Why can’t men and women tackle gender equality together?

March 9, 2015 by Inside MAN 17 Comments

Anita Copley is helping to organise an all-panel discussion about the role of men in fighting for gender equality in Wales called #MenOnOurSide. Here she calls on men to join forces to tackle gender inequality.

So we all know the female is the underrepresented sex in top jobs. We’ve shouted and campaigned for about 100 years now and finally, men seem to be stepping up. The #HeforShe campaign saw Emma Watson formally invite men to join the conversation on gender equality. This was followed by the first ever all male conference discussing issues around female representation, nicknamed the Barber shop conference. But have we taken one step forward and two steps back?

Feminists and Meninists have taken to twitter to start a war. By the way, a Meninist is someone who fights for male rights, somewhat ironically. After Emma Watson’s speech, hundreds of bloggers and tweeters started to discuss how male problems also need to be addressed in order to move forward in gender equality.

Feminism versus Meninism

This escalated into childish debate between #Feminism and #Meninism. For example a woman tweeted “If you believe women should have equal rights as men you are a #Feminist” to which a man replied “just saw a girl lifting something heavy, what an outrage!!! #meninist” and so the abuse begins, with endless sarcastic tweets addressing series issues such as domestic violence, careers and rape.

This then led to #Meninist branded T-shirts and jumpers as being sported around university campuses. Which then lead to a lot of females also sporting these jumpers because it’s still very confusing if this is an ironic or serious campaign. Which then lead to even more abuse like “Any female that wears a #Meninist shirt is honestly the definition of thirst for male approval”.

So you get the point. A woman’s ‘problem’ was addressed, and then a few males raised the point that men have ‘problems’ too and how are they being addressed? And before you know it we’ve started a war. There are now endless spoof campaigns for nearly every gender equality issue you can think of and at the end of the day what are we achieving by participating in these campaigns?

There are not male or female problems

Have we forgotten that when it comes to equality there are not ‘male’ or ‘female’ problems? It’s about everyone and it involves everyone. It’s gender equality, and last time I checked there was more than one gender.

So let’s propose a cease fire, and sit down at the table to discuss real change. The first step Women of Wales will take is to host an all-male panel discussion on 12 March for International Women’s Day with some fantastic men who care about achieving gender equality.

As Emma Watson said, “How can we effect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?” Well let’s start talking about our problems, and face them together as men and women. Let’s find solutions to our problems in gender equality and leave the twitter trolls to it.

Anita Copley works for the Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales, Dame Rosemary Butler AM who launched the Women in Public Life campaign in 2012.

You can find out more about “Men on our Side” discussion in Wales on Thursday 12^th March by visiting the Women Making a Difference website.

http://JohnAllman.UK John Allman

I posted my answer to this very question a short while ago, in a somewhat praised blog post of my own, entitled

Maculism, Feminism and the Euro Tunnel
https://johnallmanuk.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/masculism/

There is nothing in principle to stop men being feminists, or women from being masculists. The day may come when the two teams meet in the middle.

Please read Masculism, Feminism and the Euro Tunnel. My daughter loved this extended metaphor of mine. It has more than a touch of humour to it. Comments are welcome, here or there.
Darren Ball

I’ve been whittling away at this for years: looking for a common thread for men and women. I’m convinced that feminism and those concerned with the welfare of men and boys (call them what you will) are looking at the same problem from different perspectives and believe they disagree where fundamentally they do not.

In my opinion, the problem is one of respect: the female gender doesn’t get enough and the male gender gets too much for its own good.

Feminists argue that women are discriminated against and offer as evidence: the pay gap, under-representation of women in power, women being judged by how they look even if they’re running Germany, Page 3, sexual harassment, on-line abuse, rape, etc. Every single of one of these things boils down to lack of respect.

MRAs in particular retort: nonsense, they’re mostly minor issues (that’s not my view, btw). Men are the ones who suffer most of the really nasty discrimination and offer as evidence: lack of mental health provision, rough-sleeping, educational under-achievement, unequal concern for male DV victims, etc. These are all issues of neglect and ambivalence but this is because men are expected to “man-up” and “grow a pair”. Society wouldn’t want to insult men by expecting anything less of them.

This is how patriarchies work. In a patriarchy, women are patronised (literally – that’s what it means). We may be more sympathetic to women across whole swathes of social ills, but ultimately women are not equally respected. The male gender is respected more, but those who don’t measure up are allowed to sink.

