[dropcap]F[/dropcap]or those concerned about the environmental challenges of an increasing human population, pollution and resource depletion, there is an unmentionable solution to what seems like a politically intractable problem. That solution is men’s rights. Unlike ecofeminism, which simply blames men for all environmental problems or the more academically accepted Human Ecology; which similarly denies any female agency for said problems, men’s rights may provide for a sensible sex systems theory understanding of the seemingly diabolical problem of environmental degradation and conflict over resource competition.
The problem is how to persuade people that via technology and intelligence, working less and consuming less are personally, socially and environmentally beneficial. This is not such a problem if one is prepared to consider that the main driver of working and consuming more is female hypergamy. This would be blasphemous in the academies and government, yet it is hypergamy which drives men to work harder for wealth to attract females; and once paired, to continue to work harder (at women’s not so gentle behest) so mainly women can consume even more unnecessary stuff and services.
There is a disconnection between the working and earning of wealth (mainly men) and the spending and consumption of wealth (mainly women). This is a moral hazard; as why would someone choose to lower their level of unnecessary spending when there are no benefits; only costs, to them for doing so. The solution is as simple as it is socially unacceptable. Minimize wealth transfer from men to women; and the subsequent demand that only men are socially required to work full-time or longer. People should only consume as much as they are prepared to pay for with their own efforts and labor. This reconnection between earning and consuming can only lead to better purchasing decisions and less waste.
While we have had many soul searching inquiries into ‘what women want’, ‘what men want’ is not asked – and for a good reason too. Men may actually tell you what they want. Governments and women would be appalled at the prospect of men not being encouraged and/or enforced to work harder that they themselves would which. Less tax, less political power to redistribute wealth, less national power on the world stage are the obvious reasons why men’s rights are to be denied. Women’s self determination is an obvious good; men’s self determination an obvious disaster for both the powerful and women. It has been ever such. Since the beginnings of civilization, Kings have required men to be soldiers and slaves; and have required women to produce male soldiers and slaves. Women can also produce more females to produce more male soldiers and slaves. Is it little wonder there are only women’s privileges and rights to choice?
Studies have shown that given a choice men want to work less. A 2009 study [1] by the Centre for Policy Studies in the UK found that men and women both wanted to work around the same hours part-time. This fact is only used in the study to prove that women are not “work shy”; since both women and men desired the same number of working hours. However, the only recommendation from this aptly titled study, ‘What Women Want…and how they can get it’ is for government policy to accommodate women’s desire to work less; not men’s. This study was unusual in that it asked what people desired beyond financial imperatives. More common is to bundle men’s desires for work with the all-pervading expectation that men are required to financially support women and society. Even then, one in three fathers want to work less; and yearn for more home time [2].
Thus female hypergamy and government ambition are the reasons why the average man is forced into service for most women and the powerful. As such, the average man is, as well as a demographic minority, certainly a minority in the power stakes. This is why men’s rights are so fiercely denied and contested. They don’t suit the powerful; that is, the vast majority of women and the holders of political power – a frightening large and omnipotent demographic.
What is to be done? Many people would object to men’s rights for self-determination as the obvious result would be to risk prosperity, and therefore, national interests in an increasingly competitive international scene. Surely, acceptance of men’s rights would only accelerate the relative decline of the western economies in a jealous and bitter world. It seems western civilization will be seriously challenged by other civilizations within the next decade. The US has already have lost the prime polluter mantle to China. Perhaps the institutional male-bashing should just continue until male morale improves, men work harder and the US is restored to polluter primacy. Is this the only way to protect and benefit the nation and thus ourselves?
Given the decline of the West economically, there may be another way to improve the world, our standing in it and the future of humanity. That’s right – men’s rights. While economic and military power are not to be sneezed at, soft power like the cultural benefits that would arise from men’s rights should not be ignored in a world where so many are enslaved and/or impoverished. Immigrants are already attracted to countries which give them a better lifestyle and human rights. This means the Men’s Rights Movement may have a solution to not only a nation’s social problems, but possibly to the international problems of environmental degradation and perhaps even conflict over ever dwindling resources. The West could, in time, lead a men’s rights revolution that would be irresistible to the rest of the world in the same way that entrepreneurial and religious freedoms have become.
Imagine if all those men currently enslaved in boring, repetitive, sole destroying jobs could be freed to engage in the creative industries of technology and the arts. Technology is our best hope for the future, especially for environmental and conflict problems. Art is what helps make life worth living. Men are gifted at both. How much of a better lifestyle have we already forsaken by forcing the innate genius in us to forgo creating a better world; and instead provide marginally useless consumables and dubious services for the consumer sex.
Why is there a need to first point out the benefits that men’s rights could achieve in promoting a more technologically and socially agreeable future? Why not just because it is the right thing to do anyway? It is because while women’s rights are seen as acceptable and desirable things in themselves, men’s rights are a revolutionary threat to the existing power group – women and powerful men. Their minds are closed in the same way that all previous power groups had their eyes closed. Primitive societies were and are controlled by power groups who would suppress the creativity and enterprise of others; lest they increase their wealth and power relative to the power group. They would regard this as a loss to their relative power, rather than an overall increase in the community’s wealth; and subsequently suppress it. It is the power group’s obsession with relative wealth and power; rather than absolute wealth and power which holds their communities back. Such self-serving blindness to a better future for all is a significant contributing factor acting against the establishment of men’s rights.
Time is running out and currently, the prospects for men’s rights are remote and distant. There is only one thing for it. Men – go your own way. Force them to open their eyes. No society can compete (or duly cooperate) internationally without the willing involvement of their men. Everyone’s future depends on it.
Too much perhaps. Somewhat exaggerated. Surely just one simply good thing – men’s rights to determine their own lifestyle and retain a reasonable amount of compensation for work done – could not lead to world peace. How could it? Instead consider how women’s rights to unfettered hypergamy would contribute to world peace. Hypergamy leads to increasing resource over- consumption and competition. This most probably will lead to conflict.
Currently the ambition of men is largely attributable to the social sanction of women’s hypergamy and its fulfillment. Previously it was through the selection of a higher status male and their subsequent harassment to procure more wealth and status. It is now becoming more acceptable to abandon the current mate and trade up. Hypergamy is women forever attempting to better themselves. The problem is that it is always at the expense and labor of men. There are two ways a woman can improve her lot in life. She can accomplish it herself or she can use hypergamy, that is, receive it from a man.
This is where men’s rights come into the big picture and humanity’s future. It would be reasonable to object that naturalistically, we men are forever condemned to female hypergamy, and as such, men’s rights can never be properly realized. But I ask you. Do we have a choice? At root, it is hypergamy that is leading us ever more towards over-consumption and competition. The future is uncertain and worrisome. The future is men’s rights or major problems. Future technologies will progressively remove the biological sex differences or otherwise fulfill their requirements. The direction for humanity’s success is incontrovertible. Technology and men’s rights are the only possible future.
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[1] Odono, C. What women want … and how they can get it. Centre for policy studies. U.K. Sept. 2009.
[2] Dads yearn for more home time. The Weekend Australian. George Megalogenis. A study by the Weekend Australian using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. 7-8 April 2012. p.3
