Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Topics - typhonblue

41
Main / Posting Links
Jun 06, 2006, 02:15 PM
Dr Evil... are we still allowed to post links or images? I've been trying to post an image (or a link to the image) but I get an error message.
42
Main / Has ManhoodBliss been Banned?
Jun 04, 2006, 11:59 AM
Because if she has... well... damn... I was hoping to get a response to what I wrote on the "question of porn" thread.
43
Main / A Simple Question of Porn
Jun 03, 2006, 07:41 PM
Manhoodbliss, is pornography(or "erotica") for women bad?
44
Main / "Myths About Fatherhood" by Liz
Apr 29, 2006, 06:15 PM
Quote
Myth -- A father's involvement is crucial for the well-being of a child.  

Fact: "While it would be a seemingly obvious proposition to most of us, that fathers' consistent and substantial involvement in child care would benefit the child, this appears to have not been well established.  The relationship between paternal involvement and children's well-being seems to be mediated by a number of other conditions that involve the father, the mother, and the child.  In other words, increased paternal involvement does not automatically result in improved child outcomes.  Nor is it clear whether the father's involvement provides unique nurturance that can not be as readily provided by substitute caregivers."

THE MEANING OF FATHERHOOD Koray Tanfer, Battelle Memorial Institute; Frank Mott, Ohio State University; Prepared for NICHD Workshop "Improving Data on Male Fertility and Family Formation" at the Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., January 16-17, 1997, http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/fathers/cfsforum/apenc.htm

Fact: "[P]aternal involvement is likely to have predominantly positive consequences only when it is the arrangement of choice for the particular family."

Lamb, M. E., Pleck, J. H., & Levine, J. A. (1987). Effects of increased paternal involvement on fathers and mothers. In C. Lewis & M. O'Brien (Eds.), Reassessing fatherhood: New observations on fathers and the modern family (pp. 109-125). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.




http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/017.htm
45
Main / Equal Spending Day
Apr 28, 2006, 11:01 PM
April 25th was Equal Pay day. April 25th is the day that women catch up to the amount men earned the previous year. (In other words women have to work an additional ~115 days to earn as much as men.)

I'd like to propose a MRA counter to Equal Pay day.

Equal Spending Day (I know, it's clumsy.)

Since women spend about 80% of the wealth, why not figure out the day of the year that *men's spending* equal's women's?

Letsee, just off the top of my head...

Wait... er... it won't work because it takes men 4 *years* to spend as much as one woman.
46
Main / Domestic Violence Facts
Apr 24, 2006, 10:00 AM
Can we pick this appart bit by bit? It would create a good counter-essay to read.


###

Domestic Violence is a Serious, Widespread Social Problem in America: The Facts

Fact Sheets by Topic

Facts on Domestic Violence
Children and Domestic Violence
Guns and Domestic Violence
Health Care and Domestic Violence
Housing and Domestic Violence
Immigrant Women and Domestic Violence
International Gender-Based Violence
The Military and Domestic Violence
Preventing Violence Against Women & Children
Reproductive Health and Violence
Teenagers and Domestic Violence
The Workplace and Domestic Violence
Welfare and Domestic Violence

Prevalence of Domestic Violence


   * Estimates range from 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend per year1 to three million women who are physically abused by their husband or boyfriend per year.2
   * Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.3
   * Nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives, according to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund survey.4
   * Nearly 25 percent of American women report being raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date at some time in their lifetime, according to the National Violence Against Women Survey, conducted from November 1995 to May 1996.5
   * Thirty percent of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year.6
   * In the year 2001, more than half a million American women (588,490 women) were victims of nonfatal violence committed by an intimate partner.7
   * Intimate partner violence is primarily a crime against women. In 2001, women accounted for 85 percent of the victims of intimate partner violence (588,490 total) and men accounted for approximately 15 percent of the victims (103,220 total).8
   * While women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crimes overall, women are five to eight times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner.9
   * In 2001, intimate partner violence made up 20 percent of violent crime against women. The same year, intimate partners committed three percent of all violent crime against men.10
   * As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy.11
   * Women of all races are about equally vulnerable to violence by an intimate.12
   * Male violence against women does much more damage than female violence against men; women are much more likely to be injured than men.13
   * The most rapid growth in domestic relations caseloads is occurring in domestic violence filings. Between 1993 and 1995, 18 of 32 states with three year filing figures reported an increase of 20 percent or more.14
   * Women are seven to 14 times more likely than men to report suffering severe physical assaults from an intimate partner.15

