Does anyone remember a time when a feminist could step onto a stage, any stage, be it national or local, and proclaim women were oppressed by men and not be challenged by anyone? There really wasn’t so much as a flutter of an eyelash indicating that someone, anyone needed to process that statement, which, in most cases, was made off the cuff in some speech about why tax dollars should be funneled into some women-only program.
Now don’t get me wrong. The statement is still made regularly by feminists and those amongst the general population who can’t be bothered to look into the facts of history. But the point I’m making here is that there was a time when someone could utter disgusting things, like men being “oppressors,” as if they were saying the sky was blue and almost no one would even challenge the assertion. It was as if those who knew it wasn’t true who decided to let the lie continue unabated, supposedly content with the knowledge that even though it was a mischaracterized exaggeration of how men and women lived before technology wiped a massive portion of sweat from our brows, women had it worse and continued to have it worse in just about every aspect of life. So the male-excluding programs and initiatives were needed… even though the people peddling these programs were saying some pretty mean-spirited and untrue things.
But now things are different. Sure, feminist women and men can still proclaim the penis to be a weapon deserving of caution tape or that men are animals in need of training from feminists in order to be decent human beings. These things can still be said, but the difference now is that when these things are said outside of an echo chamber full of like-minded individuals something astonishing will often happen: a hand attached to an individual with questions will rise. These questions, to the fear and frustration of many feminists, will be legitimate challenges to their illegitimate claims about history, gender, and most especially, men.
One public display of how this will affect feminists has recently graced the front page of this website. The discussion between Karen Straughan, Naomi Wolf, and Antigone Darling is a perfect example of why feminism has never been and will never be about helping both men and women.
But, Jared, Not All Feminists Are Like ThatTm you say? So what?
The ideology of feminism stems from the presumption that men are advantaged over women. Whether you are a feminist who believes that men are at fault for this or “society” is at fault for this doesn’t matter. Men being advantaged or having their lives set on “easy mode” is the problem, correct? So then to fix this problem that advantage must be eliminated, correct? So no matter where you start, your end goal is to take things away from men that you feel are an advantage so that women can be “equal.” That is why the basis of every feminist initiative has been one or both of the following.
- Help women
- Help men learn how to help women
That’s it. That’s all there is to feminism. Even the vicious attacks on masculinity and male sexuality are all derived from the basis of elevating (helping) women. There never was and there never will be a feminist initiative created on a third basis of helping men.
I’m sure most who viewed the presentation gave most of their attention to Naomi Wolf. Not because she had the most thought-provoking things to say, but because almost everything she did say was one hollow statement after the next. “We should all come together and hold hands for the betterment of humanity and feminism will get us there” was basically her response to everything Karen and Antigone had to say. The reason being is because she wasn’t there to debate either of these women. She was there to win over the crowd. Naomi did her damnedest to ensure the crowd heard what she perceived they wanted to hear, and that feminism wasn’t dragged too harshly through the mud.
And she wasn’t without help. It is my understanding that the sole purpose of a moderator in a debate is to be impartial and ensure everyone gets their say. While the moderator in this debate didn’t flat out interrupt Karen or Antigone, she made sure to follow-up every one of their non-feminist supporting statements, and I do mean every last one, with “oh but maybe we should look at it this way because feminism is rainbows and butterflies”. Or at least that’s what I took away after viewing it.
Back to the point of this article: Naomi demonstrated the changing climate hovering above these issues perfectly. I challenge anyone reading this article that doesn’t subscribe to any group advocating for the awareness of male issues to point out just how many male issues Naomi actually spoke of in her long tirades of how feminism is about helping everyone. Yes feminists, I’m talking to you too. That is, if you can get past the euphoria that washed over your brains after one of the audience members Googled the National Organization for Women’s stance on shared parenting. It took Karen asserting the sensible notion that to prove a rape occurred means one would have to prove a lack of consent to knock Naomi from her wave of nirvana.
It was only one issue she wanted to stick with, if you’re having trouble counting in your skim through the video. One issue repeated about three or four times I believe in an off-the-cuff manner: that women were oppressed by men. Meaning, it was a sound bite, or at least a cliche she’s repeated so many times she doesn’t even think you can challenge it. As underrepresented as male issues are, I’ll take that sound bite even though its use was in no way geared toward raising awareness about those issues. No, the sound bite was rehearsed the same way politicians rehearse their speeches. But that isn’t important. What is important is the impact that people like Karen and Antigone are having on people like Naomi when they challenge that sound bite.
If it was up to feminists, male issues would continue to remain in the dark, like they have for the better part of the last century. But because of websites like AVfM, feminists can no longer proclaim wife-beating to be an accepted and encouraged practice of the past without someone bringing up the reality: that men were whipped and beaten for such acts. Feminists can no longer say domestic violence is a gendered weapon men use to control women without someone bringing up the glaring fact that DV is nearly equal between men and women and often reciprocal. No one, not even Naomi Wolf, can claim that rape is something only men do to women without someone pointing out the fact that men and boys take up a large portion of sexual victims and that women commit sexual assault almost as commonly as men–which is why she had to rehearse that sound bite about women’s oppression inserted into many of her responses.
