Then you don't support equality. Men have the same amount of gender equality issues (maybe even more) than women in Western countries.

"From a historical perspective alone"

History has no relevance to the fact tha men today have about the same mount of gender equality issues. In addition, just because the majority of rulers and people in power were men, that doesn't mean the majority of men were in power. In fact, rulers, politicians and CEOs constitute less than 0.1% of the population. You cannot prove anything about the average man by talking about an extremely tiny minority. Meanwhile in history men have been forced to fight bloody wars, work to death in horrible conditions etc.

"More abstractly, a "men's rights" movement would, I think, offer very little gain to humanity as a whole"

It would gain a huge amount of well-being. Such a movement is required so politicians will also try to fix gender equality issues that men face.

List here: http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/uwekw/facts_and_...

FYI, when you stay stuff like that, you seem totally unhinged to people who have actual contact with the real world. That may sound harsh, but I ain't in this internet arguin' business to baby folks.

The "facts" you link to are pretty laughable. You seriously found a reputable source that says men are more likely to be raped than women? Amazing.

> Meanwhile in history men have been forced to fight bloody wars, work to death in horrible conditions etc.

I hate how women are always forcing men to go fight wars. Also, ugh, hard work sucks! The United Nations Development Programme tells us that

"Women perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn only 10 percent of the income and own only one percent of the property." (http://tinyurl.com/cy2dtzs)

You can argue with these facts and figures, question them--how they were compiled, what they really mean, etc.--but the vast preponderance of evidence, gathered by scholars and researchers (male and female) from many fields over many years, is going to contest your assertions.

And the worst part is...you probably have a handful of really good points buried in amongst all the nonsense. Like about how courts automatically seem to favor mothers in custody cases, like about the draft exempting women, etc. But how seriously is anyone going to take those genuine concerns when they can't be seen through the morass of much sillier claims?

Irrational argument.

"The "facts" you link to are pretty laughable. You seriously found a reputable source that says men are more likely to be raped than women? Amazing."

Irrational argument.

"I hate how women are always forcing men to go fight wars."

Gender equality problem exists regardless of the causes. Even if men forced other men to fight wars, that doesn't mean men were not forced to fight wars. The problem still exists.

Currently in my country only men have to take part in forced labor. I know, I did my share. Women do not have to do any forced labor. 60% of the voters in recent elections have been women, and they indirectly decide the laws.

"Also, ugh, hard work sucks! The United Nations Development Programme tells us that"

Actually, that claim is unfounded. If you try to follow the trail of sources, you cannot find the original calculation. In addition, your argument has no revelance, because I talked about the past, not the present in the sentence.

"But how seriously is anyone going to take those genuine concerns when they can't be seen through the morass of much sillier claims?"

I'm not a politician, so I try to argue on the basis of what I believe to be true.

Sorry, but you are severely mistaken regarding the relevance of history. It is of primary relevance, because without properly understanding how we arrived at this point in history, you couldn't possibly evaluate the actual scale of gender disparities in social relations.

The percentage of male rulers as a total percentage of the human population is not a valid metric. When you study history, and the impact of rulers, you evaluate their impact on the subject population, the society and culture, as well as the world around them. History, because it is ever so relevant, shows a rather stable trend in which one can chart the increases in social inequalities in favor of one gender at the expense of another, or of one (or more) ethnicities at the expense of others, etc. So far, we are looking at about a century of social justice being established to improve the standing of women in relation to their historical subjection by men.

Once you have an adequate grounding in history, you can then start thinking philosophically through how best to proceed without retarding equality. While there are, of course, contemporary social imbalances and inequalities where men are concerned, what we do not need is more gendered lines being drawn in the sand. Moreover, we do not have a social structure in which men's labor and sexual faculties are institutionalized in a form that is under female control, which would be a huge red flag that the pendulum has swung too far.

One can advance equality and be vigilant against sexism, racism, and other forms of bigotry and discriminatory behaviors without resorting to more of this us vs. them bullshit that "men's rights" evokes. But understanding the root causes of inequalities--as opposed to merely pointing out instances of what appears to be inequality--is where the real work lies. Not a masculinism cult that establishes its identity as the negation of feminism.