Domestic Homicides

   * On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.16
   * Women are much more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. In 2000, intimate partner homicides accounted for 33.5 percent of the murders of women and less than four percent of the murders of men.17
   * Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause18 , and evidence exists that a significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.19
   * Research suggests that injury related deaths, including homicide and suicide, account for approximately one-third of all maternal mortality cases, while medical reasons make up the rest. But, homicide is the leading cause of death overall for pregnant women, followed by cancer, acute and chronic respiratory conditions, motor vehicle collisions and drug overdose, peripartum and postpartum cardiomyopthy, and suicide.20

Health Issues

   * The health-related costs of rape, physical assault, stalking and homicide committed by intimate partners exceed $5.8 billion each year. Of that amount, nearly $4.1 billion are for direct medical and mental health care services, and nearly $1.8 billion are for the indirect costs of lost productivity or wages.21
   * About half of all female victims of intimate violence report an injury of some type, and about 20 percent of them seek medical assistance.22
   * Thirty-seven percent of women who sought treatment in emergency rooms for violence-related injuries in 1994 were injured by a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend.23

Domestic Violence and Youth


   * Approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner.24
   * Eight percent of high school age girls said "yes" when asked if "a boyfriend or date has ever forced sex against your will."25
   * Forty percent of girls age 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.26
   * During the 1996-1997 school year, there were an estimated 4,000 incidents of rape or other types of sexual assault in public schools across the country.27

Domestic Violence and Children

   * In a national survey of more than 6,000 American families, 50 percent of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children.28
   * Slightly more than half of female victims of intimate violence live in households with children under age 12.29
   * Studies suggest that between 3.3 - 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence annually.30

Rape


   * Three in four women (76 percent) who reported they had been raped and/or physically assaulted since age 18 said that a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or date committed the assault.31
   * One in five (21 percent) women reported she had been raped or physically or sexually assaulted in her lifetime.32
   * Nearly one-fifth of women (18 percent) reported experiencing a completed or attempted rape at some time in their lives; one in 33 men (three percent) reported experiencing a completed or attempted rape at some time in their lives.33
   * In 2000, 48 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed against people age 12 and over were reported to the police.34
   * In 2001, 41,740 women were victims of rape/sexual assault committed by an intimate partner.35
   * Rapes/sexual assaults committed by strangers are more likely to be reported to the police than rapes/sexual assaults committed by "nonstrangers," including intimate partners, other relatives and friends or acquaintances. Between 1992 and 2000, 41 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed by strangers were reported to the police. During the same time period, 24 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed by an intimate were reported.36

Stalking


   * Annually in the United States, 503,485 women are stalked by an intimate partner.37
   * Seventy-eight percent of stalking victims are women. Women are significantly more likely than men (60 percent and 30 percent, respectively) to be stalked by intimate partners.38
   * Eighty percent of women who are stalked by former husbands are physically assaulted by that partner and 30 percent are sexually assaulted by that partner.39

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998
2The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman's Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women's Health, May 1999
3Heise, L., Ellsberg, M. and Gottemoeller, M. Ending Violence Against Women. Population Reports, Series L, No. 11., December 1999
4The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman's Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women's Health, May 1999
5The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The National Institute of Justice, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, July 2000.
6Lieberman Research Inc., Tracking Survey conducted for The Advertising Council and the Family Violence Prevention Fund, July - October 1996
7Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
8Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
9U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998
10Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
11Gazmararian JA, Petersen R, Spitz AM, Goodwin MM, Saltzman LE, Marks JS. "Violence and reproductive health; current knowledge and future research directions." Maternal and Child Health Journal 2000;4(2):79-84.
12Bureau of Justice Statistics, Violence Against Women: Estimates from the Redesigned Survey, August 1995
13Murray A. Straus and Richard J. Gelles, Physical Violence in American Families, 1990
14Examining the Work of State Courts, 1995: A National Perspective from the Court Statistics Project. National Center for the State Courts, 1996
15National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November 1998
16Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
17Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
18Horon, I., & Cheng, D., (2001). Enhanced Surveillance for Pregnancy-Associated Mortality - Maryland, 1993 - 1998. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, No. 11, March 21, 2001.
19Frye, V. (2001). Examining Homicide's Contribution to Pregnancy-Associated Deaths. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, No. 11, March 21, 2001
20Nannini, A., Weiss, J., Goldstein, R., & Fogerty, S., (2002). Pregnancy-Associated Mortality at the End of the Twentieth Century: Massachusetts, 1990 - 1999. Journal of the American Medical Women's Association, Vol. 57, No. 23, Summer 2002.
21Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States, April 2003.
22National Crime Victimization Survey, 1992-96; Study of Injured Victims of Violence, 1994
23U.S. Department of Justice, Violence Related Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments, August 1997
24Jay G. Silverman, PhD; Anita Raj, PhD; Lorelei A. Mucci, MPH; and Jeanne E. Hathaway, MD, MPH, "Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy, and Suicidality," Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 286, No. 5, 2001
25The Commonwealth Fund Survey of the Health of Adolescent Girls, November 1997
26Children Now/Kaiser Permanente poll, December 1995
27U.S. Department of Education, Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools: 1996-1997
28Strauss, Murray A, Gelles, Richard J., and Smith, Christine. 1990. Physical Violence in American Families; Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers
29U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998
30Carlson, Bonnie E. (1984). Children's observations of interpersonal violence. Pp. 147-167 in A.R. Roberts (Ed.) Battered women and their families (pp. 147-167). NY: Springer. Straus, M.A. (1992). Children as witnesses to marital violence: A risk factor for lifelong problems among a nationally representative sample of American men and women. Report of the Twenty-Third Ross Roundtable. Columbus, OH: Ross Laboratories.
31U.S. Department of Justice, Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November 1998
32The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman's Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women's Health, May 1999
33National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,, Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November 1998
34Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Reporting Crime to the Police, 1992-2000, March 2003
35Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
36Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Reporting Crime to the Police, 1992-2000, March 2003
37Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, National Institute of Justice, 2000
38Center for Policy Research, Stalking in America, July 1997
39Center for Policy Research, Stalking in America, July 1997