The sooner we see men’s issues and women’s issues as the two sides of the same coin, the sooner we can stop this sibling rivalry and get on with making our society a fairer place for everybody.
- http://JohnAllman.UK John Allman
  
  Yet another brand new blog post, the second today, that cries out for me to post yet another plug of my own blog post on this very question, to which I gave my answer (in the form of an extended metaphor) over three weeks ago, before the question was even on the lips of many of those those now asking it!
  
  What I have to say on this, is said here. I don’t know how to say it any better. Enjoy!
  
  Masculism, Feminism and the Euro Tunnel
  https://johnallmanuk.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/masculism/
Nigel

Of course this was and is Warren Farrell’s point. That Gender being a social construct is constructed maintained and changed by people of both sex. It is a tragedy of huge proportions that the wise words of people like him ,and remember he was not the only voice then, were ignored in favour of developing the current “victim olympics”. Frankly the debate and result in Wales itself with regard to the Violence Against Women Act brings into stark relief the way in which male voices and concerns are crush rather than debated. And the crushing comes precisely from people identifying as feminists. Saying “the gender is more respected” is of no help whatsoever because in the area of family and children the reverse is demonstrably true, Yet this is an area that should unite because how can women expect males to take a fuller part in caring if they are treated with such disregard. Just as women should be given respect in the “public” sphere according to their taking on responsibility.
If the imbalance you describe as a benign sexism of being patronising to women is not acknowledged in its practical effect for men ( differential marking in school, arrest and sentencing, mental health support, family course proceedings, divorce settlements and so on ) then all ordinary men see is special treatment for women and more responsibility for men. In effect more of the same just with some slightly different packaging. Frankly I suspect that men are going to take some persuading that feminists are remotely interested in their experience.
There really is a huge double standard in the arguments made that women’s voices need to be heard and validated but men’s voices are to be heard only to immediately tell them they are in -valid. One of the siblings has to stop hectoring.
Darren Ball

Hi Nigel,

Mothers are more respected in the home than fathers, true, but being a stay-at-home parent isn’t as respected as having a career.
http://redpilluk.co.uk William Collins

Put your feminism beyond use, then we’ll negotiate.
Nigel

Darren I think it more complicated than that. The “Careers” are quite a distinct set of highly valued jobs. I see little respect for people with “jobs” (of either sex). An interesting sidelight on this is that research, and in my own experience, many young men who are unemployed give a reason that they are busy looking after their children. Now this is usually framed as them giving an “excuse” for not getting a job. However it does fit with a similar view from the young mothers too. In other words if the alternatives are jobs for pay (rather than self fulfilment and advancement) then stay at home parent is seen (by what is done and expressed) as a respected role in comparison.
I think you are right to identify the growing value given to “career” but then most employed people actually have “jobs”. Perhaps this is reflected in the constant returns from social attitudes research that overall the population places particularly high value on looking after and bringing up children and both sexes bemoan the lack of opportunity to spend more time at home.
Perhaps it is more accurate to say that certain powerful but numerically small sections of our society act on the values you describe rather than this is generally subscribed to. This is perfectly logical as employment, particularly in the modern “flexible labour market” is volatile and uncertain, but your children are always your children and your partner tends to be more valuable and enduring than the jobs market.
karen woodall

Oh dear Darren…’the problem with respect is that women don’t get enough and men get too much for their own good..’ I hope that was a joke. Try saying that to the homeless, the suicidal and the battered men who face family separation…I think you might find that your approach is less two sides of the same coin and more one rule for the girls and quite another for the boys.
- Darren Ball
  
  Hi Karen,
  
  You have missed my point. We both agree that, relative to women and girls, society is neglectful and ambivalent towards men and boys. This is because patriarchies have paternal attitudes towards females – which are ultimately patronising and therefore disrespectful – but nonetheless have benefits for women who would otherwise go under.
  
  Men and boys are expected to deal with the world as it is, not fuss or complain, and succeed even if the odds are stacked against them. It is regarded as unmasculine to complain that things aren’t fair or that their gender needs some special treatment in a particular area where they are more likely to fail. We do not disrespect men by suggesting that they need help. The rough-sleepers, alcoholics, mentally ill, suicidal, etc are all expected to pull themselves together because they’re men.
  
