Looking through the pinhole

One of the major issues between feminists and non-feminists is the feminist perspective. Feminists tend to view things through their ideological worldview, resulting in a limited understanding of social problems. This results in conflict with non-feminists because those people do not view the world the same way, and feminists tend not to be inclined to consider the other side’s positions.

This dynamic is particularly apparent when it comes to men’s issues. As John Anderson asked, “Why is it when something affects women it’s viewed as a societal issue requiring societal solutions, but when something negatively affects men it’s viewed as a personal failure requiring each individual man to correct his behaviour?”

HeatherN of The Good Men Project offered an answer:

In the fifth episode of the new Starz series Da Vinci’s Demons, we find out out that da Vinci’s love interest, Lucrezia, is being forced to spy on the Renaissance man. She very explicitly states that she is not acting of her own free will, and that she has no choice but to follow her orders. It so happens that the person to whom she says this is also under very explicit orders regarding what he’s supposed to do to da Vinci. However, he disregards his orders and decides on his own course of action.

There are many other examples of this type of scenario, particularly in our entertainment and media. A woman is forced into a situation in which she has no choice but to do what she’s told, while a man is forced in a very similar situation but entertains more freedom of choice. Think of just about every arranged marriage depicted on television, ever. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s patriarchy which denies women’s agency and decision making abilities. Patriarchal systems assume women are docile and unable to do things for themselves and therefore they are more susceptible to outside influence. Patriarchal systems place pressure on men to always be in control of their lives and assume that when something negative happens to a man, it’s his fault. That is all part of patriarchy.

Bulletin Board v194

Adult Male Victims of Sexual Assault Seek 5 or More Medical Treatments — Stigmas around sexual assault victims often prevent them from seeking much needed treatment to move on with their lives. Though statistics show that women are more likely to be victims of rape or sexual assault, men who become victims themselves may be even less likely to look for help due to stereotypes surrounding masculinity. And for those that do, the services available are still often geared towards the opposite gender.

Barbara Kay: Calling all male bashers — In alarmed response to emerging “men’s rights awareness” groups (MRA) on a number of Canadian campuses, the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), a union body representing some 500,000 students, seeks to amend its “Sexual Assault and Violence Against Women on Campus” policy. The CFS rejects any need of formal fellowship around specifically male issues, alleging MRA groups’ real purpose is to promote “misogynist, hateful views” and to “justify sexual assault.”

Huffington Post: Stay-at-Home Fathers Don’t Care for Children — If we’re reading an article about heroic working moms “doing it all” both at work and at home, but still losing custody to fathers who apparently do nothing all day long, then it’s a good bet we’re reading the Huffington Post. And sure enough, we are here (Huffington Post, 6/1/13). This time it’s family attorney Lisa Helfend Meyer whose piece utterly misrepresents the known facts about child custody, who gets it and why.

You’re Not Helping v.16

Here is a thought: if you present the concept of “Ask the Feminist” and someone asks said feminist a question, it would make more sense to actually post the person’s question than leave it sitting in moderation.

I do understand that The Good Men Project is a feminist space only interested in non-critical, positive discussions about feminism and feminist theories about masculinity. That will naturally preclude non-feminists from the discussion. However, most men are not feminists. If one wishes to have an open discussion about men and masculinity, one needs to include non-feminist voices.

I do not follow GMP enough to know exactly what goes on there, so I had no idea that GMP started an “Ask the Feminist” thread in which people could pose questions to HeatherN and she would answer them. I happened upon the second set of answers through a Google Alert. I skimmed the original post, but read the comments. There was an exchange between Mike L and Heather that caught my attention:

#killallmen

When feminists ask why people think they hate all men, one need only point them to the recent Twitter hashtag #killallmen.

None of the tweets surprise me. Many feminists have a long history of making nasty, hate-filled comments without any prompt. Just ask the red head from the Toronto men’s rights event.

Likewise, I am not surprised by feminists supporting, excusing, and minimizing the hashtag. After all, this is same mentality that prompted scores of feminists to spend hours flaming the #INeedMasculismBecause hashtag.

The hastag simply shows what many people have seen before: plenty of feminists harbor a deep hatred of men, and despite frequent feminist protests to the contrary, it appears many feminists either turn a blind eye to it or tacitly support it.

Certainly all feminists do not think that way, yet after the hashtag trending, I could not find much feminist criticism of it, despite that so many of them supported it.

Here is a thought: if after fifty years in the mainstream people still think your movement hates another group of people, it is time to consider the very real probability that they are right. That is the only way to explain how a hastag like #killallmen could trend for so long and yet no feminists seems to acknowledge it even happened.