http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/

(edited by dr e who was driven nuts by the formatting)
47
Main / The Chemical Basis of Fatherhood
Apr 22, 2006, 12:05 PM
Hormonal correlates of paternal responsiveness in new and expectant fathers.
Storey AE, Walsh CJ, Quinton RL, Wynne-Edwards KE.
Evol Hum Behav. 2000 Mar 1;21(2):79-95.

Little is known about the physiological and behavioral changes that expectant fathers undergo prior to the birth of their babies. We measured hormone concentrations and responses to infant stimuli in expectant and new fathers living with their partners to determine whether men can experience changes that parallel the dramatic shifts seen in pregnant women. We obtained two blood samples from couples at one of four times before or after the birth of their babies. After the first sample, the couples were exposed to auditory, visual, and olfactory cues from newborn infants (test of situational reactivity). Men and women had similar stage-specific differences in hormone levels, including higher concentrations of prolactin and cortisol in the period just before the births and lower postnatal concentrations of sex steroids (testosterone or estradiol). Men with more pregnancy (couvade) symptoms and men who were most affected by the infant reactivity test had higher prolactin levels and greater post-test reduction in testosterone. Hormone concentrations were correlated between partners. This pattern of hormonal change in men and other paternal mammals, and its absence in nonpaternal species, suggests that hormones may play a role in priming males to provide care for young.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10785345&dopt=Abstract

Article Preview
Fatherly love
08 January 2000
Alison Motluk
Magazine issue 2220
When new dads go gooey-eyed, blame their hormones
A PREGNANT woman is on a nine-month hormonal roller coaster--and it turns out that the father of her child goes along for the ride. Researchers in Canada have shown for the first time that expectant fathers' hormones also fluctuate, and that the way they change mimics their partners' ups and downs.

[snip]

Recently, however, studies in certain animals, including most birds, some rodents and even a few primates, have shown that fathers are also hormonally primed for the birth of their young.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16522201.400.html

So if men are hormonally primed to take care of their children... what basis does the "traditional" family (ie. mother at home, father paying for everything) have in nature?

What's the point of priming a man for child care if he doesn't take care of children?

Incidentally there is no speices where the male habitually provides materially for the female.
48
Main / Interesting Web Result
Apr 19, 2006, 11:14 PM
I was browsing a website on fatherhood when I came across a "top ten ways to become a better father."

The first suggestion on the list?

1. Respect Your Children's Mother

I thought, hmm... well that's fair enough, but I wondered if mothers are admonished in the same manner.

So I did a web search on "10 Ways to Be a Better Mom Respect Your Children's Father".

These are the resuts:

10 Ways to Be a Better Mom Respect Your Children's Father
49
These are the social phenomena that prove women's oppression according to feminists:

1) The existance of a female beauty ideal.

2) Widespread rapes perpetuated against women.

3) The wage gap.

4) The greater precentage of male politicans.

5) The greater precentage of male CEOs.

6) The slut/whore double standard.

7) Women taking on total responsibility for birth control.

8) Violence against women(DV).

Additions?
52
Main / XY Analysis of Men's Rights
Mar 07, 2006, 12:07 AM
Responding to men's rights groups

Men's rights groups represent a hostile backlash to feminism, but their efforts in fact are unhelpful and even harmful for men themselves. Michael Flood describes how we can respond.

MEN have responded in complex and contradictory ways to the profound changes of the last three decades, changes set in motion by the women's movements, changes in family organisation, economic and social shifts and other forces. While most men remain largely ignorant about feminism, small numbers have responded in both highly positive and highly negative ways. An organised backlash to feminism among men is now visible in Australia, as in most other Western capitalist countries.

