Want to ask Men Are Human a question about the movement or about the site? Post your questions here in the comments of the FAQ. We will answer all sensible questions below. Each part of the site has its own FAQ. If you are just trying to contact the staff, you can do so on our Discord Server. If you are looking for our Dictionary of Men’s Rights terms, you can find it here.
General Misconceptions
Myth: Those Feminists You Criticise Aren’t Real Feminists
Reality: That’s a No True Scotsman, isn’t it? Karen Straughan, AKA ‘Girl Writes What’, has created the very best response to this statement that I have ever seen – which you can read in the comments of this reddit post. This is not to say that every public Feminist is toxic – but a lot of them are, and they seem to run the movement. It is the policy of Men Are Human to confront toxic behaviour whenever we find it, which is why we criticise the toxic elements of feminism occasionally. You can rest assured, however, that if the Men’s Rights Movement ever shows signs of turning toxic we will call it out too. We are also fully willing to ally with feminists who are genuinely concerned with male inequalities.
Myth: ‘Patriarchy Exists’.
Reality: This would suggest that men are a united group who always look after the interests of other men the way women look after women. But, actually, men do not see themselves as a group. Not only that: studies that suggest that men are more sympathetic towards women than towards other men and that women like women more than men like men. The supporters of identity politics often talk as if people are primarily defined by their group and will look after their interests. Of course, reality is often way more complex than this. A person’s education, job, background, personality etc. can play a much bigger role in shaping one’s views and actions than just their skin colour or their gender. In fact, far more so.
Myth: MRAs ‘Hate Women’ or ‘just want to control them’
Reality: Several leaders of the Men’s Rights Movement are women, and male MRAs flock to listen to them speak. On the very first March For Men organised by Sydney Watson, a 450-600 MRAs and interested people came to hear her speak. At the time of writing, Sydney has over 382K subscribers. The Honey Badgers are even bigger – they are a large Men’s Rights Organisation entirely led by women. Not only do MRAs have no interest in controlling these women, they are actually following their lead and repeating their talking points. In other words, The Men’s Rights Movement is actually MORE friendly to women than Feminism is to men! Feminist men are only ever allies – MRA women are the fully fledged leaders and theorists of the movement.
Myth: MRAs are ‘just old white men’.
Reality: MRAs belong to all ages, races, genders, sexualities, and religions. Men’s Rights organisations exist all over the world, and fight many of the same issues in India and China as we do in America and England. The admins of this website include a gay man and an Indian man & we have content written by black men, women, and others. Also: calling MRAs ‘old white men’ is inherently ageist, racist, and sexist.
Myth: MRAs ‘want to send us back to the 1800s’
Reality: Men and boys in the 1800s were even worse off – hence why we trace the founding of our movement to that period! Workers rights groups were some of the first recognisable MRAs, and they actually wanted fair pay so they could give it to their wives. We say that it’s better if the wives try to earn and contribute to the household, if possible. Anyone who is shocked that MRAs would make a statement that sounds so feminist should realise that many of the core theorists of the Men’s Rights Movement broke away from the Woman’s Rights Movement because we were attacked for bringing up men’s issues.
Historical Misconceptions
Myth: The Suffragettes were ‘The Good Guys’ who won women the vote
Reality: Not only were the suffragettes actual terrorists who inspired the IRA, but they din’t win the vote for women. In actual fact, they were crazed militant bombers who nearly cost women the vote. Men at the time could not vote either, and they only gained that right as a reward for fighting as conscripts in World War One. In other words, men earned the vote through submitting to The Draft – and women got the vote at no cost, off the back of that sacrifice. Modern history has repainted the Suffragettes as heroes, but they were not very noble or well liked at the time – unless you exclusively cite their own propaganda, as many do. The fact that no known deaths were caused by the Suffragettes planting bombs in public places and burning down buildings is little short of a miracle. The Suffragettes also campaigned for war, and ran the White Feather Campaign – enforcing The Draft through public shaming.
Myth: All women wanted the right to vote.
Reality: Women were not nearly as united as people think. In fact many prominent anti-suffragettes were women, and a great number of them joined The National Anti–Suffrage League to oppose the vote. Their reasons included: a) A belief that women and men should have different roles in society, b) a concern that the female vote could lead to extra and unwanted responsibilities and burdens for women, c) a belief that women could already influence society so they didn’t need the vote, d) in the US specifically there were also racial concerns involved.
In fact, the female suffrage was so controversial that many women’s organizations banned it as a topic for discussion. It’s also worth remembering the Suffragettes only wanted to grant the right to vote to land-owning women. They did not care about the majority of men and women who did not own land.
So contrary to the narrative of movies like Suffragette (2015) where nearly all men as shown as villainous and nearly all women as shown as a united force fighting against those evil men, the issue was much more complicated. I am not saying this to suggest that women shouldn’t vote, I am saying this because certain people are promoting a misleading narrative that women and men are monolithic “identity groups”. If you want to know more, here is another link.
Myth: Men had the right to vote and women didn’t.
Reality: Since voting was for land-owners only, in most cases, only upper-class men had the right to vote. In the UK, men as a whole did not gain that right until 1918 – which they got alongside older women. Meanwhile, African-American males in America had to wait longer for their right to vote. The concept of “voting” as a general human right was very new at the time of these campaigns, and for most of history most males could not vote. The narrative that women were oppressed because they didn’t have the right to vote is correct but also misleading because it ignores that many men were oppressed too.