A Dose of Stupid v88

It happens every day. In fact, it is pretty hard to avoid it. There are some things that can only be understood with a slap on the forehead. Things so mind-boggling that one wonders how humans managed to evolve thumbs while being this mentally inept. Case in point:

Men’s Rights Activists advocate for ‘human rights’ with rape and death threats

Readers may recall a post from a few weeks ago about a red headed woman shouting profanities at men at a men’s rights event in Toronto. It seems that someone people found out who the woman is and left some nasty comments on her twitter feed, blog, and email. I do not condone anyone doxxing people or leaving threats. I doubt that all the nasty comments against the red head were threats, as feminists have claimed in the past week. However, it is irony that someone so willing to harass and threaten men at a public event would suddenly take issue with a few people doing this to her online.

Of course, that leads to feminists backing this this bully. There have been numerous posts written about her, but one that specifically caught my attention was this one by Danielle Paradis and Anne Theriault. In it they write:

First of all, let’s be clear here: No, Big Red was not polite. Yes, she was abrasive and caustic and downright rude. No, neither of the authors of this article would necessarily choose to protest an event that they feel is designed to silence women by yelling shut the fuck up. Yes, we see the irony in the fact that she was screaming over (seemingly reasonable) voices, claiming that she isn’t being heard.

But you know what? As Polonius said: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

She’s not being heard. Those men aren’t listening to her when she’s countering their points about how hard it is to be a man. Those men aren’t listening when she’s trying to explain how feminism is not, in fact, the work of Satan and actually does work to address the issues that they’re bringing up. Those men aren’t listening when she tries to read off a list explaining the actual goals of feminism, but yet they insist she read their list.

The red head was being heard. If you watch the video, the men there were responding to what she shouted at them. It is simply that those men did not agree with her position, and like many feminists, including the two who wrote the article, the red head jumped to the conclusion that disagreeing with her arguments was a sexist attack on her and all women.

The Presumption of Guilt

Feminists have gotten a lot of traction out of the Steubenville rape case. Unlike many of the other prominent cases that caught the nation’s attention, this case had no wiggle room and ended with two convictions. The boys recorded themselves assaulting the girl. They and others traded the video and pictures. There was no question even from the photos that the girl was intoxicated and could not consent.

This provided the ammunition many feminists look for when talking about sexual violence against women. Many feminists talk about consent in broad terms, but this case provides them an example of someone clearly not saying “yes” and clearly being incapable of saying “no.”

All of the conversations about consent have revolve around the idea of “affirmative consent”, the notion of males getting a verbal “yes” from females. As Thomas MacAulay Millar puts it:

Some folks call that “enthusiastic participation” and some call it “affirmative consent” which sort of sounds more technical, but when you’re getting busy with someone, it sounds like “Yes!” “Take your cock out” “I want to touch it”, “I want to suck it.”  Which is way hotter than just laying there, right?  So how do you get that?  Ask.

There are a number of problems with that logic, starting with the pesky fact that most people, men and women, do not ask for or give verbal consent to engage in sexual activity. The other is that, just like cases without verbal consent, there are usually only two people there to witness the act. Even if one got “affirmative consent”, short of recording it one would lack any proof that one got it. The only counter argument to this is that no woman would ever claim that consensual sex was nonconsensual, which is untrue.

A Dose of Stupid v86

It happens every day. In fact, it is pretty hard to avoid it. There are some things that can only be understood with a slap on the forehead. Things so mind-boggling that one wonders how humans managed to evolve thumbs while being this mentally inept. Case in point:

If I Admit That ‘Hating Men’ Is a Thing, Will You Stop Turning It Into a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

Lindy West of Jezebel has a problem. For some reason, men seem to think feminists minimizing their experiences is misandry. Men also seem to think that sometimes bad things happen to them because they are men. West disagrees:

Though it is a seductive scapegoat (I understand why it attracts you), none of these terrible, painful problems in your life were caused by the spectre of “misandry.” You can rest easy about that, I promise! In fact, the most powerful proponent of misandry in modern internet discourse is you — specifically, your dogged insistence that misandry is a genuine, systemic, oppressive force on par with misogyny.

It is never good to start off by telling someone that you know more about the causes of their bad experiences than they do. It is really not a good thing to do if you are not part of that group. It is a truly terrible thing to do if your group has a history of marginalizing the other group. It is downright offensive to accuse someone of being the cause of their own misery. But West is not worried about that. As she explains:

This is specious, it hurts women, and it is hurting you. Most feminists don’t hate men, as a group (we hate the system that disproportionately favors men at the expense of women), but — congratulations! — we are starting to hate you. You, the person. Your obsession with misandry has turned misandry into a self-fulfilling prophecy. (I mean, sort of. Hating individual men is not the same as hating all men. But more on that in a minute.) Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted? Feminism is, in essence, a social justice movement—it wants to take the side of the alienated and the marginalized, and that includes alienated and marginalized men. Please stop turning us against you.

Of course it is.