In sum, a "men's rights" movement is not going to increase equality, because it is only going to codify more gendered division in the social fabric. If you're really interested in enhancing equality as a social good, you would do better to champion the cause of equality that is blind to biological and socioeconomic factors, and works instead to specifically eschew attempting to define equality as inversion of a movement whose existence required the specificity of gender because history had only ever concerned itself with the rights of man.

I'm not, really. Feminist discourse is based on the claim that women have more gender issues. They never really argue for that position. I've linked a list of gender equality issues (though my primary source is unfortunately not in English).

Here's a book on the subject if you're interested: http://granum.uta.fi/granum/kirjanTiedot.php?tuote_id=18450

"It is of primary relevance, because without properly understanding how we arrived at this point in history, you couldn't possibly evaluate the actual scale of gender disparities in social relations."

Yes you can. We can look at metrics for gender issues: e.g. do women get paid less or more (they get paid the same per hour), do women get raped more than men (not in USA), is the majority of violence made against women (it's about 50:50). It doesn't matter if women were discriminated against more in the past, if empirical evidence shows that they're not.

"what we do not need is more gendered lines being drawn in the sand."

Agree. Many men's rights activists agree on that point, and are against gender roles that hurt both men and women.

"Moreover, we do not have a social structure in which men's labor and sexual faculties are institutionalized in a form that is under female control, which would be a huge red flag that the pendulum has swung too far."

Your sentence implies that men's labor and sexual faculties are under male control, that's not true. Women decide who wins the elctions - majority of voters are women: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20231337

"One can advance equality and be vigilant against sexism, racism, and other forms of bigotry and discriminatory behaviors without resorting to more of this us vs. them bullshit that "men's rights" evokes."

That would argue that we only need men's rights movement, not a women's rights movement. Since the women's rights movement doesn't concern men's rights, we need a men's rights movement.

The biggest feminist organizations do not accept me as a member because of my gender. Their organization discriminates on the basis of gender. That's not equality. I cannot take part in the women's rights movement because of my gender. That's why we need a men's rights movement - so that men's gender equality problems are also taken care of. Currently 90% of the gender equality resources in politics is used for women's rights. That number should be 50%.

"In sum, a "men's rights" movement is not going to increase equality, because it is only going to codify more gendered division in the social fabric."

You make the implicit claim that men's rights movement is for gender roles. That's not true. In addition, you can use your own argument against women's rights movement, as it 'codifices a gendered division'.

"If you're really interested in enhancing equality as a social good,"

I'm really interestd in equality, and men's rights is the most important movement in recent years. Almost nobody used to talk about gender equality issues concerning men. In recent years, after the men's rights movement was formed, there have been small mentions of men's rights in official statements in the country I live in. Without a men's rights movement all the gender equality policy would say would be about women. Therefore, it's pretty clear that the men's rights movement increases equality.

I cannot link sources because they're not in English, but it used to be that only representatives from women's rights organizations were given representation in the official gender equality council of my country. They only talked about women's rights. Now a few seats have been given to the representatives of the men's rights movement.

This is very wrong.

The link you provide in the original comment is for violent crimes (including rape), not for rape alone. There is little doubt that women are more likely to be raped in the US than men.

Here's a relevant study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1146

"Overall, an estimated 91% of the victims of rape and sexual assault were female."

These figures are from the CDC's 2010 NISVS (National Intimiate Partner Sexual Violence Survey), although you won't find it in the executive summary. You have to look at the data tables. Here is a link to the NISVS: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/nisvs/specialreports.h...

The executive summary tells the usual story of rape being a male on female crime. There are 2 problems here. One is that they define rape as being penetrated against your will, and not being forced to penetrate (what a female rapist would do to a man). This erases female on male rape.

