By: Brandon Teepell
This Article was originally posted here and is republished here in its entirety with permission from the author
For some time now it has been my belief that those people who are fighting for Men’s Rights should not deal with Feminists. We should not acknowledge them, talk to them, discuss them, or debate them.
A recent Jezebel.com article by Lindy West [1] only served to solidify that contention within me. The article which is titled No, I Will Not Take the Men’s Rights Movement Seriously outlines a problem that ‘outsiders’, those who are not active participants in Men’s Rights Activism, have when they view what has become known as the ‘Men’s Rights movement’. They contend that we are, and view us as, nothing but angry reactionaries who do not work towards a singular goal but instead work towards the destruction of the goals and achievements of Feminism. To be honest, I can see why.
When we, as a group, are stupid enough to hand feed our enemy our most vulnerable body parts you can not be angry at them for attacking those parts.
I feel, probably just as strongly as any other, that the Occidental College’s anonymous rape reporting system was flawed but, in my honest opinion (IMHO), there was no reason why people who claimed to be Men’s Rights Activists needed to flood a system that was unable to handle their complaints[2]. Engaging in this way made us look hypocritical and dishonest. We fought false rape allegations, with false rape allegation, and made us look like we were unsympathetic to real victims of rape and sexual assault. No matter how many times we now say that we are sympathetic it will not erase that idea from people’s minds. It has crippled our integrity.
This is the very definition of reactionary.
When a group, like ours, has in front of us a laundry list of injustices in the world that are sitting out in the no man’s land between the two conflicting groups, why does it benefit us to try and skirmish the ‘enemies’ lines?
Domestic Violence against Men can be dealt with by engaging with victims. Feminists need not be there.
Male Rape can be dealt with by engaging with victims. Feminists need not be there.
Male Genital Mutilation can be dealt with by engaging with victims. Feminists need not be there.
Male homelessness can be dealt with by engaging with victims. Feminists need not be there.
Male reproductive rights can be dealt with by engaging with Men. Feminists need not be there.
When we take a stance and fight for that which we should all have, we have the high ground, and those who fight against us become the reactionaries. If we take the issues that men and boys face and fight for them on what ground do feminists have to stand?
Think back to the incident at Ryerson University where the Student Union protested Warren Farrell [3][4]. They engaged in attacking an Event that had nothing to do with the removal of any kind of right for women. It did not compare, it did not liken, it spoke directly about the issues effecting men. Those who protested were made to look foolish, even to Feminists and Feminist supporters. And when Karen Straughan went back to Ryerson just earlier this year [5] there was some initial hostility [6] but the high ground had been lost. There were no more protests, there were no engagers, it was just a small amount of bureaucracy and solid victory for Men’s Rights.
It is made very clear by Lindy West that she feels that they “don’t need [Men’s Rights] for this discussion.” That we are “superfluous and should be left in [our] corner.” Given the evidence she is presenting Lindy West and Jezebel.com are right. They are right because we allow ourselves to be the type of people they claim that we are. We need to move away from people like PUA’s (Pick up artists), we need to move away from anti-feminism, we need to move away from reactionary tactics, we need to move away from Feminists. None of these things are getting us anywhere even if they are getting us in the public eye. It’s time to move on from being active to being pro-active.
[1] http://jezebel.com/no-i-will-not-take-the-mens-rights-movement-seriously-1532799085
[2] http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/12/20/3093761/mens-rights-occidental/
[3] http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=75c_1355109936
[4] http://equalitycanada.com/cafe-response-warren-farrell/
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xe57q1lqHE
[6] http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/04/barbara-kay-ryerson-drags-mens-issues-group-through-the-wringer/
About the Author
Brandon Teepell is a 27 year old Men’s Rights Activist in his home of Ontario, Canada. He is married with 4 children.
Brandon Teepell Also has a blog at thevoiceofgodtherapist.wordpress.com
Mens Rights Sydney 
I respect your opinion. We all have our own way of doing things. I like to debate directly against feminists whenever I can find a forum that does not allow them to control the discourse – IE silence me and refuse to address the issues. I do not try to convert feminists. I think that would be pointless. I simply use feminists as props in order to get my arguments across to any listeners who may be sitting on the fence. So far I have found that this works well. I don’t care what feminists themselves think of me.
I know that trying to reason logically with any ideologue is pointless. I also know that feminists will try to shame me and cast me as a misguided “pawn of the patriarchy” no matter what I say. It would serve no purpose for me to try to hide the fact that I despise the toxic ideology of feminism. I never use slurs or insults in my dialogue. I leave that to feminists. I simply demolish their arguments with fact and logic in order to demonstrate to the audience how ridiculous and damaging their doctrine is.
I know that you are writing from a men’s rights perspective rather than an anti-feminist one. I believe that the two are closely related. Many of the injustices that are faced by men and boys today are directly and by design, a result of feminist advocacy or a societal acceptance of feminist doctrine. Feminism is the enemy of equality, free-speech, justice, decency, liberty and most of the things that most of us hold dear. You cannot find a cure if you don’t acknowledge openly what the disease is.
At my last talk my feminist opponent walked out when she realized the audience were not buying her simplistic slogans, her nonsense statistics and her increasingly hysterical shaming tactics. About 25 people, walked out with her but another 25 stayed for over an hour afterwards discussing various points I had brought up and asking me questions. This was on a college campus in Ireland where the system is almost as contaminated by feminist dogma as yours is in Canada. These were young students who had never even asked themselves any of these questions before. It was a real eye-opener for them to see just how empty feminist theory is and just how hateful it has become. So sorry for waffling, but I do find feminists quite useful for the purposes of demonstrating to an audience just how completely toxic and dangerous feminism is.
I believe that feminists are well aware of this too which is why they try so hard to avoid any kind of discussion that they cannot control or shut down at a moments notice. It explains their preference for loud chanting over dialogue and their penchant for setting off fire-alarms. Feminists are terrified of logical debate.
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Gday believe it or not we don’t fully agree with the article either.
However we need to have a real conversation about when we should engage and when we should not.
If you have an alternative option submit an article
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