Owning Your Shit

Been busy...

2011-12-22T17:05:00.000-08:00

Doing this:

And a few other videos, you can check them out here.

I've also started writing for A Voice For Men, thanks to John the Other's enthusiasm.

My first article there is here, and my second here, for any of you who haven't heard or had a look yet.

Other than that, I've been pounding the mall pavement, stockpiling goodies to go under the tree, and trying to schedule all the required holiday visits with family in. Also, a lot of drinking, to try to stay sane.

For the near future, I'll be doing an interview after the holidays with Stephen Molyneux of Freedomainradio, a philosophy webshow. And after that, who the hell knows?

In between all that, I'll be posting here now and then, and kicking up my usual fuss on reddit, but if I don't get another chance between now and Santa Day, Merry Christmas to all of you, and thanks for your support.

Hugs, all. :)

Coming Out

2011-10-26T06:56:00.000-07:00

I've said more than once that the men's movement needs more female voices if it's going to achieve any sort of mainstream status, voices like Barbara Kay, Erin Pizzey and Christina Hoff Sommers, but for the longest time I've been reluctant to add my own voice in a meaningful way. Anonymity is comfortable. It feels safe.

But words on a blog and on men's forums are too easy to dismiss, especially if there's no face behind them. Part of my credibility derives from the fact that I'm a woman, but like the old man in a chat room pretending to be a teenage girl, when I choose not to show my face, it becomes very easy for people to doubt my identity, and in doing that, dismiss my words.

So. After a great deal of weighing the pros, I've decided to come out. I am girlwriteswhat.

Gender Bending...no girlie men allowed!

2011-10-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

I've often described myself as a little gender-queer. Though I very definitely identify as a woman, I'm a masculine one, for sure, and those masculine qualities are part of both my social "uniform"--boy's haircut, little to no make-up, serviceable shoes, jeans and wife-beaters, zero jewelry, trimmed fingernails--and my ability to relate to the male viewpoint on many issues. I have a preference for male company, not because I dislike women, but because they often behave in ways that lie outside my scope of internal experience. I frequently find myself quietly bemused among them, unable to find common ground.

And I can get away with this, enjoy the respect of my male and female coworkers and bosses, and I have never had any trouble finding heterosexual sex partners. The same cannot be said for men.

For men, gender is much more severely enforced. It is enforced by women, in their choice of sexual partners (though I know there is a small subset of women who are attracted to emo-boys and androgynes, and "fag-hags" have existed since long before Oscar Wilde). It is also rigidly and often brutally enforced by other men, as Bill Burr so beautifully and succinctly explores in this bit of stand-up.

Displays of weakness are either ridiculed by friends looking to hold their buddies to a standard of masculinity, or exploited by enemies looking to prove their own masculinity by kicking your ass. And the indoctrination as to what is manly starts in the cradle. I've read some material (though I don't have the studies to hand) that demonstrate that, although boy babies are more likely to be fussy, parents are more quick to console or attend to a girl baby. So men's socialization with respect to becoming physically self-sufficient, emotionally self-contained, and sturdy enough to "tough it out" on their own begins in infancy. Moreover, the socialization that begins through peer groups after infancy steers boys toward risk-taking behaviors, pain-tolerance, competition, projection of strength, and a serious reluctance to ask for help.

Over the last year, I developed an online friendship with a fellow Canadian who's been living and working abroad. We bonded over our bisexuality and our openness to new sexual experiences, and the emotional fall-out that can happen when what was billed as a casual, no-strings-attached encounter becomes complicated by unexpected emotion, manipulation or dishonesty. He's hoping that when he returns to Canada, we'll be able to hang out a little. According to him, I am the only person here to whom he feels comfortable speaking about his sexual adventures and experiences abroad, and he's told me more than once that his friends--"dudes" one and all--would NOT understand any of the things he's felt or done over the last few years. He lives in fear that they'll discover it, or sense it somehow, and punish him accordingly.

And while I find his fears saddening, I know they're justifiable. He told me once it would be easier if he were gay--that if that were the case, there would be a clear line that would distinguish what he is as an issue of sexual orientation rather than one of gender. We still live in a predominantly monosexual, either/or culture, especially with respect to men. While me dallying with the occasional woman does not make me any less of a woman, him experimenting with male/male sexuality--even in the context of three-way sex involving a woman--calls his status as a man into question. It may be acceptable for a man to go with men, but such activity renders him entirely unworthy of playing the man to a woman in the eyes of society.

It's the same way with displays of weakness and emotionality, needing help, being victims, crying, or anything else commonly associated as "female". As much as feminists and "new-age" women insist they'd like men to do more of these things, what they say they want from men, and what leads them to choose a sexual partner (whether long term or for a one-off) are often two completely different things. I can't even imagine the level of frustration involved in being repeatedly "friend-zoned" for embodying all the politically correct attributes that women have been saying, for the last god knows how long, that they desire in a man.

Which brings me to the "why" behind all of this--behind my freedom (both socially and sexually) to express my slightly bent gender orientation and not be penalized for it by being considered "not a woman", while men who do the same are considered "not men".

Most of the feminists I've come across have concluded that this penalization of "girlie men" originates in the relative positions of men and women, and societal views of "maleness" as intrinsically superior or preferable to "femaleness". That women have always been considered "less than" men.

But you know what? I actually believe it's the exact opposite.

I mean, let's look at society as an employer. The employer wants all its employees to be useful and valuable, otherwise, there's no point in paying them. And what does our employer need in order to perpetuate itself and grow? It needs strong backs to do the work of making things happen, and it needs people whose job it is to provide more strong backs to replace the ones that wear out or retire.

Women provide those strong backs by bearing children. This is their primary role, because it's an important one and who the hell else is going to do it? Because this role is so important, and because women's ability to effectively do this job requires safety, support and assistance, women are often pigeonholed into a position where those needs can be efficiently and consistently met. They are "warehoused" in safe little cubicles, and not permitted to engage in work that could put them at serious risk of not being able to perform their primary function. Instead, they are relegated to safe, relatively easy tasks in between their periodic larger, more important projects.

The attributes that are most valuable in a female employee are a willingness to take direction, an ability to make their individual needs known so they can be met, and the physical characteristics considered most helpful in performing that primary function many times over.

What role does that leave for men? It leaves them the job of being the strong backs. They do the heavy lifting, they tinker with the high voltage wiring that services the office complex, they go out into the dangerous world and return with provisions and office supplies.

While men are necessary as project contributors to assist in the primary function of the female employees, when it comes to this particular contribution, one man can do the work of many, if need be. Since there are always going to be men employed by the company, those men vary in their capacity to be useful to the company, and men pass on their attributes to the new strong backs they help to provide, it is in the company's best interest that only the most valuable men perform this particular function. It is of no value to the company if a man who is a slacker or otherwise unfit is allowed to contribute in this way, since the new backs he helps provide will not be as strong as others. And it is in the women's best interest, to be selective in choosing their project partners, since women's value to the company improves if the new strong backs they provide are exceptionally strong.

Can women fill those primary "male" jobs? Of course they can. And they have, at points all through history, where and when it's been necessary. While performing these tasks may put them at risk (which is to be avoided, if possible), and often puts a double burden on them in that they may be expected to do the work of two people, it's entirely possible for them to do it and still be of value to the company.

A woman can provide more strong backs while doing some of the heavy lifting and some of the more risky jobs, when that is required. And a woman can also fill her primary female job just by lying around doing not much at all. Even if she does next to nothing else, if she is performing, or potentially can perform, that function for her employer, she has value. She likely won't be paid that much if she's not being productive in other ways, but she's still entitled to a salary if she does her primary duty, or a retainer if she has the potential to do so. If she can't perform this primary duty, there are other tasks she can perform that have value, either in the male department or in the female one, and there's still the off chance of her managing to provide at least one future strong back. That primary function is SO important, that the company has policies in place to provide pensions for its female hirees, even if they've been unproductive in any way.

Can a man fill that single, primarily "female" job? Well, no. No he can't. Like not at all. His entire value to the company is in his ability to perform the more difficult, risky, strenuous jobs so that women can enjoy light duty while they contribute in more important ways. To perform these jobs, he requires certain attributes--physical strength, sanguinity in the face of danger, a willingness to take risks, a sense of putting others before himself, and a drive to perform. The more of these attributes he has, the more valuable he is to the company. The fewer he has, the more likely he is to get fired. He won't be placed on retainer or earn a pension if it looks like the company can't use him for anything, because if the company does that, he'll only be a burden on their payroll.

Men have to earn their value to the company. They can't earn their value through being good at secondary female tasks--there are tons of females in the company, and they can perform those secondary tasks while also performing their primary one. He's not going to get hired to do half a job, and he's not qualified to do the entire thing. The only role he can fill, while retaining enough individual value to the company to remain on the payroll, is the male role.

So in my opinion, men suffer more strict enforcement of their gender roles not because they are considered more valuable than, or preferable to, women, or because women are considered less than men. It is because women are and always have been more valuable, on an individual and inherent basis, to the company than men are. A woman retained that inherent value no matter how useful she was, because women as a group were considered so valuable that it was in the company's interest to keep the entire group on the payroll. A woman who could step outside her assigned duties and perform other ones when need be--that is, a woman who sometimes behaved like a man--was, to a point, more valuable to the company for her ability to do so. She was Woman Plus. She could do her job that only she could do, and then some. Conversely, she was Man Plus. She could do a man's job, and then some. She can be the strong back and the provider of strong backs, the most versatile and valuable employee there is.

Men, on the other hand, had to provide value in order to maintain their employment. Their value to the company lay in performing specific tasks so that females wouldn't have to, and in being valued project contributors who had to earn their entitlement to work with females in this way. Men who did not act "like men" were Less Than Men. Likewise, they were Less Than Women. They were incapable of doing a complete job either way, so there was no added value in them demonstrating female characteristics without having a womb to go along with it.

And at that point, the company, for the sake of its own solvency, would either vigorously "retrain" them, or give them their pink slips. It is not that maleness is "better than" femaleness. It is that maleness has always been extremely limited in its useful and productive permutations, while femaleness is simply less so. The essential feminine can only be added to and gain value, while the essential masculine can only be subtracted from and lose it.

Many women have been able to completely abandon their essential feminine--their primary function--and still retain status as whole human beings with value to society, but men simply cannot do the same. When they abandon masculinity, they throw away all that makes their lives worthwhile to anyone but themselves.

Is it possible to change this? Perhaps. The same social, biological and economic progress that has allowed women to set aside their essential feminine and still retain some value to our evolving society should certainly work the same way for men. There are more roles available to everyone--meaningful ones--now that the old "primary" roles are becoming less important to the "corporation", and men are a part of that "everyone". But as long as women are not willing to fully embody these new roles, they're going to want to hold men to their old ones. And the dynamic, all through history, has been about men putting women--their safety, provision and comfort--before themselves. Because of this, the ride to true liberation for men from their gender roles is gonna be a hell of a lot more bumpy than the one for women has been.

The violence of the oppressed...

2011-10-10T16:54:00.000-07:00

...is not the same as the violence of the oppressor.

This phrase conjures images such as the slave revolt that liberated Haiti, the Storming of the Bastille that set off the French Revolution, or of rugged, battle-hardened Mujahideen soldiers harrying the Soviet occupation force in 1980s Afghanistan.

Or...well, if you were a radical feminist, it might conjure images of Lorena Bobbitt, Catherine Kieu Becker, and any number of women who've enacted horrific, sometimes sexual, violence upon men.

This philosophy--that the violence of the oppressed is not the same as the violence of the oppressor--is what led to feminist suppression and dismissal of the almost 300 studies on domestic violence published since the early 80s, studies that demonstrate women are as aggressive, if not more aggressive, in their relationships as men are. It is the philosophy that causes feminists to emphasize the importance of "context" (something many of those almost 300 studies explicitly address), and then twist those contextualizations completely out of shape. It is what led women's advocates to conclude that the mandatory arrest policies enacted in the 1980s had resulted in "victims" being arrested alongside or even in place of their abusers when arrests of women in California rose by 446% and men's by just 37%, and to enact predominant aggressor policies to remedy this "problem".

It is what leads them to assign empirically groundless motivations to female abusers that fall in line with "men's and women's relative positions in society", and therefore characterize husband-battering as a "reaching upward" for empowerment, rather than a "stomping downward" act of anger, jealousy, domination, and, yes, oppression. It is what allows ordinary people and feminists alike to consider women's violence against men not only understandable but a justified and even admirable resistance to "patriarchal norms", while male violence against women has become even more universally condemned than it has always been.

It is what leads the general public to conclude, against all the glaring, neon-colored, sequin-and-road-flare-festooned evidence to the contrary--PSA ad campaigns, VAWA, mandatory arrest policies, crisis lines, battered women's shelters, easily obtained restraining orders, primary aggressor policies, Joe Biden, rape shield protections, campus sexual assault committees, billions of taxpayer dollars' worth of funding, sporadic vigilante harassment, shootings and beatings, and lessons every boy learns from toddlerhood that "it is NEVER okay to hit a girl"--that society does not take violence against women seriously enough.

That's right. In a world where female on male domestic violence is fodder for hilarity on Bugs Bunny cartoons, where FGM is abhorred and legally banned while infant male circumcision evokes shrugs of indifference, where hitting a woman back can land a man in the hospital while an hours-long public assault on a man by a woman is no big deal to passers by, it is violence against women we do not take seriously enough.

When the simple fact that this could be our collective perception in the face of the billions of dollars we spend on the problem, the millions of words' worth of legislation we've enacted to address it, and the thousands upon thousands of hours of media time devoted to it...all this tells me is that society, on the whole, takes violence against women SO seriously it will stop at nothing to put an end to it.

And why? I mean, it's not as if society hasn't always taken this issue seriously--men used to fight to the death over women who'd been harmed, leap in front of bullets to protect them, and even married women have almost always had some form of legal recourse against battering husbands. The protection of women from physical and sexual harm has always been in society's best interest, because women are inherently and individually important to the functioning of society. But now? It's as if we've all collectively gone nuts in our drive to protect women, to the point where we will happily recast female batterers as victims, jail the men they've assaulted, and cram every instance of violence within a relationship into a narrative of dominant, angry, controlling man and victimized, cowed woman--even when it's obvious that the roles are the exact inverse.

Because a single instance of violence by an "oppressor", no matter how mild or or how justified, is horrible enough to overshadow a thousand such offenses on the part of a member of an "oppressed class". If women are believed to be, or to have been, an oppressed class, and beneath men in society, then female violence against men is a righteous uprising, while male violence can be cast as all that is ugly and evil in a tyrant, the boot-heel of oppression.

This is how feminism has taken our already healthy desire--whether innate or socialized or a little of both--to protect women from violence, and turned it into a steroid-enhanced, mutant, logic-defying impulse to not only protect women from harm, but to take as many men down, innocent or guilty, as we can, even if in doing so we put children at risk. Because if women are and have always been an oppressed class, their violence against their oppressors isn't abhorrent. Every penis severed and shoved down a disposal is a metaphorical triumph against tyranny and oppression.

It is this philosophy that allowed an audience of women to laugh and gloat over the barbaric castration of a man who'd committed the dire offense of asking his wife for a divorce, and to lead many people to speculate, without any other details, that she was probably a battered woman. It is what led women all over North America to view Catherine Becker's atrocity as not just excusable, but "quite fabulous", because even though all we knew (or now know) about Mr. Becker is that he was a man, any man, every man, well, you know how men are...you know he had to have done something to deserve it.

This philosophy is what leads many feminists--from academics to manboobz--to characterize MRAs' attempts to bring domestic and sexual violence against males into the public eye (and the governments' budgets) as "zero-sum thinking", anti-feminist, misogynistic, and an agenda to dismantle existing protections for women. It is this view of oppressor (male) and oppressed (female) that views any outreach toward assisting male victims of female violence as a threat to women that borders on violence itself, a heartless revictimization of an "oppressed class".

And none of it...I mean, none of it, is based on reality. The reality is, women's and men's relative positions in society, throughout history, have always been balanced. Were they equal? Not by a long shot. Were they equitable? Absolutely. And the oppression feminists insist was a one-way street in patriarchal societies, well, this just isn't the way it was. Women were elevated above men in many respects--most notably in the motivation of society to protect them from harm.

And before anyone goes off on some bullshit diatribe concerning benevolent sexism and how women were protected because you protected what you owned, or because they were seen as children, or because the were useful to men as sexual objects, or because they weren't considered full human beings and they had no power in society relative to men, I will direct you to Exhibit A.

The White Feather Girls didn't entice men to enlist with a promise of sex or favor. Those young women went in for the kill, striking men at the very heart of their masculine identities, the bestowing of a feather telling them, "If you don't go off to be maimed or die, you are no longer a man in the eyes of some brassy chit you've never even met before and will probably never see again." And many men went, because a woman's censure--ANY woman's censure--had the power to drive them straight into the teeth of death.

Many feminists will attempt to tell you that Patriarchy (or men, depending on who you talk to) constructed femininity in such a way as to benefit men, thus Othering women. But masculinity and femininity evolved together, so that each would benefit the other, and women had, and still have, a strong hand in shaping what is socially acceptable in men and what is not.

That skillet-wielding Victorian harpy chasing her husband out the door and off to work with shrieks of "lazy, good for nothing layabout!" was wielding the "Hulk SMASH!!!" version of a power all women had, have always had, and still have, over men.

