Some stories will always have kneejerk reactions on sight of the 'trigger word'. Wikipedia story, regardless of content, will have 'dictorship!' detractors; feminism stories will have MRA detractors; Big Brand X will always have 'I hate X' detractors; political stories will always have 'taxes are theft and/or government is violence' detractors. All regardless of article content.
When people feel very strongly about things (a couple of your examples touch upon human rights), and they feel they rarely have a platform to express those views, they'll take any platform they can get.
It's annoying but understandable.
Also keep in mind that it's annoying to see a viewpoint expressed if you disagree with it. When such a viewpoint is expressed, you are predisposed to view them as unwanted contributions to the discussion. I don't believe the parent comment is warranted here, but maybe he wasted a lot of his time trying to improve Wikipedia, and he feels very strongly about this.
Edit: The parent comment, which was nearly half an hour old when I saw it, has been edited to remove the reference that I was against men's rights.
--
Oh, sod off. Don't put words in my mouth. I do not disagree with men's rights, but I do disagree the the hysterical bulk of MRA knobheads that create a hyperbolic smokescreen, preventing real issues from being properly discussed. There's a shitload of valid men's rights issues, from strong imbalance in parental rights in some jurisdiction, to massive imbalances in prisoner treatment, to sociological things like the shame of showing emotion or weakness. Similarly there are different health issues for men and women, each of which requires its own focus. None of this comes up in the usual MRA "wah wah, feminists are speaking! it's so hard to be a man!" self-indulgent whining. Neither is there much of a recognition that while men have problems, it's not a competition and it doesn't mean that women don't also have problems. There aren't 'teams' here, except in the eyes of extremists.
The thing is that MRA, here on HN and most other places, are free to submit anything they want any time they want. They most certainly have a platform to express those views. They don't though - they only rile up when they see a feminism post and have to 'put them in their place'. If they really were about "I just want to be heard", then they'd be posting articles, not tearing down others' stuff. I'd fucking love to see discussion on men's issues that didn't require putting women or feminists in their place. There are serious issues that men have to deal with, but the fucking hysterical over-wrought self-absorbed MRA commentry completely smothers real attempts at rational discussion. We can discuss and develop solutions to men's issues without having to be victorious over a third party.
I mean seriously, 'no platform to speak'? HN is a firehose, and there are plenty of MRA-favourable people here. What a joke. Post some quality articles on MRA and get some discussion going. In other words - be a 'man': put up or shut up.
> Neither is there much of a recognition that while men have problems, it's not a competition and it doesn't mean that women don't also have problems. There aren't 'teams' here, except in the eyes of extremists.
Right, so to be clear: if someone were to (say) insist that by caring about male victims RAINN were inherently attacking the real, female victims of rape you'd consider them an extremist and be first in line to call them out just like you did MRAs? And the same if they were opposed to teaching both women and men to care about their partner's consent because any attempt to tackle rape that wasn't based on its (in their eyes) fundamentally gendered nature was a betrayal of female victims?
Because sad to say, I've seen both of these happen and in fact every single non-MRAs made the opposite argument: that objecting to these demands that everyone should only care about women's problems is what's really turning it into a competition.
> The thing is that MRA, here on HN and most other places, are free to submit anything they want any time they want. They most certainly have a platform to express those views. They don't though - they only rile up when they see a feminism post and have to 'put them in their place'.
If you go looking, they're plenty willing to express their own views without a feminist post to rile them up - but you have to go looking, because in practice they have no platform to do that where people will actually hear them. It's not like feminism where their views are published in places like the Guardian, Independent, Salon, HuffPo, NYT, ... (Including some horrifically offensive or just plain mistaken viewpoints, which will somehow be seen as less dangerous than any random no-name commentor on an MRA blog!)
Also, there's some irony in you complaining about that since you've just derailed a HN discussion about something else entirely to opine about how awful MRAs are.
> I'd fucking love to see discussion on men's issues that didn't require putting women or feminists in their place.
That's like trying to hold a discussion of women's issues whilst including unrepentant misogynist "allies" who want credit for helping whilst refusing to talk about or think about the issues at all. I've seen lots of feminists who act exactly like that who will come into any discussion and try and take it over, and it's unfeminist to call them out on it since feminism isn't about the men.
In fact, it's struck me as weird for a while just how similar anti-MRA arguments are to the most obnoxious anti-feminist ones. For instance: 'Don't put words in my mouth. I do not disagree with women's rights, but I do disagree the the hysterical bulk of feminist knobheads that create a hyperbolic smokescreen, preventing real issues from being properly discussed. There's a shitload of valid women's rights issues, from strong imbalance in employment rights in some jurisdiction, to massive imbalances in access to education, to sociological things like pressure not to show assertiveness or aggressiveness. Similarly there are different safety issues for men and women, each of which requires its own focus. None of this comes up in the usual feminist "wah wah, men are speaking! it's so hard to be a woman!" self-indulgent whining.'
Yes, obviously feminists are fighting for those issues - much like if you asked an MRA to give a list of men's rights issues it'd be very much like yours. Also, okay, so you consider those to be the real issues. Do you actually put any effort into fighting directly for those things, or are they just issues you bring up when they're a convenient way to discredit groups that do fight for them, much like misogynists who selectively care about "real" women's issues? Because again, I've seen a lot of feminists arguing that those are the real issues affecting men that matter and that MRAs can be ignored because they're somehow distracting from them, but fuck-all who care about them at any other time.
> Edit: The parent comment, which was nearly half an hour old when I saw it, has been edited to remove the reference that I was against men's rights.
My post had no replies when I edited.
I removed that reference because I felt it sounded like I was accusing you of being against men's rights. That wasn't my intention.
> Neither is there much of a recognition that while men have problems, it's not a competition and it doesn't mean that women don't also have problems.
Definitely. However, when the solutions that third-wave feminists put forth further disadvantage men in areas like unemployment and education—or, to be more diplomatic, when someone passionate about men's rights feels that way—it's completely reasonable for them to respond with their objections.
>The thing is that MRA, here on HN and most other places, are free to submit anything they want any time they want.
Many people who passionately oppose third-wave feminist activism also oppose discussion of politics on HN, period. So they don't consider this to be a platform for their political views unless they're responding to activism already on the front page.
>when the solutions that third-wave feminists put forth further disadvantage men in areas like unemployment and education
Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women.
Notice the word equal. I really believe that feminism deals with men's rights as well when there exist inequities that favor women. True men's rights.
