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Hmmm. Perhaps if men received the same quality of customer service women do in department stores, malls, and the like, our shopping habits might be more acceptable to this bigot of an author.
In fact, my very next guest column for ifeminists.com will deal with this aspect of manhood. Watch for it next week (hopefully).
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by nagzi
(nagziNO@SPAMPLEASEphreaker.net)
on Thursday December 20, @05:15PM EST (#2)
(User #86 Info)
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Which gender is expected to buy insanely expensive gifts? Which gender is told to buy cheap useful gifts, that other is already going to have?
Whats the saying? "dog is man's best friend, and diamonds are a woman's best friend." Personally I would take a diamond, only to sell it and buy a dog and other usefull stuff that I would like.
Besides, why would I buy a greating card to begin with? Hallmark and others are fairly anti-male, so I would rather not support the. Plus Making a greating on my computer (yes I'm a computer geek, and damn proud of it) is MORE personal than any of the crap you can get from a greating card store.
As for the first story, I would comment but I'm afraid it would only insult/up set the women that come here.
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The diamond engagement ring is a tradition that dates back only to the late 1800s. Before that time, diamond rings were ONLY for the insanely wealthy. Royalty, DuPonts and Rockefellers were the only ones who sported diamond rings. Normal people wore rings made from plain gold or silver, decorated with less-expensive (but no less beautiful) stones.
Then diamonds were discovered in South Africa, bringing the prices down--somewhat. The diamond industry was faced with a problem: Nobody saw the point in shelling out a year's salary for a diamond when, say, sapphires were just as lovely and well within financial reach. Enter *marketing.* The diamond industry launched a pervasive marketing campaign that sought to convince everyone that diamonds were a symbol of true and unending love, and that nothing else was good enough.
Sadly, the populace bought into it in droves. Most people today think that the "tradition" of diamond engagement rings date back centuries, instead of only 130 years or so.
This will soon change. More and more people are finding out about the blood diamond industry. Blood diamonds are the reason why I would never wear a diamond. I refuse to wear a piece of jewelry that is soaked in the blood of innocent Africans being mutilated and slaughtered by criminal diamond traders.
Remember when a fur coat was an absolute must, the gift to end all gifts? Now most women wouldn't be caught in a fur coat, because now most women are aware of the suffering that goes into manufacturing one. The same thing is going to happen when more women become aware of the blood diamond trade. The diamond industry is aware of this, and it scares the living shit out of them.
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I thought that diamonds were propelled into popular culture by the film industry. Debeers (sp?) of South Africa, financially backed many older films if the producers agreed to use exclusively diamonds wedding rings.
This may be myth, but I think it is based on fact.
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I wouldn't doubt that happened as part of the diamond industry's marketing strategies. Product placement in films is a very effective form of subliminal selling.
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I agree totally with you Claire. I have never owned a diamond. I returned one once that was a gift to me explaining carefully to the gift giver why. I refused to have a diamond engagement ring. You cannot imagine the uproar this caused on both sides.
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My understanding is that the popularity of diamonds is a very recent occurrence. Debeers, who controls ~90+% of the diamond trade in the world created a huge marketing campaign to link diamonds with engagement rings. I am not sure when exactly this occurred but I believe it was in the last 50 years (i.e., television and mass media).
I learned most of this recently (a year or so ago) from a friend and I will not buy another diamond ring.
As for man-made diamonds, almost all industrial diamonds are man-made. They are used in diamond cutting blades, drills and lapping compounds. Larger man-made diamonds until recently (the last 5 years) were very poor quality (flaws) and lacked the more beautiful color of natural diamonds (they tended to be yellow. This is now not the case and the inventors are trying to find corporate support to expand the production capacity. Debeers is of course afraid and is working legal and illegal tactics to stop them. Also they are beginning to put a laser stamp on all their diamonds that will identify them as natural. (There was a great PBS documentary on this subject)
Tony H
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by Anonymous User on Thursday December 20, @05:22PM EST (#3)
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What an incredibly pompous article. Maybe she'll get the US Code changed so that all males between 18 and 45 aren't subject to military service. Maybe she can help convince the world that men aren't the expendable sex. Maybe if she wasn't putting men down (except those who cry) she could offer a real solution. Maybe she could try to help men and women attain true equality. And just maybe she might realize that men are abused, raped, and demonized by women too.
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Here's what I just sent to Judy Mann. I find her last name ironic.
----
Wow. You're quite adamant that men are all evil and violent, aren't you? Would it interest you to know that the majority of violent child abuse is committed by women? Mostly by single mothers? Hmmm.
Or how about all those people who rushed to the aid of the victims of the 9/11 tragedy? The rescuers and helpers were 99 percent male, if I recall. Takes a big heart and a lot of love to put your own life on the line for another. Where were the women?
You think terrorism is an act exclusive to men? That's the most ridiculous phrase ever put to paper. If most terrorists are male it's only because men are more willing to put themselves on the line for what they believe than are women, albeit terrorists take that far too an extreme.
