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Just to make things clearer, we will not be holding the chat during the last Wednesday of December (12/26), so this week's chat will be the last one of this year.
Scott
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I think Will's idea is excellent--I wish I had thought of it.
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Rather than having men's rights and women's rights (and wombats' rights and ostrich's rights) can't we just have human rights? So much simpler.
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See the big graphic logo at the top of this site? It says "Mensactivism.org - Men's Rights News and Info."
While I agree with your sentiment, it's just not going to happen - people will alwasy be interested in certain issues at the expense of others. Rather than fight it, we've embraced it.
And still, you'll find many people here that do promote both men's and women's rights. That's great, too.
Scott
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can't we just have human rights?
I've spoken out on this site against what I perceived to be racism. And as Scott stated, "you'll find many people here that do promote both men's and women's rights."
We are promoting human rights. We are promoting human rights with a particular focus on men's rights.
While we promote men's rights somewhat at the expense of promoting other particular rights, we do not promote men's rights at the expense of other rights. See the difference?
Ultimately, for men to have their rights, everyone must have their rights. This is something that mainstream feminists have been too blinded by hatred to see.
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The comment wasn't meant to deride the men's rights movement per se. I never embraced feminism because it DID seem to exclude men. I just was making an offhand pipedream sort of comment. Ah well. Seems to be my role in life, to disagree with the status quo.
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Wiccid, without intending to raise hackles, I think of men as a subset of the human race, and in that vein, I think that we are, as Thomas says, pursuing human rights. Most of us here are supportive of equality, so we're not looking to subjugate anyone, just get back to a level, or reasonably so, playing field.
Frank
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A subset? My state legislative directory and Congress Directory indicate they hold a comfortable controlling majority, particularly white men and Republicans.
No, no, I am not scoffing, I am just saying.
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Women are the majority of voters. In a very real sense, women are the government. If they prefer hiring men to do the work of government for them, that's their decision. It doesn't change the fact that, as the majority, women are effectively the government. That's why so many legislators spend so much of their lives trying to give women whatever they think women want. (Think of the hideously sexist, Violence Against Women Act as well as the all-male-draft.)
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A subset? My state legislative directory and Congress Directory indicate they hold a comfortable controlling majority, particularly white men and Republicans.
No, no, I am not scoffing, I am just saying.
Please be aware that the term "subset" is not equivalent to the term "minority."
Subset, in its proper annotative form, means a smaller part of the entire set. Ergo, women are a subset of the human race. Men are a subset of the human race, etc., etc.
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Subset, in its proper annotative form, means a smaller part of the entire set. Ergo, women are a subset of the human race. Men are a subset of the human race, etc., etc.
Actually, let me clarify that with better language. A "subset" is nothing more than a set within a set.
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Well then, that's the problem of the men who do NOT utilize their right to vote, not the women who do.
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Wrong, sista! Women outnumber men in the general population. Also, there are reasons for feeling discouraged. Note the low voter turnout among blacks in many elections.
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There are a ridiculously high number of men, particularly black men, in prison for drug offenses. Which may explain the low voter turnout in those populations.
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Wiccid: I know it is popular to feel that because the majority of a "state legislative directory and Congress Directory" means that men "obviously" have all the power because they are physically represented this does not mean they are working for rights of whites or men. For most of these politians men are invisible.
Michael Kimmel wrote a story in his book Manhood in America that highlights this point very well. The point of it was that men are universially generalizable, they have no race, class or gender. Men are generic as a group.
The advantages of this are that if there is a problem and people are unsure what to do they will default to what they know or feel is best. BUT in todays society there are very few issues that do not have a group pressing for attention. These groups are very vocal and wield a great deal of political power and money. Noone can deny that NOW (yes that group) has a political agenda is very onesided toward the special interests of women. To turn a deaf ear to this group is politically very risky if not instant death. This group amoung others has demanded that at least some of thier issues be dealt with. I will contend that if they haven't been successful to some extent then they would have disappeared long ago.
I do feel human rights are important. The difficult part is determing what those rights should be. It is impossible to ignore the fact that men and women have different roles biologically and that social roles will be also affected by these biological roles. While some basic rights will be specific for all sexes this does not mean that some will not be specific and varied for men and women.
Women's rights have an enourmous amount of attention on a local, national and international level. Governments and organizations at all levels have formed committees to look into the problems women have. Few if any have been formed to examine male issues.
Tony H
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There are a ridiculously high number of men, particularly black men, in prison for drug offenses. Which may explain the low voter turnout in those populations.