That feminism managed to convince the world that the oppression of patriarchal societies placed women at the bottom in every single facet of life (even areas where they were elevated), in a position where they were utterly powerless and incapable of inflicting oppression, or where their only avenue to power and agency was through their usefulness as brood mares, domestic slaves and receptacles for male ejaculate, while men alone had the power necessary to oppress anyone, is a feat of sociopolitical chicanery worthy of Charles Ponzi.

And until western societies open their eyes and start seeing reality, instead of continuing to believe what they are told, we will continue to see women's violence as what it is not--excusable, justifiable, less harmful, a righteous rebellion against tyranny, and a reaching upward for empowerment--rather than what it actually is.

And until we, as a society, come to terms with this divergence between what we have been told to believe, and what is actually real, we will continue to enable, excuse and even reward female violence, and sweep all those inconvenient male victims who challenge our ideas of what society actually looks like, under the carpet where we don't have to see them, or worse, recast them as abusers themselves--a whole underclass of people whose crime was bruising women's knuckles with their faces.

Can we redefine the terms, please?

2011-10-03T23:42:00.000-07:00

And I don't mean changing Patriarchy to Kyriarchy, and leaving the ladder of the rest of society relatively unchanged, with males enjoying privilege and women suffering "benevolent sexism".

I mean changing the words with which we examine the complex interaction of society and gender roles, the oligarchical structures depending on us plebes' subservience, etc etc.

Under the feminist treatment, we talk about rights, freedoms and oppression. When we look at gender relations in this way, we get a very "women on the bottom" picture:

Men had the right to earn income and own property
Women did not generally have a right to earn income or own property. This lack is defined as an oppression.
Men had a right to be in authority over women (and children) and money in marriage
Women were under men's authority, and were therefore oppressed
Men were free to bang floozies all they wanted before (and often during) marriage without social outcry
Women had to be virgins until marriage, and faithful within marriage, and were therefore oppressed sexually
Men had a right to sex within marriage
Women were sexually objectified, therefore oppressed
Men had a right to a clean house and dinner on the table
Women were seen as domestic slaves
Men had freedom of movement
Women did not have similar freedom of movement, and were therefore oppressed

But when you redefine the terms a little, and make them about obligations and entitlements rather than rights and oppression...well, when we look at the base unit of society, the family:

A man had an obligation to earn income
A woman had no such obligation
A man had an obligation to provide for his wife and any children of the marriage
A woman had an entitlement to a man's financial provision

Wow! Net gain for Team Woman! Let's delve a little deeper, shall we?

A man had an obligation (social and legal) to be accountable for provision for his wife and children, and maintaining family finances (if all the money got spent on booze and fast women, he was the one working extra shifts to compensate)
A man therefore had an entitlement to authority over his wife, children and marital finances, including property
A woman had no such obligation of accountability (if all the money got spent on spa treatments and subscriptions to fashion magazines, her husband was stuck working extra shifts to compensate), therefore, she had no entitlement to authority over finances
A woman was thus obligated to defer to her husband in financial and important matters

Huh. You mean when someone is responsible for the financial wellbeing of other people, they're the one who has the say in how the money is spent?

A woman had an obligation to provide her husband with children if she could (sex)
A man had an obligation to provide his wife with children if he could (sex)
A woman had the (biological) entitlement of knowing that her children were her genetic progeny
A man was entitled to have all the sex he wanted before marriage, and to engage in extramarital sex without much social censure
A man had no biological entitlement to know that the children of the marriage belonged to him, yet he had a legal obligation to provide for children born into the marriage (whosever they were)
A woman therefore had an obligation to remain faithful, so her husband would know he wasn't paying to put the milkman's babies through private school

Um....this actually seems too close to call. Tie game!

A man had an entitlement to freedom of movement
A woman had an entitlement to the protection of her husband
A man had no such entitlement from his wife, but was obligated to die to protect his wife, if necessary
A woman had an obligation to abide by her husband's restrictions on her movement, so that his safety would not be needlessly put at risk
A woman had an entitlement to share her husband's income
A woman had an obligation to perform domestic labor in return for sharing her husband's income
A man had an obligation to provide his wife with a living until her death, if he could

So, to recap, in a different way:

A man had an entitlement to freedom of movement. He also had an obligation to keep himself safe
A man had an entitlement to authority over his wife. He also had an obligation to keep HER safe
A man had an entitlement to domestic comfort provided by his wife. He also had an obligation to provide her with food, shelter, clothing, and all other material necessities out of his own paycheck
A man had an entitlement to virginity in a bride and fidelity in a wife. He also had an obligation to provide for all children born into the marriage, his or not
A man had an entitlement to authority over his children. He also had an obligation to protect those children
A man had an entitlement to earn income. He also had an obligation to earn income, whether he married or not
A man had an entitlement to control any assets of his marriage, including those his wife brought into the marriage. He also had an obligation to keep the entire family afloat, increase their holdings (if any), and would be held solely socially accountable if he failed
A man had an entitlement to be provided with children, if his wife could do so (sex). He also had the obligation to provide for and protect his wife until her death, even if said death occurred long after the children left home, or long after any sexual congress between them ceased, and even if there were no children

Now let's look at how it went for women:

A woman had an entitlement to the protection of her husband. She also had an obligation to defer to his authority
A woman had an entitlement to be provided for until her death or her husband's. She also had an obligation to provide him with domestic labor, and with children if she could (sex)
A woman had an entitlement to share in the social and financial status of her husband. She also had an obligation to hand over any of her own assets into his control
A woman had an entitlement to be provided with children (sex) and to provision for those children. She also had an obligation to ensure her children actually belonged to her husband
A woman had an entitlement to protection for her children. She also had an obligation to cede authority over those children to her husband
A woman was entitled to basic provision (from society or extended family) even if she never married. She had no obligation to earn income
A woman was entitled to basic protection (from society or extended family) even if she never married. She had an obligation to abide by societal restrictions with respect to keeping herself from endangering others by endangering herself

Again...at this point, things aren't really looking that onerous for women, when you consider the entitlements they got in return for their obligations. While feminists have always argued that men "got more", they've never really looked at it in terms of different obligations (most importantly, personal accountability and accountability for others) that were expected of men and women, and different entitlements being derived from those obligations. Women "got less" because their obligations and accountability were less, their responsibility was less. Men "got more" because the buck stopped with them, whether that buck consisted of a sack of coins or his blood.

And this isn't even going into what men owed society. The obligation women owed society consisted of the obligation they owed their husbands--to be wives, mothers, housekeepers, etc, or to be as small a burden on society or family as they could manage. What men owed? Economic output. Military service. Often financial provision for extended family--unmarried or widowed sisters, aging parents, etc, before the days of national pensions, health insurance, 401Ks, income assistance, and unisex office jobs.

Was it restrictive? For sure! Did history miss out on some serious contributions women might have made if they were not crammed into this very strict, very confined little box? Oh yes. Does this model remotely fit the world we live in now--a world of safe public transit, a social safety net, daycare subsidies, service industry jobs galore, birth control, formula, and a multitude of modern conveniences? Fuck no. Was any of it a cakewalk of privilege for men? I don't fucking think so.

But the impossibility of a different kind of bargain for the majority of women and their children until very recently made it very, very important to society to uphold this system of obligation/entitlement, and uphold it for everyone. The truth is, until the last 100 years or so, most women could not have lived a life of children and public sphere work, independent of a man (and not all can today, realistically). Because of this, men's obligation to provide for women and their children had to be ruthlessly enforced. And the only meaningful way to enforce those obligations in men was to not allow them to become entitlements for women.

And then the nature of work--both in the home and outside of it--changed, feminism descended, and where are we now?

Women have no real obligations--neither to society nor to men. They have no obligation to remain faithful in marriage, no obligation to remain married if they don't want to, no obligation to provide a man with sex or children within marriage, no obligation to bear any children conceived therein, no obligation to become fully self-supporting afterward. No obligation to maintain their children's relationship with their fathers if it becomes inconvenient or annoying.

Only entitlements. The entitlement to share in a husband's social and financial status, and to a share in his income--even after a marriage ends. The entitlement to not have to earn income if she chooses.

And there are NEW entitlements for women that never existed under patriarchy. The entitlement to not be expected to be a virgin on her wedding day. The entitlement to stray without penalty, the entitlement to divorce without penalty, the entitlement to abort a fetus without even informing her husband or partner, the entitlement to child support and alimony, and the entitlement to move with the kids out of state if that's where the new boyfriend wants to live. The entitlement of an unmarried woman to a man's financial support for an illegitimate child (back in the day, that entitlement came with a corresponding obligation of marriage or it didn't come at all). An entitlement to demand her husband help with domestic labor and child care, even if she doesn't work outside the home.

And men?

Still socially obligated to be the primary breadwinner, still socially obligated to share his social and financial status and any assets with his wife, still obligated to share those assets and provide for a woman even after she's no longer his wife, in many jurisdictions still obligated to provide for children DNA testing proves were conceived through his wife's infidelity, still obligated to earn income or be called a deadbeat, and apparently still obligated to provide sex to his wife or he's gonna pay out of pocket.

In the US, he is still obligated to serve in the military if his government sees fit, and still obligated to be self-sufficient or end up in the gutter. He still has a socially enforced obligation to generate more income and economic activity than he requires to meet his basic needs.

And what about what women owe society?

No obligation to serve in the military, no obligation to put more (or even as much) into the economy than she takes out. No obligation to the taxpayer who subsidizes her education as a doctor or lawyer by actually, you know, remaining in the workforce full time over the long haul to help pay back the cost of her training and serve society. No obligation to earn a self-supporting income if she's unable, or can find a man who'll do it for her.

Yet she is still entitled to society's provision (through a multitude of women-targeted income and social assistance programs), and still entitled to society's protection no matter how foolishly she behaves (VAWA, the new sexual assault rules on campus), or how badly she behaves (google any female offender and you'll find criminal accountability for women is at patriarchal levels and not going anywhere).

Women have a "right" to serve in the military (while for men in the US it remains an obligation that hangs over their heads the moment they turn 18), a right to earn income and spend it as they see fit (and then become burdens on the system in their old age), an entitlement to an education whether they're going to do anything with it or not, an entitlement to disproportionate government assistance with their health care needs.

Women now have no obligation to do anything that is not in their own interest. You do what's right for YOU, sister! And yet all of society--including any men they've been more than tangentially involved with--has an obligation to them. An obligation of protection, provision, acceptance and tolerance, no matter how poor women's choices might be, no matter how badly they fuck up, no matter how selfish they are, no matter how much they harm others. The good women and the bad, the productive and the burdensome, all enjoy these entitlements if they so choose. Feminism has done nothing more than free women from any obligation, while simultaneously expanding their tally of entitlements.

And yet feminism seems to have no interest in freeing men from their obligations, does it? Financial abortion for men is pooh-poohed the moment anyone mentions it, even though this option is fully open to women through unilateral abortion, adoption or abandonment. There are giant, free, government agencies whose only purpose is to extract men's (patriarchal) financial obligations to the mother/child unit, while no similar agencies exist to enforce any obligation on the part of women to maintain a father/child relationship.

200 years ago, we could not grant women an entitlement to earn income without removing the income-earning role as a male obligation--and without that male obligation, perhaps 2% of wealthy, educated women would have found work in a barrister's office, while the other 98% would have been mining coal with babies strapped to their backs. But now? The world has changed just enough to free women from any obligation toward anyone but themselves, while keeping their entitlements virtually untouched and actually increasing them.

And who pays? I mean, entitlements aren't free, right? So who's paying for all this?

Well, all of us. And if these entitlements were equally available to anyone, regardless of their gender, this would be just peachy, wouldn't it? But they aren't. And those to whom none of these patriarchal and more modern entitlements apply are now paying for them through a disproportionate cost of obligation.

The more I look at it, the more I realize women have never had it as bad as feminists believe they did, and no one has EVER had it as good as women in the west do today. They receive left right and center, from society, from government, from men. And the only person they owe any obligation to is themselves. Pretty sweet deal.

Time to Set Down the Tools

2011-09-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

There's been some brouhaha recently on my second home, reddit, with respect to the recent creation of a "kinder, gentler" men's rights subreddit (r/masculism) whose stated intention was to build bridges of understanding and find common ground between MRAs and moderate feminists. Team up for equality! Yay!

A few feminists (mostly regular trolls of r/mensrights, but a few well-meaning ones) have already stormed off in a huff, citing the "rabid MRA spittle" of anger that "already permeates" the subreddit, after only being open for business a week or two, and others have retreated to r/egalitarian or r/equality after being forced to hear their beloved feminism maligned.

Some MRAs, on the other hand, accuse some posters and the head moderator of bias, intellectual dishonesty, intentional skullduggery, sock-puppetry, and an agenda of distract/divide/appropriate and thus conquer the MRM.

There have been complaints by MRAs regarding the name of the subreddit, indicating a degree of worry that an "ism" is, sorta by definition, based on ideological and advocacy concerns that don't necessarily conform to equality of rights between men and women. "Will masculism become like feminism, which has arguably become a movement with nothing much left that needs doing, but which doesn't know how to stop advancing women's interests for fun and profit?" Unlike feminism, the MRM's stated goals are right there in its name--and many members look forward to a day when they can declare "mission accomplished" and cease their work. (Personally, considering the state of things now and the natural, cultural and legal obstacles in the way, I'm neither holding my breath nor dreaming of drinking pina coladas on some beach anytime soon.)

I myself did not have high hopes for r/masculism, though it was difficult for me to articulate exactly why. Given that my SO was called on board to help moderate the forum, has had long discussions with its creator, and that he seemed cautiously optimistic about finding some common ground, I was really bothered by my misgivings, especially since it was very difficult for me to determine their exact source. He is...well, much more forgiving of wrongheadedness in others than I am, and has characterized me as antagonistic at times. And while this is certainly true--I can antagonize like whoa and like damn when someone is being obtuse or intellectually dishonest--I don't agree that allowing bullshit to stand is in any way correct or helpful.

My intuition was that I would not be able to participate on the subreddit in any meaningful way without having to don the mantle of "bullshit-caller" constantly, and after perusing some of the posts and participating in the comments, this intuition seems to have been accurate.

But it wasn't until I briefly discussed it with my SO yesterday morning, that I finally pinpointed the source of my doubts. When I mentioned that r/masculism was losing credibility with MRAs, he told me, "Seems to me that what MRAs want from feminists is an apology, and what feminists want is to not have to admit that feminism has fucked up or that they're wrong."

And while I think there is a grain of truth in what he said, I don't believe it's a true or complete picture of the situation. I don't think MRAs want an apology. I don't think they're that petty. What they do want is for feminists to acknowledge their fallibility, that they got it fundamentally wrong right from the start, and that they are continuing to get it wrong.

A quick look at some of the links and comments posted on r/masculism reveals that this is not something feminists seem prepared to do. Many links go to seemingly supportive articles on feminist blogs--blogs with other articles that are altogether different, such as this one, purporting to be supportive of helping male victims of domestic violence, which states:

I wish they had done a fourth ad showing a boy child as a future victim. Men are a minority of victims of intimate violence, but “minority” doesn’t mean “nonexistent.” There are male victims of intimate violence who require assistance, and there seems to be virtually no outreach to abused men. (The Family Place provides assistance to both female and male victims of violence.)

But the best evidence we have indicates that most intimate violence — and in particular, the most severe and harmful cases — are typically cases of men abusing women. Given that context, it’s ridiculous that Glenn objects to the depiction of women suffering from male abusers. It’s notable that Glenn didn’t work to have a new ad added to the campaign, reaching out to male victims of abuse; that’s a goal I could support. Instead, he campaigned to have these adsremoved. Whatever his intent, what Glenn’s demands called for wasn’t inclusion of male victims, but the erasure of female victims and male perpetrators.

...and which decry the efforts of the MRM as "anti-feminist", the tone being that "anti-feminist" is synonymous with being anti-woman, or with tearing down battered women's shelters, or with being against equal rights.

What MRAs want from feminists is an acknowledgement of empirically proven reality, and the above quote falls WAY short of that. What MRAs want from feminists is full concession that feminist interpretations of DV, rape and patriarchy itself are, and always have been, completely wrongheaded.

Yet when I mentioned to one commenter in r/masculism:

The entire feminist line of thought wrt rape being about power rather than sex is analogous to their views on domestic violence as evidenced in VAWA. The entire thing is constructed on the premise that both rape and domestic violence are patriarchal crimes--society-wide patriarchal oppression of women enacted on a microscale.

Both DV and rape (feminist interpretations thereof, I mean) have been held up as supporting evidence for the more general feminist Patriarchy Theory that formed the basis of feminist discourse on gender and power structures, privilege/disadvantage, gendered oppression, etc, and even helped to develop what many call "intellectual tools" for examining those issues (otherwise known as the feminist lens).

If there is mainstream acceptance that rape is NOT primarily about patriarchal power structures or views of women, and DV is NOT patriarchal oppression and violence on a microscale, it serves to discredit the entirety of feminist thought on gender, and on the nature of the tools we must use to examine it.

Feminist academics have a vested interest in dismissing all evidence that their supporting evidence is inaccurate or flawed, which makes their efforts to dismiss, discredit, disregard, manipulate and ignore the mountains of evidence wrt DV being essentially ungendered, very understandable (though no less malfeasant).

When you look at child abuse PSAs, the abuser is almost inevitably male, despite the empirically proven fact that mothers abuse and kill their children at a much higher rate than fathers do. While male child abusers do indeed exist, this mainstreaming of only one side of the problem poisons social perceptions of maleness and leaves women completely unaccountable for their (larger) share of the problem.

This is what we're talking about.

