Ok, so we have feminists, of which I am one.

The men I know like and/or love are morally upstanding lovely people whom I deeply respect. I do not like generalized statements about either gender. I think statements who assert that ‘all men are….’ are ridiculous. I also think stereotypes about women, or certain sub-sets of women are dumb. Equally dumb are claims like “feminists are.. (insert broad generalization here)“.

But, there’s one exception to my refusal to stereotype, and the groups I do tend to stereotype are Men’s Rights Groups.

A little background on the Men’s Rights Movement. The group is mostly made up of white males. The most disenfranchised group, historically and currently (uhm..). I am not making the claim that white men have never been unfairly or harshly treated (it’s a class and money-thing), but if we were to compare to other groups in society, they’ve had a pretty good run.
Anyway, these guys feel that with the advent of feminism, they’ve lost fundamental rights. Most long for a more “traditional societal structure”, but not knowing the complexity of social structures around the world, what they’re really describing is fifties Western utopian ideal of sorts (2 parents, 2 children living in one household).  A place where women were dainty, feminine and submissive, and where men were allowed to set the rules. Such a structure may  have existed for a fleeting moment, but trust, it is an idealised image. Thus, not real.
Nevertheless. The Male-rights guys have started looking for women in far-flung corners of the world in the hopes that they might find the kind of woman they seek. I read one hilarious thread once (can’t find it now) where they were discussing this particular problem; one of the participants claimed that the Philippines was the place to go to find said submissive feminine woman. Another debater responded with a claim that Pinay-women no longer were any good because of Western influence. A third responded that there were still some good Pinay-women but that you had to go up into the small villages in the  mountains. And it left me with a mental  image of chubby little white guys trekking through the jungle in search of “the perfect woman” :D

Nevertheless, these men have a solid hatred on for women, and will rail against Western women as “shallow and obsessed with money and power”.

Such outrageous statements  would be quite funny (to me anyway) if it wasn’t for the fact that some of these guys do real harm. There was the Ecole Polytechnique massacre in Montreal, where nine women were shot and six killed. This by a man who claimed to be fighting feminism because feminism had “destroyed his life”. Then there was George Sodini. He went to a gym in Pittsburg and killed three women, and injured nine more. The reason was that he couldn’t seem to find women who would be with him (gee, I wonder why?). And of course, there’s a slew of other cases, just not on the same scale (I think. I am not sure).

I am not entirely unempathetic. It must be difficult not being able to find a mate. I do wonder though, what kind of woman is it that these men think they deserve? How do they treat the women they meet? And why are so many women victimized by men when all the men in my life manage perfectly well to treat the opposite gender with respect and love?
You guys should give classes.