Isabel Feio offered a feminist analysis of the men’s movement at the “incapables” feminist site. [1] For a feminist, she didn’t do that badly. Still, in keeping with feminist norms, she is intellectually dishonest.
It is true that the men’s movement, in which identified masculinists are included, has in part emerged as a consequence of the institutionalized anti-male bigotry propagated by feminist ideologues. The reaction of men and the women who care about them is further fueled by disciminatory policies being adopted at the state level internationally.
That reaction still comes as somewhat of a shock to feminists, and indeed to society at large. Men generally have no tendency to stand up for themselves monolithically. They’re expected (and historically comply) with the mandate to fight for church, state and family, but never for themselves or their fellow men as an identified demographic.
Feio’s reaction to that begins to evidence itself in the form of fanciful interpretation which gets thick in the second paragraph of her article. She seems to be under the impression (or wants her readers to be) that the MHRM is solely and distinctly a reaction to feminist ideology. She appears oblivious to the fact that judicial discrimination and media misandry have cultural roots that far predate first wave feminism, but have been elevated to new pervasive heights precisely because of the hateful campaigns on which Isabel Feio so depends.
The feminist movement itself is in part a perpetual campaign against women being badly represented in the media, regardless of the accuracy of the representations. This includes when feminists say those representations are misogynistic, when they’re not – as when feminists use the fallacy of accusing the media of participating in an imagined rape culture that does not and never has existed.
At the same time legislation, lobbied for by feminists, determine that men are default criminals — threats within their own families and to society at large. That’s feminism, and it instructs judges and other state functionaries how to treat men, not as husbands or fathers, and certainly never as victims, but as the privileged, abusive, violent criminals they almost always are not.
Feio talks about an “International Association of Masculinists.” If she’s talking about who I think she is, they believe misogyny is a tool for change in society – we, MHRAs, don’t. Thus I find it implausible that we could succeed in creating a force so destructive as to compare with feminism. Paraphrasing Lenin, we have our own ways to “bend the stick.”
There is a range of ways wounded, betrayed men react. As our colleague Fidelbogen says, “You can’t poison half a well.” We are put to the task of fighting different results of what feminist campaigns, feminist policies and feminist “contributions” to culture create. Many men simply react vociferously to the mostly contrived feminist social narrative. This society is so “misogynistic”, “patriarchal”, “machista”, and “phallocentric,” that it is blind to the unjust incarcerations; to the extortion of taxes that will never be reinvested in the benefit of men who pay them; to the destruction and impoverishment of post-divorce families; to the cultural, educational and institutional demonization promoted by “Isabel Feio’s” ilk; to the plethora of other issues that place invisible elephants in the living rooms of homes across the planet.
What unique oppressors!
All this is occurring in societies where feminists teach boys from an early age in school that they are inherently defective; that they are rapists-in-waiting who need to bow to feminist ideology to make themselves worthy of love and compassion; the very things that ideology thrives on robbing them of in the end.
There is a massive campaign to end (rightfully) female genital mutilation. It runs concurrent with an even more massive campaign to genitally mutilate men and boys all over the African continent for profit. The hypocrisies are just too many to cover at one time.
Isabel Feio speaks about A Voice for Men in the expected feminist tone. Says Isabel Feio:
Men’s Rights Activist groups – such as A Voice for Men – claim to be antifeminists for they don’t believe in feminism’s seriousness in the eradication of inequalities faced by men…
That’s right!
…and they advocate parities that, according to them, men never had: equal access to children after divorce, mandatory paternity test to each new born, shelters for men who are victims of domestic violence, equal treatment in the Judicial System, political parties and media
She is being simplistic, we know that. Surely men and women have their difficulties, the shared and the sex-specific. Among many we could mention, women always, in some level of their minds, know what it means to have merely the worth of beauty and sexual potential. And men, in some level of their minds, know what it is to be the financial, social, physical, living stairway, guard dog, weapon, sacrificial lamb, and saviour, for the benefit of others. It is men who keep streets and roads paved, water in the tap, sewers working, elevators, windows, planes, baggage and goods moving; and the scraps of republics and democracies still possible. It is on men’s work and/or sacrifice, including of their lives (they are almost the totality of the dead at work, we shouldn’t forget that, among plenty of other facts of “male privilege”), that we achieved and keep civilization, wherever we have it.