Organised resistance to feminism has been around for over a century, but as far as I know anti-feminist groups of men organised specifically on the basis of their position as men (or as fathers) are more recent, appearing only in the last 30 years. Such groups in Australia include the Lone Fathers' Association, Dads Against Discrimination, the People's Equality Network in Melbourne, the Men's Confraternity in Perth, Family Law Injustice Group Helping Together, and many others. "Men's rights" groups overlap with "fathers' rights" groups and with non-custodial parents' groups, whose members are often fathers. These groups sometimes also have female members and even co-founders.

The new victims

MEN'S rights men focus on the costs and destructiveness to men of masculine roles. They dispute the feminist idea that men (or some men) gain power and privilege in society, claiming that both women and men are equally oppressed or limited or even that men are oppressed by women. Men are "success objects" (like women are "sex objects") and burdened as providers, violence against men (through war, work and by women) is endemic and socially tolerated, and men are discriminated against in divorce and child custody proceedings. As far as "men's rights" are concerned, these men believe that men's right to a fair trial in domestic violence cases, to a fair negotiation in custody settlements, and to fair treatment in the media have all been lost.

The men in men's rights groups are typically in their forties and fifties, often divorced or separated, and nearly always heterosexual. In both general men's rights groups and fathers' rights groups, participants often are very angry, bitter and hurting (with good reason, they would say), and they often have gone through deeply painful marriage breakups and custody battles.

For some men's rights men, feminism has largely achieved its goals and women have more choices, while men are still stuck in traditional masculine roles. For some, feminism was once a 'human liberation' movement that now only looks after women. For others, it never tried to liberate men, it has even tried to keep men in their traditional roles (eg as providers), and "feminazis" are involved in a conspiracy to discriminate against men and cover up violence against them.

Some men's rights and fathers' rights groups have links to conservative Christian organisations and support a traditional patriarchal family as the only real and natural form of family, while others have more flexible visions of family and gender relations. But most share the common enemy of feminism, as well as gay and lesbian politics and other progressive movements and ideals.

Two issues in particular have become the focus of men's rights and fathers' rights groups: interpersonal violence, and family law and custody. Men in these groups provide support for men undergoing custody settlements, attack the existence of services for women through legal action and harassment, lobby governments and so on.

Pro-sexist

I'VE been calling these "men's rights" groups, because this is a common description and because some of the groups use it themselves. "Anti-feminist" is also a useful description for nearly all these groups. When I interviewed the American activist Victor Lewis, he called them "status-quo" or "pro-sexist men's movements". Another term is "masculinist", popular among American men's rights men but not in much use here.

Men's rights groups can be seen as part of the men's movement, a loose network of men's groups and organisations around Australia, and they represent its most anti-feminist wing. Thankfully, men's rights is not the dominant agenda, and much of the men's movement focuses on personal growth and healing, emphasising what some have termed "men's liberation". (See my articles in the Spring 1996 edition of XY for an outline.) While most men in the movement would agree that men's roles are unhealthy and damaging for men, men's rights men blame women or feminism for the harm done to men and argue that men are now the real victims.

While men's rights and anti-feminist views are in the minority in men's movement circles, I believe that they are gaining in prominence and popularity. Anti-feminist men are among the most politically active men in this movement. Their views have been effective in capturing media attention, and in attracting sympathy from many men around the country. "Men's rights" draws on the ignorant and defensive reactions to feminism among many men, as well as right-wing backlashes (for example against "political correctness" and efforts at social justice).

Hey presto, manifesto

HOW can we respond to men's rights groups? Actually, let's not just be reactive, let's be proactive. How do we assert a pro-feminist and male-positive understanding of men? Here is a four-point manifesto.

(1) Assert a feminist-supportive and male-positive perspective.

Men such as ourselves, men with a concern for men's issues and a sympathy for feminism, should be trying as hard as possible to take up space in the public arena and to affect social and political relations. We should be writing letters to the editor, lobbying politicians, sending submissions, being interviewed, phoning talkback, plugging XY, holding meetings, forming alliances, getting funding, doing deals and shaking hands.

One point of all this is to create an alternative voice on gender issues that is specifically male. Of course it is essential that women take up as much space as possible too, but pro-feminist men have a particular role we can play, and ironically, sometimes we may be listened to more because we are male. We need to show that anti-feminist men do not speak for all men.

We also need to defend women's organisations, services and feminism in general from attacks by men's rights forces. Men have an important role to play as allies of feminist organisations, putting ourselves between them and men's rights groups, taking the heat and limiting the extent to which women's energies are used up in responding to these attacks.

Speak to pain

(2) TAKE up men's rights issues, but differently.

Men's rights men so far have been far more effective than pro-feminist men in speaking to certain aspects of men's lives. They rightly identify the pain, confusion and powerlessness which many men experience, although they misdiagnose it and thus misprescribe the cure.

