"However, I must emphatically and proudly express that I do not support the negation and devaluing of women's (as well as ethnic, [other] cultural, LGBT, etc.) rights by way of reactionary countering with a "men's rights" movement."
As GLBT, I really have to politely disagree here. Trans men especially tend to take a lot of shit from women who think they've committed some sort of cardinal sin for being who they are (it's usually phrased as them trying to make some sort of male power grab, or whatever). Women should have rights, but men should have them too. That's what equality ought to entail. Currently, we've made some significant progress not just in recognizing the need for women's rights, but actively forcing a change in the status quo. It's still politically incorrect to even recognize that men are discriminated against in some areas, and that's really disheartening to me.
True gender equality would HELP the GLBT cause because we need lesbians to not take crap for not being feminine "enough" and gay men to not take crap for not being "masculine" enough. Sex discrimination against men is actually a huge issue, but it's so politically incorrect to address it. If you're a man, and GLBT, you can kind of get double whammied by it since you have to deal with the GLBT part and then also the discrimination against men when you're already severely disadvantaged. If you're a woman, you have a lot of social support dedicated to you (domestic violence shelters, lots of other assistance), at least compared to men.
I believe that women and men BOTH should have rights. I don't understand why this is such a problem with the majority of the feminist movement. (I have met some absolutely lovely and rational feminists, but most of them are over the age of 50. I'm not really sure what's happened to this generation of them, but for the most part, it's been really...not good.)
I also really hope that same-sex marriage will help the men's rights movement (as well as the women's rights movement!). As an egalitarian, I'm all for the courts coming to realize that brain breaking moment in a lesbian divorce where they can't just give the kids and all the money to the female, because there are two of them. Perhaps a concrete inability to rotely perform sex discrimination because there aren't different sexes to take up their traditional "roles" will force the legal system to look into itself and realize the magnitude of the discrimination against men that they've been perpetuating.
TL;DR:
You and I don't disagree at all in substance. Excellent points. We are on the same page.
I just don't think we need a men's rights movement to further draw gendered lines across the social fabric. I'd rather see a federated organization that fights to improve humanity and its social institutions, obliterating inequalities and disparities. This, while making no claim (and vigilantly remaining blind) to sexual, gender, ethnic, or other material identities.
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I, too, consider myself to be an egalitarian where the material conditions and social relations of people are at stake. I've made a number of attempts at clarifications, all the while making it explicitly clear that I'm supportive of and advocating for completely eliminating gender inequalities. I'm either doing a poor job of explaining that, or others are doing a poor job of reading my many clarifications.
To put it bluntly, there's no way I could respond to every men's rights comment with a clear and considered explanation of the positives and negatives, as well as an accounting of the pitfalls and errors made. The topic itself is tangential, distracting, and derailing from the issues raised by the event at Pycon, specifically in relation to how the offending men's actions are being erroneously and unfairly contextualized and framed as 'sexist' by the wider tech community.
I did not want to just sweep gender inequalities under the rug where male-identifying persons are concerned, as if it doesn't exist. I wanted to focus attention, instead, on the nuances of properly identifying sexism apart from inappropriate comments in a given situation, and the ways in which it leads to gender disparities in social relations in general.[1]
At first, I ignored the men's rights issues out of a desire to not deviate from the issues I raised, and interest in engaging with those who were replying to the points I brought up. I did not want to kick off a side-thread on men's rights. I wanted to avoid seeing the conversation turn into an us vs them argument. I hoped we could actually discuss the need to correct the reactionary labeling of impolite and inappropriate comments and behaviors as automatically sexist, when so many times it is simply impolite and inappropriate. Even at the worst end of the non-sexist spectrum, someone might deal with an asshole, and I think it's far more productive to the tech community and society at large if everyone could actually tell (and advocate) the difference between someone being an asshole and someone being a sexist asshole.
[I'm not saying my reaction was right; I'm trying to contextualize it within my personal quirks and goals so it's understood.]
By the time a couple hours passed, the men's rights derailment was already well underway, with quite a few reactionary posts following the first that were increasingly divisive, and substantially less constructive to the actual thread. More notably, the discussion consistently conveyed a less erudite, misinformed, and poorly rendered assessment and presentation of incredibly disconnected, questionable, exaggerated, and falsely attributed or incomplete evidence--all conflated to advance a flimsy premise that 'men have it as bad as (and often worse than) women'. Much of what was argued at the time I decided to comment (specifically the one to which you've responded) could not be taken seriously as presented.
So, I had choices. I could dig in, evaluate the evidence & reasoning presented, explain why much of it had to be disregarded as non-causal/incomplete/misattributed/exaggerated/etc., do the philosophically correct and helpful thing by improving their arguments for them so I wasn't just responding to the weakest, most hastily cobbled together rant ... or I could just not engage, and try to bring the focus back to where it should be. I could give in slightly and add some clarifications that would elucidate my intentions and meaning, while making it plain I was not interested in seeing the conversation devolve into a circular exchange of pointless tu quoque; indulging countless iterations of "if a man did x, women would sell their mothers into slavery to claw his eyes out and publicly shame him"; 20 more comments brow-beating people about male-victimizing sexual assault endemic to the US's deplorable prison system; etc. Those are three of the choices I recall considering at the time.
Fundamentally, my goal was to protect the conversation from becoming a cesspool of what was already starting to increase in vitriol and volume on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and other endpoints--preserving and encouraging a space where the tech community, male/female/trans, could constructively grapple with a problem we need to make right for everyone so we don't keep fucking each other up every time we get in the same damn room (to enjoy and participate in the same damn event/hobby/pasttime/passion/etc., no less!).
[1]: A sometimes less-helpful feature of my personality, made habit by philosophical study and debate, I maintain a very strong aversion to changing the subject, lest one damage one's own argument, lose one's audience, or make it impossible to logically conclude a line of thought. It's a quirk that is not well suited to internet threads, I think.
As GLBT, I really have to politely disagree here. Trans men especially tend to take a lot of shit from women who think they've committed some sort of cardinal sin for being who they are (it's usually phrased as them trying to make some sort of male power grab, or whatever). Women should have rights, but men should have them too. That's what equality ought to entail. Currently, we've made some significant progress not just in recognizing the need for women's rights, but actively forcing a change in the status quo. It's still politically incorrect to even recognize that men are discriminated against in some areas, and that's really disheartening to me.
True gender equality would HELP the GLBT cause because we need lesbians to not take crap for not being feminine "enough" and gay men to not take crap for not being "masculine" enough. Sex discrimination against men is actually a huge issue, but it's so politically incorrect to address it. If you're a man, and GLBT, you can kind of get double whammied by it since you have to deal with the GLBT part and then also the discrimination against men when you're already severely disadvantaged. If you're a woman, you have a lot of social support dedicated to you (domestic violence shelters, lots of other assistance), at least compared to men.
I believe that women and men BOTH should have rights. I don't understand why this is such a problem with the majority of the feminist movement. (I have met some absolutely lovely and rational feminists, but most of them are over the age of 50. I'm not really sure what's happened to this generation of them, but for the most part, it's been really...not good.)
I also really hope that same-sex marriage will help the men's rights movement (as well as the women's rights movement!). As an egalitarian, I'm all for the courts coming to realize that brain breaking moment in a lesbian divorce where they can't just give the kids and all the money to the female, because there are two of them. Perhaps a concrete inability to rotely perform sex discrimination because there aren't different sexes to take up their traditional "roles" will force the legal system to look into itself and realize the magnitude of the discrimination against men that they've been perpetuating.