First the important and ‘good’ stuff.
UPDATE: You can donate HERE.
Survivors UK is a rare beast, a charity concerned with male victims of rape. Statistics are notoriously hard to come by on the incidence of male rape and men are even less likely than women to report sexual violation, but in the United States it has been suggested that – if you include prison rape – men may be even more likely to suffer a sexual violation than women.
Despite this there’s precious little support for male victims of sexual violation (or domestic abuse for that matter).
As such, Survivors UK deserves our support, fundraising efforts and perhaps most importantly, awareness raising.
Despite being interested in these topics, I was virtually unaware of the existence of Survivors UK so, clearly, there needs to be consciousness raising of their efforts and increased support from the Men’s Human Rights/Men’s Issues communities, as well as anyone with a conscience.
However, sadly, Survivors UK has had their funding cut to nothing.
There is a petition to protest this and as well as the Twitter link above you can check out their website. Please add this resource to your men’s issues blogs and websites as a link to raise them in the Google search rankings and to raise their profile so that men who have suffered sexual violation have more chance of finding them.
Thank you.
***
Now the less good stuff.
I found out about Survivors UK and their funding crisis via an awful, awful article in The New Statesman by June Eric-Udorie.
The overwhelming majority of the article was not concerned with Survivors UK or their funding crisis, but rather with bashing Men’s Human Rights movement and accusing them of the usual laundry list of complaints, misrepresentations and so on. I’ll answer that part of the article below:
Recent government statistics estimate that 75,000 men are victims of sexual assault or attempted assault and 9,000 men are victims of rape or attempted rape every year. Yet, despite the figures, dangerous stereotypes still persist that men can’t get raped and we can’t seem to break the taboo around the subject.
Sadly, feminism is not helping that. There have been efforts in some countries to prevent ‘made to penetrate’ being counted as rape and concepts such as patriarchy and privilege undermine the idea that men can also be victims, that they can be powerless, that they can be victimised. Feminist rhetoric also dominates the public conversation on these topics and does little or nothing to tackle men’s issues by leveraging that privilege and power. Even when it does mention these issues, it becomes twisted with ideological dogma (patriarchy theory) and ends up being used as a club to further beat men with – precisely as has occurred in this article.
I am outraged and we all should be. Survivors UK run a vital service for men who have been affected by sexual abuse and if it shuts, this will affect countless men in London. But perhaps what makes me angrier is that so few men and men’s rights activists (more commonly known as MRAs online) have condemned this.
It’s good that you’re outraged. Hopefully that outrage will carry you forward to examine other men’s issues and get angry about those too but I shan’t be holding my breath. Personally, I am incredibly angry that you used this outraged animus less to help Survivors UK and to highlight men’s issues but rather to bash further on men and their advocates, who have been fighting for funding and attention on this and similar issues for years.
I didn’t know about this issue, despite being interested and involved in Men’s Issues and I had to hear it from you, contained within rabid misandry that honestly made me suspect that Survivors UK might not be a good charity to back – if someone like you thought they were worthwhile.
Why didn’t I know about it?
Why doesn’t this story have a higher profile?
Why was the funding cut in the first place?
Because these issues aren’t considered important, aren’t communicated, aren’t made public and this is largely down to feminist domination of the discourse on the issue and the dismissive attitude even you still show, despite claiming to be upset about this.
I’m always being told that feminists don’t give a shit about issues like male rape or suicide. In fact, our detractors contend, feminists don’t give a shit about men. In case you missed the memo, feminists hate men. At least that’s the impression that we get from anti-feminist men and MRAs, mostly active on the web where they moan about men being oppressed because obviously, being a man is so hard these days.
And they say this with good reason. I would refer you to the above comments and the continual dismissal, laughing at and undermining of men’s issues. Again, you, yourself, used an article ostensibly about the scandal of this charity being defunded, primarily to attack men and men’s advocates. Part of the problem.
And yes, being a man is hard these days, not that it was ever easy. People don’t appreciate how hard.
Yes, there are issues that predominantly affect men like homelessness and suicide, but surely it’s a no brainer that both men and women suffer in our patriarchal society – one that prizes masculinity and expects only three things of women: to get married, get fucked and have babies.
You’re advocating part of the problem when you bring up ‘patriarchy’. A nonsensical conspiracy theory that blames everything on men and which simultaneously claims that men control and run society for their benefit, yet are harmed by it, which would mean it couldn’t be a patriarchy.
