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While Wendy McElroy is technically correct, the problem is twofold in that 1) as a rule, women are naturally egocentric and morally relative, and thus will rationalize anything that benefits them whereas men tend to have a martyr complex and will defend women to the point of sacrificing themselves, and
2) this article fails to address the female self-interest.
A much more effective ploy would appeal to male initiative and encourage men to actively fight back against this clear breach of morality, and point out that tolerance of abuse is a show of weakness, not strength as liberalism and feminism tells us by punishing and shaming the strong who fight back.
As such, men need to start fighting back, and when assaulted, terminate with extreme prejudice-- or always give better than they get; appealing to an attacker's mercy without threat of retalliation is not only an oxymoron, but is also a denial of one's own sanctity. Likewise, it's simply foolish when one is in a position of strength, except to give the benefit of the doubt to the weak; however when this fails, it's time to show them who's boss.
Remember, the best defense is a good offense, since an enemy would always rather shoot fish in a barrel than be torn a new asshole-- they'll think it's fun until they're on the receiving end.
So when you see an openly sexist message or attack, don't ask-- TELL, and ask no quarter.
Don't write letter appealing to their sense of decency, since they clearly have none, and they'll probably go into the shredder unopened no matter what they say-- CALL them up and talk to the CEO, and TELL them you want it gone--NOW, and make sure your letters-- if any-- have the same tone.
If you ask, you're just leaving them room to refuse; you have to assert your rights UNEQUIVOCALLY.
Likewise, don't hesitate to seek legal action against such Civil Rights violations- or threaten it.
A person's rights are NOT limited to their ability to oranize a boycott-- this crap demands nothing less than a Civil War ending in emancipation for men.
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So Wendy writes an articulate, insightful article espousing the need to stop anti-male bias AND offers suggestions as to what a person can do, and all you can do is point out that it doesn't go far enough?
I suggest that next time you kindly build on what an article like this says, not headline your response by pointing out what you perceive as its inadequacies. Not everyone is able to actively fight back in the manner you propose. Many are simply averse to one on one conflict. Therefore: Wendy’s options are viable for some, your options are viable for some.
Another point: Wendy is speaking to men and women (more towards the female population than the male). Your post, however, is male gender specific (which, in this forum, is to be expected). You should have taken that into consideration.
Also, why did you declare item 2 “this article fails to address the female self-interest” as important and overlooked, yet not support the assertion within your post?
Wendy is a voice of reason for our cause, and I'm more inclined to thank her for the work she does.
Mitchell A. Smith
"An ambiguous perspective is all you can hope for when initially confronted by that which you do not know."
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by Anonymous User on Tuesday May 13, @03:02PM EST (#6)
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well said, Mitchell. I wrote Wendy a brief email thanking her for her wonderful column. She will certainly recieve some amount of criticism for this, and it is important to let her know that she has friends and allies here that support her.
-hobbes
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"well said, Mitchell. I wrote Wendy a brief email thanking her for her wonderful column. She will certainly recieve some amount of criticism for this, and it is important to let her know that she has friends and allies here that support her.
-hobbes"
No one likes an ass-kisser, hobbes; if Wendy wants support, she can stop her sexist bias and tell the truth, not water it down with her lukewarm and insincere propaganda which barely scratches the surface on the truth of our misandrist culture; by the way she writes, you'd think the Holocaust was about nothing more than a few anti-semitic jokes, while we've got full-blown feminazis waging an all-out war, and all Wendy sees is the tip of the iceberg that sunk th Titanic.
As long as you keep playing these love-in games, you can expect more of the same.
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by Anonymous User on Tuesday May 13, @07:00PM EST (#15)
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"As long as you keep playing these love-in games, you can expect more of the same."
Your right, tulkas! People who don't think about feminism on a daily basis really do want gender issues to be force-fed to them by angry people who do nothing but lament their own position in life and complain whenever someone else doesn't do "enough" to help them! [sarcasm off]
Do you have any idea how much you sound like the very people you are fighting?
Explain to me exactly what you have accomplished with your activism. Then explain to me how much more your style of activism has accomplished than Wendy's. Go ahead - spell it out for me...
I'm waiting.
Just think about what Wendy has accomplished: she writes a column for a national mainstream news network in which she frequently promotes men's issues and denounces radical feminism. How many other people can you name who have done this?
But hey, your right, we should all just sit on our asses and criticize other people for not solving our problems fast enough.
Maybe you should join the fem's side - you give us a bad name.