Blaming manhood for terrorism is pure and simple bigotry on your part.
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Good one Nightmist.
Here's what I wrote to her:
Judy Mann
Agree 100% that we need to find ways to stop terrorism.
Your article however seems to have indicted men and masculinity in general as being a culture of violence. This is not, in my opinion, a balanced or accurate viewpoint. The Department of Justice doesn't seem to agree either. Their latest statistics show that men are almost as likely as women to be the victims of domestic violence. Most people recoil when they hear this. They have been so brainwashed by the media messages like yours that men are the perps and women the victims that they simply won't believe it's true. Look it up for yourself. We also know that women, not men, are the likeliest killers of their young children. To characterize men as violent and women as victims is grossly misleading, inaccurate, and proliferates a damaging message about men and masculinity.
You referred to the fireman working in tears and quoted Morgan who said: "The hit was so enormous it shocked them out of a certain kind of manhood pattern,"
What? What is it she is saying? What pattern of manhood was it? Sounds more like insinuation and implying that there is something inherently wrong with men and masculinity that needs a shock to bring them to their senses. Sounds like male bashing to me. Oh please.
Are you aware that a man's access to emotional tears diminishes greatly during and after adolescence? Actually a boy's body changes at this time and his levels of prolactin drop. Prolactin, a pituitary hormone, impacts our access to emotional tears. People with high prolactin levels tend to cry more easily and those with lower levels tend to cry less. Men generally have less prolactin from adolescence onward and tend to cry less than women. It's interesting to note that a man's levels of prolactin begin to slowly return as he ages and for many men tears come more easily as they move into their 50's and 60's. You can change the child rearing all you want and this will not change yet women are consistently judging men for their lack of tears which they imply proves their lack of sensitivity. This is short-sighted and lacks even a rudimentary understanding of a man's manner of processing emotions. Rather than gain understanding of a man's way to process emotions these women tend to assume that men should be emoting like women and judge men on a biased scale based on their own ways.
The fact is that for generations fireman, policemen, our armed forces, and millions of other men have been living lives that are "masculine" and in service to their country, their communities, and their families. These loving men have nothing to do with the violence you write about but must surely be insulted by your implications.
How about writing a positive article about men and the masculine that could honor those millions?
Tom
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Here is judy mann's email address for anyone who might want to contact her:
mannj@washpost.com.
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I was so angered by Mann's article, since my brothr was one of the men she refers to, that I sent her the following.
Dear Ms. Mann,
Your article of Wednesday, December 19th 2001, "Terrorism and the Cult of Manly Men" is replete with anti-male bigotry.
My brother was one of the police officers reassigned to duty at the World Trade Center on September 11th. In my discussions with him about his experiences there, I had no sense whatsoever of the misandric spin with which you choose to characterize "one of the most moving scenes from Sept. 11"; namely that he along with his colleagues somehow transcended their "manhood pattern"--one which, in an astoundingly bigoted statement, is considered "toxic to men and lethal to women"--and "...did their jobs with heroism and cried while doing it."
What fatuous self-indulgent nonsense. Presumably the significance of his crying would have been a sense of collective guilt for being male. My brother was overwhelmed by what he saw alright, but as a man and a human being, not as some potential terrorist (you fail to mention the proportion of the billions of men on the planet who are terrorists, because this would expose your anti-male bigotry) who needed the tragic events of September 11th to transform him into some twisted feminist notion of manhood.
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I must say, Thomas and Mars, your letters explain it much more eloquently than mine. Thank you. And, Mars, thank your brother for us for his hard work during that terrible, terrible tragedy.
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Judy Mann and her ilk make me proud to be a part of our movement. She proves how greatly we are needed.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday December 20, @07:04PM EST (#8)
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Once again I am told that I am to blame for all the worlds problems because I am a man. Where would I be without people like Mann to tell me how wrong, how un-woman, I am?
Oh well. With any luck the next disaster will happen soon so I can find out how I am to blame for that because I won't wear a dress and one of those fake pregnancy pouches in order to become more sensitive.
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This woman is self-deluded or deluded by populist dogma. This is no more apparent than in her comment "...We've gone to war as part of a coalition, not the Lone Ranger invading Vietnam..."
The 550 Australians who died and the 50000+ who served in Vietnam would be offended.
If she can't get a simple fact about Vietnam right what hope is there for the rest of her story.
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There were Canadians over there as well.
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This isn't meant to be a criticism of anyone who's written to Judy Mann. This is just a tactical suggestion...
Since I have a limited amount of time and energy, I would rather write personally to editors-in-chief (to demand an end to the publication of such hateful distortions) and write letters to the editor (to be published) than write to the likes of Judy Mann. I think that trying to convince someone like Judy Mann that masculinity and manhood, as we know it today, are largely good things is like trying to convince a Hitler that Judaism and Jews are on the whole decent folk. I don't think there is any hope of convincing someone who is so far gone with hatred and lies.
