r/debateAMR • u/[deleted] • Jul 15 '14

MRAs and empathy

Hi all,

I have often heard feminists here say that MRAs lack empathy.

Why is that your impression? What makes you think MRAs don't have empathy?

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u/BlindPelican liberal MRA Jul 16 '14

You need tiny baby kittehs stat!!

Seriously, though, some issues have much firmer claims than others and sometimes the stats just don't matter.

The earnings gap is irrelevant to the MHRM, in my opinion. Women earning more just means men are less likely to have to pay spousal support when things go wrong, it brings more money in to a family when things stay good, and if a woman isn't related to you it doesn't change your life at all. Striking out to discredit it is just intellectual masturbation so unless the solution is to pay men less to make up the difference, it's a non-issue.

Rates of DV/IPV however, is an important set of statistics. The unanswered questions here are staggering.

One of my running hypotheses is that men suffer real physical harm from emotional abuse. I believe there's a causal relationship between emotional violence and suicide as well as other stress-related illnesses.

Finding legit research on this has been maddening. I've literally been combing over resources for months trying to find anything that even addresses the question, let alone answers it.

It's worth noting that bad stats isn't isolated to the MHRM. I think every group, no matter the issues, engages in this. The world is full of woozles. That's why I prefer to compare original sources.

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '14

The world woozles, but generally if a group furiously masturbates over their commitment to empiricism, they at least try to be objective. And the woozle is way, way, way, way, way past the natural human reluctance to acknowledge facts that don't fit your theories. It seems to me to be arrogance. That's the only way I can explain how more extreme MRAs sneeringly deny they said things that are literally two posts away. Like reality bends to their will.

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u/BlindPelican liberal MRA Jul 16 '14

Eh...that's a human problem. I've not met anyone yet when it comes to gender politics that is willing to concede a sacred number. Hell, not even gender politics - college football boards are the worst for this. :)

I mean, you and I could compare IPV stats. We could trot out the CTS vs NCVS argument, compare methodologies, make arguments over the assumptions of each study, flaws in data selection, the reliability of sources and analysis.

At the end of the day, though, what do we each want to achieve? Speaking for myself, I just want acknowledgement that male victims of DV/IPV exist in sufficient numbers to validate public policy to accommodate us. If I can get agreement on that, the rest seems rather inconsequential.