-hobbes
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by Anonymous User on Tuesday May 13, @07:27PM EST (#17)
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BTW, I'm tired of seeing Wendy put herself out on a limb like this to promote men's issues, just to have men's activists cut the limb out from under her because they feel she didn't do enough. Wendy is a committed and true ally in the fight against feminism, and it is pitiful that there are people here who criticize her efforts because she isn't defeating feminism fast enough for their liking.
-hobbes
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Wendy is a committed and true ally in the fight against feminism, and it is pitiful that there are people here who criticize her efforts because she isn't defeating feminism fast enough for their liking.
To an extent I agree with you hobbes. Wendy is a pistol, one of the best. Nevertheless, when we disagree with her, I think we should say so. (That's not to say that I agree with tulkas here.) For instance, I think it is counterproductive to try to rehabilitate the word "feminism." To me that's like trying to rehabilitate the swastika.
Nevertheless, Wendy deserves our respect and support. And she has mine.
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday May 14, @12:41AM EST (#22)
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"For instance, I think it is counterproductive to try to rehabilitate the word "feminism." To me that's like trying to rehabilitate the swastika."
I agree with you completely on this point.
Unfortunately, I think that by redefining feminism into something it is not, Wendy has actually made our fight perhaps a little more difficult. It makes it harder to draw lines, establish definitions, and overall just makes it more difficult to talk to people about feminism because you constantly have to reassert your position.
I think we should let go of the term "feminism" completely and let the rad fems have it. That way, when we say we are against feminism, there is less ambiguity about our position. Further, and more importantly, less and less people would be willing to consider themselves feminists. I seriously believe we could deal rad feminism a fatal blow if we would completely abandon the term feminism. If anything, I think that by creating a new sect of feminism, it has made our enemy ever more elusive, because it makes it so much harder to pinpoint and define who they are.
If the term "feminism" was associated ONLY with rad feminism, they would both die painful deaths and we could get on with business.
This is a good point you made, Thomas. Thanks for bringing it up.
-hobbes
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I think we should let go of the term "feminism" completely and let the rad fems have it. That way, when we say we are against feminism, there is less ambiguity about our position. Further, and more importantly, less and less people would be willing to consider themselves feminists. I seriously believe we could deal rad feminism a fatal blow if we would completely abandon the term feminism.
Beautifully put, hobbes. You have stated this in a way that has clarified the matter even to me, and I've known it for a long time. I wish Wendy, and Christina Hoff Sommers, and other "equity" and "i" feminists would figure this out. They are wonderful, courageous, and intelligent people, but realizing this and pointing it out would help the cause of truth and justice far more than most realize.
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I seriously believe we could deal rad feminism a fatal blow if we would completely abandon the term feminism.
This is the power of words.
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday May 14, @03:33AM EST (#27)
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"For instance, I think it is counterproductive to try to rehabilitate the word "feminism." To me that's like trying to rehabilitate the swastika."
Thomas that comment splits the arrow that's in the bull’s-eye. I was thinking that exact same thing just the other day.
The word Feminism is totally irretrievably ruined, if not for all time, at least for the next hundred years. Wendy, I'm sorry, I know you go by the term "ifeminist," but you really need to get a new term. Feminist has been so misused by the abusers, that it's like trying to get road tar out of a wedding dress. When you think of the word feminism just think of a bride in her white gown, whose fallen in fresh road tar, and struggles to get up. Would you want to keep and wear such a garment? I think I'd rather dress up in burlap, than be seen in such defiled attire.
Ray
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That's an excellent point Hobbes. I've struggled with the same type of thing regarding the word "liberal".
The word "liberal" has been so perverted that today it refers to left-leaning advocates of greater government intervention in the economy and private property. (All for a "good cause", of course!) Yet that isn't what the term originally meant.
Oftentimes I've told people that I'm a true liberal, and they look at me with a confused look. I then proceed to explain to them what classical liberalism really was.
Truth be told, I should probably just give up the term "liberal" and let the Left have it. That's not easy to do, at least not for me, since I hate to see the term stolen by the Left when it never rightfully belonged to them in the first place.
"Existence exists. A is A." -Ayn Rand
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The word Feminism is totally irretrievably ruined, if not for all time, at least for the next hundred years. ... Feminist has been so misused by the abusers....
This discussion illustrates well the difficulties I have with Wendy McElroy, Christina Hoff Sommers, et al. Should they be celebrated because, after all, they're "better than nothing"; or does their lukewarm semi-common-sense only confuse the issue? Sure, they're nice gals, but this really is a war that's been declared on us, and anything that prevents our seeing it clearly will prevent our defending ourselves (and the values of civilization which males have created for everyone's benefit) as well as we must to reverse the continuing slide into the world of Lord of the Flies.