Other Misconceptions
Myth: MRAs are all Conservatives/Pro-Lifers
Reality: The Men’s Rights movement is entirely non-partisan, and contains people of all political and religious affiliations. We have no stance on abortion rights, and MRAs often debate if abortion is good or bad. Some MRAs are anti-abortion, but a huge chunk are pro abortion and many are neutral. Overall, women and men have similar views when it comes to abortion. The number of pro-life women in general (and in the Men’s Rights Movement) is roughly equal to the number of pro-life men. Also, side note: pro-lifers do not actively want to oppress women for the sake of it – they instead oppose abortion for personal, religious, and ethical reasons. Here is information on the demographics who support and denounce abortion.
Questions About The Site
Why Do You Show Such Horrifying Stories Of Abuse?
We MUST shine a light on the horrifying abuse of boys and men to end the apathy and pitiless scorn they face. The world has plugged its ears and shut its eyes – it does not want to know about them. It’s easy to focus only on the girls because of our instinctive urge to protect them. But we will make sure that boys and men are heard as well. We will change hearts and minds and build sympathy for them so that people realise we must take action. But to do this we must break people’s hearts with overwhelming empathy – and that is something we cannot do with bland statistics. We can only do this by telling their true stories, in all their raw and painful horror. We hope to teach people to understand just a little of their daily suffering – and thus shake them from their absolute apathy. Only when this pain is revealed to the world can we rally governments and police to enforce laws and help to end the abuse. Yes, girls and women suffer too – but their stories are constantly told. Now it is the turn of the boys, and we will not flinch away from what they have to say, or, worse, tell them they should ‘man up’ or be quiet.
Couldn’t You Build Empathy Without Abuse Stories?
Not unless you can think of a better way? To be really clear: these are stories volunteered to us by abuse victims themselves, their friends, loved ones, and horrified bystanders. They are graphic because the events themselves are graphic. Confronting abuse is how humans build empathy. We show you these stories because they help to tear down the barriers male victims face and raise awareness of the victims themselves. One of the most common things that male victims say is that authority figures such as police officers laugh at them in contempt and refuse to investigate at all. Which can lead to a boy or man killing himself (Read all three tweets to see entire story). Often the laws themselves are already in place – the victim is simply not seen as important or needing of help – or maybe they’ll even say ‘he was lucky’ to be abused. This is poison to victims and to society – and these stories help to destroy that poison by showing the consequences of abuse.
Are These Personal Stories Fact-Checked?
We take great pains to analyse stories for fraud, & many people who send in stories do so along with evidence – which we do not show you as it often contains revealing information. Unfortunately, not every story comes with hard evidence – often because they involve things like:
- Crimes that the police or authorities refused to investigate.
- Conversations that were not recorded.
- Events that happened years ago.
As such, every story in our archive exists on its own merits. However, we do check every story to be sure it makes sense, ignore ones that seem suspicious, and remove known frauds. It is also unlikely that any of the stories here are outright lies because they tend to be posted anonymously, and they concern men – who do not get much (or any) sympathy for being victims. There are also stories you can confirm for yourself – such as the ones concerning the lack of choice in male clothing.
Hey ya,
Did you request an upgrade on MHRA Connect?
Cheers
Kit
(Edited by Men Are Human as proof that you are talking to us directly)
Yep! Thanks!
Just wanted to say, I love this community. Thank you, all of you who are contributing towards it. Cheers!
Thanks a lot! And thank-you for commenting too!
hello
do you have a criteria for what you would you expect from submitted stories
eg number of words, what can and cannot be said ( eg allleged or no identifying information etc)
thanks
Hello, and thanks for your interest. Your story can be as short or long as you feel it needs to be, so long as it is fairly direct. Personal information should be avoided, and I’d say to keep it vague about those kinds of details. As to the details of the case itself, it is up to you what you include and leave out. The best way to send it in is email, so I will send you one and you can reply there if you like.
Hi I had a look around your site and couldn’t find a contact address so will ask my question here. Am wondering if the articles published her are available for publishing at A Voice for Men?
Some great pieces here, just read the one on retirement age – a rarely reported but very important issue.
Peter
Hi Peter! I will need to talk to my team, but I don’t see why not. I’ll email you to work out the details once I have talked to them about it. At the moment our main mode of contact is via the Men’s Rights Discord Server used by /r/MensRights. You can find us at: https://discord.gg/thfrJyT
Hey, Men Are Human.
Your website is connected to my account, even though I don’t own it.
I love your website, but it’s not mine, so could you please help me disconnect it?
Thank you for telling me! Could you tell me what you mean by connected? Is it giving you the ability to make pages or posts? As a subscriber you should only be able to manage your own profile.
It says it’s connected to me, but it doesn’t allow me to do anything but stay on the page stats, and it doesn’t even really show anything other than loading forever.
Huh. That’s really, really weird. I’ll make an account and try to see what you mean. There’s two different types of account, so it would help if you could tell me how you made it and how you log in…. Thanks again for telling me though, I’m glad you care about the site. 🙂
I created a WordPress account, and I subscribed to your blog, I believe before creating mine, and I also asked if I could create an article for your site (I don’t have Discord), but I don’t know what happened within all that time, at least with the account. It says that I’m commenting with my “Men Are Human account.”
And it’s hard not to care about your site! Anyone for equality, when they come across your site, they become hooked.
Aw, thank you! I’m really glad you care about the site! 🙂 I’ve looked through this as intently as I can, and (as far as I can tell) at the Subscriber level you should only be able to see a very basic wordpress layout – with options for Dashboard, Jetpack, and Profile. I’m really not sure why you are seeing more! Does it say you can make new pages or edit drafts?
No, it doesn’t say that I can make new pages or edit drafts…it just says that I own your site on my account, and even if I try to link my own site to my profile, it still says yours.
That’s very, very odd indeed. Would you mind if I emailed you so that you can send me a screenshot?
Yeah, no problem. I’ll send an email so you know it’s me, just respond, and I’ll send you a screenshot of whatever you need.