  The greater expectations placed on men and boys, in a hierarchy of males competing for supremacy, is also all about respect. Women are patronised whilst men have more respect than is good for them: those who don’t measure up, are allowed to sink.
CitymanMichael

Many mathematicians have spend a lot of time and effort trying to prove equations which cannot be proven. This is the same conundrum – men and women are not equal and can never be equal – biology in its single focus to propagate the species saw to that.
What would be good, though, would be equity of treatment – not equality of outcome as feminists want – actually, most feminists want preferential treatment of women, as can be verified by their words and actions.
In my view, men had automatic respect several decades ago – respect which they deserved for the sacrifices they made to provide for the women and children in their lives. Nowadays, that respect is sadly lacking – men (generally as a class) are viewed with distain, derision, fear and even hatred.
Meninism was a parody/sarcastic backlash against feral feminism – great, because it shows the double standards which feminists have.
If we wait for feminists to show ANY compassion for men and boys, we will die waiting. Fortunately there are now growing numbers of women in the MRA whom we need and who are generally much better than men at demanding equal treatment for men & boys. This is coupled with most women nowadays not identifying with feminists – I’ve been waiting a long time for the pendulum to start in the opposite direction and it is starting to happen.
mike

“It is remarkable that such a grossly unjust system has not been noticed. One explanation is that no one knows what happens…until it happens to them – and even then they can’t believe it. Any objections are dismissed as implausible.” Melanie Phillips, The Sex-Change Society: Feminised Britain and the Neutered Male (London: Social Market Foundation, 1999), p. 282.

“In the beginning, insiders dismissed [the stories], assuming them to be made up of disgruntled fathers who must have done something unspeakable, or else why would their children’s mothers have taken such extreme action? Because if things were as bad as these people say, wouldn’t we know about it already?” Maureen Freely, “A Secret World of Suffering Children,” The Independent, 18 October 2001.

“In recent years, fathers have been the subject of a tidal wave of critical thinking and punitive action…. If the past few decades have seen a systematic war against parents, the battles waged against fathers have been particularly ugly and fierce.” Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West, The War Against Parents: What We Can Do for America’s Beleaguered Moms and Dads (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), p. 173.

“Virtually every aspect of what I call the ‘bad divorced dad’ image has turned out to be a myth, an inaccurate and damaging stereotype. Not only is this myth seriously inaccurate, it has led to harmful and dangerous social policies.” Sanford L. Braver with Diane O’Connell, Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1998), p. 6. This book has been described as “probably the most important work of conservative social science in a decade.” Robert Locke, “Deadbeat Social Scientists,” FrontPageMagazine.com, 2 July 2001.

“Women are lone parents in 84% of cases not because men abandon their children, but because… the fathers have been constructively banished, with the collusion of the state, which encourages women to abuse the grotesque power we have conferred on them.” John Waters, Irish Times, 6 October 1998.

“Open season appears to have been declared now on men. The British government treats all absent fathers as feckless, even though some may be the blameless victims of destructive behavior by women…. Most divorces…are initiated by women. Many divorced fathers have their homes and children taken away from them and are all but destroyed. They are then clobbered by the Child Support Agency, which treats them as if they are the guilty party….
“Even if a father shares childcare equally with his ex-wife, he will have to pay the mother for the child’s upkeep. Moreover, the mother’s income won’t henceforth be taken into account. So even if she’s gone off with a man earning £100,000 a year, scooping up the family home and the children en route, her ex-husband will have to pay her – thus supporting behavior he may even believe is damaging his children….
“He may be deprived of all contact with his children by courts which stack the cards against him. The lord chancellor’s advisory board on family law has said that if wives allege domestic violence against their former husbands, the courts should stop them seeing their children. It is not uncommon, though, for women to make entirely spurious charges of violence against their ex-husbands just to prevent them from having access to their children. Lawyers say the courts are overwhelmingly disposed to believe them, even when there isn’t a shred of evidence.
“The amount of violence in marriage is small (most violence takes place between cohabitants or lovers). When violence does occur it is balanced between the sexes…. Most physical abuse of children is perpetrated by women.” Melanie Phillips, “The Rape Reform That Makes All Men Guilty,” Sunday Times, 4 July 1999.

“Another troubling new issue is Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, the federal government’s child support collection and enforcement program. Originally designed to track down the welfare fathers of illegitimate children, the measure has increasingly targeted middle income households affected by divorce. There is mounting evidence that the system now encourages marital breakup and exacerbates fatherlessness by creating a winner-take-all game, where the losing parent-commonly a father wanting to save the marriage-is unfairly penalized by the loss of his children and by a federally enforced child support obligation. Here we find objectively false feminist views-the assumption that men are always the abusers and women are always the victims-driving public policy. And here we find still another newly indentured class of citizens-noncustodial parents-being squeezed financially by the state. If you think this an exaggeration, I refer you to no less an authority than Phyllis Schlafly, who calls this runaway federal law the most serious danger facing American families today.” Allan Carlson, “Indentured Families: Social Conservatives and the GOP: Can this Marriage be Saved?” Weekly Standard, 27 March 2006.

