But at the same time, the MRAs have a serious problem: in the same way that some people have extremely negative associations with feminism, many have similar issues with the MRAs. If someone were to want to seriously deal with gender inequality issues in custody disputes, I’d strongly advise them to keep themselves away from being associated with the MRAs.
I’m just wandering past your conversation, but I think many people are just offended by the concept of men demanding rights—y’know, because they have enough damn rights already, and so on.
That is, the very term “men’s rights” has negative connotations even without negative associations (and probably contributed to those associations, via bias.)
Possibly, but as someone with lots of negative associations with MRAs, I’m not sure how big of a factor this is. I’m sympathetic to goals like making custody fairer or paying more attention to male victims of domestic violence. My extremely negative opinion of MRAs is based on what they’re actually like, not an abstract skepticism that there could ever be a legitimate cause with that name.
I’m just wandering past your conversation, but I think many people are just offended by the concept of men demanding rights—y’know, because they have enough damn rights already, and so on.
That is, the very term “men’s rights” has negative connotations even without negative associations (and probably contributed to those associations, via bias.)
Possibly, but as someone with lots of negative associations with MRAs, I’m not sure how big of a factor this is. I’m sympathetic to goals like making custody fairer or paying more attention to male victims of domestic violence. My extremely negative opinion of MRAs is based on what they’re actually like, not an abstract skepticism that there could ever be a legitimate cause with that name.
Not abstract, to be fair, usually …
But yes, even those without such skepticism (like myself) tend to notice that the quality is, in fact, low.