IN THE discussion of today’s job market, a male commenter tells a woman trying unsuccessfully to find a job that she deserves her hardship because women advocated for economic independence. The female reader responds:

MarkyMark thinks there were all these men who wanted to support me, but I snootily turned them down. I never in my life met a man who wanted to support me. Quite the opposite. I met plenty of men who thought my name was “Gravy Train.” Who says men hate feminism? As far as I can tell, men LOVE feminism. They can’t get enough. It lets them off the hook completely. They have sexual access to a woman without having to marry her first. After marriage, they can expect her to support herself.

Funny, how the so-called “men’s rights movement” overlooks these obvious truths. In some ways, feminism has been a men’s rights movement.

— Comments —-

Sunshine Mary writes:

I cannot agree that feminism has been a men’s rights movement.

Your reader wrote, “They have sexual access to a woman without having to marry her first.”

It was women, not men, who changed this dynamic. Women are the gatekeepers of sex. They have been freed from the moral conventions that were typical a generation or two ago, and hence we have seen the rise of slutdom. Men have sexual access to women without marrying them because the women give it to them.

She also wrote, “After marriage, they can expect her to support herself.”

Again, it was women who demanded this change via feminism. A handful of the players in second-wave feminism were men, but for the most part it was women who demanded the right to support themselves without relying on a man.

Why should men be shamed for making the best of the bad situation that feminism has caused?

Please note: Personally I am a pro-patriarchy Christian, and there are significant parts of the secular MRM that I do not support. I am not an apologist for these men, but I think readers should understand that their response to a feministic culture is rational.

Laura writes:

First, in saying that feminism has also been a men’s rights movement, I obviously do not exempt women from responsibility. Women, as I constantly point out, are culpable too and I do not in any way see women as children who act simply under the direction of men. But you must realize how twisted and inaccurate what you say is and how much it is a reflection of the suffocating, narcissistic, victim mentality of men’s rights.

If women alone are the “gatekeepers of sex,” then feminism is fully justified because then men should be under the authority of women. If women are the “gatekeepers of sex,” then men are not morally autonomous beings and deserve secondary status. But of course men in any functioning society do indeed serve as protectors of sexual morality, especially in their roles as fathers, as lawmakers, and as authority figures.

The idea that women alone initiated feminism is preposterous. Truly preposterous. Women acted upon ideas largely defined and articulated by men.

Mary Wollstonecraft is widely considered the mother of modern feminism. She had to plead with William Godwin, a political philosopher and the father of her unborn child, to marry her in the late 1700s. [The father of her first child refused to marry her. And yes, Mary agreed to give herself to both of these men outside marriage, but she was liberated by the philosophy of freedom and individual rights not simply by her own desires.] Godwin did not believe in marriage and was part of London’s intellectual elite that touted a new era of freedom for men and women and considered marriage oppressive. Wollstonecraft was in many ways amplifying the ideas of men she knew. That is not to say that she was without a mind of her own, but she hardly initiated the heady concepts of individual freedoms in her famous work The Vindication of the Rights of Women.

This is one small example. Simone De Beauvoir, another famous feminist,  also amplified the ideas of her famous sexual partner, the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, who refused to marry her or to remain faithful to her. The bizarre arrangement they ultimately established involved the seduction of other young women by both of them. Sartre’s ideas about marriage and sexuality were an integral part of his existentialism.

Male philosophers did much to destroy the spiritual foundations of womanhood by exalting rationality, rejecting God and decimating the value of a woman’s non-material influences and intuitive powers. In an utter crisis of meaning, women were tempted by feminism. The point isn’t to blame men more than women, but to reject the false and heinous idea that feminism was purely a feminine phenomenon. But of course you are free to view men as the hapless, pathetic children they are considered to be by the men’s rights movement, one of the greatest threats to masculinity ever devised.

Mrs. P. writes:

“But you must realize how twisted and inaccurate what you say is and how much it is a reflection of the suffocating, narcissistic, victim mentality of men’s rights.”

Bravo, Laura!