...what I get in response, over and over, is the same tired reasoning that it is "useful to examine" the different gendered motivations men and women have to hit each other, and how cultural views of women inform them--such as a woman who hits may feel like she's standing up for herself, or may not actually be trying to strike fear into a partner. Just more of the same--that men must be hitting for reasons consistent with the patriarchal terrorist paradigm, and that who knows (or cares) why women hit, so long as we can make excuses for them?

The CTS studies on domestic violence point to ungendered motivations for hitting. The only aspect of domestic violence that seems to be gendered to any degree is in the reporting differences between men and women--men are less likely to report being victimized (for a variety of reasons), men are more likely to understate both their own and their partners' perpetration (possibly indicating shame wrt both, or a desire to protect a female partner from consequences), and women are more likely to overstate both their own victimization (heh) and their own perpetration (wowza).

If domestic violence is gendered at all, it is in that as a culture, we teach boys and men that it is always wrong to hit girls and women, and we do not teach girls and women the inverse--in fact, we teach them that hitting boys and men is hunky dory, even funny, and an avenue to empowerment for which they will face no consequences, not even getting hit back. And we teach them that it is never okay for anyone to hit them, ever, for any reason, and if someone does hit them they are being victimized and deserve protection.

Is it any wonder then that woman will happily overstate their own perpetration? With the culture telling them men are fair game for a beating, and the law letting them off the hook for any bad behavior so long as they cry "victim", is it any wonder that they will overstate their victim status?

But no. The feminist paradigm of domestic violence as inherently gendered in its perpetration (wrt both rates and motivations) is entrenched in the hearts and minds of feminists. Men hit women because they view women as "less than". Men hit women more often than the inverse. If women do hit men as often, then men are less harmed by it.

Sigh.

How do you deal with someone like that? How do you find common ground? How do you attempt to do this and reconcile it with any sort of personal integrity or ethical dedication to truth? How do you attempt to find common ground with someone who refuses to set down the faulty tools they've been taught to use when examining what society, and gender's place in it, looks like?

Here's a snippet of conversation I recently had with a feminist man on reddit. His sally:

So what about 'women's lib'? not even 60 years later and I'm supposed to believe that everything[sic] that not only did they already achieve equality but they were the ones actually causing the oppression the entire time?

You have a long history of claiming that, and I can't imagine how you convinced yourself that. Trading protection from work, war, hunger, etc for being a sex object? Seems like a fairly one sided deal, no? Women get all these things and only have to give up one. That would be pretty oppressive if it was women who were forcing men to protect them. Is that what you think is happening? Women are wielding sex as a weapon to get what they want?
Is that because sex is a powerful weapon, or because it's the only agency that traditionally woman has?

My reply:

Both.

I've never said that women caused the oppression. Only that they benefited from it and encouraged and enforced it, because the nature of the world up until recently would have rendered the alternative far more oppressive to them.

His response:

Wait, so you actually agree with me that women's power in a 'traditional society' is derived sexually?

my head just exploded.

My riposte:

Women certainly had other forms of agency available to them. Those forms of agency, however, had significant downsides and obstacles.

Listen, monogamy was a model of human interaction that springs from the cave, and could be rendered down to a very simple and powerful exchange:

A man got a shot at fathering children. In return for that shot, he provided resources and protection to his woman and children.

The majority of human behavior--especially, but not exclusively, wrt male/female interactions--can be inevitably reduced to a few primary motivators--individual survival, the ability to successfully pass on one's genes (generation and survival of offspring), and tribalism (bonds of family, community, etc).

For women, sex wasn't the only avenue to agency. It was just the one with the best cost/benefit ratio for most.

And that was pretty much the end of the conversation. He had nothing more to say. In light of our subsequent conversations, he's not convinced, but there was no logical argument with which he could refute my own.

There is no room in his feminist worldview for him--even as a man--to examine the issue from the other side of the gender fence, or through a different lens but that of feminism. For him, a woman was a sex object, and this was the worst thing ever (even if it was her best option at the time and improved her quality of life--not because of men or society, but because she could not realistically bring up children without being dependent on a man's resources).

There was no thought in his mind for where exactly this arrangement left a man, wrt sexual and reproductive agency. How this transaction objectified HIM. While it is sad that 400 years ago a woman's primary value was her ability to provide a man with children, it is equally sad to me that a man's primary value to a woman (and to the perpetuation of society) was his ability to provide a woman (and her children) with resources.

Warren Farrell called it "success objectification", and it is every bit as terrible and restricting and dehumanizing as sexual objectification, and just as much still with us today. If a woman had to sell access to her body in return for a living, then a man had to sell a living for access to a woman's body, didn't he? If either party wanted to procreate, this was the best deal available to each of them, even if it objectively sucked.

And all feminism's talk of historical male agency...well, yeah, I'm willing to concede that on the surface, men had more options--a million different forms of wage slavery (in a coal mine or a foundery or a factory or a forge or a barrister's office or a barracks) to choose from if they wanted a ticket in the genetic lottery. But if they wanted a ticket, they had to pay for it with cash on the table.

It isn't agency if you have to do it. It's only a choice between one form of slavery or another, a choice to either make horseshoes or plough a field all day, instead of writing poetry like you really wanted to, because writing poetry might keep your own belly full, but wouldn't bring you a "marrying wage".

My adversary on the internet is wearing very special glasses, and those glasses only allow him to see certain things from very specific angles. Those things all have to do with how women have always had things awful compared to men. Those glasses make him believe that it was obviously much worse to derive power with respect to the opposite gender through sexuality than through being seen as a walking ATM. He doesn't even see the men who sacrificed their health and their lives, the hours upon hours upon hours of labor when they'd rather have been doing something else, in order to spare their women the need to make those sacrifices themselves.

Those glasses make him believe that even though women initiate violence more than men do in relationships, that women are still more often the victims of violence in relationships because their reasons for hitting are different than men's. They make him believe that poster campaigns like this one and this one are better than nothing, instead of worse than nothing because they are lying to us about the nature of the problem, about the nature of society--both pre and post-feminism--and about the nature of men.

And while many would insist that any help--even wrongheaded help--is better than none, that if a feminist believes men are "the minority" of victims of severe DV still deserve support then we should bring that feminist on board...it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Because that is not alliance--it's conditional assistance, and it is conditional upon them being allowed to go on believing the same lies as before, and spreading them, and feeding the problem even as they're supposedly trying to solve it. And someone who cannot or will not see truth, who is lying even when he believes he's telling the truth, isn't someone you can trust as far as you can throw him.

Feminism and Gender Enforcement

2011-09-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

I know most of you are probably expecting this to be a diatribe about how feminism has vilified and demonized male sexuality, and criticized the aggressive qualities (ambition, achievement, competitiveness, assertiveness) of masculinity that have been so useful to society since the dawn of time.

I mean, it's no secret to those in the know that feminism is all too happy to reinforce, manipulate and even codify the cultural norms surrounding maleness--in domestic violence discourse, policy and law, sexual assault discourse, policy and law, family law, etc.

But what I want to talk about is how feminism has manipulated and enforced other masculine qualities that most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about in any depth with respect to feminism. I mean, if society has been well-served by the men who were ambitious and high-achieving--the scientists, inventors, artists, leaders, etc, who inhabited the upper echelons of social status--well, for every William Shakespeare or Henry V or Sir Isaac Newton, there were a thousand or ten thousand male cogs in the machinery of society, dutifully bending their backs and making the whole thing work, often at the expense of their health, their happiness and their lives.

These men were dutiful, honorable, responsible, self-sacrificing, generous, hard-working, decent, and devoted to those in their care. "Nose to the grindstone", "get 'er done", "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do", "grow up, get a job, do something with your life."

I've often thought that there's not that much difference between a "mangina" and what has always been thought of as a "real man". Both manginas and real men are generous, thoughtful of others (especially women), and put the benefit of others (especially women) before themselves. Manginas have been accused, probably accurately, of behaving this way out of a (mostly vain) hope of being rewarded with pussy. Real men, throughout history, did this because it needed to be done, and because up until very recently, a real man's efforts and sacrifices were worth the rewards he received, even if those rewards only consisted of social acknowledgment and appreciation and the returned devotion of a woman.

A real man will help a woman move her shit, and expect a thank you. A mangina will go way out of his way to ingratiate himself by helping her, and then tolerate being treated like an asshole for it.

And "guys"? When a woman needs to lug her furniture from one apartment to another, "guys" duck her calls and let them go to voice mail. And if she wants a commitment? Forget that shit, he's got his XBox.

The collective feminist gnashing of teeth over this state of affairs has been no less frenzied than that of more traditional arms of society, as they all scratch their heads and wonder whatever happened to real men.

We've gotten so used to men's sense of duty, obligation and responsibility toward women, children and society, that we didn't even know what we had until we realized it was going extinct. And you see the anger and lamentation over men abandoning those roles nowhere more than in what many feminists have to say about "guys".

Guys--or MGTOW--are characterized by feminists and traditionalists alike as irresponsible to the point of repugnance, commitment-phobic, losers, Peter Pans, wasting their lives, and refusing to "grow up". Keep in mind, these men aren't welfare cases. They're self-sufficient, not leeching off their families or society. They don't peel up and down suburban streets at 3 AM waking up babies and kicking over mailboxes, or refuse to pay their taxes. But as Kay Hymowitz once put it, they're free to live in "pig heaven" until women get sick of it and go to a sperm bank.

But think about what this kind of criticism is actually saying about our expectations--even feminists' expectations--of men.

The complaint is not that they're a burden on others or on society, but that they refuse to take on anyone else's burdens. This is a far cry from the very occasional, heavily-qualified criticisms we hear of women--and utter condemnation of men--when they willingly take on a responsibility by, say, having children, and then fail to live up to it. No, this is all about, "You men are not doing what women want, and what women want is to be given what they want."

Women have spent the last 50 to 75 years challenging the roles they used to be stuck in, sort of negotiating and renegotiating with society as to exactly what was acceptable and what was pushing too far too fast. They've cast off their shackles, been free to define themselves as women, and to put personal fulfilment first. Until recently, for men, it's been mostly business as usual--they've worked, achieved, devoted themselves to women and children, and continued to put the good of others before themselves.

And I think women, and society, sort of figured that men would just keep doing it--working, being responsible, being dutiful and honorable, toiling and sacrificing for the betterment of society or the benefit of women, achieving, building, etc... even though a huge number of the benefits men were given in exchange for these efforts and for putting others first have been effectively removed. What used to be a well-compensated bondage is now an entirely onerous form of imprisonment.

I mean really, how long can you expect a man to continue living up to those expectations when society stops respecting or appreciating them for it, when society only threatens to take away what he's built and what he loves, shoves its hands deeper into his pockets, and constantly tells him he's an idiot, or evil, or unnecessary, or a piece of shit?

A lot of feminist writers have been taking great pains to tell everyone for years about what giant assholes men are and have always been. And even when men do awesome things, like working around the clock digging children out of a collapsed school after a tsunami, it's just another opportunity to remind people how the chaos of the situation puts children at risk from pedophiles (who are always men, of course). When men die saving lives, they're called police officers or firefighters, but when they mow down a bunch of innocent people at a mall, they're gunmen. Hell, even the millions of men whose lives have been callously and brutally thrown away on battlefields through history--even their suffering and tragedy can be appropriated by feminists to prove to everyone who'll listen that women have always had it worse.

Can anyone blame men for finally starting to say fuck this shit, why try to cram yourself into that mold if you're just going to be called an asshole? Some--PUAs, most notably--are even saying, "Fuck, if I have the name, I might as well have the game."

For the first time in history, men are starting to do what makes them happy, even if it doesn't benefit women or society, hell, even if it pisses women and society off. And EVERYBODY'S freaking out about it.

I'm not gonna lie, it's a tough pill for everyone to swallow, because those characteristics--duty, honor, devotion, self-sacrifice, responsibility--are the very characteristics that societies are largely built on. Without them, it's every human for him/herself, isn't it?

And feminism--which pushed women to live for their own fulfilment, to be true to themselves, to break out of the roles they were stuck in, who insist patriarchal gender norms harm everyone--should be celebrating men's increasing casting-off of their shackles, of men's smashing of patriarchy by eschewing traditional masculinity in favor of smoking pot with their buddies. But they aren't. Because feminism itself has been as dependent on those particular male roles as individual women have been throughout human history.

I mean, the entire feminist movement, and society's reaction to it (swift capitulation), boils down to the interaction of two traditional gender norms, right? Women wanted to be protected, provided for and given the things they want and need. And men have, for the most part, kept doing that, for decades, even as what women say they want and need has changed. Mostly male governments have passed laws and enacted public policy that gave women what they wanted (freedom, protection, provision, support, and opportunity) and individual men have also continued to keep giving women what they say they want and need (freedom, provision, support, understanding, accommodation).

Those are the two patriarchal gender norms that have been at work throughout the entire timeline of the feminist movement--women asking for something, and men doing it or going along with it to make women happy. So I suppose it's been something of a shock to women when men started putting their foot down and saying, "Yeah, I don't think so. Me first now. I got shit of my own to deal with." The men's rights movement has only driven this point home for feminists and women in general, and it's like two gender norms going kablooie all at once--women being indulged in their needs and desires, and men being indulgent of them.

And the most radical feminists? I kind of think of radical feminism itself as a kind of collective shit-test. Sort of a "Are you guys really gonna let us get away with this? Huh, I guess you are... Okay, how about this? We're really talking some shit about you now. You gonna let that stand? Hmmm.... Okay, well, I bet you're not gonna put up with THIS!"

And the longer people have put up with it and let them get away with it, the higher they've escalated the test. The collective temper tantrum that's begun over men starting to put their foot down--whether it's through activism and advocacy for the equality of men, or through playing XBox and refusing to devote themselves to doing what women want them to--rivals the antics of any three-year-old denied candy in a grocery store check-out line.

And me? Do I want men to cast off those roles they've had throughout history? To be honest, no. Those roles are beneficial to society, and they get shit done that needs to get done. But do I blame men for saying, "Hells, no, I only look out for me now"? Why would they do anything different? There's no individual benefit in men living up to those standards anymore--not even appreciation--only risk, punishment and the reward of being called an asshole no matter what you do.

Who the fuck needs that?

Woman and Black are Not the Same Thing

2011-09-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

The other day, I had someone who identified himself as a feminist man, tell me that he is certain that women are more disadvantaged than men in our society because men hold more positions of power and influence than women.

I told him that when examining patterns of oppression, advantage, disadvantage and privilege, one cannot look only at the top. One must look downward as well (to the needless deaths, the incarcerated, the homeless, the suicides, the impoverished, etc), and frankly, men dominate the numbers there, too. They always have, and their domination of these areas has become even more lopsided relative to women as women break through the glass ceiling without concurrently breaking through the glass basement.

He replied that looking to those in power has always been a good indicator of privilege and oppression, citing apartheid South Africa and Jim Crow America as examples. Whites at the top, therefore whites are privileged. When I asked him if he did indeed feel that the experience of women throughout history was remotely comparable to the experiences of blacks during slavery, he replied "Absolutely."

I was shocked. And a little sick to my stomach. And I began to realize one of the reasons why I've been seeing more and more women of color throw up their hands and disavow mainstream feminism.

Anyone who has read my piece on Patriarchy will know that in my view, patriarchy was not a system of oppression, but a collective strategy for dealing with a world that was very different from what the world looks like now. Differences in biology that go just a little deeper than the color of one's skin, and a history of public sphere labor that more closely resembled the work portrayed on "Dirty Jobs" (only without the machinery) than "The Office" made it essentially impossible throughout most of humanity's time on this planet for women to collectively put their hands to "men's work".

The most effective team strategy humans ever stumbled on for perpetuation of the species, one that has been seen in some form or other throughout most of human history, was the pairing of a resource-gathering unit with a child-caring unit. Given the fact that until very recently, any sexually active woman was, or could have been, pregnant at any given time, that she was the sole member of the team who had the necessary equipment to provide food to a child in its infancy, and that the vast majority of public sphere work was either beyond her physical capabilities or more ably performed by the larger, stronger, faster man, it should really come as no surprise that the vast majority of societies have always arranged themselves this way. It was, up until recently, virtually impossible for men and women to swap roles on the team.

Then the nature of public sphere work began to shift dramatically with the Industrial Revolution, assembly lines, and automation, allowing women entry into jobs outside the home and giving them the tools to be able to compete with men. But even so, it wasn't until women got control over their fertility (the pill) and were provided with realistic options that eliminated their children's physical dependence on them and only them (bottles, formula, disposable diapers, regulated daycare providers), AND the workplace became dominated by service jobs rather than resource ones, that women gained some serious equality in the working world and became 50% of the workforce.

To say that this means men and women are equal is...disingenuous. Women and men are not equal and can never be, because men are still larger and stronger than women, and women are still the ones who gestate and lactate. What it does mean is that both public and private sphere work have changed in such as way as to make the biological differences between the sexes largely irrelevant. A father cannot lactate, but he can bottle-feed a baby as well as any woman can, and so can a daycare provider. A woman could never have been reasonably be expected to cut down trees with a handsaw for a living or harvest grain with a scythe, but she *can* file documents, run an office, diagnose an illness, operate a forklift, drive a taxi, enter data on a computer or work a cash register as ably as any man.

The biological differences between men and women are not even remotely the same as the skin-deep differences between black people and white people. Women's unique gendered disadvantages throughout history can ALL be traced back to those very real and significant biological differences between the sexes. Women were forced into their roles not by men, but by reality. And men's options were, realistically, not much more varied than women's.