“Our common desperation seems to have produced the common delusion that experts actually exist who really can determine with the unerring instincts of a homing pigeon exactly where the best interests of the child lie, where the child should live, whether and how a child has been hurt, and who is unfit to be a parent at all, who should have the right and the duty to care for a child, who should see the child only under restricted conditions, and who should be kept away from the child altogether.
“Acceptance of their expertise has led us to trust professionals to make these decisions for the family court system. That means ultimately that we also grant them the power to make these decisions for our own families. The abstract need for society to protect its children becomes inevitably the rape of the rights of the real parents of individual children. Once again, the institutionalization of society’s desire to “do good” results in terrible harm for those in the path of the ‘do gooders.’
“The marriage of law and psychology has reached the heights of disproportionate power for the psychologists not just in the family courts but in all legal disputes in which a psychological matter is at issue. Judges buy the validity of the expertise of the confident psychological practitioner and no doubt welcome the opportunity to make their own decisions on some foundation other than personal opinion and bias.” Margaret Hagan, Whores of the Court: The Fraud of Psychiatric Testimony and the Rape of American Justice (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 234.
“The authorities will act quickly to ‘protect’ your children from you. They’ll curtail your visitation during their investigation; you’ll be restricted to being with your children only in the presence of a supervisor, and you’ll be ordered to pay the supervisor’s fees.” Jed Abraham, From Courtship to Courtroom (Evanston: Bloch, 1999), p. 6.

“You’ll watch them from afar as they grow up with the kinds of psycho-social problems that children who live with their fathers rarely have. You’ll watch from afar, and you won’t be able to do anything about it.” Abraham, From Courtship to Courtroom, p. 6.

“We see bizarre cases where abusive and violent mothers are given child custody to ‘save their motherhood. One sees fathers kept from the bedsides of dying children because their presence might upset the mother.” Peter Jensen, “New Laws on Child Custody Should Help Fathers,” Vancouver Sun, 18 December 2002.

“Washing their hands of judgements about conduct…the courts assume that all children should normally live with their mothers, regardless of how the women have behaved.” Yet if a mother has gone off to live with another man, does that not indicate a measure of irresponsibility or instability, not least because by breaking up the family and maybe moving hundreds of miles away from her children’s father she is acting against their best interests?” Melanie Phillips, The Sex-Change Society: Feminised Britain and the Neutered Male (London: Social Market Foundation, 1999), p. 275.

“We have found that who gets the children is by far the most important component in deciding who files for divorce.” Margaret F. Brinig and Douglas W. Allen, “These Boots Are Made for Walking: Why Most Divorce Filers are Women,” American Economics and Law Review, vol. 2, issue 1 (Spring 2000), pp. 126-127, 129, 158 (original emphasis). Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee found roughly two-thirds of divorces were sought by women “in the face of opposition” from the husband. Second Chances: Men, Women, and Children a Decade After Divorce (New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1989), p. 39. Constance R. Ahrons found “between two-thirds and three-quarters of all divorces are initiated by the wife.” The Good Divorce : Keeping Your Family Together When Your Marriage Comes Apart (New York: HarperPerennial, 1995), p. 92.

“Fifty-eight percent of men delayed their divorce because of concerns about their children. Far fewer women had this worry. … ‘Not believing in divorce’ was the next most important reason men cited. … The idea of an older man leaving his wife for a younger woman is ingrained in the American psyche — and that has created a misconception about divorce. … But…as this survey makes abundantly clear, women are more than willing to chart a new life for themselves if they’re in an unfulfilling marriage.” Elizabeth Enright, “A House Divided,” AARP The Magazine, July-August 2004, pp. 54, 57; “AARP The Magazine Study on Divorce Finds That Women are Doing the Walking,” AARP press release, 27 May 2004 (http://www.aarp.org/research/press/presscurrentnews/Articles/a2004-05-28-divorce.html).

“Ninety-one percent of women who have divorced say they made the decision to divorce, not their husbands.” Shere Hite, Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress (New York: Knopf, 1987), p. 459.