We need to take up the issues about which men's rights men are vocal, offering an alternative analysis of their character and causes. We have to try to reach the men who otherwise might join men's rights organisations and in some cases who have their pain turned into anti-women backlash. Doing so will be challenging, and it may involve questioning aspects of the feminist-informed analyses we have held so far. I believe that a recognition of areas of men's pain and even disadvantage is compatible with a feminist understanding (that is, an understanding based on a commitment to gender equality and justice), but it may take some reworking for this compatibility to be realised.

On divorce and custody for example, I have heard enough now that I accept that sometimes men are unfairly treated. At the same time, I reject the broader claims made by men's rights men, for example that the family courts generally disadvantage men and advantage women, that women frequently make false accusations of sexual abuse, or that we need a return to the days of fault-based divorce or the preservation of the nuclear family at all costs.

Domestic violence is a second crucial area for men's rights men, and equally important for feminists and pro-feminists alike. We have to acknowledge that yes, men are the victims of violence. Men and boys are bashed up outside the pub, bullied at school, sexually assaulted as children, bashed in the home, shot on the battlefield, and daily experience frequent "aggro" and put-downs and threats. Yes, men are the victims of violence, but mostly this is violence by other men. Boys and men are most at risk of violence from other boys and men.

Men's rights men typically claim that men and women assault each other at equal rates and with equal effects, and that an epidemic of husband-battering is being ignored if not silenced. The information with which to disprove these claims is readily available, and we should have it at our fingertips. (Let me know if you want copies.)

We do have to acknowledge that women can be and are sometimes violent. Some proportion of child sexual assault involves adult female perpetrators and male victims, and a very small proportion of physical violence between adults involves female perpetrators. I believe that it is politically essential, and fully in line with feminist principles, to acknowledge this violence and to develop feminist responses to it. Indeed, feminist literature itself shows a growing literature on abuse and violence by women. And this does not take away from the main response here, to point out that males are most at risk from other males.

Another aspect of the response, perhaps a strategy in itself, is to put men's rights claims and agendas in their political context. On women's violence for example, men's rights agendas seem to stem as much from political and anti-feminist motives as they do from a genuine concern for male victims of violence. These men are using women's alleged violence against men as a way of discrediting attempts to deal with men's violence against women. Additionally, in a climate in which men's violence against women is widespread and many men are refusing to take it seriously, it is not surprising that women have sometimes been reluctant to focus on violence by women. If men were to take full responsibility for addressing their violence, both individually and collectively, then there would be far more space for women to address issues of women's violence when it does occur.

Win/lose won't work

ON divorce, custody, violence and other issues at stake in gender relations, we need to respond not merely ideologically, in the war of words, but practically. We need to set up services and resources, and this is my fourth strategy below.

(3) Show that men's rights strategies in fact are harmful to men themselves.

The key point to make here is that attacking services primarily for women is no way to gain services for men. Men's rights advocates have attacked women's refuges and women's health centres, simultaneously while calling for either parallel services for men (refuges, health centres, even an Office for the Status of Men) or services for both men and women.

There are at least four problems with such strategies. They focus on the wrong target, they antagonise potential supporters, they taint as backlash the need to address such men's issues, and they are based on a simplistic "You've got it, we want it too" logic which may not provide the most appropriate services for men.

In the case of violence done to men, the problem primarily is not women, and it is certainly not women's services. It is men who are responsible for most violent behaviour. The problem instead is the models of manhood with which all men grow up. To end the violence we will have to change these models, such that toughness, aggression and insensitivity stop ruling men's lives.

Attacking existing services for female survivors (or feminism in general) does male survivors of violence a disservice. It is an attack on the very people who brought the issue of interpersonal violence to public attention in the first place and who have been leaders in this field. It unnecessarily antagonises the women (and men) who could be usefully  involved in responding to male survivors. And it taints as 'backlash' the call for recognition of violence experienced by men.

The same is true for men's health: the problem is not women, or the feminist health movement and the organisations it worked to establish, but destructive notions of manhood, an economic system which values profit and productivity over workers' health, and so on. Richard Fletcher, a veteran men's health advocate and one of the most well recognised and widely published leaders in this area, writes, "Some of the key advocates for greater attention to this issue [men's health] are women whose involvement has been generated by concern for close male relatives." He describes women's (often nurses') advocacy, investigation and promotion of awareness of men's health issues. To try to build men's health by taking away from women's health is to shoot oneself in the prostate, and is a betrayal of the principles on which a concern for health should be based in the first place.