The disadvantages blacks faced under slavery, and the ones they still struggle to overcome even now? Those disadvantages owed to nothing more than the color of their skin, and what that signified with respect to their status as persons to those in power. How on earth can the two be considered even remotely comparable?

Moreover, when we examine oppression with respect to men and women and their relative places in society through history, we see men at the top and men at the bottom. If we looked only at the top, as feminists have been, and are still, wont to do, we could say men were the privileged class and women oppressed. But if we look only at the bottom, and the expectations and obligations required of men that were not required of women, we could just as accurately and justifiably say that women were the privileged class and men the oppressed.

While there were downsides to being a woman, there were upsides to being one as well.

She might have less freedom of movement, but she had a greater expectation of safety and protection than a man did.
She might not be able to own property, but she had an often legally codified entitlement to financial support from men.
She might not be able to work outside the home, but at the same time, she wasn't expected to risk life, health and limb earning money.
She may have been "stuck" at home with the kids, but she wasn't "stuck" for 12 hours a day in a coal mine, either.
She may have been under her husband's authority, but if she committed a crime, she wouldn't be held fully accountable for her actions.
The upper echelons of power and influence were mostly (not completely) barred to her, but she couldn't be ordered against her will to die for her country, either.

When we examine the pattern of oppression, disadvantage and privilege with respect to black people and white people during slavery, things are rather more...uh...black and white. You looked up, and you saw all whites. You looked down to the very bottom and you saw mostly blacks. And things still very much look that way even now--the higher up you go in the strata of society, the whiter things look. And blacks still disproportionately dominate the areas of greatest disenfranchisement--the poor, the incarcerated, the uneducated. All based on a difference that is no more relevant than eye color or the size of one's nose.

And what, pray tell, were the "upsides" to being black in America during slavery? Can anyone here name a single white slave owner who ever died to save the lives of his black slaves? Who ever gave up a space in a lifeboat to his black slave and chose himself to go down with a ship? Who ever stood with a rifle between his black slaves and an enemy to defend their lives, rather than his right to own them?

Can anyone even imagine a white slave owner working 16 hours in a field while his black slaves stayed inside and kept his house tidy, then coming home and sharing the fruits of his labors with his black slaves?

Did a black woman who was the sexual partner of a white man have any expectation of respect, lifelong provision or shelter, or of sharing the benefits of his quality of life and his social status? Or was she just an object of the moment, free to be used and cast aside at will? Did a black man who was obligated to obey his owner's wife have any legal right or recourse when she turned around and pointed a finger and claimed he raped her? Or was he swinging from a tree within hours?

Can anyone imagine a reality where a white slave owner would perform physically gruelling or dangerous work his black slave was incapable of? Or would he simply set more slaves to the task, or work his slave to his death, or discard his used-up slave and buy a better one? If women were truly oppressed by men, would they have been spared the most onerous and dangerous work because they were less physically capable of it, or would men have simply assigned more women to the task?

Can anyone here name a single black person, man or woman, who rose to a state-sanctioned position of serious political power during slavery? Off the top of my head, I can name a fuck-ton of women who have been heads of state, going as far back as Ancient Egypt. The greatest and most notable black leaders emerging from Jim Crow America and apartheid South Africa rose to influence by opposing the government, not being elected to it, because they had no avenue to power within a system that oppressed them.

Women have always been less likely to be punished than men for the crimes they commit, and less severely punished. When, under slavery or Jim Crow laws, did black people enjoy this advantage? While women historically had to defer to men, in return for this disadvantage they have always been held less accountable for their actions. Black slaves, on the other hand, were under the total authority of their owners, and could be (and often were) brutally punished or executed--without trial--for crimes not their own.

Even now in these "enlightened" times, blacks are not only more likely to be convicted of crimes than whites, but their sentences are disproportionately long compared to whites. At the same time, while women no longer have to defer to men in any aspect of life in the west, they are STILL not held as accountable for their crimes as men are.

While a woman had less freedom of movement than a man, she had a socially and legally enforced expectation of safety and protection from the harshness of the world. Black slaves, on the other hand, had NO freedom of movement, and no right to any expectation of protection from those in authority over them, or from greater society.

Women had no money of "their own" (once they were married, anyway), but the most difficult, dirty, nasty, smelly, dangerous, physically arduous jobs (other than childbirth) belonged to someone else. And slaves? Do I really need to outline how it was downside all around for them in this area too?

When one wishes to identify groups which oppress and those which are oppressed, one simply cannot look only at the top of society and draw all your conclusions from who occupies those positions. In order to be oppressors, a group doesn't just have to occupy positions of power, but they have to, you know, do some oppressing. And while the biological differences between men and women could be said to be oppressive to both parties with respect to the expectations, obligations, choices, freedoms and rights afforded to each group, the oppressor responsible for patriarchy was not men, but nature.

The nature of human sex differences and the nature of the world we lived in, wherein some choices were simply not realistically open to either gender. Roles were rigidly enforced because rigid enforcement was beneficial to the stability of society. Was a man "oppressed" by women because his inability to lactate forced him into the role of provider rather than a possibly preferred role of nurturer? How then can we characterize a woman as oppressed by men because her inability to control her fertility and the limitations of her physical size and strength kept her from earning her own money working in a foundery?

The only quantifiable, material, functional and practical difference between black people and white people? Skin color. That's it. And yet it is black people, who won the right to vote before women did, who are facing a more difficult and arduous struggle for equality with whites than the women who have breezed to equal, near equal, or better than equal status with men in the space of a century. It is black people--not women--who even now inhabit an average position of lower social, educational, legal and economic status than white people in America, who are still disproportionately represented among the incarcerated, the poor, and a dozen other areas of real disenfranchisement.

And that's because the oppression of black people in America was--and is--really-and-for-true, one-way, genuine oppression that looked NOTHING like the experience of women relative to men at any point in human history.

Patriarchy was a cost/benefit partnership where men and women each bore some of the costs and reaped some of the benefits. Slavery was a cost/benefit system of oppression where all the benefits were reaped by one party and all the costs borne by the other.

To compare the experience of women--a valued, protected and provided-for class--throughout history with that of black people under slavery and apartheid is a slap in the face to every single black man who died wrongfully imprisoned in South Africa, to every single black woman who was forced onto her back by her white owner, to every single black man who was ever executed by a mob without trial, to every single black person who lived and died in bondage or in a concentration camp, and every single black person who still struggles to overcome the lingering and devastating effects of the utterly baseless, unjustifiable and man-made oppression of slavery and segregation.

So I just wanted to repeat, so we're all clear on this:

Women and Black are NOT the same thing.

Sex, Lies and Political Agendas

2011-08-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

A very good article over at the False Rape Society, on how women's advocates are harming victims by their spinning of the outcome of the DSK sexual assault case. I started to leave a comment there, but then it got kinda big, so I decided a post was in order.

Prosecution's decision to drop the case has been condemned by women's advocates as a miscarriage of justice. They characterize the system as one that demands a "perfect victim" if they aren't going to abandon her. This is a gross mischaracterization of the facts of this specific case. Nafissatou Diallo was not just an "imperfect victim", she was a "toxic complainant" who has a long history of lying, and has done pretty much nothing but lie from the moment she reported the alleged incident.

Credibility is important in a sexual assault case--more important than in many other criminal prosecutions. In cases of rape and sexual assault, there is often no physical evidence unambiguously indicating a crime was even committed. What evidence there may be is frequently evidence of a legal act, not a criminal one. The factors that differentiate the legal act of sex from the crime of rape are based entirely on two states of mind: those of the victim's non-consent, and the perpetrator's intent--that is, his (or a reasonable or law-abiding person's) awareness of the victim's lack of consent.

There are usually only two witnesses who can testify to either party's state of mind at the time of the incident--and each of those two witnesses have a vested and oppositional interest in the outcome of the trial. This means that in a sexual assault case, credibility is everything. Due to the ambiguity of the evidence and the biases of the only eyewitnesses, it should be more difficult to convict a man of rape than it is to convict a man of murder, or aggravated assault, or any number of other crimes that rely more heavily on physical/forensic evidence.

But here's something I bet you all didn't know (I'll explain why you probably don't know it below). The conviction rate for rape is frequently higher than the conviction rate for homicide. Seriously. The conviction rate for a crime where there is no unambiguous physical evidence, and which therefore hinges almost entirely on a jury believing one party over the other, is often higher than the conviction rate for a crime with a dead body, forensic evidence of cause of death, and physical evidence tying the defendant to the crime.

To suggest that the outcome of the DSK case means the system "doesn't work" is egregiously misleading and harmful. I'm not going to lie. The system works perfectly for neither victims nor defendants, but it's the best possible balance we can manage given the circumstances. And to characterize the dismissal of the DSK case as some sort of evil on the part of the prosecution is...well, I can only say it's batshit insane. Diallo repeatedly lied to those whose job it is to help her and punish the man who allegedly assaulted her. Then recanted her lies, only to present prosecutors with, yup, more lies. She insisted she was not after money, then launched a civil suit against DSK for monetary damages. She lied to the Grand Jury, under oath. She quite plainly proved herself to be someone who can't be counted on to tell the truth about anything.

Even more frightening to prosecutors was her ability to lie with "complete conviction". This meant that, no matter how convincing her story of a given day or week was, there was no way for prosecutors to determine if THIS particular version was the truth. The complaining witness was not an "imperfect victim". She was the justice system's worst nightmare. To go to trial with an alleged victim who can lie so convincingly that even prosecutors could not tell truth from falsehood...this could result in railroading a potentially innocent man based on the word of a woman who'd taken a tire iron to her own credibility.

As the FRS rightly claims, this case does not demonstrate that prosecutors require "perfect victims", and it is the women's advocates who make such absurd statements--not police or prosecutors--who are discouraging women from coming forward to report their rapes.

But I think women's "advocates" have a very different agenda from the one they openly admit to. As people who care about women, and care about rape victims, they should be doing everything in their power to convince women to come forward and report when they are raped. And yet they do the exact opposite.

WHY?

I once suggested on a feminist forum that my advice to any victim of rape was to get a kit done. Even if you don't want to report--in fact, even if you're positive you don't want to--getting a kit done leaves you with options if you ever change your mind. You can stand on the bridge for a long time before deciding to cross it or go back, but not if you've burned the way in front of you--and you do that by washing away all the physical evidence of what was done to you. Not getting a rape kit done erases all your choices, removes all your power.

Oh, the shit I got from feminists! That I should have the gall to "tell victims what to do! Don't you realize how hard it is? How small the chances of justice are? How victims are revictimized if they report? It's up to every victim how she wants to respond to what happened to her! She knows what's best for herself!"

I suppose it's just as well that I didn't suggest that women have a social responsibility to report their rapes, even if they don't want to go through the ordeal of pursuing charges. Go in to police, tell them, "I was raped. His name is John Doe. His DNA is in a test tube at Local Hospital. I don't want to pursue the case. But if another woman comes in saying this guy raped her, believe her and do everything you can to nail him."

Imagine someone implying that women have a responsibility to other people! I would probably have been crucified for even hinting at such a thing.

Sigh.

There's a pervasive and very public sentiment among feminists and women's advocates that it is pointless to report. That women should not trust the police or the legal system because it will, at best, let them down, and at worst, clobber them. At the same time, they inflate rape statistics, always applying the highest possible estimates on non-report figures (even when such numbers couldn't possibly add up), and including women who didn't believe they'd been raped among victims in surveys. At the same time, they deflate false report statistics, clinging to the insistence that false report rates for rape are ~2%, the same as for every other crime, even though a growing body of evidence places the rate somewhere between 8% and a staggering 50%.

They routinely compare the attrition rate for rape (the percentage of reported rapes that end in conviction) alongside the conviction rates (the percentage of trials that end in conviction) for other crimes. How many times have we all read that the "conviction rate" for rape is a "pathetic" 6%, when in reality it is usually 50-60%, and often higher than the conviction rate for homicide.

All while simultaneously implying there is nothing women can do, no way they can (or should) dress or behave that will minimize their risk, and that every woman is at risk because "any woman can be raped". They go out of their way to highlight a "culture of victim-blaming" that, in their view, applies solely to rape, when I would argue that we as a society are more likely to engage in blaming male victims of female violence (he must have done something to deserve it, he was probably a cheater, he probably battered her, she was defending herself), and male victims of female reproductive abuse (he should have thought of that before he had sex, don't stick your dick in crazy, if he didn't want kids he should have kept it in his pants).

Even when these feminists and victim advocates are being nominally truthful, they still spin the truth in the most pessimistic light.

It's like they want women to believe that there's a HUGE chance they'll be raped, that there's nothing they can do to prevent it, and that when it happens, not only will no one help them, but those responsible for helping them will only inflict more harm on them. To what purpose?

We're seeing the thin end of the wedge on campus now, with the attack on due process rights--the new 50.01% burden of proof, the barring of an accused from cross-examining his accuser, etc. Feminist's defence of this atrocious situation tends to consist of, "What, so it's a horrible thing that the accused won't be able to personally ask the accuser, 'Isn't it true you're a big ol' slut?'" when such a question would already be inadmissible in any hearing or court. Again, painting a false picture of the process as it was before this "reform" in the ugliest possible colors.

I can only believe that those who engage in this kind of scare-mongering and doomsaying have a specific goal in mind. I'm not a conspiracy nut, but here's how I see it, looking at the entirety of feminist discourse on rape:

discourage women from reporting by telling them it is pointless, that they won't be believed, or will be blamed for their own rapes and revictimized by the system, that the police can't be trusted
manipulate consent law to the point where even women who enthusiastically participated in consensual sex can be numbered among victims (consensual drunk sex, consensual unconscious sex)
generate fear among women by telling them there is nothing they can, or should have to, do to protect themselves from rape
generate fear among women by telling them that any woman at any time is at risk of rape
inflate the numbers for underreporting, leading to a pervasive belief that rape is everywhere
compare attrition rates for rape with conviction rates for other crimes, so that the public will believe the system doesn't work in rape cases
constantly reiterate the erroneous 2% false rape "statistic", generating an erroneous assumption that women "don't lie about rape"
define rape as a crime of "patriarchal domination" rather than one that has a multitude of different factors and causes--in other words, blame rape on "maleness" in such a way that all men are cast as rapists or rapists-in-waiting
charge the discourse with emotional language that places "feelings" in authority over facts--i.e: "If she feels she was raped, then she was raped."
characterize the necessary due process protections for accused rapists as an "infringement of female/victim's rights", even though the "rights" of complainants--female or otherwise--are currently greater in cases of sexual assault and rape than in other criminal case (anonymity is a privilege, not a right, as is the inadmissibility of an accuser's sometimes relevant sexual history)

Is anyone else seeing a pattern here? The last thing many women's advocates want is for anyone to believe the system isn't irreparably broken. Because if it isn't hideously broken, then there is no need to "fix" it or rebuild it. And if rape isn't everywhere, and something women must walk around in constant fear of, then the masses will simply never be terrified enough of it to enact the kind of overhaul that would lead to the kinds of "reforms" that are "necessary", ones we've already seen enacted on campuses across the US.

After examining the entirety of the rhetoric of sexual assault and rape from feminist circles, I can only conclude that the end game of women's advocacy groups is to reengineer sexual assault and rape law to the point where a woman need only claim a man raped her for him to be locked away for years.

Welcome to Hell.

Again? Sigh...

2011-08-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

Again Schrodinger's Rapist, and yet another attempt to point out all that is wrong with men with respect to how they don't respect women's fears, and another pointless exercise in trying to explain to men that this is somehow not bigotry.

It opens:

Schrodinger’s Rapist is not about “all men are rapists.”

It is not even about “all men are potential rapists.” All men are, in fact, potential rapists, in much the same sense as all women are potential rapists, and all brunettes are potential rapists. All people are potential rapists, because rape is not a function of anything about a person except the fact that they rape people.

It is about “a very significant proportion of women will, when you approach them, be assessing whether you are going to be That Asshole...”

Okay. So far, so good. But let's reword things a little here, substituting "men" for another largely villified and demonized group:

Schrodinger’s Gangsta is not about “all black people are criminals.”

It is not even about “all black people are potential criminals.” All blacks are, in fact, potential criminals, in much the same sense as all whites are potential criminals, and all Asians are potential criminals. All people are potential criminals, because crime is not a function of anything about a person except the fact that they commit crimes.

It is about “a very significant proportion of whites will, when you approach them, be assessing whether you are going to be That Thug...”

Sounds a little different when put that way, don't it? And if someone, some blogger, some woman, some man, even some black person, were to follow that intro up with this:

...and it is in your best interest to ensure their conclusion is not that you are.”

...no one would have any problem whatsoever calling out their racist ass. It is not up to black people to bend over backwards to prove to white people that they are not criminals, any more than it is up to men to bend over backwards to prove to women that they are not rapists.

But wait! There's more. Here's a goodie:

That Asshole makes up only a tiny percentage of men. However, he has poisoned the well for everyone else.

I think a lot of men underestimate the fear most women have around rape. For instance, I am the happiest little slut you could ever hope to meet. However, I would never have sex with a man whom a friend, or a friend of a friend, didn’t vouch for, because he might kidnap, rape and murder me. On a rational level, I know the chance of me getting murdered because of Craigslist Casual Encounters W4M is about as likely as me getting hit by lightning. However, on the emotional level, my brain associates “sex with men I don’t know” with “getting murdered.”

Uh huh. Let's look at it this way:

That Thug makes up only a tiny percentage of black people. However, he has poisoned the well for everyone else.