However, they did ask men if they had been forced to penetrate in the prior 12 months, and 1.1% of men surveyed reported that they had, and 80% of those had been attacked by a woman. 1.1% of women reported that they had been penetrated against their will in the prior 12 months, and 98% of those reported a male attacker.

So we have 50% of victims are male and 50% female. Of the 50% of male victims, 80%, or 40% of total victims, were raped by a woman.

So women are 40% of rapists. Here is a image of the data tables from the NISVS, with the relevant figured circled: http://imgur.com/a/aw0eU

And here is a link to show the number crunching on the CDC's data tables in more detail: http://www.genderratic.com/p/836/manufacturing-female-victim...

Earlier I said there were 2 problems with the executive summary. The second one is that the CDC looked at lifetime victimization, and prior 12 months victimization. Their figures for men as victims of rape (when you include being made to penetrate) are much lower than for women. In the executive summary, they use the lifetime stats to show women as the overwhelming majority of victims, and don't mention the prior 12 month numbers.

Why the disparity between lifetime victimization and prior 12 month? Lifetime stats will tend to underestimate the problem, because, over time, people tend to erase their memory of traumatic events as a survival mechanism.

From the analysis I linked above:

>Researchers into the field of traumatic memory recovery note that the longer the period of time a person is asked recall a traumatic event, the less likely they are to remember it. How this works is that surveys that ask about a traumatic event in the last six months get less false negatives than those that ask about a traumatic event in the last twelve months which, itself, gets considerably fewer false negatives than lifetime prevalence.

> For men this effect is even more pronounced.

>

> 16% of men with documented cases of sexual abuse considered their early childhood experiences sexual abuse, compared with 64% of women with documented cases of sexual abuse. These gender differences may reflect inadequate measurement techniques or an unwillingness on the part of men to disclose this information (Widom and Morris 1997).

>

>Only 16% of men with documented case histories of child sexual abuse disclosed that abuse on a survey intended to capture child sexual abuse. Sixteen percent of men compared to sixty-four percent of women.

>

>That amounts to a disclosure rate of child sexual abuse four times higher in women than in men.

>

>Is it any wonder that the CDC’s 2010 survey (correcting for their mis-categorization of female-on-male rape) found that 18.3% of women and 6.2% of men were victimized over their lifetimes?

"In January, prodded in part by outrage over a series of articles in the New York Review of Books, the Justice Department finally released an estimate of the prevalence of sexual abuse in penitentiaries. The reliance on filed complaints appeared to understate the problem. For 2008, for example, the government had previously tallied 935 confirmed instances of sexual abuse. After asking around, and performing some calculations, the Justice Department came up with a new number: 216,000. That’s 216,000 victims, not instances. These victims are often assaulted multiple times over the course of the year. The Justice Department now seems to be saying that prison rape accounted for the majority of all rapes committed in the US in 2008, likely making the United States the first country in the history of the world to count more rapes for men than for women."

Rapes inside of prison are almost all male on male, and there is evidence suggesting that the numbers of such are comparable to and may exceed rapes outside of prison. So it is not impossible that the majority of rape victims in the USA are men.

It's not like the issue of men being raped is predominantly due to women, whereas the issue of women being raped is predominantly due to men.

I also wonder if all the 'alpha male' bullshit might actually be a detrimental influence on prison rape, since it so clearly reinforces and mimics the sort of hierarchy that exists among men in prisons.

""Rape" is defined as forced sexual intercourse in which the victim may be either male or female and the offender may be of a different sex or the same sex as the victim. Victims must be at least 12 years old; victims less than age 12 are excluded from all estimates. Includes attempts and threats to commit rape."

You'd think this would include a woman raping a man with her vagina, right? Wrong. Check it: http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=31

"Forced sexual intercourse means vaginal, anal or oral penetration by the offender(s)."

It may not change the ratio but of course one must remember that is "victims of rape and sexual assaults that were reported and recorded as such".

The study linked, (text version http://bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/SOO.TXT) says only a third of the rapes reported to them were reported to police and in my cursory glance I couldn't see how many of those reported led to a conviction and how many led to a dismissal of charges, etc..