The very fact that sound bite was even necessary should be considered a victory. All across the web feminists are suddenly proclaiming themselves champions of both male and female issues. And their proof? Well, some feminists throw out a couple of male issues in one or two of their articles. That’s something, right? Of course when it comes to actually doing something about those issues…well…that’s where things get a bit difficult. You see, feminists are human beings, a hard fact to swallow I know, but it’s true, and human beings are adaptable creatures. It’s why we’re still here on this planet. But adaptation is often slow so flaws are inevitable in any evolution. Feminists who go as far as to list male issues will usually say without hesitation that these issues need action. But they don’t want anything to do with that action and they definitely don’t want those “woman-hating MRAs” to do anything about those issues either. So where does that leave men?
Waiting for feminists to get done with helping women.
Feminists don’t want male issues given solutions unless those solutions come from the ideology of feminism. That is, helping women or helping men help women. Of course if this model is followed men will never receive the help they need.
Let’s pretend for a minute that rape is actually a crime committed only by men to women. Forget about gay men or lesbians and don’t ever bring up female-on-male rape as anything other than super-duper rare. You with me yet? Good. Now say everyone dropped everything and focused all their attention on ending rape, which is basically the Holy Grail quest of every feminist everywhere. But, in an impossible turn of events, let’s say rape was successfully eliminated. Now then, tell me:
How the fuck would that end false rape allegations?
What, you think that if all rapists were jailed false allegations would suddenly stop happening? Or maybe you think that because we would know there are no more rapists that anyone making an allegation would have to be a liar and thus we would just jail them too? Or maybe just ignore them, since jailing false accusers is rarer than actually finding the Holy Grail?
What about paternity fraud? Would catching all of those pesky “deadbeat dads” end the sickening epidemic of women lying about the fathers of their children?
Women were given the right to abort decades ago. Did that solve the male issue of not being able to decide whether or not they are going to be a parent? No.
Women have this right, even if you take abortion out of the equation. But men? Nope. A man’s right to parenthood is actually a woman’s right to decide whether or not he is going to pay for her children. Even if those children aren’t his.
Maybe if we focus all of our attention on how women attempt suicide more than men, the inconvenient fact of men killing themselves more than women will just go away.
You don’t think so? Me neither.
So then what about the men? What should we do? Send all of them to one of those “Man up” programs endorsed by Naomi? I’m sure the thing society needs in its search for a solution to male suicide is a program that tells men it is their responsibility to be meat shields for the superior sex that is Woman.
About three years ago a blog with the same title as this article was created by a feminist. A wave of popularity from an opinion piece about the feminist movement and men’s rights is what jump-started the creation of that blog. The article was almost revolutionary, given the fact that its author was a nineteen-year-old feminist woman who frequented feminist websites dedicated to nothing more than disenfranchising the MRM and making light of male issues. Yet there she was, chastising feminists for excluding men from the whole equality-of-the-sexes process.
So then what happened next? Exactly what I said would happen in an opinion piece of my own. The creator of the blog and most of its contributors gave lip service to some male issues, but didn’t really do much else. Also, any male issues discussed were spoken about in such a way as to absolve feminism of any responsibility for the conception or prevalence of said issues. Things like paternity fraud and false rape accusations were rarely given mention, if at all, save for fair warnings to new readers that feminism would not be bad mouthed anywhere on the website.
Three years later and what has changed? Not much. The website has folded under its own dishonest and hypocritical weight, and the creator, after a brief stint at The Good Men Project, has faded into obscurity. But the lesson many learned from that website, which was basically a much smaller version of The Good Men Project, is that feminists are their own worst enemy when it comes to giving legitimacy to their claims of helping both men and women. They just can’t do it. Not without risking the damnable ire of the sisterhood. Something Emily Matchar, like every feminist who dared give legitimacy to male issues before her, is learning the hard way.
But it goes deeper than the threat of having their feminist card taken away. Feminists literally can’t help men. They are incapable of approaching any issue from the perspective of helping men. The programs they create for men are all based on this notion: men who haven’t done bad things to women taking responsibility for bad things other men have done to women and sacrificing themselves to protect those women.
The White Ribbon Campaign (Both historic and modern)
RAD for Men (Not conclusive yet but Sage is on it)
Man Up (There’s one in Ireland too)
There are many, many more but you get the idea. In the feminist ideology there is no such thing as helping men because there is no such thing as men needing help. All men need to be instructed on how not to be rapists and abusers of women. And it is a man’s responsibility, after receiving said instructions, to defend women from these rapists and abusers. It is a man’s responsibility to intervene when a woman is in danger from anything and rescue her. That is the message of feminism: women are weak incapable children with no agency, who hold no responsibility, and need protection from men, by men.
So, what about the men? Feminists don’t give a damn.
That’s why the MRM is here.