Please understand, this is just a suggestion -- not meant to be an offense to anyone. Also, I have to apologize for not knowing the name and email address of the editor-in-chief. I looked for a while online and couldn't find it. And now, I have the chance to go work out and I'm gonna do it. Ciao!
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A very good suggestion Thomas.
I think multiple notes to Mann, the editor in chief, letters to the editor, etc. can be effective. Email makes this a simple task. :)
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Sometime in the late seventies, I believe, General Electric figured out how to produce diamonds artificially. The public word was that these were only "industrial grade" diamonds, not suitable as gemstones. But the reality was that GE soon advanced to gemstone quality diamonds. Representatives of the diamond cartel contacted the GE people and soon this capability 'disappeared'.
I do not buy diamonds for anyone since I read of this. On the rare occasion that I buy gemstones, I buy ones with intrinsic value and without a controlling cartel. Emeralds and rubies and the occasional string of pearls.
But diamonds? Never.
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That doesn't surprise me one bit. The diamond cartels rule with an iron hand in Africa, where the gems are mined. They are terrorists.
I don't own any jewelry of value, not even one piece. There's never been any money to buy a string of pearls, or anything even remotely approaching that kind of value. When my partner and I watch TV and see commercials for diamonds, vacations and other mega-expensive shit, we actually ask each other, "Who the HELL are these commercials directed at?" They sure aren't aimed at us.
This has never upset me. There's no point in getting upset. It would be like getting upset because I can't buy a vacation home in Greece. Perhaps I have this view because I was raised by my grandparents, both of them Depression children who hammered into me the value of a dollar. They taught me to be a critical consumer and question the practicality of expensive items. As far as they were concerned, emeralds, rubies and pearls were all overpriced junk. It's better to spend the money on food, utilities or a better car.
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I'm curious as to what our female posters think about the first article. Unless I missed it, I haven't yet heard their take on it. I just want to know if they feel the article was as unfair and hateful as the men do. They are obviously free to disagree, but I'm just curious. After all, in my opinion, the outcry of fairminded women will be the catalyst needed to make gains down a long road ending in respectful treatment of men in the future.
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What did you think of it, bledso? In my opinion, there were too many points of contention to address entirely. I chose to contradict the gender feminist interpretation of the men who worked their based on my own experience. I live in New York City, I once worked in the World Trade Center, and my brother risked his life to dig body parts out of the ruins in the days that followed. To say that the experience somehow shocked him out of "old patterns of manhood" is not only false, it's morally no better than racism.
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What did you think of it, bledso? In my opinion, there were too many points of contention to address entirely. I chose to contradict the gender feminist interpretation of the reactions of men who worked at the World Trade Center based on my own experience. I live in New York City, I once worked in the World Trade Center, and my brother risked his life at "ground zero" to dig body parts out of the ruins in the days that followed. To say that the experience somehow shocked him and his fellow officers out of "old patterns of manhood" is not only false, but mean spirited and morally no better than racism.
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Mars, I think the article is sickening, infuriating, depressing, and predictable all at the same time. That combination often makes me nauseous...literally. I certainly don't want to turn into one of those guys that "throws in the towel" or raises the white flag to this type of nonsense. However, there are times I find myself thinking our efforts are really making a difference, only to be derailed(at least my personal thunder) by another backhanded slap in the face like this article. That is one of the reasons I was asking for the opinions of our female contributors. Reading an intelligent commentary, from a woman, exposing the idea that most women don't feel the way Ms. Mann does is very encouraging. A great example of such a woman is obviously Wendy McElroy. I haven't heard from our female posters on this article yet, but I'm still looking forward to it.
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Well, we might be more successful retraining Pavlov's dogs, but an alternative point of view might shock Ms. Mann into a "new kind of femininity." OK, I'm being sarcastic.
We're also posting our letters here, and if they're good enough, they form a permanent record in the Internet that anyone can read; that might give a journalist reason to consider whether male bashing ought to be promulgatd in the mainstream press, or not. I don't suggest that we attempt to suppress the speech of misandrists either; rather I would prefer that we express our ideas in the public sphere and, if they are right, people will begin to accept and internalize them, and come to reject misandry in the same way that most people have come to reject misogyny over the last 30 years or so.
Still if you have the email addresses of the editors in chief I'd be interested.
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Well there is great merit to the idea of giving someone enough rope to hang themselves.
I would alternately suggest that what we need is equal opportunity to respond or contradict.
I would suggest that we should, as a group, have a representative respond formally on behalf of this group to misandrist articles and demand a counterpoint item be published in direct response in the same location (section) of the paper.
In other words we lobby the paper (any offending paper) for equal time.
Here is an example of how we could do such a thing without putting the burden unfairly onto the shoulders of a single person here.
The National Post (Canadian newspaper) is "currently" polling visitors to their web site on a question of "relevance" to Canadians.
The point is that they then forward these votes onto a relevant person in power on the voters' behalf with the newspaper's endorsement. So the newspaper lends its weight to the readers' tacit desire to have things changed, stopped, or remain the same, or in this case simple support.
They also do the same at
Vote.com .