However I did notice this:

"In 1994 victims reported about 1 rape/sexual assault victimization of a female victim for every 270 females in the general population; for males, the rate was substantially lower, with about 1 rape/sexual assault of a male victim for every 5,000 male residents age 12 or older."

It's often joked on certain forums, eg reddit, that men who're incarcerated are likely to suffer rape (I'd guess women do too but the jokes are always concerning men it seems). I wonder how true that is and how well these figures reflect those crimes.

Any study that counts convictions, or even complaints, it going to underestimate male victimhood.

You need to look at victim surveys to have any hope of estimating how many man are raped, and how many women rape.

See my other post in this thread for details on that.

No, the real work is in removing inequalities. Talking about "root causes" of inequalities is only a method by which one denigrates the actual fight against inequality itself. There are countless deep and abiding inequalities which one can argue back and forth indefinitely about their origins, and this is especially true in questions of gendered inequality. Is this, that, or the other thing responsible? Here's an idea: who gives a shit? I no longer do.

For example, take the issue which finally broke my ability to take feminism: male rape victimization. Where does the purposeful ignoring of male rape victims come from? Feminists (when they admit that male rape victims exist in substantial quantities and deserve to be mentioned) would argue that the gender system produced by the Patriarchy refuses to recognize men as potential victims because that would feminize them and weaken their social position. Men's Rights Activists would argue that it is because our society systematically refuses to recognize male victimhood, period. I think the latter is a better position to take. The simplest explanation is best, and the solution is far clearer: stop that.

>If you're really interested in enhancing equality as a social good, you would do better to champion the cause of equality that is blind to biological and socioeconomic factors

There are issues that require a specificity of gender because they affect a specific gender. Discussing the development of a growth mindset in mathematics does require some discussion of gender because women and girls are much less likely to be encouraged to develop a growth mindset. Discussing rape certainly requires discussion of gender, since rape is considered as a gendered crime and the sex of the perpetrator and victim hugely affect how it is perceived. Discussion of virtually every single issue that the MRM touches upon requires a discussion of gender since they are about gender. When cops choose to apply different standards to men and women, you have to look at gender. Paternity fraud requires that one look at sex in order to be discussed because it only directly affects one. There are times and places where pretending that everything is solved is the optimal solution to a given problem; there are also times and places where it is not.

The idea that one should ignore socioeconomic and biological factors in championing the cause of equality is systematically wrong. Sometimes people suffer specifically because they are men. Sometimes they suffer specifically because they are women. You have to discuss this or you might as well not discuss anything at all.

More abstractly, a "men's rights" movement would, I think, offer very little gain to humanity as a whole, and would threaten to destabilize and retard the advancement of human rights and greater gender and sexual equality in social relations.

There are a number of things that need to come from men, about men, for men. One example is the fight against the social stigma for men showing emotion in public. Others are questioning the factors of masculinity, which media seems to paint as aggressive warrior-types and downplay mere assertiveness or mature responses. Another is the mocking of prison rape as a complete joke, or even tacitly approving it as part of the punishment process, this needs to change. Other things like 'mothering takes a lifetime, fathering takes seconds' are a joke, but they also play to stereotypes we have that need breaking.

The context is important - "don't forget about men, they have issues that also need addressing" is indeed doomed to fail if it's genesis is reactionary against feminism, but it can be quite constructive if it's done in the mindset of "while we're working on women's problems, let's also work on men's". Unfortunately, there's a lot more chaff in the voices of the men's movement, but there are still significant issues that should be looked at. It's not a zero sum game - the conditions for both genders can be improved at the same time.

Males showing emotion in public? Check.

Seriously tackling and solving the sexual and physical assault that is endemic to the US prison system? Absolutely check+. The US prison system is systemically atrocious and I find it sickening. I find it more sickening that people can know about it and even entertain the notion that it is 'part of the punishment process'. That is disgusting.

Male denigration in terms of family law and the ways in which men are the victims of sexism as it relates to parenting is also unacceptable.