I think a lot of black people underestimate the fear most white people have around violent crime. For instance, I have lots of black friends. However, I would never associate with with a black person whom a friend, or a friend of a friend, didn’t vouch for, because they might assault, rob and murder me. On a rational level, I know the chance of me getting beaten up because I talked to a black person at the bus stop is about as likely as me getting hit by lightning. However, on the emotional level, my brain associates “being around black people I don’t know” with “getting assaulted.”

In other words, "Please understand that I'm bigoted against people like you, simply because of your biology and my own inability to judge people as individuals, understand that I have cause to be this way, and you're just going to have to accept the fact that this is YOUR problem, not mine. I acknowledge that my fears are essentially groundless, since I know, as I stated in my first paragraph, that other groups of people commit crimes, and only a small percentage of people in your group commit crimes, but it is up to YOU to prove to ME that you are not a criminal before I will treat you as a human being worthy of interaction with me."

I'm disgusted. Absolutely disgusted. Whatever prejudices and fears--rational or otherwise--people may hold in the privacy of their own thoughts, no one could ever get away with talking in this way about Jews, or Muslims, or black people, or Asians, or Hispanics. Yet this...this is not only an accepted way of thinking about men, it is defended, over and over, when the identifiable group involved is men.

How about we reword it again? Let's try this:

Schrodinger’s Maneater is not about “all women are evil.”

It is not even about “all women are potentially evil.” All women are, in fact, potentially evil, in much the same sense as all men are potentially evil, and all brunettes are potentially evil. All people are potentially evil, because evil is not a function of anything about a person except the fact that they do evil things.

It is about “a very significant proportion of men will, when you approach them, be assessing whether you are going to be That Crazy Bitch...”

...That Crazy Bitch makes up only a tiny percentage of women. However, she has poisoned the well for everyone else.

I think a lot of women underestimate the fear most men have around relationships of any kind. For instance, I am the happiest little stud you could ever hope to meet. However, I would never date or have sex with a woman whom a friend, or a friend of a friend, didn’t vouch for, because she might lie about being on birth control and ding me for 18 years paying for a child I didn't want, or cry rape the next morning when her boyfriend demands to know where she was all night, or only be after my wallet, or take me for everything I have or care about--including my kids--when she's done with me. On a rational level, I know the chance of me getting screwed over in some way because I slept with or entered a relationship with a woman is about as likely as me...well, actually, it's getting likelier all the time. Huh. I mean, on an emotional level, I want intimacy with a woman, but my powers of observation and sense of self-preservation associates "sexual involvement with women, whether I know them or not", with "getting fucked over, maybe for life.”

The big difference between what Ozymandias wrote, and my rewrite, is that my rewrite is not based on sexism. My rewrite acknowledges that only a tiny percentage of women commit the wrongs I described above, and does not hold all women somehow responsible for the behavior of a few. What my rewrite does, however, is address the reality that should a woman turn out to be That Crazy Bitch, she will be aided and abetted by the legal system--both family and criminal--in her wrongdoings.

I used to think it was only the system that was broken--a system that has effectively ignored, dismissed and trampled the rights of men in favor of women's interests. But now, after reading blog after blog and comment after comment from women who've succumbed to rape hysteria, patriarchal oppression hysteria, domestic terrorist hysteria...I'm finding that more and more, it is women who are broken. They've been broken by a system that panders to their interests in the most negative way possible--by sacrificing men and masculinity on the altar of "equality".

I'm not afraid of men, and I never have been, not even after my assault. And I suppose there may come a time when I end up getting seriously burned by that lack of fear. But the possibility of being burned *isn't worth the price of living my whole life in fear*, of rape, of men, of sex, of relationships, of meeting people, of experiencing intimacy, of *living*.

The women who fear Schrodinger's Rapist are living in a cage made of their own prejudice and fear. That is THEIR problem, not men's, and it's up to THEM to climb the fuck out of there, not up to men or to the ever decreasing numbers of sane women to climb in there with them.

It is not men's responsibility to pander to and indulge women's irrational fears, Ozymandias. Women's irrational fears of rape are their own fucking problem, and they need to deal with it.

Atheists, elevators and watermelons...

2011-08-12T00:53:00.000-07:00

So Rebecca "Elevatorgate" Watson has finally come out of hiding to post a video response to the criticisms she's received over the shitstorm instigated by her, "Word to the wise....guys? Don't do that," advice.

I am...well, I'm hardly shocked.

There was a crap-ton (1.016 crap-tonnes, for us Canucks) of commentary and debate on her initial video, with many thoughtful and eloquent opinions on both sides. Granted, there was plenty of "shut up u dum cunt u just hate men ur stupid and ulgy bitch" going on (this is Youtube, after all...the gathering place of pretty much every human being alive who has not learned to spell, punctuate or express complex thought), but her treatment of the criticism she received...

I can only say to Rebecca Watson, "Atheism: Ur doin it rong."

Atheism rests on a few tenets. One is that faith and moral absolutism are essentially harmful to society. There's plenty of evidence to back this up. Argue religion with anyone who is devoutly religious, and you'll come up against a wall, again and again, an intellectual dead end that usually goes something like this:

"I'm a [Christian, Muslim, Hindu, whatever] because I know my religion is right. All the evidence I need is my faith. And if you don't believe the way I do, you are [heathen, infidel, amoral, wrong, ignorant, about to die, going to hell]."

I was poking around some atheist videos while on Youtube, and came across an assertion by a Muslim, in an interview with Richard Dawkins. The Muslim indicated that because Dawkins was non-religious, he by definition must have no moral code--that atheists, in not having an external and absolute set of ethical rules to live by, "would not care" if, say, people were copulating in the street. That if morality is flexible, then it is worthless.

Dawkins responded by saying morality itself should not be immune to examination and criticism. At one time, we believed slavery to be, if not morally good, at least morally neutral. We as a society think differently now. If our morality was absolute, there would be no room for equality or humanity, no room to improve society. I would further argue that if you're only being "good" because you've been told to, and the penalty for not being "good" is an eternity in hell, you are no different than a homicidal sociopath who knows to behave himself when there are cops around.

So now let's examine Rebecca Watson's assessment of the shitstorm that ensued after her initial video and how this meshes with her atheism.

Her description of her critics is confined to "a large audience of idiots." In other words, "I'm right. All I need to know I'm right is my feelings. And anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot."

She then reduces that field of "idiots" even further, down to:

"I just wanted to address some of the questions you've all had....'I'm a man, and I don't see the problem in cornering a woman in an elevator and inviting her back to my room...uh, despite the fact that she said she's tired and going to bed, and despite the fact that she said she didn't want to be hit on, and despite the fact that I've never talked to her before. I don't see a problem with this situation. So if you say I can't do that, then how can I possibly get laid?'"

Yes. Because this is the only problem anyone had with her complaint and the ensuing debacle. The whole, "How are we supposed to we get laid if we can't 'corner' women in elevators?" thing. That was men's only concern.

There was absolutely no concern expressed by anyone regarding how male sexuality has been so effectively demonized that even a polite pass (maybe...heck, maybe it was just coffee) in an enclosed space could kick off a chain reaction of rhetoric that descended into passionate feminist testimonials outlining how all women walk around in fear of rape, comparing men to dogs that just might be rabid so RUN!!, that being in an enclosed space with a strange man is scary enough even when he doesn't open his mouth, and that "because you're men, you just don't understand women's understandable terror of sexual assault, and how we have to assume every man could be a rapist because maybe he is!"

Nope. No concerns about that at all.

The equivalent would be if that Muslim had accused Richard Dawkins of wanting to do away with religion so he'd have carte blanche to fuck people in the street. Because hey, there's no other possible reason an Atheist might have a bone to pick with religion. Nope.

But then. Oh then...

Then Rebecca Watson goes on to categorize those who agree with her as "normal". Normal this and normal that, and other subsets of normal people who were blind before but saw the light of her wisdom and are thankful for it.

And those who disagreed? Creeps who can't get laid. We know they can't get laid, because she goes to great lengths to helpfully suggest alternatives to the flesh and blood women these guys won't be fucking--sex dolls, fleshlights, and watermelons with holes cut in them.

The misandric inanity, it hurts. It hurts SO BAD.

I almost don't know what to say. I really don't. Other than that Rebecca Watson is clearly a religious nut. Her religion is not Atheism, it's feminism.

Feminism has all the answers, you see. Feminism dictates what is "appropriate" and what is not, what will "get guys laid" and what will not, what is "normal" and what is not, who are idiots and who are not, what should be allowed and what should not, how people--especially men--should behave and how they should not. Feminism is her absolute morality. Change "normal" to "saved", and change "creeps" and "idiots" to "sinners" and you've got yourself a bona fide cult. Convert, heathen, or be doomed to a life of loneliness, porn and masturbation (hell on earth, for sure).

Which tells me that in addition to being a sexist bigot who, when she has nothing relevant to say descends into pettiness and insults, Rebecca Watson kind of sucks at being an atheist.

Patriarchy shmatriarchy

2011-07-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

I hear a lot about patriarchal oppression within feminist circles, and in my opinion, I think it's largely a load of hooey.

This is not to say that I don't believe that patriarchy has been around for the vast majority of our species' time on this planet--of course it has. And this is not to say that I believe women haven't suffered from oppression throughout the course of history, or that strict enforcement of gender roles isn't harmful to individuals.

But the feminist interpretation of patriarchy as a system of oppression of women...it seems to be kind of wilfully detached from the reality of human history. It seems like a concerted effort to marry the idea of patriarchy with the concept of oligarchy into a single two-headed, double-penised beast known as Patriarchy Theory. This marriage of two completely disparate sociological concepts is, to feminists, a self-evident truth, simply because the majority of the agents of the oligarchy are, and always have been, male.

Oligarchy IS indeed a system of oppression, where the majority of real power and influence is held by a small network of individuals and families, who depend on the subservience of everybody else. While it may not always include barbed wire, machine guns and a police state, it is designed in such a way as to suck resources from the masses and funnel them, and the power they afford, to the members of the elite.

Because those elites have such power, they are able to influence legislative policy in such a way as to maintain and increase their power. And yes, the US is an oligarchy--it may be a democracy, where individuals are able to cross lines of class between modern serfdom and the top tier, but the 500 richest individuals in the US hold as much wealth as the bottom 150 000 000 combined. That, my friends, is oligarchy.

Oligarchical power structures, by their nature, tend to be self-perpetuating. As the saying goes, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, usually until someone says something about peasants and cake, something snaps among the masses, and the pitchforks come out. Given how well off even the least wealthy members of western civilization are (children aren't dropping like flies for lack of a loaf of bread), that isn't likely to happen anytime soon. Oligarchy is the root of classism, and classism is the root of much of racism, and yes, sexism as well.

Patriarchy, however, is not an inherently oppressive idea. It is simply a way that the base-unit of society--the family--was organized. And it's been the way that societies, large and small, have been organized pretty much since the dawn of time, and for good reason. Families were led by a male head of household, major decisions lay under the aegis of those family leaders, and lines of descent passed through males. That is, quite simply, all patriarchy is. And up until very recently on the continuum of human history, it was the most beneficial system for both men and women. And contrary to what feminists would have you believe, in the west patriarchy is mostly a dead system.

Feminists often point to capital P Patriarchy as the culprit behind all sexism, all oppression of women (though they're finally admitting that "patriarchy harms men too", which is something of a victory for common sense, however small), and the "Othering" of women by men. The way they approach the stark reality of most of human history is from the standpoint that men somehow consciously or willfully constructed and directed femininity for their own benefit, and that women just kind of had to go along with it because they were physically weaker. They presume that masculinity developed under the influence of men alone in such a way that it became attached to characteristics of agency, like strength, action, and virility.

They believe men imposed this system on women, essentially Othering women as a class, and turning even the simple partnership of marriage into a contract of servitude and oppression of women for the benefit of men. What they fail to realize is that patriarchy imposed other characteristics on men than those of agency--disposability, utility, self-sacrifice and resource acquisition--and for the vast majority of our evolutionary past, women were the main beneficiaries and enforcers of these patriarchal gender norms.

Look at it this way. You have a rich man. This is his primary characteristic open for discussion, and he has all kinds of agency--he has flipping great wodges of money to purchase whatever he requires, servants to do his purchasing for him, to cook his meals, clean his house, maintain his vehicles, drive him around, and because he's wealthy he has friends and hangers on who "bask in his glow". Until his money is gone. And then he becomes C. Montgomery Burns on an episode of the Simpsons, unable to even dial a phone, standing in the supermarket for 15 minutes wondering if there's a difference between ketchup and catsup. He can't fix a doorknob. He can't microwave a Mr. Noodles. He can't even find his own clothes. He had agency, but it was dependent on his wealth.

This is a very tempting way to live a life. It really is. If you didn't HAVE to ever clean your own gutters or change the oil in the car or go out and risk your life killing and gutting an animal or defending your village from the assholes down the valley, why would you?

Men were, in many ways, all through human history, a servant class, not a class of oppressors. This is because even in the earliest stages of human evolution, we had an instinctive understanding of the ultimate equation. 10 women + 1 man = 10 babies, and that switching the numbers around pretty much meant the end of the whole shebang for us.

Dangerous work was the work of men, and it still is. Physically taxing work was the work of men, and it still is. Going out into the big bad dangerous world to get resources while women stayed safe was the work of men, and it still is. Those among our ancestors who were born without some pattern of these gender roles in their brains would have ultimately been unsuccessful wrt passing on their genes. The woman who decided to go hunt mastodon rather than staying home in the cave was much more likely to end up dying young.

And as has been demonstrated through genetic research, individual women were much more successful throughout the whole of human history at passing on their genes. 80% of the females who have ever lived had children. Only 40% of the males who have ever lived have done the same.

Because all those small innate gender differences feminists view as insignificant now, were generated and reinforced by one HUGE difference, and that is that females, not males, are the limiting factor in the perpetuation of any species. A human settlement survived through the toil and sacrifice (often of the lives) of its men, and through the safety of its women and children. This is simply the way things had to be throughout the majority of human evolution, and when they weren't, natural selection selected those individuals out of the species.

It's so easy to sit back in the comfort of our cushy lives right now and think that going outside the house to work is fulfilling, action-packed, exciting, kick-ass and an avenue to agency. But for the vast majority of our evolution, leaving home base meant taking your life in your hands--it was dangerous, physically taxing, and often ended in death. I lived in a wilderness area for 18 years. I know whereof I speak. We used to bring the dog on walks in the woods so we'd have something to throw at the cougars while the rest of us ran away.

Masculinity and femininity have indeed been bred into us, to varying degrees depending on the individual. Women developed a type of agency all through evolution. They had more reproductive agency than men have ever had (some social scientists estimate that double-digit percentages of men are raising children not their own, without their knowledge). And they had a kind of secondary agency, through the direction and manipulation of men. While a man used a scythe to get grain, the tool a woman used to get grain was...well, a man. While a man used a spear to defend his home from invaders, the weapon a woman used was--yup, you guessed it--a man.

I would guess that the average man has always had much less agency, even now, than most people believe. Is it agency if you HAVE to do it to survive? Is it agency if you're doing it at the behest of another person--whether that person is partner or child? And while feminists are busy deconstructing those aspects of masculine and feminine gender norms that have been restrictive and costly for women, women, on the whole, still seem perfectly fine enforcing male gender characteristics that are of benefit to them--utility, self-sacrifice, disposability and resource acquisition--and feminists don't seem that interested in changing this. In the advancement of women's interests, they've dismantled most of the benefits men enjoyed under patriarchy, while leaving the costs and responsibilities untouched.

Feminists are infamous for looking at the past through the lens of the present. To take what the domestic and public spheres look like NOW, and apply that to their vision of history. But the nature of work outside the home was a very different beast throughout most of history than it is now. Feminists don't ask themselves what it might have been like to hew coal out of a tunnel by hand for 12 hours a day, or to cut hay by hand for 16 hours in the August heat before mosquito repellent or sunscreen were invented, or to split an entire winter's worth of firewood in the month before the snow fell. The majority of men's work in our past was as different from public sphere work today as a cauldron and a laundry mangle is from a digital, front-load washing machine. And because most of the few dirty, dangerous, physical jobs left out there are still the domain of men (and one which feminists are perfectly happy leaving that way), feminists have no yardstick by which to measure what being a man might have been like in the past, or that women were privileged to not have to put their hands to men's work.

On the microscale of society, men and women could be said to have oppressed each other--the whole concept of marriage could be considered a two-way street of oppression (if one were a "glass is half empty" kind of person, I guess) where both parties benefitted from their oppression of the other. A kind of cost/benefit arrangement where, human nature being what it was, could certainly lead to one party contributing more than the other and benefitting less. Sometimes that was the woman, but I'd have to say that it was probably just as often the man. But while marriage used to be a cost/benefit arrangement for both parties, women now reap disproportionate benefit while men pay disproportionate costs. And while women now work outside the domestic sphere, the 93% workplace death gap demonstrates that even feminists are just fine with men continuing to embody utility and disposability for the benefit of women and society.

The application of the concept of Othering to gender norms is...a wilful blindness to the reality of human evolution. Othering is the offspring of colonialism, and last I checked, women had never had their own society where they were going along minding their own business, and a bunch of men invaded and took over. This simply isn't how it happened. Symbiotic gender roles evolved through an interaction between the importance of women as the limiting factor in reproduction, the extremely dangerous world we inhabited for the majority of our evolutionary past, and genetic paths of least resistance. Given the nature of what our world was like, patriarchy was simply the most functional, successful way humans stumbled on to deal with the world as it was, no more diabolical or purposeful than the way ant colonies or wolf packs organize themselves. Like democracy, it's the worst possible system, except for all the others. And when you consider the nature of the labor, sacrifice and demands placed on men in the past, I would guess that most women saw male authority as a fair trade for what they got out of the deal.

