Just a short warning message to expose the Reddit men’s rights section for what it is – a near-complete sham. It is the Internet equivalent to a false-flag operation against the men’s movement.
Shopenbecq has highlighted the problem before and I think it needs to be reiterated here. Indeed, he set up an alternative men’s rights section in order to redress the balance and allow for genuine discussion.
To quote him:
“This reddit was set up after concern that feminists were being allowed to dominate the original men’s rights reddit and with it potentially pervert our agenda and our movement.”
The Reddit men’s rights section should be more correctly titled “The Feminist view of Men’s rights” and, of course, this is a very dim view indeed!
The genuine issues affecting men and viewpoints voiced by men are, with regularity, roundly dismissed and disparaged in an orchestrated fashion by what seems like a clique of individuals – both men and women, I believe – with strongly Feminist viewpoints. The intent seems to be about constructing a “pretend” or faux men’s rights forum, a kind of hoax or dummy site whose purpose seems to be to draw attention away from legitimate and fair examination of men’s issues.
Of course, you must judge for yourself, but in my opinion, the Reddit men’s rights site is NOT to be taken at face value and NOT to be treated as a genuine discussion centre. It is much more of a Feminist-populated honey-pot, attracting internet searchers on men’s rights to a set of opinions that often derides and attacks men whilst pretending to fairly examine men’s issues. It is an admittedly devious and clever device to help to neutralise and dismiss the very real issues faced by men.
The principal issue with Reddit men’s rights is that it has a high search profile on the Internet and will gain a lot of viewers as a result, particularly those new to men’s rights discussion. This is unfortunate and represents something of a travesty, but there it is.
All that can be done is to explain, in as many places as possible, that the Reddit “Men’s rights” forum is not really worthy of the name. It is largely dominated by a group of Feminists and has little to do with the genuine and open discussion of men’s rights.
At a reader’s urging i took a look at this thing, and although a few trolls have recently been evicted, it’s still a bit suspect so i would definitely recommend MensRightsLinks as well as the newer MaleStudies reddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/MaleStudies
The problem of course is getting enough readers to rival the more established section, so i am putting both of the alternatives on my blogroll and urge others to do the same.
I’m going to have to disagree with that assessment. Yes, there are some issues with feminist trolling, but a lot of spirited discussion is conducted on that page and without censorship. They let the feminists post as to allow for free argument. If you shut down any genuine feminist counter-dialogue, then the site is no better than any of the hate-filled feminist scratching posts like Feministing, Shapely Prose, and other bastions of anti-male ideology.
I appreciate your opinion and I certainly don’t advocate shutting down contrary opinions on Reddit. The reason I posted this article is that there seems to be a fundamental difference in the way in which men’s rights are addressed compared with women’s rights.
Generally speaking, the women’s rights section on Reddit accepts relevant issues that affect women as being valid and worthy of discussion. The men’s rights section typically questions the very need for men’s rights activism at all and issues that are raised are often more focused on questioning whether discrimination against men ever even occurs than on dealing with the topic raised. In other words, the validity of “men’s rights” itself seems up for debate on Reddit whereas women’s rights issues are accepted as real.
It is obviously not a clear cut phenomenon because it is about the responses of individuals to posted articles, however, it is a strong trend I noticed when frequenting Reddit in February and March of this year. Discussions on Reddit Men’s Rights tend to belittle and dismiss men’s issues and the prevailing opinions tend to be Feminist. Suspiciously so. Therefore, I maintain that the site needs to be taken with a very large pinch of salt by those looking for genuine discussion of men’s rights.