This may account in part for low voter turnout amongst blacks in many elections, but if you think they aren't discouraged, think again. I've heard too many leaders of the black community say that they are fighting a sense of helplessness in trying to get blacks to vote to believe that disenfranchisement and a sense of helplessness are not at work.
While men can turn out in greater numbers, so can women. And women, as I've pointed out and as you well know, are the majority. As such, women are the government.
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While men can turn out in greater numbers, so can women. And women, as I've pointed out and as you well know, are the majority. As such, women are the government.
EXACTLY. As a matter of fact, elections really only attract a *very* small percentage of the population to vote, including presidential elections. Women turn out in greater numbers because politicians cater to them.
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Here are a few of my favorite writers and books on the topics of Mens Rights and Gender/Misandrist Feminism:
Warren Farrell - The Myth of Male Power, Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say, others
Christina Hoff Sommers - Who Stole Feminism, War Against Boys, a variety of other items some found at IWF and scattered around the internet
John Leo - a number of different stories archived in JewishWorldReview.com and on USNews.com
Cathy Young - Ceasefire, detnews.com columns, reason.com columns, Feminist Jurisprudence at Cato Inst.
Camille Paglia - salon.com columns
Daphe Patai - Heterophobia, Professing Feminism, the article 'A Threat From Within' at www.westchesterweekly.com/articles/heterophobia.ht ml, Chronicle of Higher Ed discussions
Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Christine Stolba - Womens Figures, articles on IWF
Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young - Spreading Misandry
Katie Roiphe - The Morning After
Asa Baber - Naked at Gender Gap
Richard Driscoll - The Stronger Sex - interesting ideas about the impact of biology on all of this.
Jack Kammer, Ed. - Good Will Toward Men (interviews with 20+ women, some quite prominent, incl Karen DeCrow the second president of NOW after Friedan I believe)
Patricia Pearson - When She Was Bad
Dmitri Bilgere - something about the Blame Game - can't find it at the moment
Wendy McElroy, Donna Lafromboise, Ilana Mercer, Debbie Schlussel, Kathleen Parker, Karen Lehrman have all written books and/or articles that describe the problems with gender feminism. I have not yet read any of their books, but have read many excellent articles.
Sheridan Hill, Martin Fiebert, Murray Straus, Erin Pizzey, John Archer all have excellent research/articles on the topic of female DV abusers of men and how feminist activists try to hide this.
Most of the above authors can easily be found by an internet search on their names. The DV stuff is mostly below at MenWeb.
Some sites with lots of good info about men's rights and the problems with gender feminism:
MenWeb - a million articles on every topic at www.vix.com/menmag
Three great dissident feminism sites:
IWF.org - lots of course
Ifeminists.com
Womens Freedom Network - Started by Cathy Young, not too active but some stuff
www.thefire.org - piles of stuff on campus sex crimes codes, especially good info on the Columbia University disaster.
Will
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Here are some of the books I have enjoyed:
Manhood in America: A Cultural History
By Michael Kimmel
I Don't Want to Talk About It By Terrence Real
Abused Men: the hidden side of domestic violence
by Philip Cook
The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers
Spreading Misandry: the teaching of contempt for men in popular culture by Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young
Also a feminist website I like is The gender issues research center: http://www.gendercenter.org/
I also suggest we focus the topic a bit more than just books about men. Why not pick a topic and related book(s) for the month (or two months for us busy people). A list can be generated for a few months in advance. Maybe since this is the holiday season what about books that involve fathers and their involvement with children?
Tony H
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...the plan is, I'll post the plan on MANN this weekend. :)
The chat went very well. Here's a quick summary of what we decided on:
The book we will start with is Christina Hoff-Sommers' Who Stole Feminism?, which I'd encourage people to buy and start reading now.
Initially, we were thinking of doing a separate chat each week for the book, and completing 3-4 chapters per week. But given that the chats aren't convenient for many people, it was decided we'd be better off with an e-mail list instead.
So, I will be setting up an e-mail list on MANN next week and will allow people to subscribe to it at the very end of December. We will probably keep the same reading schedule, ie 3-4 chapters per week.
Also, we will try to contact Christina Hoff-Sommers and see if she'll join an on-line chat in January.
Depending on how this all goes, we'll do it again with another book if there's enough interest!
Scott
PS - Yes, Spreading Misandry was another popular book choice, but apparently copies have been on backorder for some time at many stores, and we needed something that is widely available now. I was a bit surprised at the choice of Who Stole Feminism?, but I agree that knowing the material in this book will make people much better activists for men's rights and able to refute many common feminist myths.
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