It is striking how often the things men's rights men call for are the mirror image of things established by three decades of women's movements. You've got a women's health centre or a refuge, we want a men's one, and so on. This "us too" approach won't actually get men the most appropriate services they need, because it is motivated more by a kneejerk logic of equality than by an informed appraisal of the kinds of services men are going to use and like. On men's health, Fletcher says we shouldn't simply model men's health on the early development of women's health, because of crucial differences between them. For example, setting up men's health centres might not be the best approach, because there is some evidence that men are more likely to go to generalist medical centres.

(4) Set up services.

Whether the issue is divorce or men's health, we need to provide feminist-informed or at the very least feminist-neutral (and of course male-positive) services and resources for men. If men who have gone through painful divorces and messy custody proceedings, men who are hurting and confused, can find access to such services, they will be able to work through this in ways that are healthy and safe. In fact, I believe that this is happening in Brisbane, as a coalition of women's and community groups respond to the Men's Rights Agency and the Hillcrest murders.

I am suggesting that we speak to the experience of boys and men in such situations, but offer a different interpretation of it and encourage a different resolution for it to those in men's rights ideology.

Ask not what your country

I THINK pro-feminist men (myself included) have been too quick to stereotype as committed woman-haters and sexist dinosaurs all men who raise typical "men's rights" issues. We have been sometimes influenced by the dominant model of oppositional politics, in which all such men are "enemies", to be approached (if at all) with disdain, hostility and self-righteous zeal. We have focused sometimes on the negative and we have attributed motives to men's actions which are not necessarily accurate. Such approaches limit our political effectiveness, making it very difficult for us to reach anyone but the almost-converted.

We will be better able to respond to men's rights agendas if we have a proper idea of the experiences, needs and fears of the men who support them. This was brought home to me in a confrontation with a very angry and hostile man, a men's rights activist from Melbourne. After two hours of talking, he told me of the effect on him of having being sexually abused as a child by his mother and another woman. I've also heard some men's stories of their ex-wives acting maliciously or dishonestly and of an unsupportive legal system. I did not accept the wider conclusions that such men drew from their experiences, and I assume too that for any one incident (like a custody battle) there will be multiple versions of what happened. But if I want to reach such men at all, I do have to accept that what they describe is their reality for the moment and I have to show that I have heard them.

I believe that it is politically more effective, and ethically appropriate, for us to act with integrity, to be prepared to listen and to deal respectfully with conflict. However, this doesn't answer the question, how much of our energies should go into engagement with men's rights men, and I am in two minds about this.

I am very troubled by the organised anti-feminist men's groups in this country, especially as they are making themselves heard in an increasingly conservative political climate. It will be a continual challenge to assert a feminist-sympathetic (and male-affirming) perspective, in the presence of such groups and of the ignorance of many men. This is the challenge that faces us as we near the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. I hope that you and I can take it up with passion, pride and courage.

What's wrong with men's rights?

" In general, "men's rights" is an anti-feminist and sometimes misogynist (woman-hating) backlash. Its analysis is wrong, its strategies are misdirected and sometimes harmful, and ultimately it does not serve men's best interests. There are legitimate aspects to the issues it raises, but they will not be addressed when surrounded by its hostile and sexist agendas.

" The power and privilege which many men receive and exercise are made invisible in men's rights claims. They ignore men's dominance of powerful institutions and positions (institutional power), men's power in relationships (personal power), and cultural support for traditional masculine ideals and attitudes (cultural power). This is not to say all men are powerful and all women are powerless: clearly neither is true, and some men are relatively powerless (Aboriginal men being a good example) just as some women are relatively powerful.

Some of the examples men's rights advocates give of men's powerlessness or oppression (being sent off to war, killed in factories) are in fact examples of some men's powerlessness at the hands of other men. Men's rights ideologies fail to recognise differences and power relations among men themselves, eg of race, class and sexuality, and the crucial role of these in the injustices which they attribute to men in general.

Some of the examples given of injustices or discriminations experienced by men (including some at the hands of women) are legitimate examples, which must be dealt with. For example, some boys are sexually abused, by adult men and sometimes women. Some men are unfairly treated in custody and divorce matters. But men's rights men wrongly use such examples to make much grander claims, for example that men are oppressed by women or that there is some kind of feminist conspiracy to cover up abuse of men.

" Men's rights arguments correctly identify areas of male pain, but misdiagnose their prevalence and their source and thus misprescribe the cure. Men's rights men generally are wrong to place the blame with women, the loss of masculine rites of passage or the success of the feminist movement. Yes, let's acknowledge and tackle the ways in which men are hurt and disempowered. And let's not do this, as men's rights does, at the expense of women or gender justice.

" Feminism is a movement and set of ideas to which many men's rights men show venomous and semi-hysterical hostility. They mistakenly hear feminism's anti-sexism or anti-patriarchy as anti-male or "misandrist" (man-hating), and oddly enough, they fail to hear the enormous hope for both women's and men's futures which feminism embodies.