The problem is that we have learned to see women as Human Beings, but in standards of Human Being we never had before, including for men. But we keep men as Human Doings, not Human Beings. And nowadays, in our political ideologies and political, populist praxis, gynocentrism and misandry are there to keep men strictly as human doings, almost all men. Plus, being demonized and blamed for all hindrances and suffering, past and present (feminist in the populist left wing); and massive, everlasting propaganda for men kept in the naïve and suicidal role of proud human doings (gynocentric conservatives in the populist right wing), in exchange for any poor alms, like a medal and on their coffins, or that pathetic compliment of “You boy are a real man.” On both camps of political partisanship, men are not to enter the realm of Human Beings, and that has profound roods (on both sides, let’s repeat that) and passionately, zealously, propagated.
once, they say, there are studying showing that the media portraits men negatively in the vast majority – presenting them as dumb, criminals, cheaters, paedophiles, rapists and murderers.
Excuse me, but I don’t believe Isabel Feio is badly informed to the point that she doesn’t know how about the misandry in the media. And how her movement consistently reinforces exactly all the negative stereotypes she has mentioned about men. And much more that only those who know feminist theories and campaigns, and are not feminist or traditional gynocentrists, can know the monstrosity of propaganda I am talking about.
Yes, the feminist movement is also campaigning for having more women on the top of corporate and political decisions, no matter how incompetent those women might be.
No, feminism and women are not the same thing. They never were, never will be.
Isabel Feio also uses the routine of well-known feminist framing routine: All men’s and boys’ problems are caused by “machismo”. By “the machismo”. This “machismo”, Isabel, is a feminist fabrication, it belongs to feminist theory, perspective and convenience. It’s used to artificially make men culprits for all the problems. As if only men had made all of the bad, and shouldn’t be acknowledged for anything good. Well, men have built civilization, and they certainly wouldn’t have done it without women. In addition, it has always been deeply dishonest to assume that women, the most traditional educators of the new generations, never had any power or influence in the making of cultural patterns, cultural gender roles, and that they didn’t influence those patterns according to their interests.
Another known routine is, “men are not to blame for your problems, women don’t deserve your hatred.” First, the ones who single one demographic to blame for the evils on Earth, via hate euphemisms like “The Patriarchy” and “The Machismo” are the incapable ones (meaning, the feminists), not us. Feminist pseudo-scientific theories about men are worst then the Nazi theories about the Jews! We don’t do that, we abhor the injustice and cruelty of that! Nevertheless, feminism presents us a plethora of fallacious and incoherent theories, with sophisticated academic varnish, to bypass those kind of ethical principles. In the meanwhile, feminists keep doing what is already proverbial: They (or you) accuse us of what they do, call us what they are.
Another routine repeated by the incapable Isabel: she recites “the white hetero male.” The Pavlovian appeal to the common grave of SJW. A code, a ringing bell that triggers the hordes, prepared by post-modern leftist indoctrinators disguised as teachers and professors for decades, to blindly attack a chosen target. Nevertheless, men, white and heterosexual and “cis” don’t come in the same package. Some men are white, some are gay, some are very poor, some are not, and so on. The other effect feminists intend with those trigger words is to spark angry backlash of unprepared, uneducated, anti-politically correct people, who will be made rhetorical scarecrows, or bogeymen to “prove” the urgent need for more money and power for feminist organizations and bank accounts. You see, that doesn’t work that well with us. Shame on you. Fail.
Moreover, it’s not you, feminist ideologues – which are the movement against “The machismo”, “The Patriarchy”, or, let us be clear, against the alleged evil and pervasive man-power that destroys everything, or, this insidious hate propaganda against all men and boy that you do for a century – the ones to define what is “superior” or “inferior” masculinity.
In order to not keep repeating old refutations to the old feminist arguments of Isabel Feio and her colleagues, I’m just leaving two articles in video, among so many available:
So, when the Portuguese feminist says we must “calm down”, we understand her incapability. It would be good to have the discussion in a higher level. The interactions with gender ideologues tend to fall in the deepest, filthiest common rhetorical trenches of fallacies, mean spiritedness, debauchery and more. It is not only low and coarse. It is, at least to me, tedious and childish. However, the simple reason, we used it in the 90’s! Today we adapt the discourse not only to our frank indignation, but also to the social need. That, too, is what AVfM exists for. For any level of debate, we find important for Men’s and Boy’s rights and dignity as Human Beings.
Some things are certain, feminists. We, MHRAs, are here and we are not going away, we are growing, working and producing some results. If you were the decent people you pretend to be, we wouldn’t be in different movements.
Salutations from the Men’s and Boys’ Human Rights Movement.
Aldir Gracindo
A Voice for Men for the community of Portuguese speaking countries.
Notes:
[1] Capaz means “capable” in Portuguese. I beg to disagree on the adjective, concerning to feminists. We are not sorry for that.
[2] Originally posted on A Voice for Men Brazil in Portuguese.