Patriarchy was, essentially, a collective, evolutionary human survival strategy. Arranging society that way created stability in a turbulent world--a world where a single loaf of bread could mean survival or starvation--and allowed us all our best chance to pass on our genes. And for most of history, people were too busy just surviving to tinker with such a successful system. This, I believe, is why gender roles are typically so much more strictly enforced in places where life is hard, cheap and soon over. Those roles offer both women and men living under extremely severe conditions the best chance of surviving long enough to create another generation. In other parts of the world, our lives are safe and relatively easy, and everything is much more relaxed.

That most oligarchical oppressors have been men rather than women is a result not of men being oppressors, but rather the result of men's gender roles, which are themselves a result of the path of least resistance in the way societies tend to organize themselves due to our biology and the fact that, up until very recently, almost no one had any time, energy, wherewithal or luxury to challenge their roles. The oligarchy does, indeed, have an interest in maintaining the status quo for as long as the status quo benefits the oligarchy. For the majority of human history, oligarchies depended on patriarchy to maintain stability and generation of resources, but any feminist who believes the world would be a kinder, gentler place under female rule would be advised to read a little about Elizabeth Bathory. Oppressors gonna oppress, no matter their gender.

If we're going to build a better society for everyone, we're going to have to let go of the idea of Men as the main oppressive force in Women's lives. It simply isn't how it was, and it isn't how it is, either. Am I arguing for a return to patriarchy? Absolutely not. I'm a bisexual, slightly genderqueer, divorced mother of three who writes dirty books for a living. I'm not interested in having my gender enforced, thanks. I have agency (inasmuch as my children allow it :P), and I'm not prepared to hand it over to anyone, even if it means I'd have an easier life. We as a society no longer have the business of bare survival as the dominant force in our lives. In the distancing of humans from the task of basic human survival, we are freer to explore our humanity, and consider the happiness of individuals as more important than just getting by.

BUT. And this is a big but. I understand the reality of the natural world, and how different that is from what my life is like in a house, with heat, electricity, hot and cold running water, cars, frozen pizzas, toaster ovens, plastic, easy work, an overdraft and streets that are safe to walk on. I realize that in nature, life is hard, cheap and soon over, and that very, very few animals ever die of old age. And were we living in a post-apocalyptic dystopia where life outside of walls was as dangerous and brutal as most of raw nature is, and where hay would have to be cut by hand without mosquito repellent or sunscreen? I think I'd absolutely be okay with letting the men have their "agency". Being stuck at home ain't that bad if it means the gruelling, dirty work of survival belongs to someone else, and you get to stay alive.

Something to think about.

Why the Question of Circumcision Has No Place in the Voting Booth

2011-07-30T01:20:00.000-07:00

It's called the tyranny of the majority. And when it comes to the rights of a disenfranchised class of people, the majority cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

When someone's basic human right to the healthy, functional body they were born with is being trampled, the ballot box is not the place to decide whether that person's rights matter.

The place to decide this matter is the same place where the ban on female genital mutilation was decided. If legislators do not have the courage to do what is right and what is constitutionally sound in the case of infant male circumcision, without the support of the majority of voters, then maybe it's time to sharpen the pitchforks.

This is indeed a question of religious freedom--the freedom of an infant to not have an irreversible religious ritual performed on him before he's even old enough to see in color, let alone choose to make a covenant with any god, whether Judaic or Islamic. Any argument in favor of circumcision on religious grounds is an argument against religious freedom, and in favor of being able to force a non-consenting, helpless human being to endure permanent, life altering and occasionally dangerous consequences simply by being born into a family which practices a certain religion.

If you need convincing, ask yourself whether we, as a society, would allow someone to force a man who was mentally incompetent to make a covenant with a god not of his conscious choosing--a god he was unaware of--by having part of his dick cut off. Would we? Really?

To be anti-circumcision is not the same thing as being anti-Semitic or anti-Islamic. It is simply to be in favor of all people's right to choose the religion they wish to practice. By circumcising an 8 day old infant, Jewish parents are denying their sons this choice--to make a covenant with god of their own free will. Of what value is our dedication to freedom of religion if we deny that very freedom to our society's most helpless members? Of what value is any covenant with any god, if that covenant is forcibly enacted upon a baby strapped to a table?

It has been largely accepted in progressive circles that a woman's body is her own, and therefore it is her right to choose abortion if that choice is right for her. Yet this choice--to do with one's body what is right for a person--is denied baby boys every single day all over the world, even here in the "progressive" west. It is denied in the name of religion. It is denied in the name of "preventive medicine". It is denied in the name of "customary practice". It is denied in the name of a lot of things that shouldn't hold a fucking candle to a human being's right to decide for himself what potentially life-threatening, irreversible, painful and unnecessary surgery ought to be performed on him.

We deny parents the "right" to inject botox into children. We deny them the "right" to give breast implants to pre-pubescent girls. We deny them the "right" to carve away pieces of their daughters in the name of custom and tradition. We do this to protect those who are unable to protect themselves, from decisions made by their parents without any consideration of the personhood of their own children. We do this even though it makes individuals and interest groups angry, because it is the right thing to do.

And yet we allow parents, religious or not, to carve away pieces of their sons. To make an involuntary covenant with god. To make bathing them easier. To "protect" them from rare medical conditions, or from a sexually transmitted disease that is both uncommon and easily preventable.

I can only think of one thing that makes infant male genital mutilation acceptable--so acceptable that it's been widely practiced by us western "progressives" for a hundred years, and has been blocked from the voting booth by its defenders--when female genital mutilation has been outlawed in the US since 1996, not even a decade after we, as a society, were made appallingly aware of the practice.

And that's that we're willing to protect our daughters from these atrocities, and yet we're all too happy to subject our sons to them. How disgustingly sexist is that?

No Seriously, What About teh Man-Hatrz?

2011-07-22T15:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, I just read something kind of encouraging on No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz?

I mean, I do indeed believe it's time that the Sisterhood aimed some of its missiles at a few of the loonies who march(ed) in its ranks. It's long past time someone called out Mary Daly's misandry, transphobia and racism, her delusions of female supremacy and superiority, and her paranoid equation of Man = Oppressor.

But I'm sorry, ladies. It's too little, too late. I don't understand how you can't see this. You can't revoke anyone else's Feminism Card, and you certainly can't revoke it after their death. This is because, as I've been told time and again by feminists, Feminism is not a club with rules of membership, it's not a political party, it's not an ideological monolith with a rigid set of beliefs and ideals that are required of every member. Every single self-identifying feminist has a right to define "what feminism means to them". This is something I hear ALL THE TIME from, you guessed it, self-identified feminists.

Mary Daly was a feminist. She was a feminist because she said so. That is literally ALL it takes to be a feminist. And what's more, she had every right to label herself a feminist. And you, Doctormindbeam, have no right to take that label away from her. Neither by consensus, nor by fiat.

I mean, sure, it's a step in the right direction to try to distance a movement whose members--some of them, anyway--are in favor of gender equality, from those who are bigoted, hate-filled, intellectually dishonest and batshit fucking insane. But it's as ineffectual as the constant refrain I hear from other self-identified feminists that "not all feminists are like that!" or "no true feminist would advocate for such a thing."

The only thing that makes a feminist a feminist is an interest in women's issues and the self-applied label of feminist. A person advocating mass chemical castration of males for the protection of women is a feminist if he/she decides that's what to call him/herself. This is the way it works.

I mean, it's really nice of you gals to think about cleaning house, but, frankly, the place has turned into an episode of hoarders over the last several decades. What started out as a gorgeous mansion built on a foundation of equality, fairness and humanity, now looks more like Monster House. No matter how hard all of you work, and how many cans of Febreze you use, the place is still going to be filled with the lingering stench of the rotting corpses of dozens of bigoted, man-hating, self-labeled feminists and their cats. Mary Daly should have been evicted the first night everyone sat around the dinner table and heard her spouting her bullshit, not 40 years after she first started leaving her shit lying around and cluttering up the place with effigies of dead men. Certainly not a year after her body went cold.

Sometimes shit gets left to fall apart for so long, that the job of clean-up and repair is either impossible or not worth the investment. Sometimes the place has been left in disrepair for so long, the floorboards are rotted, the foundation is sinking, and there's nothing for it but to condemn the place and move.

And seriously, it's not as if you don't have your share of undesirable squatters sharing the house with you even now, stinking up the place with their more modern style of bigotry and misandry.

Some things feminists have been up to of late:

Arguing to keep the gender-profiling and discrimination against male DV victims in VAWA unchanged.
Lobbying--and succeeding--in mandating lighter sentences for female criminals in the UK.
Lobbying for a shut-down of women's prisons in the UK.
Asserting that Women as a group feel--and should feel--threatened by Men as a group.
Arguing that despite women comprising 60% of university enrolment, that it's both "too soon" to do away with women-only scholarships, and sexist to consider men-only scholarships.
Opposing the changing of retirement age for women in the UK to bring it in line with retirement age for men.
Lobbying to lower the amount of child support arrearage that will result in jail time.
Opposing a presumption of shared parenting after divorce, using language that demonizes men as abusers and portrays women as victims.
Defending the practice of routine infant male genital mutilation, citing that it is NOTHING like female genital mutilation.
Freaking right the fuck out because milk producers implied in their ads that men are the primary victims of PMS, because they have to live with PMSing women, while cheering Hillary Clinton's assertion that the wives, daughters and mothers of men who are dead, are the primary victims of war

These people can't be evicted, ladies. There's no feminist landlord to evict them, no condo association, no property management company, because feminism doesn't work like that. They get to live in Feminist House with you for as long as they choose to call themselves feminists.

When I talk about the problem of rape, I sometimes speak of the inherent value of what many perceive to be "victim-blaming". That is, if there were decisions a woman made that led to her being easily victimized, it is not only appropriate to examine them, it's beneficial (arguably necessary) to the recovery process. And I've argued that expecting society to protect women while refusing to expect women to take some responsibility for their own safety, is a disempowerment of women. It is taking power from them as individuals, stripping them of agency. It is telling them they are objects that shit just happens to, rather than participants in their lives, and that this is the way the world should work.

I believe the way I do because if there's no other lesson life has taught me, it's that we cannot control the actions, behavior, thoughts, motivations, goals and emotions of other people--we can only control our own. And because of the nature of feminism as a self-applied, self-defined label, no individual feminist has any control over what other feminists will do in the name of feminism. You can't kick anyone else out of the club. The only membership you can revoke is your own.

I mean, how much time and energy are you people going to waste trying to sweep up after these people? How much time and energy are you willing to put into arguing amongst yourselves, trying to throw people out who won't go, tidying up their trash, running damage control, and picking their empties up from the yard so the neighbors won't think you're all a bunch of irresponsible jerks? Isn't there something more useful you could be doing?

And why the hell are you so attached to the word, anyway? Words mean things, people. And while the connotations and even denotations of words evolve over time, right now, in common parlance, feminism doesn't mean what you think it means. It has come to mean something else to a growing number of people who aren't feminists, even if they believe in equality.

By your stubborn and single-minded attachment to the label "feminism", you do more harm than you can possibly know. By refusing to abandon the house, you give every man-hating kook who lives there more legitimacy than they deserve.

Let me put it this way. Here's the Senate Judiciary Committee, listening to testimony regarding whether to change VAWA or leave its bigoted, anti-male legislation as it is. Many people are testifying as "experts" on domestic violence, and many of these people are in favor of leaving VAWA unchanged. Many of them are feminists. And they're saying, "Women must be protected. As a feminist, I implore you to keep VAWA as it is."

Then the head of the Committee looks out his metaphorical window and sees millions upon millions of other feminists crowded under a banner that says "WE ARE FEMINISTS". Unbeknownst to him, they are debating and arguing and nitpicking each other, and some of them may even be strenuously trying to convince the others that VAWA is wrongheaded and must be changed. But all he sees are millions of feminists, and some people in front of him who claim to be speaking as feminists, and all those millions of feminists on the street outside his window add weight to every single word those few feminists have said before the Committee. Even if he knows not every feminist is in agreement on every issue, their association with THESE feminists, in front of him today, add to the credibility of what they've said.

By calling yourselves the same thing that these misandric, sexist, intellectually dishonest assholes call themselves, you are giving a perception of unity of purpose with them, whether you like it or not. Every single self-identified feminist provided the ballast that a few feminist-identified nutbars needed to ram their mandatory lower sentencing for women through in the UK.

I hold a lot of beliefs that could be said to be feminist beliefs. I've written articles on women's issues that were lauded by feminists. But I see a lot of harm done in the name of feminism, too. I choose not to call myself feminist, because I don't want my presence under the banner to add any weight to the efforts of those who would do harm in feminism's name. If I call myself feminist, I throw my vote in with the defenders of VAWA, whether I want to or not.

I won't do that. Why are you?

How Feminism Hates Women

2011-07-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

Part Three: Politics

Much is made of the fact that women are underrepresented in the upper echelons of politics and business. There are discussions of glass ceilings in the business world, and systemic societal sexism, all conspiring--either purposefully or incidentally--to keep women from these spheres of power and influence.

I once sarcastically posed the question, "I mean, what woman wouldn't want to work in a logging camp, living in a barracks in the middle of nowhere away from your family two weeks out of every three, toiling from sun-up to sundown in inclement weather, facing a daily risk of injury or death orders of magnitude higher than most other jobs? Sign me up!"

Considering the nature of the job and the sacrifices one must make with respect to personal and family life, no one questions the underrepresentation of women in these kinds of positions.

And while political office is very different than cutting down trees for a living, much of the reason women are not flocking to politics in the west is largely due to these same calculations of effort, reward, sacrifice and risk. Being elected to congress may be a more influential, prestigious and financially rewarding position than working in a logging camp, and one that is probably less likely to get you maimed or killed on the job, however, the sacrifices necessary for either job are much the same. Both positions require a great deal of putting work before family, and may mean not being in the same room with your children for weeks at a time.

Moreover, both positions come with enormous risk--not as many trees fall on political candidates as on loggers, but the weight of media scrutiny into one's life, and the ever-present understanding that all your efforts could well be for naught come election day...these are considerations everyone makes before entering the political sphere. For women more often than for men, the risk and sacrifice of running for office is simply too high. And women cannot get elected to public office if they do not run for public office.

Because political office is an elected position, the number of women elected is based almost entirely on freedom of choice. First, on an individual woman's decision to run for office, and second, on the electorate's collective decision to elect her. In both cases, women have a great deal of power. Practically any woman can throw her hat in the ring, and women comprise the majority of voters in virtually every election since who knows when.

However, much is often made of the fact that when women DO run, they are less likely to be elected. It is often observed that both women and men do not trust women in positions of leadership and power.

I'd actually be quite interested in seeing some data on a woman's likelihood of being elected when she does choose to run. That is, if women make up 13% of congresspeople, and also make up 13% of the candidates running for congress, can any real argument be made that gender discrimination--either institutionalized or in the minds of voters--is at work?

But let's approach the issue of both men and women holding sexist assumptions with respect to women in politics as if it's a fact. The first question we must ask is why do these assumptions exist?

I've often been told that perception is reality. We must perceive our leaders as strong, capable and responsible. And while patriarchal assumptions of Women as having none of these qualities may still linger in many of us, what is being done to counter these assumptions, and what is being done to reinforce them? Is feminism helping Women in this respect, or is it hurting them?

Feminism takes great pains to tell us all that Women are strong, capable, responsible, accountable, intelligent, ambitious, and worthy of authority, leadership and trust.

But perception is reality, isn't it? And what else does feminism tell society?

Feminism tells us that Women are disadvantaged, need help and protection, can't make it on their own merits but need artificial measures put in place if they are to succeed.

These two agendas work at cross-purposes in the hearts and minds of the public. If there is a lingering sexist societal "why" behind the underrespresentation of women in politics, it absolutely does have something to do with most of feminism's focus on Women as disadvantaged members of society who are in need of protection and supports if they are even to survive their own lives.

Let's look at VAWA first, because VAWA is in the news right now, and as recently as a week ago, people with intellectual authority as feminists spoke in favor of keeping it exactly as it is. The gender-profiling in VAWA works against women in two ways.

First, it gives everyone the impression that Women are weaker and more submissive and timid than Men, and that Women are prone to making poor decisions--like staying with an abuser--unless there are supports and assistance and measures in place to not only make it easier for her to leave an abuser, but to even convince her that leaving is a good idea.

Add in Women-only scholarships, ministries and congressional committees on the status of Women, social safety nets aimed solely at Women, and the constant focus on the oppression (both macro and microscale) of Women makes it seem like women as a group aren't capable of even functioning in our society without help. And just as our experience with the men we know can run counter to our perceptions of Men as a group or an abstract social entity, our personal experience with strong, intelligent, responsible, capable women does not always inform our perceptions of Women as a group.

If I bought into feminist ideas of oppression of Women, I wouldn't trust women in positions of power, either. Someone who is too weak or foolish to leave an abusive husband, someone who focusses constantly on their disadvantage and how they are kept down, someone who whines about oppression of women in North America (especially when oppression of women is not the norm for the middle class women who talk about it the most), is not someone I would trust to be a strong, capable, rational leader.