As for "rehabilitating" feminism, I'd prefer an analogy to nazism, rather than the swastika, which really was (and remains) a symbol of auspicious influence in India and the Buddhist world for thousands of years before the nazis got hold of it -- while feminism, like nazism itself, has never been anything different than what it is now. Like the nazis (and all their fellow collectivists; remember, "nazi" is short for "national socialist"), feminists began by promoting ideas which "reasonable, well-meaning" people could hardly disagree with, but their true character became clear with their success. Just read the founding document of feminism, the "Declaration of Sentiments" published at the 1848 Seneca Falls convention: it's all in there. The language may be a little archaic, but the "sentiments" are thoroughly modern.
And again, as with "national socialism," the word itself is already enough clue for anyone who really thinks: "feminism," from femina (Latin: "woman") is all about women -- as opposed to other types of human beings, e.g. men and children. It was and remains divisive from the beginning. Which is why I don't call myself a "masculist" (or "virist," from the Latin vir, "man"); to do so would be to agree with feminism that a war between the sexes is the best we can do. Unfortunately, the best counter-term in this context, "humanist," is one that has been perverted from its original, legitimate meaning -- now there's a term that could well be "rehabilitated."
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Our enemy here is misandry. If you disparage everyone who calls herself/himself a feminist, you'll not only wipe out the misandrists, but also the Good Guys, the Wendy McElroys of the world, who truly want to help and are on our side. And you will alienate the casual bystander, another person we need on our side. The casual bystander will say, "They're anti-feminist, so I guess they're anti-women's rights." It doesn't matter whether you are or not; that's how you will be perceived. There are loads of people who consider themselves feminists who are on our side; it's foolish to go after them over semantics. THEY don't think feminism requires one to be anti-male; we should WANT their definition of "feminism" to win out.
Again: this is no time to be throwing knives at those who take the trouble of devoting columns exclusively to the cause of males.
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday May 14, @03:20AM EST (#26)
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...tulkas wrote:
"No one likes an ass-kisser, hobbes; if Wendy wants support, she can stop her sexist bias and tell the truth, not water it down with her lukewarm and insincere propaganda which barely scratches the surface on the truth of our misandrist culture; by the way she writes, you'd think the Holocaust was about nothing more than a few anti-semitic jokes, while we've got full-blown feminazis waging an all-out war, and all Wendy sees is the tip of the iceberg that sunk th Titanic."
My Reply:
That sounded so bitter I had to read it twice to see if it was something I'd written.
#1 I agree with you about the pogrom that the man hating feminists are waging against men. They are the vilist scum of the earth and strive to inflict ceaseless pain into the lives of men. They are devoid of compassion and kindness for a whole group of fellow humans, who suffer so that they can enjoy their privileged entitlements. Their ill gotten gains are created out of their exploitation of many innocent, battered and violated male victims.
#2 I like what Wendy is saying and think that the collective body of her printed work shows her decency and courage and goodwill. There may have been some more that she could have said, but her writings show, that she has the honor to consistently step up to the plate, tell the truth, and take the heat that is thrown her way.
I will go so far as to say, that after reading her works about men's and women's issues for a few years, I consider the world a better place because she's in it. I think people like her are what's right about the world. I don't agree with all of her Libertarian ideologies, but I have the utmost respect for the respect that she consistently shows to the needs of men and women.
Likewise, I've read your writings for some time on this site and consider your input to be consistently valuable and worthy. I'm just a little surprised at the tough grade you've handed out this time. Everyone has a right to their opinion and I respect your right to say what you've said, even though I see it differently.
Respectfully, Ray
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"So Wendy writes an articulate, insightful article espousing the need to stop anti-male bias AND offers suggestions as to what a person can do, and all you can do is point out that it doesn't go far enough?
I suggest that next time you kindly build on what an article like this says, not headline your response by pointing out what you perceive as its inadequacies."
Shove it Mitch; it's clear you were born a fool and will die one as well. I see you have a weak grasp on both the magnitude and nature of the problem; we have a holocaust and she calls it a rain-shower.
However reality is changed by awareness, not naivete; Wendy McElroy has never been quite sincere in her "back-handed support" which insults the intelligence of those who have any, but if you want to buy into it then I guess there's no cure for wishful thinking except the hard truth.
Sorry if this doesn't spoonfeed your ego, but so far nothing else has worked-- and in your case I doubt anything will; in any case I'd rather separate the chaff than depend on fair-weather warriors.
