I've been an MRA for several years, and I've never seen any MRA support a violent act. The quotes you posted do not show there was widespread support for MRA's for the shooting in Pittsburgh. Many of them are trying to rationalize his actions. There is a difference between rationalizing a violent action and justifying it. None of the frustrations this guy may have had with the opposite sex is an acceptable reason to turn to violence. I doubt it was simply one issue with women that brought him to his decision. One of my favorite lines from the film "Apocalypse Now" is that "every man has his breaking point." Just like Col. Kurtz had his, so did Mr. Sodini.
And there are people in every type of political or social movement that will make such statements. Take feminists, for example. When Lorena Bobbit cut off her husband's penis back in the 90's, they tired to justify her action by stating that John had it coming because years of spousal abuse. Instead of vocal condemnation for mutilating a man's genitals, there was tacit approval and even vocal support by feminists for what she did.
To your credit, I did forget to include this paragraph from the article.
By no means do I suggest that the quotes in this post represent the most common, centrist views in the MRA, anti-feminist and “pick up artist” communities. In most of the forums where I read these quotes, I did see occasional disagreements with the kind of thing I’m quoting — although all too often, not — and of course many condemned Sodini. And, obviously, I’ve cherry-picked the most offensive comments, not the most typical comments.
Nonetheless, most of these views are, in a way, accepted within those communities. No one is shocked to see these views posted; no one is banned or modded for posting these views; and the disagreements are, in many cases, rare and mild, if they come at all. In other words, the most vilely misogynistic garbage, even to the point of sympathizing with murder, is part of the spectrum of ordinary opinion, within these movements. And that’s both a cause for concern, and illustrates what’s so ****ed about about the “men’s rights” movement and community.
I got a little lost in all the quote bubbles. For that, I apologize.
I don't think that most MRA's endorse violent behavior. I think they occasionally have a point to be made; for example, I think they make a case about the court's default position of giving custody of kids in a divorce to the woman. This affects me personally, as well; my half-brother had two kids with a legitimately psychologically disturbed woman. The Louisiana courts gave custody of their children to her as the default position. In that time, the mother has been teaching the girls to steal from, has been telling her children blatant lies about their father and so on. He has spent a lot of money in family court fighting for custody of the girls, but because there is no empirical proof to her behavior, the courts are refusing to change custody.
That being said, MRA is an umbrella term. It includes gay male activism, legal advocate's for men and their supporters as well as other, rather small activists who consider themselves MRA's. However, the aspect I find the most prevalent in the current MRA group are
masculinists; those who promote the idea that feminism, that is, the struggle of women for equality, health services and safety, is an
anti-male position. I recognize this is only one shade of the entire MRA scale, but it seems to be the most common incarnation of the movement now. The current status of the MRA movement seems to take a particularly reactionary view of gender issues and they often make fairly transparent jabs at real equality issues; protesting "Ladie's Nights" at clubs as if they were on the same footing as demanding equality in health services or fighting back against rape, for instance. Some MRA arguments, also, are so often based in purely stereotypical assumptions, it's laughable. "American culture is so 'feminized" (whatever
that means), that masculine traits are discouraged". Which may be, except for commercials, movies, video games, TV shows, asdvertising, music, etc, etc, etc. And what traits are these that you claim are exclusively masculine? Seems the gist is that society frowns on brutish, borish, piggish behavior and I guess MRA's are fighting the good fight to restore those precious lost values.
How about a quick Google search of MRA-associated webapges?
"Men's rights" search brought up as the first hit the appropriately named "Men's Right's Blog". The subtitle of which is "MY THOUGHTS ON PRO-MASCULISM AND ANTI-FEMINISM." Interesting.
Another UK-based blog has an article "Gender Equality is Not Possible" and includes a before and after picture of Hilary Clinton looking like an angry feminazi before reading his blog and an after
photo (photoshopped) of her smiling head placed on a bikini model. Also includes this gem..."Firstly, most of the leading feminists are severely dysfunctional 'women' and/or they are a particular type of lesbian" followed by an obligatory blurb about "I'm not homophobic, blah, blah, blah...I just try to insult women by accusing her of being the worst thing in the world...not attracted to men!"
Facinating!
You want to know my real thoughts? The MR movement is in the process of being hijacked by woman-hating masculinists. A growing group of little boys who never grew up past 15 are now attempting to include themselves in an otherwise legit movement. And it seems the one thing that bonds this new, angry group is the simultaneous fascination and fear of female sexuality. Indeed, it seems most of the misogynist MRA rants eventually end up on the same subject; women's sexuality. Here's a great summation from yet another anti-feminist "MRA" blog.
In a free sexual market, ugly women are the greatest losers. Feminism is the political process of transferring sexual power from the young and beautiful to the old and ugly(females).
Nope, no connection there between the sexually-driven violence against women perpetrated by Sodini or the countless rapes of women in the world!
Legitimate, pro-woman MRA's need to address this apparent misogynistic eclipse of their movement.
