I had an email from a young man at the University of New South Wales. He is a media student and wanted an interview of some kind. I invited him to forward some questions, which he did. I thought I would share with you the contents of my reply as I think the content may be of some interest. –JM
Hi [Name Redacted],
Sorry about the slow reply. Hope it is still some use for you. I will answer each of your questions in turn:
1. Could you please state your position in A Voice for Men and your age? If you are uncomfortable with giving me your age that’s fine, but it’s a standard in our news writing assignments.
I am the editor of AVfM Australia.
2. Could you sum up in your words what A Voice for Men does and its ideals?
AVfM Australia is an online magazine that provides a voice, or more correctly voices, in support of men and boys. We do this because we believe that the current zeitgeist is misandric.
3. A Voice for Men’s stance is anti-feminist. There have been accusations that the organisation is misogynistic in nature. How would you respond to these accusations?
Being anti-feminist and misogynistic are not one and the same. The claim that A Voice for Men is misogynistic because it is anti-feminist relies on a dishonest link between the two.
There are a number of female contributors to the main site of A Voice for Men. At this present time I just published a female contributor’s work for AVfM Australia. These are independent women, in every sense of the word, with their own opinions. Misogynists would not invite women to participate on their websites.
Are these women anti-feminist? Yes.
Is anyone at A Voice for Men misogynistic? No. I challenge anyone to read any of my own articles and find anything that could seriously classed as misogynistic.
4. Do you believe there is a culture of ‘everyday sexism’ in Australia? If so, against men and/or women?
The Feminist slogan, “The personal is political” has grown to the extent where even the most trivial of behaviour is interpreted through the lens of “sexism”. This is where notions of “everyday sexism” get promoted as being somehow not just valid, but important. The irony, of course, is that this “everyday sexism” is only ever a one-way street, which in itself is a sexist notion. For example, the everyday sexism that occurs whenever a heavy box needs lifting, or something requires digging, never gets a mention.
There is, however, among the legal, academic and political elites a strong culture of misandry. This misandry is growing in intensity. This is not nitpicking over who gets to lift heavy boxes, however. Boys, en masse, are falling behind at school because the education system is failing them. Men, en masse, are being mistreated in the Family Court. Men, en masse, are being systematically marginalised and penalised in the area of domestic violence. These are serious matters with serious consequences.
5. Does a Voice for Men have representation on university campuses? (I’m interested specifically at the University of New South Wales.)
No.
6. Could you provide some recent statistics of abuse against males?
Rather than get lost in the world of statistics, let us consider the issue of Boko Haram, the Nigerian group who became famous when they recently kidnapped a group of schoolgirls. This same group has, on a number of occasions, gone to schools and slaughtered all of the males they could find. On each occasion, the girls at the school were simply let go.
The repeated mass murders don’t get anything like the same publicity. In fact, had Boko Haram not kidnapped the girls they would not have received world wide publicity no matter how many boys and young men they killed.
http://au.avoiceformen.com/feminism/the-empathy-gap-is-shockingly-real/
http://www.avoiceformen.com/men/boys/boko-haram-bring-back-our-boys/
7. Does A Voice for Men have a general consensus on the Elliot Rodgers shootings and on the perpetrator himself? Could you provide your personal opinion?
Elliott Rodger was a mentally ill young man who killed four men and two women, and injured others. There has been no media reports on the sex of those who were injured. Since his parents divorce, when he was eight, there was a history of mental illness. The diagnosis seems to be in dispute, but it is certain that Elliott Rodger had serious issues from then on.
Also documented was his addiction to Xanax, which was causing him problems just prior to the killings.
To call his autobiographical ramblings a “manifesto” gives the document more gravitas than it deserves. There are sentences in it which, if taken out of context, would suggest a misogynistic streak, but the truth is that Rodger angry because he was still a virgin. His anger seems to have been aimed at his peers. When he talks about women, he seems to refer to the young women in his immediate social sphere. Those he considered potential girlfriends. He also has as much hatred for the men he believed was having sex with these women as the women themselves.
Elliot Rodger has no link to A Voice for Men whatsoever. It also seems that his link to men’s rights is tenuous at best. Apparently he frequented a site that was against Pick Up Artists. I know little about Pick Up Artists, but being against them doesn’t make anyone an advocate for men’s rights.
We, at a Voice for Men, have a strict code of non-violence. I don’t call myself an expert on all websites that promote men’s rights, but none that I am familiar with would, in any way, encourage or condone any killing. Elliot Rodger is not seen as a hero or a martyr. He was a deeply disturbed young man who committed a terrible crime. Our thoughts and prayers go to all of the victims and their families, including Elliot Rodger’s own family.
8. Does A Voice for Men have a general consensus on the #YesAllWomen social media campaign? Could you provide your personal opinion?
This campaign has taken a tragedy and unscrupulously used it to their own advantage. Like the example I gave earlier of Boko Haram, the fact that Rodger killed four men means nothing to the phony social justice warriors. They are determined to use the deaths of the two women, and selections from Rodger’s rantings, to make themselves out as “victims”, regardless of the how trivial their complaints might be.
9. Has A Voice for Men seen heavy opposition in the wake of the Elliot Rodgers shooting? What message would you give to give to your critics?
We have seen opposition since our inception. This is just the latest excuse for the sanctimonious outpourings. The criticism seldom does us any actual harm. Those who come to our site will see well reasoned articles on a range of topics, many written by females. None of these articles promote misogyny or violence.
On the whole, though, these so called outcries are really just preaching to the converted. The Feminists will use each article against the MRA’s (or whatever they call us) as a rallying cry for the faithful. It is unlikely that any of them would actually visit our sites to check the claims being made.
10. On A Voice for Men’s website the mission statement states that it aims “to promote a culture that values equal treatment under the law for all human beings.” Does that mean the organisation believes in gender equality and closing the gender pay gap?
No, it means “to promote a culture that values equal treatment under the law for all human beings.” The problem here are the terms “gender equality” and the “gender pay gap”. What do they actually mean?
Let’s look a the notion of the “gender pay gap”. It is illegal to have a man and a woman doing the same job for different pay. The reason for this “gap” is that women take time from full-time employment to have children. Therefore they have, on average, less experience in that particular industry. Even when the child is of school age, many women still work only part-time jobs. The availability of these part time jobs depend on the industry that they are in. It is for these reasons that the average wage between men and women has a “gap”.
To achieve “gender equality” we would, as a society, have to insist that for 50% of those couples, the man looks after the children (working part-time or not at all). Not only would this achieve “gender equality” on the child-raising front, but it would also stop the so called “gender pay gap”.
That level of social engineering is Orwellian to say the least, and I do not think it would be a good thing.
I hope these answers are of some help for your article.
Regards,
Jim Muldoon
