Segregating Children From Men by Wendy McElroy

Ms. McElroy writes -- "As it stands, the policy seems rooted in little more than a dangerous tendency to paint men per se as predators."

The "dangerous tendency" to which Wendy coyly refers is a well-known sexist ideology called FEMINISM!

And, it's not "little." Nor is it merelky a tendency. In fact, it is an institution, a bureaucracy, abd a Big Business!

It's a 40-year old scourge of toxic misandrist venom that has been visited upon this society which just recently received the unanimous endorsement of every member of Congress to continue the assault on boys and men via VAWA 2005-2010.

At a cost of several billions of taxpayer dollars.

And WHEN is Wendy McElroy going to disassociate herself, and her occasionally fine writing, from this insidious FEM-ideology?

Please do not ask me to take seriously a voice that condemns and at the same time trivializes "dangerous tendencies" while still proclaiming her allegiance to FEMINISM as a "little threat?"

"i"FEMINIST! (Why the disclaimer in small caps?)

There are enough Trojan Horses in Congress.

We don't need another faux-equalitarian masquerade shilling men's rights as a du jour FEMINIST cause celeb.

I think she found very appropriate words and we should thank her for them.

Yes, it can be debated (and should be) if a disassociation from the gynocentric world view that is at the center of the very idea of feminism is absolutely needed, or if feminism can somehow be fixed/replaced by a milder form that still decidedly comes from a female point of view. I'm still not sure about this. Our point of view has always a lot to do with what we are, so maybe the latter is a viable alternative even though I would prefer the former.

n.j. - "or if feminism can somehow be fixed/replaced by a milder form that still decidedly comes from a female point of view."

I do not have the vocabulary to define how much I revile your point of view...

Except to suggest...

Your mother must be ashamed.

It's just business. The airlines figure they will lose more business to thousands of paranoid ninnies, than the few male passengers they will lose due to the seating policy.

The main problem lies not with the airlines as such, but with the complaining, paranoid parents in the first place, and the media and feminists who have succeeded in stereotyping men as innately violent and as sexual "predators" (a bogus term).

-Axolotl

It is just business, but it should still be strongly opposed and protested because it is so incredibly discriminatory. Every single person who believes that males are human beings should be opposed to this type of blanket labeling.

We really need to rethink our ideas about sex offenders from the very beginning as all of our efforts right now are doing absolutely nothing to actually deal with the problem.

First and foremost, the problem is not just one of males. Ignoring and trivializing female sexual offenders leaves their victims out in the cold with no support whatsoever.

Second, labeling, fearing and harassing those convicted of sex crimes is completely counter productive and an utter waste of resources.

Third, blaming convicted sex offenders for the problems and treating them as though they are the primary abusers of children is an idiotically ill conceived approach.

A study done in the State of Utah followed 400 felony sex offenders for 26 years and found that 83% had not been convicted of any type of new crime at all let alone another sex crime.

http://www.kcpw.org/article/2219

26 years people! No new convictions at all for the vast majority!
So how exactly is AWA protecting children? Are sex offender registries useful at all? Or are they merely useful in perpetuating fear and exacerbating the problem and securing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax payer money for the police and victim industries? Yes, AWA is going to cost US tax payers hundreds of billions of dollars

With every study showing that over 90% of sexual abuse occurs between the victim and some one they know very well and trust, how much risk are kids at on a plane next to stranger? Even a convicted sex offender (since most do not commit new sex crimes) sitting next to an unattended child poses almost no threat on an airplane.

We need to stop dealing with these issues from a foundation of fear paranoia. We need to actually look at the REAL issues and problems and deal with them from a foundation of rationality and understanding. We're not helping things with the witch hunts and hysteria.

i think a powerpuff girl episode pointed out that earlier feminists actually strived for equal responsibilities.

something about a woman doing a crime then requesting a proper sentence instead of a slap on the wrist.

I saw that episode, I'm embarassed to say, as my little sister watches it, and I stare at the TV during dinner.(I never forget TV or Movies)
They(The Girls) were fighting Femme Fatale, a Feminist. She used the fact females were prejudiced to steal money(Susan B. Anthony Coins) and get away, without being attacked by the PPG who she got on her side. The PPG finally confronted her with who Susan B. Anthony was, and she got her ass royally handed to her. Poor Feminist(NOT!!!)

