harmful and destructive gender roles. This is again proof that we need a Men’s Right’s Movement and MRAs, not a Debunk of claims.
5:Men are murdered at 5 times the rate of women.
The “Debunk” OPPRESSION OLYMPICS!!!! But women are murdered by domestic partners!!!
The Oppression Olympics is one of the big challenges that MRA’s face. So five for five of the debunks does nothing to actually debunk the claim, but provides proof for the need for a Men’s Rights Movement.
6:Women receive custody of 92% of children.
The “Debunk” is that in contested cases Fathers get custody 70% of the time. Good thing he provides Links, facts are important. According to his own source 11% of fathers get custody When it goes to trial. Good thing she linked proof of her own bullshit.
Hey at least this “Debunk” just proves it’s self to be be bunk, not the need for Men’s Rights Activism. The bias in the courts shows the need, not someone making up statistics.
7:Women are acquitted of spousal murder 9 times as often.
The “Debunk” is that the husband must have deserved it, you know blame the victim.
If blaming the husband for deserving to be murdered doesn’t scream the need for a Men’s Rights Movement, I don’t know what does.
8:Men are sentenced to 2.8 times longer sentences.
The “Debunk” OPPRESSION OLYMPICS!!!!!!!! The existence of domestic violence forgives any crime that women may commit.
Arguing Oppression Olympics proves the need for Men’s Rights Activism.
9:Women are Not pursued for child support
The “Debunk” OPPRESSION OLYMPICS!!!!! AGAIN!!!!! But But But women are poor and can’t afford to pay child support.
I don’t see any one saying poor men shouldn’t pay child support, well I do. MRA’s. If not having any money to pay child support is just reason to not pay child support it is a good reason for defaulting mothers AND fathers.
This “Debunking” of the Men’s Rights Movement is doing great 8/9 points so far don’t debunk the claims of the Men’s Rights Movement, and at the same time support the need for a Men’s Rights Movement.
10:Domestic Violence
DING DING DING We have a winner!!!! This is actually a point that is debunked. Hey one in 10 is Great isn’t it? “Domestic Violence” is a super broad and broadening category of behavior that includes everything from “The silent treatment” to breaking bones.
When it comes to the breaking bones type of domestic violence Men hurt women much more often. On the flip side the 0.001% of women this affects every year hardly makes it a national crisis. When looking at the much broader categories of violence, women are just as violent as men. It’s just much harder for them to break a man’s arm than for a man to break a woman’s arm.
Women account for about 10% of bone breaking/gun shot type domestic violence. Being 6% of prosecutions is well within reason.
11:Violence Against Children
The existence of My studies disproves the existence of your studies. Because the information avalibe can be parsed and interpreted in different ways, anything that disproves my preconceived notions must be wrong.
Hey at least this point doesn’t support the need for Men’s Rights Activism, only better schools to teach logic.
12:Women hold 65% of the wealth in the US.
This is the second point successfully debunked. There is no good source backing up this claim, and lots of evidence that it’s incorrect. I suspect that this is a “telephone game” problem. Women CONTROL more than 65% of consumer spending. They don’t hold the wealth, but they are the ones that CONTROL it. This is a radically different claim than holding the wealth. I do see where it could get confused.
So The final score on this attempt to “Debunk The Men’s Rights Movement”
8/12 of the attempts to Debunk not only failed to debunk, but showed the need for a Men’s Rights Movement
2/12 utterly failed to debunk the point MRAs make, but did not create a need for activism within the debunk it’s self
2/12 where actually valid debunks. Of these debunks, one was for a claim I’ve never seen before and doubt is a common claim made by MRAs. The second debunk debunked the MRA claim mostly by showing how spectacularly rare severe domestic violence is also debunking a feminist claim in the process.
The Poisoned Well 
Regarding 10, a major peer-reviewed paper by UBC’s Professor Don Dutton showed that women are at least as domestically violent as men, both in terms of frequency and severity of outcome. For 11, Dutton also cites irrefutable stats that show that mothers are a greater risk to children than are fathers.