Second, VAWA's exclusion of men from its protections and benefits only reinforces the idea that Men (as a group) would be better for the job of running a government than Women (as a group). Because in reality, men are just as likely to be abused as women, just as likely to stay in abusive relationships, are just as in need of help, and just as foolish in their decisions. But we don't see them that way, do we? Not as a group, or an abstract social entity. We see them as capable of taking care of themselves, of succeeding (or failing) on their own merits, and of being responsible for their own decisions no matter how bad those decisions are.

VAWA, and much of feminist thought and activism, also demonizes male dominance. But by demonizing it, they only emphasize it. If Men are the oppressors in our society, well, oppressors are strong. The oppressed are weak. Weakness is not an attractive characteristic in a leader, is it?

Men are seen as strong and capable because they must be in our society. The objective Truth is a little different from our perception, though. Men are indeed oppressed and disadvantaged in many ways, and need help and support in many ways, but we don't see it because no one--especially feminists--is willing to acknowledge it. In this regard, because not only are Men forced to succeed without artificial help or support, but even the weakest, most unsuccessful of men are simply seen as not needing anything from the rest of us, well, we have an impression that Men are strong, capable, have merit, and would be good leaders.

The same gendered perceptions of Men and Women that inform the entirety of VAWA are what tell us all as a society that Men are capable leaders and Women are not.

Now let's look at the Skepchick elevator debacle, and how this informs public perceptions of Men and Women. Here we have a million people talking constantly about the oppression of Women in a society where that oppression simply isn't a concrete reality for most white, middle class women today.

Hell, if even an intelligent, white, successful, fairly privileged woman can't stand to be hit on (maybe) in an elevator without it turning into a huge internet kerfuffle over how being in an elevator with a man is scary enough even when he doesn't speak...how the hell is she going to survive a televised political debate? She felt threatened, a feeling which she is entitled to, but that feeling was not only informed by her perceptions of Men as aggressive and dominant and dangerous, but by her own perceptions of Women (and herself) as defenceless, small, powerless, in need of protection and incapable of even keeping themselves safe. Hundreds of people--mostly feminists--chimed in that it was entirely appropriate for her to feel this way. That is, hundreds of people chimed in to agree that Women are defenceless, small, powerless, in need of protection and incapable of even keeping themselves safe.

Contrast this to our perceptions and expectations of Men. Men, even though they are twice as likely to be victims of violent assaults, are not perceived in this way. A man in Rebecca Watson's position in an elevator may have felt the same level of threat, but he'd be expected to just deal with it. Why? Because Men are strong, capable, and responsible for taking care of themselves, even if an individual man might feel the same level of fear and be facing the same amount of objective physical risk in a given situation.

The fact that this ridiculously small incident caused the uproar it did, with everyone now talking about how scared Women are as a class, how in need of extra consideration and protection they are...all this did was reinforce that Women do not have the necessary mettle to be out and about at 4 AM, let alone be leaders.

And then Richard Dawkins essentially told her to pull up her big girl panties. And the shit hit the fan.

Rather than be able to accept that some people disagree with her and believe she's making a huge deal over nothing much, she called for a boycott of his books. Someone disagreed with her and had the temerity to say so, and in response, she rounded up as many bullies as she could in a determined effort to ruin his career. She could not win her debate with him on her own persuasiveness and the merits of her argument, so she called in the marines and took him down. And hundreds of people--most of them feminists--agreed with her position.

How on earth can someone like Rebecca Watson she be trusted in a position of real power? What little power and intellectual authority she had as a speaker within the Atheist community...she arguably abused this power to punish someone for exercising his right to free speech. He disagreed with her, therefore his career should be destroyed. What would she have done if she had the authority of office and government resources to do her bullying for her?

And that hundreds of feminists agreed with and supported the boycott--"If you can't persuade him, destroy him!"--only reinforces whatever lingering patriarchal perceptions we have in society of Women as irrational, prone to emotion, vindictive when scorned, and eager to get others to fight their battles for them...and none of these qualities make for a good leader, either, do they? And yet these are exactly the qualities many feminists--both male and female--supported and reinforced as reasonable and applicable to Women when they threw their weight behind Rebecca Watson and her boycott.

So while feminism makes a great effort to tell us that Women are strong, capable, responsible, accountable, intelligent, ambitious, and worthy of authority, leadership and trust, much of what feminism does in its efforts to help and protect women tells us exactly the opposite.

And while many people will indeed believe what they are told, most of us form our view of the world and how it works through integrating a multitude of messages that come at us from all directions. And in many cases, through its advocacy and activism, feminism itself has done nothing so well as to convince us that our old-world patriarchal assumptions are correct, and that Women are not fit to be leaders.

The man with no name

2011-07-19T17:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we've all seen this woman's face by now:

She's the lovely specimen who drugged her soon-to-be ex husband, tied him to a bed, waited for him to wake, cut his penis off with a kitchen knife. She then put it down the garbage disposal in order, one presumes, to eliminate any possibility of reattaching it.

*giggle*

When police arrived, she merely told them, "He deserved it." So what was his offense, that merited the amputation and destruction of his penis? Apparently, he filed for divorce.

*titter*

And now, as he lies (possibly) recovering from near-death from shock and blood loss, he has become the punchline of a joke that began with Lorena and John Wayne Bobbit. Filed for divorce? "That'll teach him," quips an audience member during a recent episode of CBS's The Talk. Followed by host Sharon Osborne's assertion that, though she's unaware of all the details leading up to the attack, "it's quite fabulous."

*haha*

Now quick, all of you. Can anyone here tell me, off the top of your head, what Catherine Kieu's husband's name is? Don't know it? Huh. I must confess, I don't know it, either. And while this may indeed be simply because his name has been withheld (would YOU want to go through the rest of your life aware that everyone knows you have no penis?), watching this video by Angry Harry (who is actually a very calm and rational dude, as well as brilliant), I'm coming to realize that we as a society are perfectly content knowing nothing meaningful about this man.

In a very insidious way, he does not exist to us. He is neither human nor real, and because he is neither human nor real, his suffering means nothing to us. We feel less empathy for him, an actual person, than we feel for Holden Caulfield of Catcher in the Rye. We feel less empathy for him than for Optimus Prime, for fuck sake.

Why is this? Because he's a man, and we are trained as a society to see "men" as something less than whole people? More and more, we view men through their usefulness to society (firefighter, soldier, crew member, miner), their wrongdoings (rapist, murderer, thief, robber), or through their relationships with women (father, brother, son, husband).

In the first case, we have no empathy for them because, as Angry Harry said so eloquently, they've been reduced from human beings to "human doings". In the second case, we view them through the lens of their victims, making it all to easy to distance ourselves from their humanity. And in the third, we view them through the lens of the women in their lives. Our empathy is for her, even if she doesn't deserve it. No matter how despicable her crime was, no matter how inexcusable, no matter how unwarranted, no matter how evil, her suffering is somehow more worthy of sympathy to us than his.

She deserves our understanding, our support, our pity. And what does her victim deserve? Who cares? It's not like he even has a name. He only exists to us through his role as "husband of the penis mutilator". His suffering is so abstract to us as a society, we can even feel comfortable laughing about it.

Somehow, I don't think the man's friends and family are giggling over this. I really don't.

In a recent discussion about why I believe in the causes of MRAs, I said these words:

As a mother, I'd throw myself in front of a bullet for either of my sons, because their lives matter to me. But more importantly their lives matter to them.

And I think this is something that is utterly forgotten in the quest for ever more rights/privileges for women. That men are human beings unto themselves. If they're alive, they're not only someone's father/son/husband/wallet. If they're dead, they deserve a portion of the tears shed, not just the women who will have to live without them. They have value in and of themselves, not just a value that can be measured as a function of their usefulness or importance to women or society.

We've all heard the expression of common, progressive wisdom in that a society can be measured by how it treats its women.

And how it treats its men? If this was the yardstick we were forced to measure our society by, if it was one that even entered into the public consciousness, I'm pretty sure we'd be failing.

Well, that's that...

2011-07-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

So she has a name. It's Nafissatou Diallo. A pretty woman, with a pretty smile.

A pretty woman who lied about being gang-raped to bolster her case for asylum in the US. A pretty woman who lied about her income and its sources, hiding the fact that tens of thousands of dollars of (probably ill-gotten) money had been deposited in her bank account. A pretty woman who lied to the government about how many children she had, to up her tax benefits. A pretty woman who has now--after the case blew up--been characterized as a hotel "working girl" who provided special "turn-down" services to male guests for big tips. A pretty woman who's been accused of running a pyramid scheme, scamming her fellow Guineans out of money.

A pretty woman who lied about her activities immediately following the alleged attack by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but whose amended account still cannot be confirmed by hotel card-key data. A woman who phoned an incarcerated man within hours of the alleged assault to discuss how best to benefit from it, telling him, "Don't worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I'm doing."

Was she raped? I honestly don't know. Maybe she was. And if so, it sucks that she's never going to get justice.

But one thing I do know--if DSK's name had been kept from the press, if every news outlet hadn't splashed his name all over the place and speculated mostly upon his guilt rather than his right to due process, if every politician and powerful, wealthy man across the globe wasn't watching the case like a hawk, if prosecutors didn't have to eat crow over their crappy complainant after putting DSK through the indignity of a publicized perp-walk and forcing him to pay millions for bail and hundreds of thousands for his own house arrest measures...if this was a quiet sexual assault case without eight-hundred spotlights shining on it because of the accused's notariety, Nafissatou Diallo's chances of getting justice, if indeed she was assaulted, would have been a hell of a lot better.

With all the attention the case was getting, no prosecutor in his right mind would move forward with it once their complainant was outed as a pathological liar for personal gain. Who wants to fight that battle in front of the global media?

If she was raped, rape shield protection for the accused would have done nothing but help her chances of seeing her rapist punished through the criminal justice system.

So why aren't we extending that protection in all cases of rape and sexual assault? Because feminists want those names and faces plastered all over the media, so the "rapists until proven innocent" will be suitably punished even if they're acquitted on a technicality, and to hell with the innocent who get punished along with them.

Right now, a woman can ruin a man with a single accusation even if the case is abandoned long before trial, and if she does it out of malice, it's very very rare that we ever learn her name. She will almost never face any real penalty for doing so. And the innocent? Fuck 'em, I guess.

Unilateral rape shield anonymity has turned sexual assault crime into a modern version of the Salem witch trials, one that makes Lord of the Flies look civilized by comparison. If we must keep rape shield laws in place, there is no better time than now to push for those laws to extend to protecting the anonymity of the accused in rape and sexual assault cases.

How Feminism Hates Women

2011-06-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

Part Two: Unwanted Sex vs. Rape

From Wikipedia:

Actus reus, sometimes called the external element or the objective element of a crime, is the Latin term for the "guilty act" which, when proved beyond a reasonable doubt in combination with the mens rea, "guilty mind", produces criminal liability in the common law-based criminal law jurisdictions of Canada, Australia, India, Pakistan, New Zealand, England, Ireland and the United States.

Mens rea is Latin for "guilty mind". In criminal law, it is viewed as one of the necessary elements of a crime. The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind be also guilty".

Okay, so let's pretend we're talking about me, and what we're talking about is me crashing my car into another vehicle, killing the driver. The act of crashing my car into his and killing him is the actus reus, and let's say that this fact is not in dispute. Once it has been established that I did indeed crash my car into another and kill the driver, an investigation will be done (I would hope!), and the attendant circumstances examined, and it will only then be determined whether I have committed a crime.

Let's say I undergo a breath test and am found to be legally impaired. In this case, I will be found to have the mens rea of recklessness--I engaged in conduct a law-abiding person would have refrained from, and that conduct resulted in a foreseeable death. I may be charged with a variety of crimes, based on my degree of inebriation and other circumstances--drunk driving causing death, vehicular manslaughter, reckless indifference homicide, etc.

Let's say I live in a jurisdiction where it's still legal to use a cell phone while driving, and I was on the phone when I crashed into him. If it can be determined I was paying more attention to my phone than the road, I will be found to have the mens rea of negligence--that is, a reasonable person would have been able to foresee the danger of my behavior and the harm it might cause. I will probably be charged with manslaughter.

Let's say I drove through an intersection where a stop sign had been stolen or knocked over by vandals. If there was a wrongdoer in this case, it was certainly not me, and I have committed no crime.

Or let's say the other driver ran the stop sign. In this case, I have also done nothing wrong, and have committed no crime.

Or let's say I drove over a nail which blew my tire, and I could not regain control of my car in time to avoid the accident. Again, I have done nothing criminal.

Let's say I saw that the other driver was my ex-husband, and I floored the gas pedal, slamming my car into his before backing up and ramming his vehicle repeatedly until the jaws of life couldn't extricate him from the mangled wreckage. Not that I would ever want to do something like that *coughcough*, but in that case I would be found to have acted purposefully and wilfully to cause my ex's death. And that, my friends, would be capital murder.

So here we have a bunch of different scenarios, all with the exact same terrible result for the victim, all of which differ in their degree of criminal culpability. Only two of these scenarios would qualify as murder, and in three I have committed no crime at all.

So here we have the crux: any situation in which one person kills another is a homicide, but not all homicides are crimes, and not all criminal homicides are considered murder. Whether a homicide is considered murder or not, depends entirely on mens rea--the "guilty mind".

I have often asserted in my arguments online that just because someone feels they have been wronged or harmed by another, this does NOT necessarily mean a crime was committed against them. And by extension, a man should never be considered to have raped a woman if he did not have the necessary mens rea--that is, if he did not actually realize he was raping her.

I am often told in response that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but ignorance of the law has very little to do with mens rea. In the case of rape, mens rea is not a question of whether someone knows that forcing an unwilling woman to have sex is rape, it is a question of whether someone is aware they are forcing an unwilling woman to have sex.

But how could a person not know they are forcing an unwilling woman? How could anyone not realize that a woman who isn't consenting is not consenting?

Well, how about if you're naked in bed, engaging in the preliminaries of sex, for which said woman seems enthusiastic, and at no point during the festivities does the woman ask you to stop?

Early anti-rape campaigns focused on a phrase I could really get behind: "No means no." But things have morphed a little since then, into an attitude of, "Anything but an enthusiastic and oft-repeated 'yes' means no."

I have been cautioned by so many people on feminist boards about how very very important it is for a man to check in frequently with his partner, that many women simply don't have the wherewithal to say "no" if they change their minds, but that this does not mean they are consenting. That women have been known to freeze up and the first sign a man might have that he's raped her is the sound of her quietly sobbing after the fact. Oddly, I hear very little talk about how very very important it is for a woman to actually have the maturity to say "no" if, indeed, she means "no", before she climbs naked into a man's bed, however. She, apparently, has no responsibility toward her partner, to prevent him from inadvertently doing something he'd likely feel terrible about afterward.

Considering how differently women are wont to behave during sex, it is unreasonable to expect a man to conclude that loud moaning, say, can be translated as "please stop", or that a lack of loud moaning can be translated as "please stop", or that twisting and writhing can be translated as "please stop", or that a lack of twisting and writhing can be translated as "please stop", or that a grimace can be translated as "please stop", or that the lack of a grimace can be translated as "please stop", etc.

So here we have a woman who has changed her mind, and is counting on her body's signals and her facial expressions to convey this message to her partner, who may have never engaged her in sexual activity before. Because she lacks the wherewithal to actually tell him to stop, and believes he should just...well, he should just be able to tell. The man is on top of her, arguably holding her down, but in his mind he's just holding her tightly the way his other partners liked him to do.

That the sex was, indeed unwanted, is a fact not in dispute. The feelings of the woman may include violation, trauma, fear, anger, and a deep sense of having been wronged. These feelings are in no way invalid.

However, for the crime of rape to have occurred requires both actus reus (the act of unwanted sex itself) and mens rea (some form of criminal or guilty mind or intent). For the above scenario to be rape, and a crime, the rapist would have to KNOW that he was subjecting the woman to unwanted sex. And if the first clear sign that she'd changed her mind is her quiet sobbing after the fact, well...this is unfortunate, and a terrible situation (both for the woman, who may well be traumatized, and for the man who unintentionally traumatized her) but it isn't a crime. It is NOT RAPE.

And this is one major issue I have with data on rape presented in studies like Ms. Magazine's infamous "1 in 4" survey. Because those studies conflate "unwanted sex" the actus reus that constitutes only half of a crime, with "rape", something that requires both the actus reus of unwanted sex AND mens rea.

Claiming that 1 in 4 college women are victims of rape or attempted rape based on one-sided accounts that conform to specific sexual scenarios is analogous to publishing a report on how many capital murders occurred in the US in a given year, and including accidental homicides, manslaughters, homicides where the killer was mentally incompetent, self-defence killings, negligent homicides, and second degree murders in your tally.

The Ms. study did give mens rea a "nod", if you will, by asking respondents who'd been subjected to unwanted sex to contextualize what they believed had happened to them. A full 49% of respondents characterized what had happened as "miscommunication". This would make the unwanted sex in those cases an unfortunate, but not criminal, act. In those respondents' opinions, the perpetrators did not have the required mens rea to have committed rape, because they were unaware that the respondents were unwilling. And perhaps, being there at the time, the respondents were more in a position to assess the behavior and motivations of their "attackers" than the surveyors were.

However, the author of the study disregarded these interpretations and applied the term "rape" or "attempted rape" to every incident of unwanted sex where some degree of force was used, such as holding a woman down. And this might be reasonable, if not for the typical mechanics of sex, which often involve, well...a man holding someone whilst simultaneously being on top of them.

