Guys like Houser are a minority, but on Reddit, you could understandably think otherwise.
My thing is I've seen coverage of MRA outside reddit. Hand wavy, slippery slope, whatever. It makes me wonder how big it is. Men have plenty of rights, we don't need a counter movement because some assholes feel left out at the civil rights table and I think people who believe that are dangerous.
With the amount of times I've had to relocated myself to be away from vocal assholes that bully others around enough for me to say, well, 'let's not see where where this goes", it's a lot. My safety comes first. Don't care if that sounds paranoid, I'm still alive, still recently single after nearly becoming a statistic as was described in this article. I attribute my current aliveness to choosing to remain single. It's my new health plan for a longer life. A vibrator and a pet for companionship, and friends for going out with, I'm far more happier than I ever was in a redeathlonship.
I actually disagree about this. Yes, overall, things are probably better for men than for women, especially with regards to this particular topic. However, there are some issues for which men got the short end of the stick (being taken seriously by the police when they say they have been raped, the prevalence of prison rape, the mismatch in the likelihood of getting custody of one's children, men who have had to pay child support for children they never knew they had, etc.,) and the Men's Rights Movement seeks to address those issues, without compromising the equality gained with feminism. I understand the reputation MRA's have and plenty of them are truly dangerous chauvinists, but I think this is a case, like you see with feminists as well, where a small but loud and extreme or irrational minority screams the loudest and makes the group as a whole look bad.
Right. Just about every violent crime (can't think of one where this isn't true) is more likely to be committed by men, and to men, than women, including rape. A growing disparity between genders in education exists. Something like 40 percent of domestic abuse cases had male victims in the UK according to a study a few years ago - it's probably similar or more than that in the USA. The vast majority of workplace deaths are men. Significantly more men are homeless and commit suicide than women. Now, these are just a few facts. This can be separate from things less quantifiable, like issues with the male gender role, court-related problems, and so on. I'm not an MRA or someone doing really any kind of work for men's rights (this post being the most I've done in quite a while, since a post similar to this). However, I don't think men's issues should be ignored, and I think activists in that area should be lauded like other activists are. Life is complex and time is limited, we need not expect everyone to take an active interest in every cause. In fact, this is why activists exist in the first place. What time I volunteer tends to go toward other things. Some issues are much more pressing that others, but that doesn't mean the whole world need to focus on them. Splitting the effort seems, to me, a much more reasonable approach. So, while I agree with the other user in saying that men's issues tend to less important than a lot of others, I don't think it warrants completely ignoring them and calling those who don't assholes. That's a little ridiculous. Hell, I mean, feminists and environmentalists don't give a shit about Rohingya Buddhists, child warriors in Africa, or general mistreatment of animals worldwide. And that's okay - Divide and conquer!