Are there patriarchal societies historically and in the contemporary world? Sure. Here in the west? No.
Masculinity isn’t a dirty word and is not the only thing valued. Our society does not only expect women to get married, get fucked and have babies but it does still expect men to self-sacrifice, protect and provide and that comes as much from women as anything else.
However, Paul Elam, the founder of A Voice for Men, disagrees and told the Huffington Post that “the problem we see is a culture that puts women first in so many ways and men last”. Men’s Rights Canada launched their controversial “Don’t be that Girl” campaign, which said that women often make false rape accusations because they feel guilty for having one night stands. And on Return of Kings, when commenting on the statistic that 90 per cent of women know the perpetrators in rape cases, a contributor wrote that “a man looking to rape someone would not pick a target who could identify him to the police”. The focus from men’s rights activists seems to be on false rape accusations by women (which are far and few) rather than helping male victims of sexual violence.
Paul Elam and A Voice for Men are not the only face of Men’s Issues, any more than Cathy Brennan is the voice of all feminism – though Elam and AVFM are a hell of a lot more sane than she is. While I appreciate the work of AVFM in many instances I felt they were too strident and made too many of the same mistakes feminism has over the years, which is why I decided to create this space for myself. CAFE, Honey Badger Brigade, KSUMen and other groups are also more moderate and measured than AVFM is.
Even though I part company with AVFM and prefer to set my own tone, I must defend them – and others – when they are attacked and misrepresented as you have done here. Don’t be that Girl was a much broader campaign than you represent and was a reaction to a disgustingly misandrist campaign in their province that was essentially assuming any and all men were rapists-in-waiting who had to be told not to.
Return of Kings is NOT an MHRA website, as has been repeatedly made clear both by RoK and AVFM in the wake of the Mad Max stupidity.
False rape accusations are an issue, as are many other things coming out of feminist activism on these issues – such as advocacy of removing basic rights from men (such as being considered innocent until proven guilty when accused of rape). It’s unsurprising that a large amount of Men’s Issues Activism is fixated on at least preserving existing rights against assault.
The reality is that MRAs are a group of misogynists who spend their time on the internet saying things that simply aren’t true or attacking women. The Southern Poverty Law Centre describes their activism as “dedicated to savaging feminists and in particular, women”. MRAs do not really care about men. They resent feminists not only because their campaign to get rid of Page 3 denied them their daily wank at the breakfast table, but also because every step forward in achieving gender equality, where women are not a subclass of fuckable objects, is a disadvantage in their eyes. And sadly, their resentment towards the fight for the liberation for women does not actually make any difference to the men they are trying to help. I’m sure than men who genuinely believe in gender equality must be fed up with their rhetoric that the reason why men are “suffering” is because of women.
These are standard talking points, all debunked at length on various Men’s Issues sites. Here’s the short version.
- Misogyny means the hatred of women. While I’m sure there are genuine misogynists within the MHRA there are also genuine misandrists within the feminist movement. Neither should be taken as representative of the whole. The MHRA movement does not hate women, there is a distinct difference between hating a particular wave of feminism (the ideology) and women (the human beings).
- The SPLC gets constantly quoted in reference to the MHRA but is not particularly credible. It’s specific claims upon which it based its conclusions have been debunked and while not mentioned here it is often said the SPLC called the Men’s Movement a hate group, when it did not.
- The objection to the NMP3 campaign is to preserve free expression and because it hurts absolutely nobody. It is an overreach by sex-negative current-wave feminists also resisted by free-speech advocates and sex positive feminists.
- We already have gender equality in the west – would be the argument of the Men’s Movement and it’s not equality that’s the issue to any MHRA I’ve ever talked to. It’s where things go past that point and begin harming the other sex. It is even arguable that women now have more rights than men in the west as they have every right men do, but also have reproductive and bodily integrity rights that men don’t, as well as having degrees of legal advantage based solely on gender in arenas such as custody battles. It’s also arguable that in a non-rights, non-legislative arena that women also now have enormous advantage, up to and including a reversal of the ‘pay gap’ which doesn’t really exist in the first place. Not to mention – relevant to this article – a stranglehold on funding for dealing with sexual and domestic assault.
Challenging why a Men’s Movement might spend time fighting against feminism is like asking an anti-fac group why they spend time fighting Stormfront when they could just be helping minorities. Defending against incursions on rights and the victimisation of men does help men.