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Please understand, this is just a suggestion -- not meant to be an offense to anyone.
Also, if you *do* write to Judy Mann, copy your letter to the editor. That's what I did.
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if you *do* write to Judy Mann, copy your letter to the editor. That's what I did.
Nightmist, what's the editor's email address?
Again, please realize that I'm not saying that I have the answer here, I'm just trying to discuss strategy... I wonder if it would be better to write directly to the editor-in-chief and cc the writer rather than the reverse. These are just thoughts. Maybe if some of us do one and some of us do the other we will have the strongest impact. In any case, it's a pleasure to see the great letters that have been written from people here to Judy Mann.
For what it's worth, Mars, I found your letter extremely and particularly moving, perhaps because it was so personal. Have you sent it to the editor, perhaps in a slightly modified version to be appropriate as sent directly to that person?
And as for the idea of petitioning for a rebuttal... He can, of course, decline, but I nominate Nightmist. Let's discuss this further. I'd like to see mensactivism.org get on the map, and it would be great to see James in editorial print at the Washington Post.
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Nightmist, what's the editor's email address?
Send it to letters@washpost.com. The letters editor and the actual editor are often the same person. In the Post's case, I doubt that, but the letters editor is closer to editor-in-chief than is the writer.
And as for the idea of petitioning for a rebuttal... He can, of course, decline, but I nominate Nightmist. Let's discuss this further. I'd like to see mensactivism.org get on the map, and it would be great to see James in editorial print at the Washington Post.
I would be happy to do this, but I will need the assistance of you good folks as editors.
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Thanks Nightmist. I'll write to the letters editor, and while I'm at it, I'll ask my brother what he thinks of Ms. Mann's article.
I had forgotten to point out that Ms. Mann's attempt to exploit the tragedy of September 11th to advance an anti-male gender feminist agenda could fairly be called disgusting. Not once did I get the sense from my brother that the men who worked there were "shocked" out of patterns of manhood, old patterns which, Ms Mann seems to suggest, are potentially "toxic to men and lethal to women." It's really not clear what patterns she's referring to, but given the anti-male tone of the article, it's hardly a stretch to assume the worst. Let her defend herself, if she can.
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". I think that trying to convince someone like Judy Mann that masculinity and manhood, as we know it today, are largely good things is like trying to convince a Hitler that Judaism and Jews are on the whole decent folk."
ok please warn me before you say something like this. I almost choked on my coffee laughing so hard. I hope you don't mind if I steal this quote from you and only give you credit in my heart.
As for the rest very good point I think I will still write one to the author just on principle but I will try and send letter to the editors and publishers from now on.
Tony H
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Tony H said, "'. I think that trying to convince someone like Judy Mann that masculinity and manhood, as we know it today, are largely good things is like trying to convince a Hitler that Judaism and Jews are on the whole decent folk.'"
"ok please warn me before you say something like this. I almost choked on my coffee laughing so hard. I hope you don't mind if I steal this quote from you and only give you credit in my heart."
I was in a hurry to go work out, so I wrote it a little awkwardly, but please use the statement as you see fit. I'll be honored to be credited in your heart. The parallels between mainstream/gender feminism and traditional Nazism (as opposed to contemporary feminazism) should be consistently and emphatically pointed out.
This is something of an aside, but with all due respect to the good people who call themselves equity feminists and individualist feminists, the thing to which most people refer when they speak of "feminism" is the misandrist hate movement. The more we undermine the word "feminism" the more we will undermine the hate movement itself.
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I wrote this.
You wrote:
"But it doesn't explain Osama bin Laden or some of his well-educated, well-to-do lieutenants. Bin Laden was born into privilege and luxury. Zacarias Moussaoui was raised in France by his mother, a civil servant whose four children had their own rooms, pocket money and vacations. She raised her boys and girls to share housework. Then one day, she told the New York Times, a female cousin arrived with a message of Islamic feminity[sic] for the girls and Islamic masculinity for the boys. Boys, the cousin announced, should never do housework. That was unmanly. "The boys liked what they heard," said their mother."
I believe, that in Bin Laden's case, the issue is one of a condition called psychopathia. Bin Landen behaved as he did because he is quite obviously a psychopath.
Masculinity is not the issue. Psychopathia is NOT a form of masculinity.Psychopathia is NOT a mental illness, nor is it something one can learn to be, and, so be derived of poor family life or misogynist indoctrination.
I refer you to this book, Without Conscience by Dr. Robert Hare, for further investigation and in aid of helping you to become more informed.
http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInqu iry.asp?pcount=0&isbn=1572304510
Your failed attack on an alleged "cult of masculinity" also insults the quite authentic asexual a-romantic realm of martyrs (seen as terrorists during their own times). I would no more describe Jesus Christ as a romantic or a sex symbol, than I would Joan of Arc. I don't even recall Timothy McVeigh being hailed as a romantic or as a sex symbol.
What disturbs me also is that your article fails to acknowledge, in even the most indirect way, the reality that Afghanistan is a society in terrible disorder. This disorder continued to exist not because women's voices were silenced or ignored, but because the country has been at war for decades and the country has been the subject of brutal invasion for millennia.