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and I see that you handle criticism well.
So, why didn't you address the female self-interest point you made? Do you actually have something to offer from this perspective?
Mitchell A. Smith ~ Smiling at incred as he scowls
"An ambiguous perspective is all you can hope for when initially confronted by that which you do not know."
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Wendy is clearly on our side, and women/girls on our side in the battle against misandry can greatly help us and help refute the charge that we're just a bunch of "male whiners".
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by Anonymous User on Tuesday May 13, @03:19PM EST (#9)
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"Wendy is a voice of reason for our cause, and I'm more inclined to thank her for the work she does. "
Me too.
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"Wendy is a voice of reason for our cause, and I'm more inclined to thank her for the work she does. "
"Me too."
I see we've got some sympathizers here... go watch Oprah.
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Hey, Jackass don't you realize that wendy is only trying to help out men? do you insult anyone who attempts to assist you if you need help. besides your attitude sounds awfully like the attitude that the feminazis have towards male feminazis.
In the words of Angry Harry "wake up @$$hole".
-JimmyD
"Good, Bad, I'am the guy with the gun"-Ash
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Tulkas, with all due respect...what's wrong with you? This is a short article, not an in-depth scholarly journal. We're going to have to start calling you "Incrediblecritical". Your post reminds me of the "homeless" person who asked me for money about a week back...I gave him a buck, but then he got belligerrent when I wouldn't give him more. Wendy owes you nothing. Say thank you and continue YOUR own activism.
BTW...I searched the archives at FOX and I failed to find any articles authored by you.
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Your post reminds me of the "homeless" person who asked me for money about a week back...I gave him a buck, but then he got belligerrent when I wouldn't give him more.
This is a side point but related, I suppose, to men's issues, since most homeless people are men.
When a homeless person asks me for money, and I choose to give them some (I often don't choose to), I ask them if they're hungry. If they say "yes," (so far they always have) I walk with them to a fast food joint (there's usually one close by) and buy them something to eat. I'd rather not give them cash because there's too great a chance they'll buy booze with it.
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Posted this one in our kitchen at work. Wonder though how long it'll be before it gets removed by someone who thinks it may be 'inflammatory'?
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Posted this one in our kitchen at work."
Let us know how it goes. And watch out for those charges of creating a hostile situation.
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Surprisingly, it's still up there this morning! And, no memos about it, either. :)
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for your thoughtful essay. As always, it is a pleasure to read your work.
Mitchell A. Smith
"An ambiguous perspective is all you can hope for when initially confronted by that which you do not know."
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Mitchell A. Smith
"An ambiguous perspective is all you can hope for when initially confronted by that which you do not know."
Which explains why your perpective is so perpetually ambiguous.
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"by media and politicians who focus instead on men who rape or otherwise give their gender a bad name."
...themselves a bad name.
The bells of Pavlov's Feminists are ringing.
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Wonderful article. Thank you for posting that one, Thomas. Another indicator that the tide is starting to change. Whew! ... about time.
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- Mr. Dave . . . Reno, Nevada, USA
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday May 14, @02:47AM EST (#25)
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Wendy wrote:
"• In old age, the average man is likely to die five years before the average woman. Only now is this disparity being called "a silent health crisis."
From cradle to grave, men are routinely disadvantaged by social attitudes and the legal system.
A new group of victims has been created: men. But instead of loving them for their victimhood, as our culture is wont to do, men remain the brunt of political rage and accusations."
My Reply:
Thanks Wendy, you can say that again, and again, and again, and again...
The last two sentences say it all for me and most men in our society. In a recent article about the silent health crises, Dr. Sonjay Gupta (sp?), (TV journalist) chastised men, saying they needed to take better care of themselves.
I'm certainly not asking to be relieved of my responsibility for living right and taking care of myself, but it sure is hard to stay at the peak of health and well being (physically and mentally), when men are just expected to, "get tough or die," by the military," ...and you also have all those negative male bashing college programs called women's studies, that work overtime to promote negative stereotypes of men. ...and you have male bashing movies, television and journalists as well as male bashing feminist trained cops and judges.
It would be nice to receive just a little of the nurturing encouragement and services that women are treated to by society, maybe even an Office of Men's Health.
Wow! Were so danged privileged it's killing us!
Thanks Wendy for your sense of decency and fairness.
Ray
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday May 14, @10:09AM EST (#30)
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I first read Wendy's article at the Fox News website. The text of the article provided links to several men-friendly websites, one of which was Mensactivism.org! Fox also provided a direct link to Wendy's website. Thank's, Fox!
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