I have very similar sentiments to Demosthenes XXI. When I’ve gone on that site and looked around, it never seemed as bad as some people are saying it is. I’ve actually admired many of their long and interesting discussions. So many other men’s blogs have a readership that causes the comments section to quickly slip into sheer lunacy. I’m not a fan of conspiracy theory, I must say…
That being said, I posted Schopenbecq’s article as a link to test the waters. lol
I wanna see what happens, to see if it’s still the same old Reddit that I know and love, or if it’s become the cesspool that so many people are saying it is now. =)
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/cvtkl/user_feedback_whats_your_opinion_on_the/
I’m the creator of the reddit and, after a year long hiatus, returned to moderate the reddit within the last month. the re are serious difficulties with moderating it effectively. there are serious problems with trolls, and that’s difficult to change given Reddit’s account system. I can’t determine anyone’s IP, so IP-banning is out of the question. I can ban accounts, but new sockpuppets appear quickly. It’s like playing whack-a-mole.
I am open to suggestions, but my power is limited. I wish the new ‘malestudies’ reddit well, but he’ll find that he has the same limitations as his reddit grows.
You’ve said yourself:
>I appreciate your opinion and I certainly don’t advocate shutting down contrary opinions on Reddit.
As I’ve said, my antitroll powers are limited.
>The men’s rights section typically questions the very need for men’s rights activism at all and issues that are raised are often more focused on questioning whether discrimination against men ever even occurs than on dealing with the topic raised.
I recognized this as well, and banned four users for their participation in one such troll party. I reversed the ban later for several reasons, one of which being the general user rejection of moderation at all, and the other being a threat from the moderator of the /equality reddit, where I’ve been making a great deal of headway in arguing for mens rights.
I enjoy your videos, and I’m certain I’ve posted them at times on reddit. I personally welcome your input.
most importantly, I’m taking these complaints seriously.
Hello and thanks for responding to this in such a positive way. Reddit Men’s Rights is far from alone in gaining the attention of organised Feminist disruption and I don’t envy you your task of dealing with it.
I believe that all forums have their value – including Reddit Men’s Rights – as long as people understand what it is they are dealing with. I don’t see trolling as an issue in itself, what concerns me is when a lack of effective response means that the trolling becomes the prevailing view. That’s when misinformation about the MRM becomes a significant problem and needs to be countered.
You shouldn’t have to play whack-a-fem in order to counter this behaviour and that evidently does not fit with the construction of Reddit anyway. So, fine we accept Reddit for what it is but also, crucially, we publicise it for what it is: a valuable but compromised forum.
To my mind, the crucial defence for men’s rights is to have other sources of information, other repositories of men’s views and other discussion areas for men with similar popularity to Reddit, either individually or in sum. Within these sites we take steps to make the messages clear and to deal with men’s issues in a constructive manner without the negative and misandric input of those who seek to bring nothing to the discussion except hateful and misleading static. Not an easy thing to accomplish but that’s why so many MRA’s do what they do and it’s why I made the documentary videos and continue to publish them.
At the end of the day, I think the issues affecting your site are larger than anything that can be fixed within it. Misandry is an institutional problem and is very deeply-seated in many Feminist individuals. It is a testament to what you have achieved with Reddit Men’s Rights that I was led to post this article. Your site matters. As strongly as I presented my argument, I think that it’s better that it exists than not, with the only proviso being that visitors need to fully understand what it is and what it isn’t. There lies the rub.
I wish you the best for the future and there are many more videos to come so stay posted.
We’re dealing with some very filthy-headed people here.
Feministing is just too childish for words.
A couple of years ago the Fword had a discussion of sorts started by a Women’s Studies lecturer from some college or other. It was full of man-hatred and no substance. But as this person was an academic, I thought she might welcome an alternative view to the baseless and hate-filled rubbish written by her and others thus far. So I sent a comment in. It didn’t appear.
That’s gone now, but to get an idea of the moronity of your average feminist, have a look at this. It’s the blog of a feminist who writes for — wait for it — the Guardian. The main comment is a childish attack on Bernard Chapin. And take note of the juvenility of its responses.
http://toomuchtosayformyself.com/2009/06/02/the-feminist-plot-against-mens-ease-of-urination/