Jesse Powell writes:

It is very clear today that both men and women support feminism. Indeed, in public opinion surveys women usually support positions in favor of rights for men more than men do. What needs to be kept in mind is that feminism provides benefits to both sexes. Feminists are always saying that “feminism is good for men to.” In a certain way they have a point. Feminism offers a corrupt bargain of “gender relations” meant to appeal to the darker side of each sex. Feminism is the man saying to the woman “I’ll give you power if in exchange I can abandon my responsibilities towards you. I will give you the freedom to take care of yourself so that you will no longer be a burden on me.” You see, with power comes responsibilities. It is very easy to give up power; all you have to do is become passive. Under feminism the non-effort of the man in refusing to assert power gets converted into the magic of the man no longer being held responsible for the well being of the woman. For the man it is a free ride, he literally gets something for nothing. For the woman the man no longer asserting power becomes “liberation” and “freedom.” The woman can now do whatever she wants. In this way the woman to is released from her responsibilities. So, feminism is a free ride for both sexes, they can now do whatever they want!

The problem is that men intrinsically owe duties to women and women intrinsically owe duties to men. Also, both men and women intrinsically owe duties to children. When responsibilities are rejected under the legitimization of feminism what is really going on is that men are abusing women and women are abusing men. The rejection of one’s intrinsic responsibilities to another is an act of abuse. Men in favor of feminism are motivated by the abusive act of rejecting their responsibilities towards women and women in favor of feminism are motivated by the abusive act of rejecting their responsibilities towards men. This is the mechanism by which both men and women end up supporting feminism. This is the source of the feminist consensus.

It is the corrupted-ness of the feminist bargain that leads to the myriad social problems created by feminism and it is why feminism is so injurious to relations between the sexes.

Still, regardless of feminist propaganda to the contrary, men are still the ones with the responsibility and duty to provide for the social organization of society. This is due to the intrinsic nature of the masculine role and the masculine purpose. This means that regardless of the source of the problem it is primarily the responsibility of men to solve the problem.

Sunshine Mary said:

“Why should men be shamed for making the best of the bad situation that feminism has caused?

Please note: Personally I am a pro-patriarchy Christian, and there are significant parts of the secular MRM that I do not support. I am not an apologist for these men, but I think readers should understand that their response to a feministic culture is rational.”

First of all, men should always be shamed when they do not do what’s right. “Making the best of a bad situation” is a morally ambiguous formulation. Is a man “making the best of a bad situation” by becoming a pick up artist on the theory that there are no women worth marrying anymore? The question is, is the man “making the best of a bad situation” merely in a selfishly way or is he “making the best of a bad situation” for the community overall that he is a part of? Is the man pursuing a greater good or is the man merely looking out for number one; that is the question.

Also, I don’t like this idea of a response to a bad situation being “rational.” I don’t care whether someone’s response is “rational”; I want to know if it is moral!

Lastly, I have a problem with the whole idea of a “Christian MRA.” Are they Christian or not? If they are Christian what’s the purpose of tagging on the “MRA” part? If being an MRA itself is undesirable modifying “MRA” with “Christian” doesn’t change the undesirable elements of being an MRA one bit. The only way the label “Christian MRA” would be legitimate is if being an MRA was intrinsic to Christianity in which case the “MRA” modifier would be redundant anyways. However, the Men’s Rights Movement is a new fangled invention and certainly not a part of Christianity’s historical teachings so to me the “Christian MRA” label is just nonsense. To me the “Christian MRA” label is just a cynical attempt to match something honorable (Christianity) with something dishonorable (being an MRA) for the purpose of trying to make the dishonorable part legitimate.

MarkyMark writes:

My main point is the same as the one Sunshine Mary made: to wit, feminism could not have gotten off the ground without women; feminism could not have gained any traction if women didn’t buy in to it.

Mary also echoes my point that it was WOMEN, not men, who broke the social compact. It was women, not men, who decided to change everything; it was women who decided to turn the world upside down, not men. Because women comprise the majority of voters; because they also exercise power indirectly via men in their lives; we have the world precisely as it is because women WANT it that way.

 Laura writes:

And who gave women the vote?

MarkyMark is saying two different things. On one hand, he is saying women are morally accountable for feminism, which is undeniably true. On the other hand, he is saying only women are morally accountable for feminism, which is preposterous and another way of saying that men are not moral agents, but children under the authority of women.

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