Finally your clearly ugly opinion would have us subscribe to the misandrist politic that the simple slaughter of untold thousand of males, conscripts with little or no choice, and or without regard or concern for their individual beliefs, is somehow beside the point and of little importance when compared to the repression of females.
I defy anyone to prove that men are raped or oppressed by other men any less than are women raped or oppressed by men.
Donald Cameron
Ontario, Canada.
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As much as I am sickened by the writings of people [sic] like Judy Mann, I think they can, and often do, actually hurt their own cause in the eyes of the public majority. I believe (or maybe just hope) that most people, female and male, recognize this nonsense as the blatantly hateful bigotry it is, and disregard it as such. Then again, perhaps I am giving the collective cognetive capacity of the general public too much credit. At an rate, we should look at this as an opportunity to discredit the wild dogma of gender feminists, if for no other reason than it would be so easy to defeat these obsurd notions in a debate. Hell, all we have to do is quote Morgan's and Mann's own words to show people how ridiculous the axioms of gender feminism are. Mann, and the people like her, have given us all the fuel we need to expose the hypocracy and hate inherent within the totalitarian agenda of gender feminist ideology. And, through their lack of intellegent arguments, they have made it incredibly easy to do so. The hardest part is "de-brainwashing" those who have already become infected by the venemous vomit of people like MacKinnon.
Unfortunately, I think that the only way to get anything through most people's heads is to beat it in with a sledgehammer, not through intellectual discourse. Maybe if we all "dumb-down" our message, and go around in public chanting "men not bad", people will eventually understand...
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I'm afraid we'll get a reaction like "men not bad" ... at what?
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Unfortunately, I think that the only way to get anything through most people's heads is to beat it in with a sledgehammer, not through intellectual discourse. Maybe if we all "dumb-down" our message, and go around in public chanting "men not bad", people will eventually understand...
If it's so easy to dispense with Mann, why is she getting paid for spewing hatred? I say that one should counter bad arguments with good arguments. For example, one could attempt to stigmatize this kind of bigotry by equating it with racism. Pick any minority group, and imagine that the Mann article were referring to that group instead of men. She would have a difficult time getting published.
Let's consider her arguments from another statistical point of view. She argues that the vast majority of terrorists are men, and so that says something ominous about masculinity. However, a far greater proportion of terrorists are Arab, but does that fact entitle us to spew racist hatred about Arabs? Mann's statistical "logic" would force such a repugnant conclusion.
We shouldn't be content to intone caveman-like messages like "men not bad" to the masses. That panders to popular stereotypes of men; I can hardly see it being effective unless the same cavemen who grunted it weren't actually willing to club anyone who disagreed ;) Just a joke.
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Yes, I agree that we shouldn't literally chant "men not bad". I guess I should have attached the disclaimer [sarcasm] to that last paragraph.
Honestly, I don't know why people like Mann make so much money spewing hatred. I suppose it's because people need an enemy, and they are willing to pay someone to give them one.
Anyway, I agree that the best way to defeat bad arguments is to counter them with good arguments. That is what I was referring to when I said that Mann and Morgan have given us the fuel we need. They have given us so many poorly designed arguments, that countering them is not a particularly difficult thing to do. However, I think most people here would agree with me that arguing with a gender feminist on a intellectual basis and factual premise is nothing short of impossible. The argument always gets reduced to simple rantings and insults, presumably because they realize that they cannot win otherwise. Sad.
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As I read Hobbes' post above, it occurred to me that the feminists are doing exactly the same thing to men that Hitler did to the Jews in WWII. I know, it's an old idea, but one worth revisiting. No matter how cruel men were to women, men NEVER sought their destruction. Yet McKinnon and Dworkin and the others seek exactly that. Mann is just another troubador carry the same hateful message. She isn't even original.
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feminists are doing exactly the same thing to men that Hitler did to the Jews
Truer words have never been spoken, Frank. Gender (mainstream) feminists are deeply deranged with hatred.
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According to Jane's Intelligence Review, 60% of all suicide attacks occur in Sri Lanka. Interestingly, about 33% of all the suicide bombings in Sri Lanka are executed by women.
There are some constraints that affect the deployment of female suicide bombers. An examination of the groups driven by religious ideology reveals that Islam has constrained the use of women suicide bombers. Nevertheless, about five of the suicide operations in Lebanon were women. Although the PIJ once planned to use a woman to suicide bomb the Israeli prime minister's residence in Jerusalem, the operation was thwarted. About 30% of the suicide operations in Sri Lanka have been conducted by women.
A higher percentage of women have featured in off-the-battlefield suicide operations, which requires infiltration, invisibility and deception. A woman staged the suicide operation that killed Rajiv Gandhi in India. Most suicide operations in Turkey are by women. For many reasons, women are the preferred choice of secular groups when it comes to infiltration and strike missions. First, women are less suspicious. Second, in the conservative societies of the Middle East and South Asia, there is a hesitation to body search a woman. Third, women can wear a suicide device beneath her clothes and appear pregnant.
