Blog:My stance on Men's Rights

Hey guys, so like all of my other blogs that were on AYTW, this is a repost of one of my blogs from AYTW. It's basically where I stand on the subject of Men's Rights, not the Men's Rights Movement. However, I will state what I think of the Men's Rights Movement in this blog. So with that said, here we go.

Where I stand
For months now, I have been browsing the site Reddit, on a subreddit called, "LeftWingMaleAdvocates". I don't have a Reddit account, but I still browse the LWMA subreddit, since it is a good subreddit for discussing men's rights issues. The subreddit itself is meant to be a subreddit taking a left-wing stance on men's issues, as opposed to a right-wing stance. I consider myself to be a left wing male advocate, since I am a leftist. Plus, a lot of the issues discussed are legitimate such as bias in courts in cases of divorce, and others. And I am not against feminism as a movement or concept, and am willing to work with feminists on men's issues. I shall explain next what left wing male advocates do, and some things about the subreddit itself.

About LWMA
As mentioned earlier, LeftWingMaleAdvocates is a subreddit dedicated to left wing advocates for men's issues. The subreddit itself started after a user on the subreddit called FEMRADebates (which is a good subreddit for Men's and women's rights) created it around 2019 or 2018, to make a subreddit that is the opposite of the MensLib and MensRights subreddits. The term "left wing male advocate" is a term that means a left-winger, particularly male who advocates for men's rights issues from a left-wing stance. Us LWMAs want men's rights to not be hijacked by the right-wing, as the right-wing in America claims to be the advocates for men's rights, whereas many of their policies and standpoints end up holding back men and oppressing men. One way that happens is by being anti-Healthcare and food stamps, which is needed for men, especially homeless ones since men make up the high percentage of the homeless population in America. Another way is by being against pornography, which many men need for sexual pleasure. I could explain the other ways the right-wing is not for men's rights and why they shouldn't lead the movement, but you could just go the subreddit and read about it now if you want, and so this blog doesn't end up becoming incredibly long. The main reason why we don't want men's rights issues or activism becoming associated the right-wing is because most right-wingers (particularly the mainstream right-wing commentators, politicians, and news outlets) do not actually advocate for men's issues, and most of the time use them as a tool for anti-feminism, or to appeal to their voters or audiences. Plus, many right-wing politicians are in favor of war and the military draft which ends up leading to the deaths of millions of men. They also frequently deny issues such as police brutality, which tons of men experience, especially many black men. And many right-wing politicians or commentators are misogynistic or homophobic, which ends up making the Men's Rights Movement looking like a breeding ground for sexism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. The last reason is that the right-wing tends to be reactionary, as opposed to having a specific set of stances. Now us LWMAs are willing to work with feminists and we agree with feminists on certain things. Some of the things we agree with them on is that there is a system that enforces strict gender roles on women and men, there are certain types of behaviors associated with masculinity that are harmful to men, that women have been oppressed more than men (that doesn't minimize oppression men have faced though), etc. So we're not anti-feminists and are willing to work with feminists on men's issues. However, we do not blindly agree with every aspect of feminism, and we are willing to criticize certain things about the feminist theory and movement, as we think feminism is not above criticism. Plus, there are groups like Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (AKA TERFs for short) which have a high amount of misandry, and are criticized by feminists as well. The subreddit differs from the MensRights subreddit, as many users on the MensRights subreddit end up being hostile towards feminists and feminism. It also differs from MensLib as MensLib is too pro-feminist, and has been caught deleting comments, as well as downplaying Men's rights issues.So that's most of what I will explain about LWMA and the subreddit, as more of the information exists on the subreddit itself. Now onto some of the issues we take a stance on.

Issues we talk about
Some men's rights issues we talk about include bias in courts when it comes to cases of divorce, police brutality, the military draft, male suicide rate, male death rate (especially in war), male homelessness rate, misandry, strict enforcement of gender roles upon men (specifically the male provider role), homophobia, harmful stereotypes of men (such as the stereotype of men being obsessed with sex and fathers being incompetent), male-on-male rape, female-on-male rape, the high percentage of men in prison, etc. We talk about many of these issues because these issues affect men in many ways. We also view the issue of the image of men's rights as a concept and as a movement, since while there are MRAs who do advocate for men's rights, there are many who are anti-feminist, and largely misogynistic and hostile towards women. We want men's rights to be seen as a cause for people to be for, rather than be against.

Conclusion
So basically, I am a left-wing male advocate since I am a leftist, and I want to advocate for men's rights. And I just went over what LWMAs are, what the subreddit is, and what LWMAs discuss, and what our stances are on men's rights issues. Thanks for reading this blog, check out my other blogs if you can.