MRA’s are the natural response to feminazis. The fems have good reason to fear the destruction of their victim narrative.
Can you link this study? All of the evidence I’ve seen says that in the 0.001% of people who suffer SEVER abuse, it’s overwhelmingly women. Mostly due to the fact it’s much easier for a man to break a woman’s arm than for a woman to break a man’s arm. The same degree of violence will result in greater harm when it’s male on female violence.
If you have evidence this “common knowledge” is flawed I will need proof.
I have a copy of the 2006 paper, plus one other by Dutton. Fire me an email at themirrorbooks@gmail.com, and I’ll send them to you.
The paper is entitled “Transforming a flawed policy: A call to revive psychology
and science in domestic violence research and practice.” Donald G. Dutton, Kenneth Corvo. Aggression and Violent Behavior 11 (2006) 457–483.
I Googled “Aggression and Violent Behavior 11 (2006) 457–483” and got the article at http://www.researchgate.net. I couldn’t copy the link, as when I clicked on it, my Mac launched Adobe and brought up the paper.
Dutton and Corvo are also very critical of the work of Professor Peter Jaffe. Have you heard of him? Patron Saint of “Woman Abuse?”
Very interesting study. I’m going to put the difference between my stance and what is reported in the study down to definitional differences. What counts as “Severe Abuse” is a little fuzzy. This study cites another study that found women perpetrate “Severe abuse” at three times the rate of men. So your point is made and recognized and very valid.
I doesn’t disprove my claim that in the tiny minority of cases where we are not talking about hitting or hitting with objects or throwing things, but severe physical trauma to the victim men’s greater physical ability is a major factor. Women would need to be 30 times as violent as men, not three times as violent to close this gap in ability to break the other persons leg.
Note:My claim isn’t that men are more violent, even in extreme cases, but that men are much more able to break women’s bones than women are able to break men’s bones. Even with much greater prevalence of female violence against men, men are still more likely to break bones.
My read of Dutton / Corvo is that abusive women are “successful” in matching abusive men for severity of outcome. I grant you that men are more able to break bones with unarmed violence. So either violent men aren’t going into “full berserker” mode and are restraining their violence to some degree, or violent women are able to compensate, perhaps by being more likely to employ weapons.
I’d rather suffer a broken arm than a sucking chest wound caused by an embedded chef’s knife.
I have a 2nd Dutton paper available if you want it. Barb Kay of the National Post told me that Dutton is her gold standard for domestic violence research and facts. Way too much feminist disinformation and fraudulent “scholarship” out there.
Yours is a reasonable reading of the information presented. We have slightly different understandings of what Dutton means by “severe violence” and this accounts for our differing readings of the same information.
I fully agree that there is far to much fraudulent ‘scholarship” on gender issues like domestic violence.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but the gender narcissism thesis explains the pathological need of feminist academics to falsify their ‘research’ in support of making patriarchy appear to be true.
I actually cite the Dutton / Corvo paper somewhat extensively in one of my chapters, and rationally interpret the otherwise non-sensical feminist DV theory and policies from a gender narcissism perspective.
I’d almost bet you a decent cup of coffee that you’ll have a eureka moment with the book regarding feminists, especially having read the Dutton / Corvo paper.
Great post. I hate it when feminists act like the mrm is just some hate group. Men have a lot of serious concerns like the ones you proved here. I wish there was a part of the mrm that didn’t reject all feminism though, because I think both sides have good points.
I disagree. Feminism is fundamentally and foundationally flawed. Sometimes feminism has good window dressings put on it, but that doesn’t make the ideology a good thing.
If we could have a gender equality movement fighting for rights of men and women this would be much better than women fighting for women against men and men fighting for men against feminism.
There should be no need to debunk the requirement for a Men’s Rights Movement in the first place. Feminism is a Woman’s Rights Movement…even if it does somehow end up helping men and boys, that is not the intended goal. Even one of the feminists that frequently comment on my blog has said as much.
The fact of the matter is that until an actual egalitarian movement is founded that fights for both sexes equally, the mrm is needed just as much (if not more in the US/Canada/UK) than feminism.