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Seeing as I can't read my own quote... 30%, not 33% :)
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This could explain why Israeli airport authorities profile "western women traveling alone."
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So why again are we profiling arab men ONLY as terrorists in the US if a possible 30% are women?
Tony H
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I would be happy to do this, but I will need the assistance of you good folks as editors.
I'd be happy to help with some editing, as others probably will. Now that several of us have written to the editor, how about if a few write in saying that a rebuttal should be published and we've contacted a men's issues writer, James Hanback, to see if he would write one. Then James could submit the article, possibly after sending in a proposal with links to other articles he's had published, especially with IFeminists.com.
Feedback? Ideas?
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Feedback? Ideas?
Sounds fine to me.
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If no one else writes in to make other suggestions, I will send an email (as described above) to the editor. I will also, at that time, encourage others to do the same.
I'll post my email here after I send it.
Other suggestions?
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Here is a copy of the email that I sent to the editor of the Washington Post (letters@washpost.com). Please write to that person asking/demanding to have James' article published.
Dear Editor:
I have read, with disgust and indignation, your recent opinion piece by Judy Mann, "Terrorism and the Cult of Manly Men." I only wish I could say I was surprised by it.
There are so many distortions in the essay that I hardly know where to begin. I will start by asking you a question... If men had to be shocked “out of a certain kind of manhood pattern,” in order to sacrifice their lives to save others in the World Trade Center towers, then where were all the women who weren't raised to exhibit this "manhood pattern?" We both know where they were -- running for safety while men entered the burning buildings to save their fellows, both male and female.
Mann’s article is rife with anti-male loathing. Note the statements: "Travel to the heart of darkness that is terrorism and you will find that one of its causes... is the definition of manhood," and "The terrorist... is the logical extension of the patriarchal hero/martyr," and the "definition of manhood that is 'toxic to men and lethal to women.'"
It is, frankly, unconscionable that Ms Mann would exploit the sacrifices of so many fine men in order to promote her sexist, gender-feminist, anti-male agenda. I'm sickened by the fact that so many courageous men died in the World Trade Centers, as well as a number of wars, to protect the lives and freedom of gender-feminists like her, only to have her betray their sacrifices by spreading such hatred against them.
Ms. Mann probably knows (if she doesn't then she should) that the majority of child-physical abuse is committed by women. Women commit the majority of child murders, and the overwhelming majority of those murders are committed by them against little boys. A rapidly growing body of evidence shows that women commit crimes of domestic violence against men with roughly the same frequency and severity as men commit such crimes against women.
I could go on and on listing facts, but for the sake of brevity, I will stop here. The type of anti-male sexism espoused by Ms. Mann is quickly being exposed these days for what it is -- distortions and lies driven by hate.
A rebuttal to Mann's outrageous article is in order. I have contacted the men's issues writer, James Hanback, to see if he will write the rebuttal and he said he is willing to do so. You will probably hear from him very soon. Kindly consider his essay not only for balance, but also for the sake of the growing tide of truth in these matters.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Thomas Walsh
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Judy Mann quotes Robin Morgan. I saw the book in Borders this evening. It is bigotry and hate, pure and simple. I believe that Robin Morgan is or was editor of Ms. Magazine for many years. If I recall correctly she and Steinem rescued and rebuilt Ms. about 12 years ago when it was about to fail.
I've seen quotes of hers saying roughly that men are all rapists and other nasty things. She is an extremist man-hater.
I am writing this from memory, so don't quote me until you confirm the details first.
Will
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Please, folks, write to the editor of the Washington Post requesting that James' rebuttal be published. After you've written, it would be great if you'd post a copy of your email here.
Also, remember that you can write asking that his essay be published even if you've already written to the editor about this ugly vicious article by Judy Mann.
Thanks. Let's see if we can make this happen.
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Hi Thomas - Great letter! That was a pretty good response in itself! Excellent job
I will be writing to the editor but wanted to clarify first...do we ask for nightmist by name or simply ask for a counterpoint article???
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do we ask for nightmist by name or simply ask for a counterpoint article?
We haven't discussed this at length, but I think we should ask for James (Hanback) by name. Otherwise, they might be more inclined to choose their own person to write a "rebuttal" that could end up being lame to an extreme.
Let's try to get James and mensactivism.org more on the map!
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Here's what I emailed to the editor.
Dear Editor:
I was shocked and outraged to read Judy Mann's column, "Terrorism and the Cult of Manly Men." This article is sadly a microcosm of the hatred that has been spread by the media about men for more than a decade. It becomes even more nauseating to see that she has used the brave men involved in the 9-11 rescue efforts as fuel for her fire of misandry.
When views such as hers are given ethos by association with noted publications such as the Washington Post there is a dire need for a response that can balance and clarify the hateful distortions that have been presented. I think it is essential for the Post to offer a counterpoint article with similar placement, prominence and length. I strongly suggest you contact James Hanback, a writer on men's issues, to write an article that could clearly point out the damaging and misleading nature of Mann's article. If you need help in finding Mr Hanback I would be happy to be of assistance.