For instance, on “The Rights of Man”, Skimmington writes that all-women shortlists for political selections mean that “men are banned (in Labour’s case) from standing for Parliament solely because they are men”. I guess I didn’t notice the men who are MPs for the Labour Party. Paul Elam once wrote on “A Voice for Men” that drunk women were “freaking begging to be raped”.
Would an ‘all male’ shortlist or an ‘all white’ shortlist be acceptable?
No it would not.
Why not?
Racism/sexism.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
If there are male MPs it is because they won their selection processes and got elected. There is not and has not been anything barring women from pursuing the same aim. Gender-limited selection lists, however, do bar people on the basis of gender and since they suggest women can’t win and get elected on their own merits, you would think that feminists might be against it.
It seems that if men and MRAs aren’t writing, and let’s be honest, complete bullshit, they are attacking women. Men’s rights activist and founder of Justice for Men and Boys (and the women who love them), Mike Buchanan, has accused the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, Laura Bates of lying because she talks about sexism and the disproportionate effects it has on women compared to men. He also gives out “awards” to feminists for “lying”. Men on the internet can send the feminist campaigner, Caroline Criado-Perez online abuse detailing how they want to kill, mutilate and rape her, interspersed with complaints about the inequalities that men face and how men are neglected. But do we see them taking any action?
While there are sometimes valid points on #EverydaySexism, sexism is also something suffered by men, but any posting of sexism men face to that tag is met with derision and is minimised or dismissed. Most of what’s on there is what Hirsi-Ali calls ‘Trivial bullshit’, extremely subjective, or describes what might also be termed ‘female privilege’.
I’m not a huge fan of Buchanan either, while he’s often right on the statistics he comes across as rather pompous and fits a stereotype which doesn’t help the cause of men’s issues. People do, however, lie for social advantage, especially in relation to social activism. Look at Rachel Dolezal, Anita Sarkeesian or Brianna Wu and you see this is not that rare a phenomenon in activists with a large media footprint.
We do see men taking action, but we often only hear about it when people like you write a bashing article like this. When the funding has already been withdrawn. You’re not interested in reporting on Men’s Issues group when they’re trying to do something – or succeeding.
As to Perez, she got two harmless, mentally unstable people imprisoned for trolling that could easily have been ignored. She’s hardly the poster-child you want here since she’s an authoritarian bully with all the net-savvy of a spoon.
Since the funding for Survivors UK was cut, Michael May started a petition calling for proper funding for men’s services. Since he started it, another one was initiated by Andy Keene asking that the Diversity and Equalities Officer of Goldsmith’s University be sacked. Bahar Mustafa created an event and asked that men did not attend because she wanted to create a safe space for black and minority ethnic women. That petition had over 23,700 signatories compared with the just over 3,900 signatories of the Survivors UK. It’s hard not to draw conclusions about the relative weight given to these two issues from this.
Which one had the higher media profile and why?
Mustafa is a horrific racist who has been defended to the hilt by ‘progressive’ activists such as yourself. The double standard riles people up and the hypocrisy created a media storm that drew people’s attention. In contrast, I only heard about Survivors UK from you.
The idea that the world doesn’t revolve around men’s needs is inconceivable for MRAs, and that is why they try and get women to shut up, painting misogyny as the righteous option in the process. Men’s rights activists forget that the feminist fight for equality will benefit us all. As Laura Bates, the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project has said, “It’s not about men against women but people against prejudice”.
It doesn’t. Men’s Issues campaigners well know this. In fact, the world sees men as disposable, as being unworthy and unneeding of help and you’ve done nothing to change that with this article.
MHRAs don’t want women to shut up, they want militant, radical feminists who are harming men (and women) to be pushed back against in order to preserve everyone’s freedom and to allow Men’s Issues to be honest addressed.
Feminists don’t seem to fight for equality in this current wave (smaller, less public divisions of the movement notwithstanding). MHRAs do actually seem to be invested in equality by comparison. If equality will truly benefit us all then you should be working alongside the Men’s Human Rights Movement, not against it. If you dismiss anti-feminist concerns, perhaps you should examine your own prejudices against the MHRA, since they mirror one another.
It is about people against prejudice, and the prejudice against men – exemplified in this godawful article – is a prime example.
All sides can do better.
Pax.
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