Men's rights men in fact offer a bizarre caricature of feminism, a highly ignorant and selective misrepresentation. It is based on gross stereotypes and long-standing sexist images of women as ball-breaking and malicious. Most men's rights men show almost no acquaintance with the huge and diverse feminist literature now available and with the feminist women and organisations in existence.

" Finally, the strategies adopted by men's rights men, which include attacks on services and resources devoted to women, will not be helpful for men themselves. They may result in propping up traditional and restrictive models of manhood or masculinity, which are harmful for women and unhealthy for men themselves.

zoomz


A shorter version of this article was first published in XY: Men, Sex, Politics, 7(2), Spring 1997. Reprinted with permission. PO Box 26, Ainslie ACT, 2602, AUSTRALIA.


Responding to men's rights groups[/quote]
53
Main / Head Explode TV AD
Mar 04, 2006, 11:57 PM
So I'm watching TV and a tampon ad comes on.

Tagline is something like "tampex: just another day".

And then there is a montage of the typical day of the typical woman.

First shot?

A 98lb brunnette model with perfect hair is breaking cement with a jackhammer.

Er.

Second shot?

A 95lb model on a fire truck.

Um.

Third shot?

A an asian female baseball player who can't throw.

Right.

Apparently the tag line *should* read "tampex: just another day defying the laws of physics even *on* the rag!"

Just to illustrate some of the improbability. My husband has used a jackhammer. He's 185 lbs and has a *male* body structure and muscle-to-fat ratio. He says it was damn hard and the thing nearly tore his arms out of his sockets. The first model was literally so skinny she was growing the hairy fuzz that anorexics get because they can no longer heat their bodies. Her arms were as thick as my wrists.

If they wanted to make it real they should have used some Big Bertha lesbian type with actual arm muscles (who would still probably be waving the flag on the construction team).

Jeezus. Who do they think they're fooling?

*edit*Wait a sec! I just had a thought. Maybe it was a lady bic jackhammer. Strong enough for cement, but ph balanced for a woman or something...
54
Main / Feminists and Homophobia
Mar 04, 2006, 06:23 PM
On another board I've been in a pitched argument with a lesbian feminist.

She doesn't like the fact that I've *repeatedly* pointed out that men are the majority of the victims of hate crimes against homosexuals. She insists that women bear the brunt of homophobia, that lesbians and bisexual women are as victimized(or more) by society for their sexual orientation as gay and bisexual men.  

What I'm curious about is what people like Amp have to say about this. Being a homosexual male Amp is far more likly to end up face down in a pool of his own blood then this women, yet this woman, whom he no doubt considers an ally, refuses to see his greater vulnerability in this issue. Finally, why would a homosexual man feel the need to cowtow to a group of women who provide him nothing and will minimize his problems unless they somehow relate back to them. What does he gain from this?

It's interesting to me the feminist responce to homophobia. They acknowledge its existance but refuse to acknowledge the majority of its victims are male. Further they somehow, through philosophical mechanations, posit that homophobia is really misogyny in disguise.
55
It`s often been said that the reason why a homemaker deserves monetary support from her husband after divorce is because of the invaluable contribution she made to his working life.

On dr. Phil (yes, yes I know) a couple days ago was a woman who was complaining about her husband not paying her support. (1500 a month was the figure, I believe.)

However *she* had lost him his lucrative job by phoning his boss and bitching at him about all the hours her husband had to work (to afford her lifestyle, natch)... now her husband hasn`t been able to find an equally lucrative job and is behind on his alimony.

What *exactly* is the justification here... Why is she owed this money when she has basically shot her husband`s career in the foot...
56
Main / A Question...
Feb 06, 2006, 11:30 AM
I've been plagued by a particular question recently. It keeps coming up after I hear how men have responded, or believe they would respond, to being propositioned by another man.

The responces run the gambit from revulsion, anger, hatred to physical violence. (Although some respond with humor and firmness, of course.)

But my question is this... why should women treat men with any more respect, courtesy and compassion then men treat eachother? Is it acceptable for a woman to, say, get a male friend to beat the crap out of a persistant admirer? To cut men down with contempt and disgust? Of course this applies to other avenues of life as well.

I don't mean to be challenging, but the question keeps popping up in my mind. And I'd really like to hear a responce from the MEN here.
57
The Ring / Men's Power vs. Women's Power
Feb 04, 2006, 02:53 PM
Quote
Er... when have I ever referred to such a power? Could you quote it, please? Because from where I'm standing, this seems like a complete non sequitor.


When I asked for an example of a social more that oppressed women and wasn't opposed by government and the media (two institutions that are ostensibly controlled by men) you both refused to do it and also said that my question didn't account for the "totality of oppression."