It was the point of advocating a reactionary movement that appears to define itself as the negation of (and, in places, the victim of) feminism that I cannot support in any way. Hope that clarifies a bit better.

Different from what? And I could equally argue that we need to enhance the recognition and appreciation of [non-collossal-assholish-douchebaggy] femininity, Adria Richards being a case in point.

"Seriously tackling and solving the sexual and physical assault that is endemic to the US prison system? Absolutely check+. The US prison system is systemically atrocious and I find it sickening. I find it more sickening that people can know about it and even entertain the notion that it is 'part of the punishment process'. That is disgusting."

Agreed, just look above. If one even cites statistics showing that -gasp- men get raped too people look at you funny and ask when you're going to go back to talking about women.

"Male denigration in terms of family law and the ways in which men are the victims of sexism as it relates to parenting is also unacceptable."

Glad to hear it.

"It was the point of advocating a reactionary movement that appears to define itself as the negation of (and, in places, the victim of) feminism that I cannot support in any way. Hope that clarifies a bit better."

The term "MRA" means someone who advocates in favour of men's rights. If you care about men being raped in prison then I've got news for you: You're an MRA. That's where the implied association and definition ends. You're also, I assume, a political activist. The nazis were political activists too, but noone says that because of your political activism you "appear to define yourself as a nazi." Many MRAs are anti-feminist, many aren't. It would appear that you're one of the "aren't."

The term "Feminism" is much less well defined. It might shock you to learn that many feminists have come out against the issues you mentioned being addressed and have even argued that they don't exist. I'm glad to hear you don't think this way and think that men's issues and anti-male sexism are no more acceptable than anti-female sexism but many feminists disagree and they appear to define the movement just as much as you appear to define it.

I'm not an anti-feminist, the word means too many things for me to say I stand firmly against it, but there's at least as many feminists that are worthy of criticism as there are MRAs.

And please, for your own sake and everyone else's, do not assume to have the slightest capability to say what I "immediately assumed" when I "heard men's rights". You haven't the faintest idea.

The comments made by the original commenter who incorrectly thought my comments leaned his way injected more unnecessary division into an already sensitive subject.

It was overtly apparent that the thread was about to get hijacked by tangential bullshit that would derail the actual issue(s) under discussion--which did not include men's rights advocacy or its adherents and there varied motivations.

When I decided to reply, I was responding to the content posted at the time--content that made it perfectly clear 'the reactionary label' fit like a glove.

How is it? Is attempting to publicly humiliate someone and get them fired now preferred over politely asking them to stop?

> NOT someone who likely has to deal with sexist bullshit day in and day out in a male dominated and sexualized industry.

"Society is male dominated, therefore it's acceptable to publicly humiliate someone and get them fired over dongle jokes".

> thousands of comments here and at reddit and on twitter posting her real life address, calling for her to be raped or cut, etc. Extreme and vicious misogyny.

I haven't personally seen any of this; it's mostly just people disagreeing with her behavior.

Rule #1 of the internet: there are trolls.

> The original incident may have been a "false positive" as you say

Wait, do you seriously think that publicly humiliating someone and getting them fired over a dongle joke is not a problem?

> the response has been 100% vicious and violent misogyny.

You mean "100% of the troll posts I looked at were troll posts".

By the way, misogyny is the hatred of women in general. A hateful post is not necessarily misogyny just because it's directed at a woman. Eg. I can hate Sarah Palin and post about how I hope she gets eaten by a grue, but that's not misogyny.

100% fascist thoughts.

If you don't agree with me, you're not only wrong, you're evil. Disgusting that you would even go there.

Please do not lump us in with the 'extreme and vicious misogyny', for which I am not the only one who has zero tolerance of it and offers it no support at all.

Adria's overreaction and characterization of this event as sexism is very relevant. I understand that she may have 'to deal with sexist bullshit day in and day out in a male dominated' world, and I specifically go to bat for that. But this situation was not sexism, and it is relevant and important to make that clear.

Because a bunch of assholes are using this as a platform to spout misogynistic bullshit and threats does not mean others cannot or should not speak out.