Tom Golden LCSW
Author, "Swallowed by a Snake: The Gift of the Masculine Side of Healing"
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Great letter, Tom -- short and to the point. Let's keep our fingers crossed on this one.
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It's great to see my observation [see below] that Mann exploited the tragic events of september 11th for her mesandric feminist platform repeated so many times.
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It's great to see my observation [see below] that Mann exploited the tragic events of september 11th for her mesandric feminist platform repeated so many times.
It was an astute observation, Mars. Have you written to the editor yet? If not, please do. Ask to have a rebuttal by James Hanback (Nightmist) published and, if you can, include a quote from your brother. (If you can get two great quotes, why not send one in your email to the editor and send another to James to use in his essay?)
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(If you can get two great quotes, why not send one in your email to the editor and send another to James to use in his essay?)
As a matter of fact, Mars, could you e-mail me and get me in touch with your brother? I would *love* to interview a "manly man" who happened to be there to witness these events regarding Ms. Mann's commentary.
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Nightmist, I've sent you some e-mail.
The more I read the Mann article, the worse it gets. One place where she exploits the events of Sept 11th is where she suggests that the events have had the beneficial effect of inducing in all of us (especially men) the typical internal experience of women victims of male violence. She does this in the following partisan quote [emphasis added]:
"We can change this," she said. "The tragedy is this won't change until we raise our kids differently. There will always be somebody willing to die for a cause. I know people are hungry for short-term solutions, and I realize I'm talking about a complex long-term one, but unless we do this, we're never going to unwind this. . . . It's a chance for the general U.S. public to understand that the kind of trauma they are going through right now -- sleeplessness, eating disorders, bursting into tears for no reason, anxiety, depression -- all of those symptoms, Americans have felt before. The Americans who have lived with this are called battered women, abused children, rape survivors. We can use this to make ourselves more profoundly human, and that's the ultimate triumph over violence and over-romanticized death wishes."
So, the events of Sept 11th, present a unique opportunity for the American public to experience post-traumatic stress disorder, which was previously only experienced by "...battered women, abused children, rape survivors." This is a case study in what Adam Jones calls "effacing the male" by the mainstream media.
Jones analysis shows that under feminist influence, only half the picture of human suffering--the suffering of "worthy vitims"--needs to be presented; the suffering of the male unworthies need not be mentioned. Any mention of male suffering comparable to the suffering of Mann's worthy victims would undermine Mann's anti-male agenda, an agenda which seeks to redefine masculinity along the lines of the firemen and police officers like my brother who, in her account, were "shocked" out of "old patterns of manhood" into a new kind of masculinity that Mann wishes all men would aspire to, and that would replace the ages old masculinity that has been "toxic to men and fatal to women." Of course, women have already have been redefining themselves, and it's men who once again have to undergo re-education to join the feminist utopia.
I wrote to the letters editor; among other things, I expressed my disappointment that Ms. Mann's misandry had found a voice at the Washington Post. I consider her views morally no better than racism.
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I forgot to mention that Mann suggests that the world will continue to experience terrorism of the magnitude we've seen unless masculinity is "redefined".
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A further comment: after September 11th, being a fireman or a police officer was suddenly "in" again; Mann's article is an attempt to see to it that the "manly man" is correctly understood according to the gender feminist agenda.
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Excellent points Mars. I suppose we will continue to have child murderers like Yates until we can redefine femininity! lol
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Yes, the point ought to be made in a rebuttal, however, the expected assymetrical reply would be that Yates isn't responsible, but males are somehow responsible for Yate's behavior. A redefinition of femininity compatbible with the assumption that women are purposive agents accountable for their behavior would be desirable.
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Dear Editors,
Have you considered how your job has changed over the past hundred years? Judy Mann's article, "Terrorism and the Cult of Manly Men," (Dec. 19) would have made, with a few edits, a fine defense of "Jim Crow" laws. She argues vigorously that men are, if not essentially, than at least for as long as anyone can remember, inferior and dangerous human beings. She writes, "The vast majority of terrorists are men.", "Travel to the heart of darkness" and you will find, not this time blacks or primitives, but other uncivilized beasts dangerously mixed into our society. Question: why do you allow such ignorance and hatred to continue to appear in your newspaper?
If you were a serious newspaper, you would ask some serious questions concerning men in the US today.
1) Why are only men required to register for Selective Service to be drafted into our sex-integrated military? Does this policy re-enforce prevailing attitudes that men are expendable sub-humans? Given all the stories you print about war and sex, isn't this a relevant topic?
2) What accounts for the unnewsworthyness of the suffering and death of many Afgan men, and the disproportionate attention and concern for Afgan women and children? Do Afgans themselves divide their society in this way? Why do you ignore the violence and suffering directed at Afgan men? Do Afgans also ignore this violence and suffering? Are you pandering to the prejudices of your US readers?