No you should be ashamed to use the anonymity of the net for such a stupid personal attack. I'd like you to do that face to face some time. Really, I don't understand people like you. What are you trying to achieve, everyone vs. everyone? Civilized discussion seems to be too much for some people.

Anyway, there is nothing inherently wrong about seeing things from ones own perspective, whether that is female, male or marsian. That's being done all the time and is just natural, even if a little selfish. It just needs to be done without blinding out the needs of others, or even denigrating them.
With feminism's past, proclaimed goals and background, which includes the denigration of men, I personally think disassociation is a necessary step for someone like McElroy, but unlike you, I try to understand her reasons for not doing it.

There is more to this anyway, as certain political groups are supporting her and other self-proclaimed feminist groups that are openly called anti-feminist by some, and the name could in fact be a smokescreen. But given I'll probably just get the next 3 lined insult now from someone who doesn't think very far, I'll stop wasting my time writing here.

In your last paragraph, do you mean that groups like iFeminists(McElroy's group) are calling themselves "feminist", even though they're not, to get political support..assumedly in order to obtain change - for example dealing with the problems ideological feminists have caused? Sorry if I'm a little slow this morning, but if this is what you mean, then it is a very interesting idea.

But even if true, I would still think that part of the reason for them using the f-word, is that they still see roadblocks to women that they want to take down..not that that is necessarily wrong.

-axolotl

I remember reading some so-called feminist group was appointed to deal with women's issues in Iraq, but that it was merely a move by conservatives to keep up appearances since that group was really trying to support traditional family values and counteract feminism.
The problem is that feminism, even though its concept is already outdated since a while, is usually associated with progressiveness. And it seems to me that in the US, conservative circles are trying to attack the progressive by attacking feminism. Since they're well established, they have success in doing that, but it's all for the wrong reasons: traditional values means things for us like compulsory military service and being forced to be a breadwinner, extremely harsh punishment for crimes without checking the social or psychological background (demanding this for men is _very_ progressive), being supposed to lead the family with a firm hand and if you're in fact suffering from domestic violence then bad luck for you, etc. etc.. it's a cardboard image of what men and are women are supposed to do and be like, exactly what we're having a problem with.

We don't have this struggle between two large monolithic political blocks here, the Liberal party is actually the second most conservative one right behind the Christian Democrats, and while I don't think I understand the implications of the political system in the US, 2 large wings seems to be way too few.
Anyway, this issue should be considered if one asks why such people are calling themselves feminist.

Kudos to Wendy for noticing this discrimination. Shame on her for associating with violent, hateful people by using their movement's name, even if it is just to get attention.

There is a bright side to all this misandry, depending on one's perspective.

Marxist movements like feminism always result in an endless cycle of revolutions, where the "ruling" or more powerful class is displaced by the "oppressed" or less powerful underclass. The relative positioning of these classes takes place only in the mind of the "revolutionary", of course, but that is irrelevant in revolutionary Marxist thinking. Whether that oppression ever actually occurred is also irrelevant - it is sufficient that people who can identify with the "underclass" believe it to have happened. Women firmly believe they were oppressed in the past, even in the absence of any proof that their lot was any worse than that of men.

After the first revolutionary cycle, the former ruling class becomes "oppressed", and the cycle repeats. Based on history, this seems to take about 60-75 years (three or four generations) to occur after the first revolution.

Also, as we saw in China and the Soviet Union (and in western societies today), the most violent, vile and hateful behavior is always excused when it's committed by the formerly "oppressed" underclass. Hence this openly discriminatory behavior directed against men - discriminatory behaviour that could land a white man in court or even prison if he were to do the very same things to a woman or a member of a minority. Mao thought that the civil violence against landowners during the Cultural Revolution was "excellent", as did the leaders of the Bolshevik movement in Russia. Each successive cycle becomes more hateful, more violent and more frequent. The only way to stop the revolutionary cycle of ever-increasing hate and violence is to deal with hate and fear mid-cycle.