And the fact that I spoke out, along with plenty of others, without being even obliquely misogynist means the response has not been '100% vicious and violent misogyny.'

I don't support that shit in any way, and I won't even hesitate to say that kind of reaction is fucked up. It is exactly why I am a philosophical Marxist who takes the subjugation of women to the material power of men very seriously.

Also, it's not for the conference organizers to say she was wrong. You don't deal with people being uncomfortable about a situation, as an organizer, by saying, "Hey, sorry, but that's not a big deal. Why don't you just go sit down and not worry about it?" You are obligated to deal with it, and the PyCon staff did exactly what they should have done.

The men's comments were inappropriate and wrong for the place and time. Adria's response was even more inappropriate and wrong for the situation.

Threatening Adria's person, calling her names, pillorying her with misogynistic hate speech is completely unacceptable and fucking wrong.

I can't judge what happened at this convention--wasn't there, don't know what all was overheard, or what people may have said during an interview with managers that might have led to a firing... nor do I know if the firing was indeed some kind of appeasement gesture that really was massively unjust to the guys. So I'll leave it to those more familiar with the events and people to determine whether or not this was a justified firing.

As an aside, and possibly an irrelevant one...in my experience, which I know doesn't count as evidence towards anything, people get away with making crude jokes at the expense of others most of the time. It's rare to see people held accountable for their poor judgment. You've got to be pretty confident of your own untouchability to make off-color jokes in a professional environment when you're surrounded by people you don't know. Maybe these guys didn't do anything like that, and, if so, what happened to them is quite bad. Even if it was just a misunderstanding (they didn't think they were making crude remarks; if they'd had the chance to talk it over with the person who reported them, she'd have seen that she had misheard them and would agree they were blameless), it'd be quite sad that one of the guys got fired because of it. On the other hand, I'd like to live in a world where people don't feel smugly confident that they can do or say whatever they want and the rest of us will hunch our shoulders and take it.

As GLBT, I really have to politely disagree here. Trans men especially tend to take a lot of shit from women who think they've committed some sort of cardinal sin for being who they are (it's usually phrased as them trying to make some sort of male power grab, or whatever). Women should have rights, but men should have them too. That's what equality ought to entail. Currently, we've made some significant progress not just in recognizing the need for women's rights, but actively forcing a change in the status quo. It's still politically incorrect to even recognize that men are discriminated against in some areas, and that's really disheartening to me.

True gender equality would HELP the GLBT cause because we need lesbians to not take crap for not being feminine "enough" and gay men to not take crap for not being "masculine" enough. Sex discrimination against men is actually a huge issue, but it's so politically incorrect to address it. If you're a man, and GLBT, you can kind of get double whammied by it since you have to deal with the GLBT part and then also the discrimination against men when you're already severely disadvantaged. If you're a woman, you have a lot of social support dedicated to you (domestic violence shelters, lots of other assistance), at least compared to men.

I believe that women and men BOTH should have rights. I don't understand why this is such a problem with the majority of the feminist movement. (I have met some absolutely lovely and rational feminists, but most of them are over the age of 50. I'm not really sure what's happened to this generation of them, but for the most part, it's been really...not good.)

I also really hope that same-sex marriage will help the men's rights movement (as well as the women's rights movement!). As an egalitarian, I'm all for the courts coming to realize that brain breaking moment in a lesbian divorce where they can't just give the kids and all the money to the female, because there are two of them. Perhaps a concrete inability to rotely perform sex discrimination because there aren't different sexes to take up their traditional "roles" will force the legal system to look into itself and realize the magnitude of the discrimination against men that they've been perpetuating.

---

I, too, consider myself to be an egalitarian where the material conditions and social relations of people are at stake. I've made a number of attempts at clarifications, all the while making it explicitly clear that I'm supportive of and advocating for completely eliminating gender inequalities. I'm either doing a poor job of explaining that, or others are doing a poor job of reading my many clarifications.

