Cathy Young, an opinion writer often quoted in the men’s rights community for her frequent criticism of victim feminism, has offered up a superficially sterling New Year’s resolution on the pages of realclearpolitics.com. Acknowledging the heightened awareness of the men’s rights community that operates in general defiance of feminist dogma, she expresses the hope that we can move toward a unified movement more centered on gender equity.
She delivered the message from the on high perspective of an informed and experienced social commentator:
Top wish for 2014: a “true equality” movement. In 2013, there was a fair amount of attention to men’s rights groups—which often raise legitimate issues but have a regrettable tendency to mirror the gender antagonism, hyperbole, and victim mentality of radical feminism. But, with men’s issues on the table, perhaps the next year will see more calls for a balanced approach that promotes fairness and goodwill toward both sexes. That would make a good, if optimistic, New Year’s resolution.
That would also be a crock of shit.
One has to wonder, just who are the radical feminists with whom Young has acquainted herself? Did she spend an afternoon at the Good Men Project or Pandagon and imagine that this taught her what she needs to know about radical feminism, or is she playing dumb?
Truthfully, I don’t have a clue how Young got it into her head form a parallel between the men and women of the Men’s Human Rights Movement and radical feminists. I just know she got it dead wrong.
Is she seriously comparing people who eschew marriage and are provocatively outspoken about false rape allegations to people who espouse murder and eugenics? Would she have us think that MHRAs writing harsh satire about the very real lack of due process for men in sexual assault cases are on par with ideologues who advocate for forced castration and a reduction of the numbers of men on the planet to between 1 and 10%?
I suppose so. After all, she is the same person who has no problem saying this publication offers “a steady diet of vulgar woman-bashing,” which it does not, while entirely missing the feminist website that calls young boys “rapists in waiting” and advocates for teachers throwing them out of unopened windows… just for starters.
Comparing the men’s movement, even the most provocative and hyperbolic elements, to morally bankrupt and wantonly violent gender feminists is like comparing the Civil Rights Movement to the Ku Klux Klan.
Cathy Young ought to be ashamed for doing it.
Have men’s activists ever blocked doors and harassed attendees at lectures on women’s issues, as feminists did to Warren Farrell in November of 2012? No. Nor did they return time after time to disrupt events and abridge the free speech of any gathering, as we saw feminists subsequently do with Drs. Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young, as well as Dr. Janice Fiamengo.
Simply put, MRAs don’t act that way. Ever. Feminists do, and they do it regularly.
Of course, all this is just a comparison of the extremes, which we are better off not dwelling on too long. They distract us from primary way Young entirely misses the point.
I hate to break it to you, Cathy, but your comparison of MHRAs to radical feminists scores high on the lameness scale. Little higher, though, than it would have scored if you had compared us to mainstream feminists.
Mainstream feminism, the feminism Young seems to think we should merge with to form one big old happy gender justice family, has managed to make enormous strides and garner significant power while lacking any moral or ethical legitimacy, as well as scientific integrity.
Young knows this is true. She has written about it on many occasions, often with surgical efficiency. It is just that she appears to draw a line when the menfolk (and the women who are similarly sick of this bullshit) start getting all uppity and won’t play nice with the bigots.
Drawing the line where Young does is helpful, though, in assessing her relative worth to the idea of gender equity, which is to say that her shelf life has expired. There was a time when what Cathy Young did was of benefit to informing the public about issues facing men and boys, and about the tailspin into absurdity that now typifies gender feminism.
That time is over.
The remarkable truth is that she only had this utility before the men’s movement started to grow, and a real voice for men (you bet your ass that pun is intended) started to emerge. Now that there is an actual movement afoot, the days of settling for “We will superficially admit your problems as long as you don’t get pushy” are about to go the defunct way of all other forms of arms-length, latte-sipping social justice.
Feminism is differentiated in waves. So too, is the men’s movement. The wave of polite men with hat in hands, begging for a place at the table, has run its course, and achieved all it can. The next wave, the second wave, isn’t going to be polite and is not going to ask to be heard. Cathy Young and those like her had better get used to it.
I actually share her hope for a true gender equity movement in this society. And I believe it can happen, just as soon as bigoted ideologues and their enablers either change or get out of the way.