Are feminists interested in ending hate? Hell no! It's their sole raison d'etre (I'm too lazy to accent that properly). They are determined to marginalize, demonize and even kill off their "oppressors", and they have created an environment where it is "politically correct" to do so - always remember that "political correctness" was a concept created by the American Communist Party in the 1920's. In the opinion of feminists and their allies, it is (to quote Mao), "excellent" when they harm men, even when it's a matter as simple as women-only facilities or anti-male discrimination. That same sort of propaganda and hate served the Nazis well in their campaign to marginalize, devalue, demonize and finally eradicate the Jews. As feminists see it, there's no reason to fix what ain't broke - what worked for Hitler will work for them.

When men are firmly entrenched as an underclass (as we are more and more every day), we can use the very same "logic" and "justification" as feminists to overthrow the gynarchy and take a huge, decades-long dump on women everywhere for their troubles. The worse we are treated, the harsher the response of men will be after the next revolutionary cycle. More to the point, because men are bred to protect women, we will tolerate a great deal of hate and marginalization before the next revolutionary cycle occurs, which it inevitably will unless feminism is stopped, so the hatred of women in the subsequent cycle will be quite a bit more extreme than what we're seeing directed against us during this one.

Isn't Marxism grand? As I say to all women who openly hate or marginalize men (i.e. women who have chosen to be my sworn and mortal enemy): "Don't worry. It will be your turn to be hated soon enough. After all, women were the ones who taught us how to hate based on nothing more than sex." And so on, and so on.

Thanks to feminists, I'm not in the mood to help end hate just now, so I think I'll wait until it's someone else's turn in the fire. Then maybe I'll help out. After the hatred of women as a class simply because they are women becomes "excellent", perhaps.

From now on, whenever you board a plane, if you are seated next to an unaccompanied woman, demand that you be seated next to a man. Take along a copy of one of the many studies which indicate that women can be substantially more violent (in even the most casual relationships) than men as justification.

Marxism, Mao, Hitler.. Dude! It's just feminism. Give us a break. Never ever have I heard anything here about marxism in connection with feminism, that must be an invention of the religious right over there to attack feminism for the reasons I wrote in my last reply here. If you're supporting feminism, you're resurrecting Marx.. if you download pr0n, you're supporting Communism. And not voting is Hitler. Yeah.

Who has anything to do with the religious right? I'm neither religious nor rightist. Far be it from me to Godwin a thread needlessly, but these skanks earned it. Can you not see the parallels between the campaign to ostracize and marginalize Jews in the 30's and the ever-rising tide of feminist hatemongering? I don't think anyone's planning to round men up and ship us off to death camps, but neither did most Germans I've spoken to when it was a simple matter of anti-semitism. Feminism won't go that far, but you see my point - these hate movements are self-propagating beyond a certain point.

n.j., the origins of North American radical feminism, i.e. the variety we're afflicted with right here and now (at least for those of us on this side of the pond), are rooted directly in socialism and Marxism. Betty Friedan? Ring any bells? Wrote the "Feminine Mystique" claiming to be a housewife when she was actually a leader of the American Communist Party? Kicked off the radical feminist movement? I have a problem with feminists, not communists or socialists. I was simply pointing out how Marxism and revolutionary class warfare work in relation to radical feminism.

If you don't see the connection, please provide an alternative hypothesis as to the philosophical origins of the "revolutionary" class warfare instigated by feminists against men. It better be convincing, and clearly account for the fact that violence, discrimination and hatred directed against men is politically and socially acceptable, or I'll be sticking with my explanation, thank you very much.

It may be "just feminism" to you, but it's killing men by the thousands, and ruining the lives of millions more. That qualifies it as a HUGE threat to our well-being, n.j. I see direct parallels between the Maoists, Bolsheviks and the feminists. I'm sorry you're missing the well-documented connection. Maybe reading a bit of Orwell would help.

The ideological branch of feminism is partly DERIVED from Marxism. Check out the extensive discussion of this topic, in "Spreading Misandry" by Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young. It is a very scholarly, well-researched book. The book also discusses how feminism has similarities to Nazism and Communism. Anyone who is not familiar with these issues, is a very uninformed Mens Rights Activist:)

-Axolotl