To put it bluntly, there's no way I could respond to every men's rights comment with a clear and considered explanation of the positives and negatives, as well as an accounting of the pitfalls and errors made. The topic itself is tangential, distracting, and derailing from the issues raised by the event at Pycon, specifically in relation to how the offending men's actions are being erroneously and unfairly contextualized and framed as 'sexist' by the wider tech community.

I did not want to just sweep gender inequalities under the rug where male-identifying persons are concerned, as if it doesn't exist. I wanted to focus attention, instead, on the nuances of properly identifying sexism apart from inappropriate comments in a given situation, and the ways in which it leads to gender disparities in social relations in general.[1]

At first, I ignored the men's rights issues out of a desire to not deviate from the issues I raised, and interest in engaging with those who were replying to the points I brought up. I did not want to kick off a side-thread on men's rights. I wanted to avoid seeing the conversation turn into an us vs them argument. I hoped we could actually discuss the need to correct the reactionary labeling of impolite and inappropriate comments and behaviors as automatically sexist, when so many times it is simply impolite and inappropriate. Even at the worst end of the non-sexist spectrum, someone might deal with an asshole, and I think it's far more productive to the tech community and society at large if everyone could actually tell (and advocate) the difference between someone being an asshole and someone being a sexist asshole.

[I'm not saying my reaction was right; I'm trying to contextualize it within my personal quirks and goals so it's understood.]

By the time a couple hours passed, the men's rights derailment was already well underway, with quite a few reactionary posts following the first that were increasingly divisive, and substantially less constructive to the actual thread. More notably, the discussion consistently conveyed a less erudite, misinformed, and poorly rendered assessment and presentation of incredibly disconnected, questionable, exaggerated, and falsely attributed or incomplete evidence--all conflated to advance a flimsy premise that 'men have it as bad as (and often worse than) women'. Much of what was argued at the time I decided to comment (specifically the one to which you've responded) could not be taken seriously as presented.

So, I had choices. I could dig in, evaluate the evidence & reasoning presented, explain why much of it had to be disregarded as non-causal/incomplete/misattributed/exaggerated/etc., do the philosophically correct and helpful thing by improving their arguments for them so I wasn't just responding to the weakest, most hastily cobbled together rant ... or I could just not engage, and try to bring the focus back to where it should be. I could give in slightly and add some clarifications that would elucidate my intentions and meaning, while making it plain I was not interested in seeing the conversation devolve into a circular exchange of pointless tu quoque; indulging countless iterations of "if a man did x, women would sell their mothers into slavery to claw his eyes out and publicly shame him"; 20 more comments brow-beating people about male-victimizing sexual assault endemic to the US's deplorable prison system; etc. Those are three of the choices I recall considering at the time.

Fundamentally, my goal was to protect the conversation from becoming a cesspool of what was already starting to increase in vitriol and volume on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and other endpoints--preserving and encouraging a space where the tech community, male/female/trans, could constructively grapple with a problem we need to make right for everyone so we don't keep fucking each other up every time we get in the same damn room (to enjoy and participate in the same damn event/hobby/pasttime/passion/etc., no less!).

[1]: A sometimes less-helpful feature of my personality, made habit by philosophical study and debate, I maintain a very strong aversion to changing the subject, lest one damage one's own argument, lose one's audience, or make it impossible to logically conclude a line of thought. It's a quirk that is not well suited to internet threads, I think.

Another redditor I'm afraid. Who ever said that fighting for men's rights comes at the expense of women's (or anyone else's)?

I also find it quite offensive for you to put scare quotes around men's rights like that. If you're genuinely committed to equality you'd do well to read up on the human rights issues which you, as a man, are much more likely to face than the female collegues you mentioned earlier. Men in the MRM (white or otherwise) aren't despondant due to disappearing privilege, they're dispondant due to an assumption of privilege (much of which never really existed) and a willful ignorence of ongoing oppression on the part of society around them. Ignorence even from other men who proclaim their support for social justice.

The identification of gender as an equivalent of class is horribly flawed and a hopelessly blunt tool for examining an infinitely nuanced and a very two sided issue.