“The wife is the moving party in divorce actions seven times out of eight.” David Chambers, Making Fathers Pay: The Enforcement of Child Support (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 29.

“No matter how faithless, a wife who files for divorce can count on the state as an ally.” Bryce Christensen, “The Strange Politics of Child Support,” Society, vol. 39, no. 1 (November-December 2001), p. 65.

“In every other area of law, it aims to make people who have done wrong accept the consequences of their actions: Imagine saying if a burglar that he shouldn’t be blamed for his crime because it might stigmatise him and make him upset. Imagine saying of a neighbour who tears down the next door’s fence that he shouldn’t be held responsible and made to pay for the destruction because it would make it more difficult for the two of them to live next door to each other afterwards.” Melanie Phillips, “Death Blow to Marriage,” in Robert Whelan, Just a Piece of Paper? p. 15.

“What if American law refused to enforce business contracts and indeed systematically favored the party that wished to withdraw, on the grounds that “fault” was messy and irrelevant and exposed judges and attorneys to unpleasant acrimony…so that when disputes arose, thieves and owners would be left to work things out among themselves, because after all, one cannot legislate morality?” Maggie Gallagher, The Abolition of Marriage (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1996), p. 144, 149.

“The divorce laws…were reformed by unrepresentative groups with very particular agendas of their own and which were not in step with public opinion. All the evidence suggests that public attitudes were gradually dragged along behind laws that were generally understood at the time to mean something very different from what they subsequently came to represent.” Melanie Phillips, The Sex-Change Society, p. 261 (original emphasis). See a similar appraisal by Bryce J. Christensen, “Taking Stock: Assessing Twenty Years of ‘No Fault’ Divorce,” in Robert Whelan (ed.), Just a Piece of Paper? Divorce Reform and the Undermining of Marriage (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1995), pp. 58-59.

“When someone mentions the best interests of the child, it is code for the best interests of the mother.” Al Knight, “Another Blow to Marriage,” Denver Post, 20 June 2001.

“I represent your kids, but I don’t want to. Because I don’t love your children. I don’t even know them. It is a legal fiction that the law’s best interest is your children.” New Jersey Family Court Judge Robert Page, quoted in Stephen Barr “Refereeing the Ugliest Game in Town,” New Jersey Monthly, May 1998, pp. 52-55, 71-74.

“Family lawyers…maintain that justice has no place in their courts where their decisions are driven instead by questions of ‘need. Family court judges thus preside with equanimity over injustice.” Melanie Phillips, “Goodbye Lords, Hello the Dictatorship of the Judges,” Sunday Times, 14 November 1999.

“There is absolutely no credible evidence that these [methods] are valid predictors of which spouse will make the best primary parent. In fact, there is no evidence that there is a scientifically valid way for a custody evaluator to choose the best primary parent.” Sanford Braver, Divorced Dads, pp. 221-222 (original emphasis).

“Your average psychiatrist and psychologist are not adequately trained to do forensic evaluations on children. … People with no prior experience are now starting to do this work, holding themselves out as experts.” Forensic psychologist Stephen Herman, quoted in Richard T. Pienciak and Linda Yglesias, “Who Gets the Kids?” New York Daily News, 25 September 1998.

“Legal or not, a sitting state legislator ought to choose not to profit from state contracts. Legal or not, someone should have been willing to say ages ago that sitting legislators shouldn’t be receiving those regional child-support enforcement contracts.” John Brummett, “The Confession in Nick’s Denial,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 29 April 1999.

“A custody fight is a form of child abuse. Our process is about winners, losers, ownership, possession. We have a divorce system that encourages fighting, bitterness, children being caught in the middle.” Hoftstra University Law School professor Andrew Shepard, quoted in the New York Daily News, 25 September, 1998.

“These systems have become very efficient little cash machines, generating profits rather than working for the best interests of children and their families.” C. Jesse Green, interview with attorney Michael E. Tindall, Michigan Lawyers Weekly (http://www.michiganlawyersweekly.com/loty2000/tindall.htm; no date, accessed 1 May 2002).

“The system of adversarial attorneys, advocacy agencies, and judges constitutes an industry that deserves to be outlawed for crimes against humanity. … The divorce industry has to be dismantled, burned, and buried like the monster it is.” Kathleen Parker, Orlando Sentinel, 10 February 1999.

“Divorce is a great destroyer that is eating the heart out of society as well as savaging children’s lives. Its depredations will not be reversed given ever so many mediators or conciliators.” Patricia Morgan, “Conflict and Divorce: Like a Horse and Carriage?” in Robert Whelan (ed.), Just a Piece of Paper? Divorce Reform and the Undermining of Marriage (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1995), p. 32.