If men are using their power as politicians, controllers of media and corperate heads to avoid or suppress issues that women have, to the benefit of men's issues... either by enacting anti-woman laws, presenting anti-woman information or ignoring the female market, then why can't you come up with an example that satisfies my initial challenge? There should be, literally, hundreds of examples of men abusing their power to ignore and suppress women's issues enshrined in law and ignored by the media. (Not issues like abortion and birth control, which women themselves are divided on. Thus when a male politician takes a side in such issues, he's siding with one group or another of WOMEN. Therefore,  an anti-abortion politican is reflecting the views of women just as much as a pro-abortion politician.)

If the "totality of oppression" does not include men's political power, their media control or their corperate influence... then what, *is* it?

Quote
There are some ways that men, on average, are more powerful than women, on average, after all other factors (class, race, etc) are held equal. Perhaps more importantly, it's also true that our society tends to reserve most positions of great power for men.


Again, you were unable to come up with an example of anti-woman bias that was enshrined in law, unenforced by a majority of people or ignored by the media. (I would also add that it's unlikely you're going to come up with an example of a corperation ignoring a female need or market.)

Therefore the power that men weild, on average, is weilded for the benefit of women.

Now we're left with the "totality of oppression" you mentioned before. Again, since you were unable to come up with an example of men using their political, media, or corperate power to oppress women (outside of issues that women don't agree upon themselves)... then what *other* power is left for men to use against women?

What constitutes this "totality of oppression?"
58
Main / Woman Lives as A Man
Jan 29, 2006, 06:51 PM
Take 2.

Here`s a link better interview with Norah Vincent.

Not as fluff as the 20-20 peice.

Good stuff.


http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=3210540&postID=113822950712400986
59
The Ring / Enforcement of Social Mores
Jan 25, 2006, 02:34 PM
Quote from: "ampersand"
Quote from: "typhonblue"
...as I've said several times before, if a social more is not *enforced* it's not oppressive.


Define "enforced."

For instance, let's say a jock fears to admit that he's gay because he's afraid that his jock friends will abandon him and not consider him a real man anymore. Is that enforcement? (I'd say yes, but what would you say?)


I suppose there are levels of enforcement.

Generally one party has to be in a position of power over the other to enforce conformity in the second party. (For instance, almost every person on this planet has been in a position of subservience to a woman during their most vulnerable and formative years. Suggesting that women have incredible power to enforce conformity. At least in those cultures without counter-measures.)

Sometimes that power can simply be a matter of holding a majority view point. Which you can then turn to for enforcement of that viewpoint.

The greatest level of enforcement is when laws exist against a particular action and the majority of individuals agree with the enforcement (to the point where a majority of *criminals* will enforce it.)

Quote

Nothing you say disagrees with what I've said. Rape in prison is illegal, but oppressive. Punishment by guards of consensual sex is legal, but oppressive. This supports my view, which is that oppressive elements can be legal or illegal.


Sorry if I'm repeating myself, it's been a while since I went through this before.

Rape in the community(for women) does not suffer from the same lack of compassion (people rarely find community rape funny in the way they find prison rape), enforcement (when charges are brought, they are far less likily to be dismissed), or universal condemnation (even criminals do not condone the rapists of women yet criminals condone rapists of men.)

Would you say, knowing that, that the rape of women is equally oppressive as the rape of men(in prison)?

Or even out, really.

Quote
Quote
Officials in the community do not turn a blind eye to rape (at least where women are concerned)...


So do you therefore conclude that rape of women is not oppressive?


Personally, I don't see how society could stigmatize the rape of women any more. It's criminalized. Almost no one finds it acceptable. It's not a source of levity like the rape of men. Government bodies exist to address it. Laws exist to protect the victims. etc. etc.  

So I don't see how rape is an effort by society to oppress women. Society couldn't do much more to stop it, barring even more extreme violations of men's rights.

Now compare that to how the same issue for men is treated. (Or ignored and/or laughed at, rather.)

Quote
Quote
And from whom(primarily) did the individuals who influence care-takers pick up their own gender-norms?


From the culture around them. Trying to pick out one person and say "she's the gulity party! Her!" shows a vast misunderstanding of how culture is transmitted.


Okay, tell me how culture is transmitted?

I simply assumed culture was transmitted from the old to the young. Influences of peer groups are important, but realize that those peers are *also* subject to the same transfer of culture from the old to the young. (Unless they are swooping in from some sort of genetics lab where they've been grown in a test tube.)

And since the older parties in closest and most intimate contact with the young tend to be universally female... well... it stands to reason that the majority of culture is being transmitted by women.

(I omitted the poor people thing because I have no idea where I'm going with it anymore.)
60
I see a difference between someone who supports men and someone who supports a particular role for men.

I know this is sort of a inflamatory topic, but I'm putting it out there. What do you guys think?