The Men's Rights Movement: I Just Don't Get It.

[Esquilax]

Sure they claim they want equality and they make a fuss (and rightly so) when there is prejudice against women, but, I have never heard a feminist argue over the fact that men get more jail time for the same crime than women. Neither have I heard them calling for child custody to be equal.

Have you been looking? There's another amazing atheist video- I can't remember which it is right now, but I'll look it up when I get home- that has a feminist woman reading from an article (in a very hostile tone, I'll say right now) that argues that the feminist movement, free from the extremes of radical feminism, strives for all of those things.

This is an unfortunate part of human nature, both the Men's Rights jerks and the Radfem assholes; we see an issue, and for some of us the first instinct is to dig in one's heels and go for the extreme the moment you're met with opposition. Your position ceases to be about the issue, but about being correct. You (the general you, not you specifically, Rationalman ) get too invested, to the point where conceding any point at all feels like an outright loss. And of course, all the while when that's happening, your opposition is getting just as riled up.

Men's Rights Activism exists because radical feminism exists, because male privilege exists, because... well, a whole host of reasons. The extreme ends of the spectrum should be just as laughable as fundamentalist religious dudes are to us atheists, but in this case neither men's rights nor radfeminism needs to exist at all, because regular feminism sort of comes in and does the job of both groups, without coming across as a bunch of rabid picketers, foaming at the mouth.

If only that job wasn't made so much harder by having to stand in the shadow of the attention grabbing bullies on both sides.