“If I complain to the presiding judge about Judge A, the good-old-boy network is going to kick in, and it’s going to hurt my client. … Family Court judges have tremendous latitude in making decisions, more so in some ways than in the other courts.” Attorney quoted in Paul Rubin, “Judge Not,” Phoenix New Times, 31 August 2000.

“The Domestic Relations and Juvenile Courts of Butler County foster a culture of secrecy, fear and judicial abuse that violates the most fundamental and sacred rights guaranteed by our nation’s Constitution — the rights of due process of the laws. … [Litigants] “are routinely excluded from court proceedings and deliberations, told to wait outside the hearing room in a hallway while their lives, personal property, children, and homes are divided up by strangers. … Nowhere is this judicial hypocrisy more dramatically illustrated than in the Court Rules of the Domestic Relations Court. These rules require placing personal information about people’s private lives in public records, which are easily available on the Internet, while blocking disclosure of what judge is assigned to the case. … The outrage is muted by an incestuous network of insiders who are spared the crucible of public scrutiny by a system that operates behind locked doors, disciplined by a real fear of being punished if the members ever break ranks and rail against the injustice they see daily. Michael A. Fox, A Culture of Secrecy, Fear, and Judicial Abuse: A Report on the Butler County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts (http://www.pacegroup.org/fox_report_without_doc.pdf, accessed 12 November 2004), pp. 2-3.
- CitymanMichael
  
  Thanks for this Mike – any father who has been through the Family Court system understands implicitly all you have written – this bit particularly hits the nail on the head – the fathers have been constructively banished, with the collusion of the state, which encourages women to abuse the grotesque power we have conferred on them – the word grotesque is accurate.
karen woodall

I didn’t see your response Darren, I don’t think I did miss your point I think you are living and thinking and working in a parallel universe to me. You are analysing everything through a feminist lens and trying to make the lack of attention paid to men’s issues fit your patriarchal analysis and I am not. For me the lack of respect shown to men is because feminism has messed with the heads of men and women and made them believe that women lack respect whilst men don’t. You only have to look at the piles of men who are discarded in this world to see who is respected and who is not. When women are helped and men are not that is not because of patriarchy, it is because of the conditions created by feminism, which have simply taken power structures and turned them upside down. I work in terms of power relationships, who holds power, who has power, who takes power and who uses power and how power is used to bring about outcomes. That’s different to feminist analysis and it explains, without having to fit the facts to the theory, why men are disposable and women are not.
- Darren Ball
  
  Hi Karen,
  
  The main problem with your analysis is that the neglect of men precedes feminism and the worst offenders are conservative traditionalists.
karen woodall

and the feminists didn’t take the conservative traditionalist neglect of care for men who were lower down the pile and make it their own? Come on Darren, the inversion of the power hierarchy which is utilised by women is based on exactly that which they call patriarchy which they have just inverted to put women at the top. It’s just a theory upon which injustice can be built and the feminists simply took what went before and turned it upside down making all men disposabe instead of just the groups further down the hierarchy. That’s why feminism is not about equality, it is based on the power structure they call patriarchy and it is not about evening up power relationships it is about inverting them.
- Darren Ball
  
  Hi Karen,
  
  “and the feminists didn’t take the conservative traditionalist neglect of care for men who were lower down the pile and make it their own?”
  
  I have argued over and over that this has been a failing of feminism. Worse than that, some feminists campaigners have used patriarchal expectations of men to achieve better treatment for women at the expense of men (e.g. Corston, Women’s Aid, etc.).
  
  I am critical of patriarchy for providing the conditions in which some malicious female advocacy groups can thrive, and I’m critical of feminism for not challenging these groups – It is for this reason that I am not, currently, a feminist. However, neither am I anti-feminists – just because the movement hasn’t (yet) gotten everything right. I’m certainly anti some feminists, such as Baroness Corston and Polly Neate, and I’m very pro other feminists.
  
  There seems to be the start of a sea-change: I’m reading more and more articles, including in the Guardian and Independent, which are sympathetic to men’s issues. I’m hoping for a schism within feminists with those truly interested in gender equality distancing themselves from those who regard men as inherently bad.
http://dadbloguk.com John Adams

A very sensible and balanced approach. I hope the conference was a success. Wish I’d have knwon about it!

Share article