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One thing I have to say in response to this is that I find it very disappointing that more men are not involved in fundraising for prostate cancer research. There are other things as well, but this is a disease that is roughly as prevalent as breast cancer. I don't know why it is that men choose not to cat, but I suspect that it has to do, again, with the belief, by men, that they should press on in the face of adversity.
We have to do this for ourselves, guys. The women may support us, but they are not going to do it for us. They have their own problems with things like breast and cervical cancer.
The reality is, it's time for us to stop whining and take some action. Start small. Be persistent.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday November 08, @02:25PM EST (#2)
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What can be done? Fear campaigns will backfire, Bonhomme predicts. It is not honorable for men to be afraid. Instead, the healthcare system has to become more relevant to men.
"Men want to be better men," Bonhomme says. "We have to reverse the paradigm. Men see going to a doctor now to be admitting some kind of weakness or personal failure. Instead, they should see it as an ally of masculinity, something that can help you manage their independence, their vigor, and their functionality. And we need to stop shaming men and boys to always have to deny their pain."
Amen, sister. I thought this article was excellent, especially coming from outside the men's movement. It didn't really blame men themselves as much as it blamed what men are taught as boys: that we must bury our pain. It's time to toss those teachings and do right by ourselves.
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I actually have a very different take than many on this matter as presented by the First World Conference on Men’s Health.
As far as I can see, men *are* in danger of becoming extinct or worse. As Nightmist (I think it was) pointed out, couples prefer daughters to sons, though this may change for a while in the near future, if we find ourselves hailing the masculine virtues of young men who are then drafted into the meat grinder. (Let’s face it: While we, without question, have to fight the war against terrorism, it could get out of hand and result in a draft.) I’ve been told by more than one married woman that, if she found out she was pregnant with a boy, she’d have an abortion. Also, pre-conception sex-selection procedures are likely to become more common as they become less expensive.
In addition, lesbianism is promoted by women’s studies professors throughout the country as part of their campaign of hate against everyone born outside of their female biological group. Any denial of this is based on ignorance or hate. (Note Dworkin’s claim that any sex involving an erect penis is a violation of the person who is penetrated.) I’ve talked with heterosexual college women who believe that intercourse is an “invasion” -- their word. (I'd be willing to bet that many radfem lesbians enjoy fingering and using strap-ons with their lovers as well as French kissing. They wouldn't consider these activities "invasions" simply because they don't entail penises.)
One of the causes of the health care crisis faced by men is the fact that men trusted feminists, when the second wave of feminism began and the feminists claimed that they wanted equality. The facts, that women’s health issues receive far more press and funding than men’s health concerns and that feminists continue to screech that women are oppressed by their invention, “the patriarchy,” are only a few of the pieces of evidence, which make it clear that most feminists want anything but equality.
Combine new technologies (such as cloning, ovular merging, safe abortions and methods for selecting X-chromosome sperm cells) with an ever-increasing stridency in the anti-male hatred preached so successfully by radfems and you have a very serious threat to the survival of males.
For a group to be competitive in the evolutionary struggle, it has to be able to defend itself from its enemies. Feminists, the radical ones at the very least, are clearly the enemies of men and it is becoming increasingly clear that they are the mortal enemies of men. Yet the men’s movement is still pathetically small and of little influence.
One of my greatest fears, and I think a more likely scenario than extinction of males, is that the feminist juggernaut will succeed in reducing males to a powerless 20%, or so, of the population. Given the rabid anti-male hatred of increasingly powerful radfems, and new technologies that might serve to increase pain and others that could extend life, perhaps indefinitely, I shudder to think of the horrors that may befall males under the matriarchy.
The fact is that, because men fail to organize in their own defense and because radfems make a religion of anti-male hate while gaining hegemony, men may be better off if they do become extinct.
There is hope, of course. New technologies may make it possible for men to reproduce without women. In addition, the men’s movement is, at long last, becoming something of a reality rather than a dream. As a result, the anti-male hatred that has become a hallmark of the media, much of the government and, most of all, the academy may have reached its zenith. As for the health care practitioners who say that men don’t take proper care of themselves: They are correct. We need to work together, often away from females, while embracing each other – straight, gay and bi-, black, white, young, old… You get the idea.
From what I can tell, the things being said by the medical professionals at the First World Conference on Men’s Health are extremely important and true. The way things are going today males really do face extinction or worse and it is our own fault for failing to defend ourselves.
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Thomas, you're not the first person to cut in on what you may perceive as victimology among those at this forum and of the men's movement in general by pointing out that the fault for our problems is mostly our own. However, while you're certainly right to say that men ultimately have ourselves to blame for not taking the proper care of ourselves, taking the blame-and-shame approach to "motivating" men is merely keeping the legacy of male psychological oppression alive. Don't you see - men's problem is that we have too much burden of responsibility, as opposed to not enough. First we're told that we are to blame for women's misery, and then we're told that we are to blame for our own misery as well (while women somehow elude responsibility for just about everything, just as much today as yesterday).
You say you think the reason men aren't standing up to the forces against us is because we somehow don't acknowledge our power to act. Uh - no, it's not that we don't acknowledge our power; it is that we don't acknowledge our right to use that power. This may sound radical - but I truly suspect that the reason most men are not fighting back against this tyranny is because we feel so guilty about having "the power" that supposedly comes with being male that the only way we can hope to avoid further shame is to never exert any kind of "power" at all - for anything. Feminism has exaggerated the size and impact of male footsteps so much so that men literally feel like we're walking on eggshells in this world (with the eggshells being women and women's rights), and so we have decided that the only way we can avoid walking on eggshells is to not walk at all. The thinking is that the only harmless male is a male who doesn't act, move, talk, walk, or fight - because we are so inherently charged with "power" that even tiny actions of that sort are going to stomp on someone else.
If you want to make men more willing to act, you have to do so by diminishing men's sense of power and responsibility - thus diminishing our fear of hurting someone else or re-exerting some kind of tyrannical, ill-gotten, centuries-old "power" by standing up for ourselves. Convince men that we, at least as individuals, are very fragile and vulnerable to the world that surrounds us - thus, pro-active measures that we take for our rights and for our health can be felt as being defensive rather than offensive. Feminism has men convinced that everything we do is offensive - since we apparently have no need to be defensive.
Yes - I am exaggerating the tone of my words somewhat just to make sure that I get the point across. And again - you are right in saying what you're saying.
But, it is extremely disheartening to me that, at the end of the day, the men's movement might resort to the same mantra with which the feminist movement beat men down into inertia in the first place: "Remember, it's your fault! It's always your fault. Because you had the power - and you didn't use it the way you were supposed to."
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