Edwin Hodge is a 36-year-old Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Victoria. His research focuses on issues facing men, with a foundation in feminist theory. But he used to be an MRA (men’s rights activist).
I discovered the men’s rights movement when I was 22, working at a bookstore in downtown Kelowna, British Columbia. I was trying to earn some money before starting my second year at university.
I was in the self-help section “facing” our most popular books — arranging them so their covers, and not their spines, faced outward — when I noticed the title Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture.
I had never even seen the word “misandry” before, but I was able to deduce its meaning immediately: If misogyny is hatred of women, then misandry must be hatred of men.
Well, that’s kind of edgy and countercultural, I thought. I had never seen anything that said I — a white, heterosexual male — was actually the one being discriminated against. It was so provocative. The cover art was a white guy in a business suit being strangled by his necktie.
Read the rest here.