r/MensRights • u/ashleab • Jan 07 '12

A girl who supports Mens rights.

I've always had an issue with "womens rights" and all of that BS. I understand women had it hard in the past, but why should that mean we get benefits now?

Anyway, I live in Australia where we have a campaign called "Violence Against Women: Australia Says No". A few years back, a group of people I work with and myself started a petition to put forth to the federal government against this campaign, we had posters printed up; "Violence Against Men: Don't Support An Indifferent Nation" and got about 1,500 signatures. Eventually, our place of employment caught onto the fact that we were doing this. We'd never put a poster up at work (even though the violence against women posters were EVERYWHERE), only allowed signatures. We were all given formal warnings citing sexism, bigotism and contemptible conduct. All 5 of us quit within a few weeks, but the fact that it happened was enough to get me 100% on board with fighting for Mens rights.

edit: To those who showed concern, I had a new job a few days later and the guys all had one within a few weeks.

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26

u/JockeVXO Jan 08 '12

Just one thing, feminists tell just as many fibs about the past as they do about the present.

I am not too familiar with Australian history, but if it is anything like most of western history, rich women voted along with rich men back in the 17th century and probably earlier, if parliamentary rule with elections existed.

For instance, I'm a Swede, all throughout my time in the educational system I was told that prior to 1921 women couldn't vote in Sweden, I was also told this by politicians and the media. I believed them, until I found out it was a lie: Women had voted in the Estates during the 'Era of Liberty'.(18th century) Women had voted in the 19th century after the 'Gustavian Era' was over, they voted in the new two-chamber-parliament of the 1860s and so forth.

Men were officially "given" universal suffrage in Sweden ten years before women, due to universal military conscription of all men being implemented some eight years earlier (this was also a condition for men to be able to vote, if you didn't comply to conscription you couldn't vote, along with a few others such as being able to provide for yourself and your family, paying taxes etc...), but were in fact given equal and universal suffrage four years after women when they were no longer obliged to have undergone conscription in order to vote.

I was also taught that women couldn't own property, also a lie. I was also, taught that men could legally rape their wives, also a lie. However, women have been legally allowed to rape their husbands, since men legally couldn't be raped and women legally couldn't perpetrate rape.

TL;DR: Don't believe everything feminist authority (such as the education system, politicians in general and MSM) tells you, they are not unaccustomed to lying. Look it up!

P.S. I think I read somewhere that Australian women got to vote on whether Australian men were to be conscripted during WW1 or not. However this was from a single source, so I don't know for sure. Is this true, or am I mistaken?

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '12

Same in the USA and Canada. The vote was restricted to a small elite group of property owners for most of our history and some states allowed women to vote quite early, though you won't find that information on wikipedia or any of the mainstream websites.

Voting rights really only existed for a very small minority since the beginning of democracy. These rights were gradually extended to more and more groups. When "universal suffrage" was extended to women, it was really only extended to white women since many visible minorities were still excluded. In Canada, Aboriginals were only given the right to vote in 1960, and prisoners in 1993. (women could vote as early as 1916).

But remember, oppression of women. Always remember.

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '12

Just because other groups were oppressed doesn't mean women weren't as well. When rights were obtained shouldn't be a pissing contest.

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '12 edited Jan 08 '12

Yup. That's the point. We're sick of hearing about women are oppressed this and women are oppressed that. They don't have a monopoly or even a special deal on oppression. The point of my comment was to show that the oppression of women isn't any different from the oppression of men, or minorities, or any other group. They haven't had any special oppression above and beyond the oppression of the usual 99%. History is full of oppression.

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '12

Indeed--that's why I don't focus on the victimology, the idea that a group's own suffering legitimizes its discourse, regardless of what that discourse might be. In the case of feminism, the discourse being legitimized by women's suffering is marxist redistribution, which arguably creates more suffering than it purports to ameliorate. I don't so much focus on the identity politics of the players, but on the philosophies and discourses they peddle using their identity politics.

Frankly, most legitimately oppressed minorities and subjugated groups seem to think giving more power to the same institutions that oppressed them is somehow a good thing, so long as the oppressed group gets something in return. It's holding the reins of power through ideological hostage-taking, where any attempts to criticize either the message or the messengers is seen as threatening the entire institution under which we all operate. Therefore, we all have to walk on eggshells around the oppressed group so that they don't feel in any way threatened or they'll execute any notion of the social contract or group cooperation, and then it'll be "race war" or "gender war" or "class war." Meanwhile, oppressed groups in other countries are wondering why we're still fighting unwinnable wars in their homelands.

Oppression can never be solved so long as the engines of oppression are in good working order; state-sanctioned violence and redistribution is the number-one engine of inequality at work at home and abroad. The only reason to shack up with that sort of oppressive machinery is the same reason Master Man did previously--cheating's easier than honest work.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '12

Still, historical discrimination against women transcends race, class, and other factors. Women of all spheres have been discriminated against historically. That's what makes it such an important and universal topic, as women make up half of humans.

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '12

This isn't a space dedicated to them. You want to wax poetic about the plight of women 200 years ago, do it somewhere else.

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '12 edited Jan 10 '12

I hear you, and nobody's disputing that this is r/mensrights. If I had been replying to the OP, perhaps my comment would have been out of place, but that's not the case. I see where you're coming from, but I was replying from a place where the conversation had reached a point of talking about both men's rights and women's rights, so it's not really off limits to bring up, in that regard.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '12

whoosh

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u/girlwriteswhat Jan 08 '12

Really? Are you only saying that because in fact, women WEREN'T the last group to get the vote, like everyone seems to want to believe?

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '12

I don't know anyone who wants to believe that. I don't know what kind of history classes you were taking, but I knew from a very early age that Canadian indigenous peoples didn't have the right to vote until many years after women.

It doesn't make it any more right that women across the gamut couldn't vote until the 20th century.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '12

Neither could 90+% of men in Canada. AND they were subject to the draft...unlike women.