3) While the best studies show that men and women are equally likely to commit violent acts toward their spouses or domestic partners, domestic violence policy and interventions are predominately focused on male violence toward women. What accounts for this disconnect, and what has your newspaper done to present the truth?
4) Why are women and children consistently linked in politics and policy, while men are treated as if they have nothing to do with children? How does this relate to pervasive institutional sexism in family law and child custody decisions? How does this relate to men's limited life choices, i.e. cultural and legal prejudices against stay-at-home fathers?
5) Why does your newspaper call a man with a gun who rescues persons in danger a "police officer" while your newspaper calls a man with a gun who kills someone a "gunman"? Are you overlooking something?
Your paper should stop recycling feminist hate and do more to build a just and peaceful world. For some ideas, you might review the range of topics discussed at A excellent writer who contributes to that site has expressed an interest in writing a response to Mann's piece. You can contact him through mensactivism.org He would offer a fresh voice and fresh perspective that your paper desperately needs.
Regards,
J. Plumber
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Excellent, Plumber.
Now, how about a few more requests for a rebuttal? Please, we may have an opportunity here, and in any case we can get some experience organizing such a response and being heard at least by editors. They need to know that we are out here and growing in numbers and power.
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I'll have something written by Dec. 26 to submit to the Washington Post editors as a rebuttal. I am going to send it to Thomas and Scott both for suggestions and editing prior to submitting it to the Post.
I would write it sooner, but I have familial obligations for the holidays between tomorrow and Christmas Day.
Happy holidays to you all.
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I'll have something written by Dec. 26 to submit to the Washington Post editors as a rebuttal.
This gives the rest of us a few more days. If you haven't written to the editor of the Washington Post, please at least fire off a quick email demanding or requesting a rebuttal. And considering mentioning James Hanback as an excellent candidate for writing the article.
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"...most women don't feel the way Ms. Mann does..." bledso, what is your evidence for this "idea"? Everything I've heard and seen all my life clearly supports the opposite interpretation. All the media, in this society where women are both (a) the absolute majority and (b) the majority of voters, and (c) own most of the property and do most of the spending, are saturated with the attitudes and views this female idiot so perfectly exemplifies. If there weren't a proven market for it, it wouldn't be so all-pervasive.
Frankly, I believe such views have always been held, to one extent or another, by most (maybe even all) women. What is different about our current times is that they are considered worthy of public display. In the end, perhaps feminism will be a good thing, like lancing a boil. As the actual quality of the average female intellect becomes more and more obvious, perhaps the wisdom of former times, when it was kept contained where it could do the least damage, will also become more plain.
In any case, I would say that it is not so much "hatred" that motivates this harpy and her millions of soul sisters, as simple contempt. Hatred, after all, does include a kind of respect.
Another worthwhile question, plumber: why are boys and only boys subjected to the brutal, crippling torture known as "infant male circumcision"? (It's illegal to do this to girls in America.) Because, in fact, Ms. Mann does represent the overwhelming majority view among American women: that something is so seriously wrong with males and maleness as to require such a drastic corrective. In fact, infant male circumcision is the apotheosis of feminism: the Final Solution to the Male Question. I thought Rush Limbaugh's (?) coinage of "feminazi" a stroke of genius; it perfectly fits.
As for her evocation of "the kind of trauma ... sleeplessness, eating disorders, bursting into tears for no reason, anxiety, depression" that "battered women, abused children, rape survivors" have lived with ... funny, that's a perfect description of the life I've experienced since I relived my own circumcision some eight years ago. But of course, as an adult (white) male, by definition I don't experience suffering. Besides, I guess I deserved it anyway, for being, like all men, a terrorist-at-birth.
Again, I would present this writer with the one question I have not yet heard honestly addressed by any feminist: If it is true that all that is evil in the world comes from men, then it follows that a thoughtful, concerned person would want to answer to the logical next question: Where do men come from?
Hmmm?
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Frankly, I believe such views have always been held, to one extent or another, by most (maybe even all) women. What is different about our current times is that they are considered worthy of public display.
Not by this woman they aren't!!! My adolescent years were spent in the murky ground of gender feminism (due to physical [half-Nelsons, holding me to a wall and beating me] and verbal abuse [making fun of my neurological problems and my gender] by a male 5th-grade teacher), which I realized was mistaken in my freshman year of college. I realized said teacher was just a jerk and not representative of all men. There should be no reason I should be bitter and hateful to the other half of the species, especially after all of the wonderful male friends I had in high school and the awesome male professors I have now at college.
I don't think women terrorists are trained by men. Believe me, I was the "terrorist" of my elementary-school playground and no man trained me! (Except for the boys who made fun of me who I had to stand up to.) Women terrorists, in all seriousness, commit terrorst acts for the same eason their male counterparts do: pervasive action for a cause. I know of a lot of vegans (mostly female!) who would more than willingly bomb a McDonald's for serving meat and dairy products. (I'm a vegetarian, and I wouldn't even consider doing such a thing.)
"Female men's activist" is not an oxymoron.
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