Ahh, you might say, but in the Ms. study, about half of the findings of rape and attempted rape involved alcohol or drugs, "administered" to the woman before sex. Here again, I have some issues. Because in the dating and hook-up scenes on campuses, there's a lot of booze consumed by women, often gleefully provided by young men hoping to grease the wheels of sex. I have some serious doubts as to whether these young men are holding women down and pouring liquor down their unwilling throats. I also have a hard time seeing scores of sober young men pressuring women to drink in the hopes that they will become incoherent and sloppy enough as to be unaware of her surroundings and unable to resist, much less participate in the anticipated sex.

So we have college parties where everyone--male or female--is drinking like mad, all looking to shed their inhibitions, have a great time and maybe hook up with someone.

And while providing a woman with enough free beer to drop a rhino may be self-serving on the part of the young men involved and in no way entitles them to sex, I can't help but think that if these women are somehow unaware that alcohol consumption lowers inhibitions (even sexual ones *gasp!*), and that consuming enormous quantities may lead them to consent to things they would never do while sober, they probably do not belong in college in the first place.

So let's explore the role of alcohol in the crime of rape. Let's be true to the criminal code and say one's own willful intoxication is no defence, and let's be totally wacky and hold both genders to an equal standard of accountability.

Young man pours young woman several beers. Young man is unabashed in his motive to get said woman buzzed enough that her judgment will be impaired and he may get lucky as a result. Said woman drinks those beers looking to get wasted, because getting wasted doesn't just feel good--it frees her up to do things that she wouldn't while sober, but that she kinda sorta wants to do sometimes and might just do if not for those pesky inhibitions.

So let's say she's drunk but coherent, and he is equally drunk but coherent, and both of them willingly engage in sex. In the morning, she rolls over and realizes she just fucked Ron Jeremy's less suave cousin, and she can hardly even remember how it happened. She's lying there, thinking, "OMG, he got me drunk on purpose so he could take advantage of me--that's RAPE!"

Well, yes it is. Sort of. If one can wrap one's head around the idea that pouring a woman a few beers is the precipitating act proving an intent to commit rape, rather than a generous application of socio-sexual lubricant. I mean, it's not like he slipped her a date-rape drug. He gave her alcohol, which she willingly drank. If his intention when pouring her those beers was to get her so wasted that her level of intoxication would "seal the deal" and guarantee sex, whether she wanted it or not, then yeah. Rape. But if his intention was to grease the wheels in the hope that she might climb onto his lap and engage in consensual sex with him, has he really done anything wrong? Because at that point, we would have to conclude that any man who buys a woman he desires a few drinks has the intent to rape, don't we? Again, it's all about mens rea--the guilty mind.

However, even if we conclude that any consensual sex while falling-down drunk is rape, we must consider the corollary of drunk driving. Charging a sober man with rape because a woman consented to have sex with him while she was drunk would be analogous to holding the sober driver at fault in a collision with a drunk driver.

And if they're both drunk? Though a legal argument may be made that she was too drunk to be capable of consent, well, so was he, wasn't he? And though a legal argument may be made that a criminal's willful intoxication is no defence for having committed a crime...if we are to keep to our completely nutty theme of holding both parties to the same standard of accountability, both parties would be rapists under the law, and both would be accessories to the other's perpetration of rape.

This much should be clear. If intoxication vitiates consent but does not eliminate criminal culpability, then even enthusiastic, consensual drunk sex is a crime--one which two people participated in. If one's own willful intoxication is no defence...well, if she said "yes" while drunk, she participated in the commission of a crime, and is an accessory. Hell, one could argue that her consuming enough alcohol to become so drunk that her inhibitions would be lowered was an act of intent to become an accessory to rape.

Regardless of who feels more harmed by the situation, when both parties are drunk, both parties are equally culpable. Charging a traumatized woman with rape and accessory to rape would be no more unjust than charging a man with the same, even if both had the required mens rea to commit the crime of having sex while too intoxicated to consent.

And this is where the alcohol/drug rape definition departs from reality. Because if we are to criminalize drunk sex, both parties should be charged even if both are pleased with the outcome the next morning, since consent must occur contemporaneously with the sexual acts performed--neither advance consent nor consent after-the-fact are in any way defensible legal concepts. And if one cannot legally consent to sex while drunk, then one cannot legally consent to sex while drunk.

And if the woman was drunk and consented, and the man was NOT drunk? Her drunken "yes" still technically makes her an accessory to a criminal act. By consenting to sex while drunk, she was engaging and participating in criminal activity, and her own willful intoxication is no defence.

A crime is a crime is a crime, even if no one was harmed by it, right? And the only way to avoid criminalizing the act of ANYONE saying "yes" while drunk is to hold both genders to the same standard of accountability for their decisions while drunk.

That is, to maintain the definition of rape as the conscious, intentional and willful forcing of sex on a clearly non-consenting person.

And if that is the only rational definition of rape that can possibly be enforced without applying differing standards of legal culpability and differing standards of conduct on people solely based on what reproductive parts they have, then when it comes to rape as a crime, it is ALL ABOUT mens rea. In which case, incidents of unwanted sex based on a woman's consumption of alcohol/drugs or specific scenarios that do not take into account the intent of the "attacker", cannot be described as rape.

Just like a car accident can't be called murder solely because someone died, not every incident of unwanted sex can be characterized as rape.

Yet we do this constantly. When it comes to rape and rape alone, the legal requirement of mens rea as one half of the definition of a crime is utterly ignored, by feminists, by "experts" and, increasingly, by the law--but only when it comes to women and victimhood. And why? To protect women from their own decisions, from their lack of honesty and maturity, and from the consequences of their own irresponsible behavior.

In other words, reduce them to the level of children under the law, incapable of behaving responsibly or standing by their own choices and actions--whether it is a choice to fuck while drunk or the decision to engage in sexual activity while emotionally incapable of uttering the word "no".

How on earth can this not be seen as misogynistic?

How Feminism Hates Women

2011-06-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

Part One: Rape.

It's not that far back on the timeline of civilized human existence that noted feminist writer and anti-pornography activist, Andrea Dworkin penned one of her most controversial works--Intercourse. In it, she posited that sexual intercourse--as influenced by culture, patriarchal oppression and pornography--is "the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women..."

Now don't get me wrong. There are a lot of negatives about pornography, and these negatives play out among both men and women. Body image issues abound, just like they do with any air-brushed, pancake-made-up entertainment industry, the recent trend in genital grooming through bikini and brazilian waxing and even labiaplasty being one, and another evidenced by the plethora of "male enhancement" drug ads that find their way into my spambox. Yet another is humorously addressed in this article at cracked.com, which blandly asserts (correctly) that porn sex isn't "real sex". I've even gone so far as to warn my 16 year-old son that what plays to the camera ain't always what feels good.

And don't get me wrong, I'm willing to admit there are misogynist men out there, and that their misogyny is as likely to express itself through their sexual activities as it is in their speech and public behavior.

However, with respect to Ms. Dworkin's (and other feminists') insistence that porn "trains" men to rape...I can't help but conclude that this theory has been soundly debunked--by none other than the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which reports that rape has been on the decline to the tune of something like 90% since 1979.

Remember, this is an era where porn rocketed out of inaccessible, skeezy XXX theaters and 8mm film reels to become more available than ever, through home VCRs and the internet. This was also a period during which rape shield protections have made it less painful than ever for women to report their rapes, and concurrent with a healthy (or unhealthy, depending on your POV) hook-up culture where more young women are putting themselves in sexual situations with men they hardly know than ever before. And while no one has been able to conclusively prove that the now-universal availability of porn is what's actually put the kibosh on rape, it's hard to give any credence to the predictions of Dworkin et al., who in the 70s forecast nothing but rape rape rape all over the place if men, en masse, were allowed to regularly watch people humping in movies.

But contrary to the findings of our friends at the Bureau of Justice, according to many feminist academics and activists, rape is more rampant than ever. In fact, we're living in a whole culture of rape, if you didn't know. And according to the law, they're right. Because the legal definition of consent has been implacably narrowing and the legal definition of rape broadening--largely due to feminist theory and jurisprudence. It would seem that if a predicted epidemic of rape was not forthcoming, the answer (according to some) was to manufacture one, through criminalization of behaviors that had once been considered both normal and legal.

Drunk sex? That's rape, (depending on what gender you are, of course). Touching your partner in her sleep, even at her request? Sexual assault. Nagging, pestering, whinging and cajoling a woman into sex? RAPE.

One of Ms. Dworkin's most pithy quotes: "Seduction is often difficult to distinguish from rape. In seduction, the rapist often bothers to buy a bottle of wine."

And another: "No woman needs intercourse; few women escape it."

It is no wonder, considering her entire body of work, that many of her critics have accused her of characterizing all heterosexual sex as rape. When seduction is synonymous with rape, and sexual intercourse something women must "escape" from...well, this is a completely reasonable assumption. That Ms. Dworkin hated men ought to be self-evident, and that she worked tirelessly to help build a society that would also hate men is a political position that drips from her every printed word, not least her assertion that "making love" is something one can only truly do when one leaves one's gender at the bedroom door. Judging by her lesbianism and her writings, one can guess which gender she's talking about.

Her war was always a war against maleness, and one that was to be fought on every front, even (perhaps especially) in our beds. Victory would only be achieved through the utter desexifying of sex, the entry of the political into our most intimate relations, a society where someone other than the individuals involved sits in clinical judgment of what politically sanctioned activities you're permitted to engage in to get your rocks off.

And we're on our way there, for sure. At least, this attitude is what the law is beginning to reflect as the state pushes its inexorable way back into our bedrooms.

Now if I was self-absorbed enough, I'd go into detail on how the sex life Ms. Dworkin and the law approve of is patently not the sex life I want. A sex life of my partner asking my permission at every escalation of a sexual encounter, a sex life of sweet, tender reverence on the part of whatever man I'm with, a sex life where gender remains outside the bedroom door, a sex life where fucking doesn't happen, a sex life of always being asked and never told, always having to give and never being taken.

But that's an argument for another day. Today, I'm going to try to explain a few ways feminist discourse and activism with respect to the problem of rape, harms women. The first lies in feminist academia's arbitrary and dismissive attitude toward women's actual experiences to further their agenda of manufacturing a rape epidemic.

Yes, you heard me. Feminist academics dismiss the experiences and perceptions of women. Let's examine one of the most frequently cited studies on rape--the 1985 Ms. Magazine study authored by Mary Koss, which determined, based on a random sample of three thousand, that 1 in 4 college-aged women in the US have been victims of rape or attempted rape. In a paper published three years prior to this study, she characterized rape as "an extreme behavior but one that is on a continuum with normal male behavior within the culture". In other words, rape is not a deviate behavior of certain individuals, but in its essence, just another "normal" expression of male sexuality. Like our late friend Ms. Dworkin, Ms. Koss subscribes to the belief that maleness is not only the root of all rape, but that maleness is synonymous with rape.

In the study, rape was defined as nonconsensual "penetration by a finger, penis or other object." This is an extremely broad definition of rape to begin with--penetration by a finger? Seriously? In addition, the wording of question 8 (the drug/alcohol question), which was responsible for roughly half the findings of rape, was ambiguous to the point of absurdity, something Koss later admitted when pressed by reporters.

But it gets better. Because of all the women determined to have been raped, only 27% considered themselves to be rape victims. Yes, that's right. It was the surveyors, not the respondents, who decided who had been raped and who hadn't.

When corrected for these discrepancies, the number of women in the study who were victims of rape or attempted rape drops to about 1 in 22. Still unacceptable--especially if you're woman #22--but one thing that number won't do is get you all kinds of nationwide press.

Another study done in 1992, by Dr. Dean Kilpatrick, found that 1 in 8 women in America would be the victim of forcible rape at least once in her lifetime. Which is pretty scary, especially for the hordes of women who opted not to enrol in post-secondary education, believing it would keep them safe from all those rampant campus rapists.

In order to avoid the uncomfortable conflict that arose in Koss's study, where victims of rape were apparently in the dark as to the fact they'd been raped (how awkward!), Kilpatrick thought it prudent to omit the question altogether. Yes, you heard me. In a study of how many women have been raped, he didn't think "Have you ever been a victim of rape?" was a pertinent enough question to include in the 35 minute telephone interview. When pressed by reporters from a small, award-winning investigative newspaper, as to why he'd omitted the question in his million-dollar study, his reply was, "If people think that is a key question, let them get their own grant and do their own study."

Except guess what? He'd already done that study--one where he'd explicitly asked respondents whether they had, indeed, been raped. And the number he arrived at? Coincidence of coincidences: 1 in 20. You'll understand how that study didn't land him a spot in Time magazine, whereas his super-scary 1992 study based on the Koss/Ms methodology made him a feminist household name.

Which brings me to the second way feminism's approach to rape harms women: Feminism wants women to believe that rape is so prevalent as to be virtually inevitable. To paraphrase Ms. Dworkin: "No woman needs [rape]; few escape it."

Why would feminism want women to be more afraid than they have to be, if not to pit women against men--potential victims against potential rapists--and to characterize the entirety of male sexuality as a pathology to be cured? That Koss herself posited that rape lay on a "continuum of normal male behavior" tells me that according to her, male sexuality is like cancer--"normal male sexuality" characterized as stage 1, and rape as stage 4, the only difference being the degree of harm done.

That feminism does not apply the same reasoning to deviant female sexual behaviors is telling. Women who commit sexual abuse of children, or who prey on adolescent boys are characterized as victims of patriarchy--the slave who turns herself into her oppressor in self-defence--their deviant behavior thus segregated from [pure, vaunted, innocuous, admirable] female sexuality and tossed into the male camp, where predatory behavior, domination, abuse and rape are all par for the course. Women who rape other women? Acting out the misogyny they've internalized through patriarchal oppression. Women who rape men? They don't exist.

What does all this mean for the average woman? It means confusion, conflict and fear. It means many women walking around afraid of all men, feeling like victims before they are even victimized. It means many women developing a creeping self-hate if they discover a little of the spanky-spanky in bed gets them wet. It means many women being terrified of something that is a lot less likely to happen to them than they've been led to believe. Not because of reality, but because of the feminist theory and activism that has essentially lied to them.

But this is hardly the end of it, because even many sensible pundits still characterize rape as a "uniquely horrible crime", and I've often wondered why that is. What makes rape--absent of any aggravating factors, the simple act of being subjected to nonconsensual sex--"uniquely horrible" when compared to, say, being stabbed, or beaten, or taken hostage, or any number of other forms of assault and violation of our bodily autonomy. What is it that makes us as a society characterize rape as a crime so bad only murder would be worse?

If any of you all have read my piece on slut-shaming and feminism, you'll know I believe rape continues to be viewed as uniquely horrible because of a conflict between sexual liberation and a Victorian view of female sexual honor as a woman's primary asset in life, one without which she is nothing. Back in 1850, the shame and personal devaluation a woman suffered when her sexual honor was gone was very practical and very concrete, and the consequences to her future absolutely dire. It hardly mattered whether her honor was taken by rape or because she had consented to sex. Either way, she had no further value as a woman.

But now, in the 2010s, there is no logical reason for any woman to feel ashamed or devalued as a woman because the "sanctity" of her sexuality was violated--because women's sexuality is no longer considered sacred, and the concept of sexual honor no longer exists in any practical way. Considering how society's views on women who have sex outside of marriage, and of women's value as more than wives and mothers, have changed, a woman's feelings of fear, trauma, violation and victimization associated with rape ought to be similar to those associated with any other form of assault. There is no logical place for shame and loss of self-worth in a world where there is no shame in a woman having sex, and no real-world value placed on her sexual virtue.

Yet this reaction to rape--a reaction that is very real to many women, despite the fact that it has no logical basis--has been allowed to dominate the entire public discourse on rape. In much the same way as discussions concerning routine infant male circumcision are often constrained by requests to speak less frankly out of consideration for the feelings of men who were circumcised as babies, conversations about rape are constrained by demands that everyone walk on eggshells, and that women who "got over" being raped be silent lest we make women who were more damaged by their rapes feel even worse. The result is that when discussing rape and how it effects women, the only permissible dialogue is one of shame, terror and human devaluation. Any frank, open, honest or questioning voices are told to be quiet.

And the fact that this dialogue is reinforced time and again through popular culture's portrayal of rape as both psychologically destroying and sexually shameful for women... it's as if feminism and popular culture not only want women to feel rape is virtually inevitable, something that is bound to happen to them, but that it is, indeed, the worst possible thing that could ever happen to them, that it is so horrendous an assault that it literally must change the way a woman sees herself and her value to humanity, and that she does indeed have something to be ashamed of if she is raped.

Which seems like a horribly cruel thing to do to women. But in radical, modern feminism's war on male sexuality, the women harmed by this deceit and emotional manipulation are merely collateral damage, pawns in the political game, and well worth the sacrifice.

It's time to grow up, ladies

2011-06-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

I talk a lot about agency, though I often refer to it as "owning your shit". It's been my experience that life is a lot happier when a person has a sense of real agency, when they acknowledge the cause/effect nature of existence, and when they feel as if they directly affect what happens to them.

Some examples of peoples, both throughout history and in modern times, who lack and have lacked agency? Um...slaves. Peasants. Serfs. Plebes. Refugees. The impoverished. A lot of women in a lot of places in the world. And a lot of men, too.

Agency is important in order to feel like a self-actualized human being. Agency is what gets you all pumped up and proud when you made a sweet day trade and earned a cool $4000 in a few hours, because you are just that awesome. Agency is what also prevents you from blaming it entirely on the market, that idiot friend of yours who emailed you the stock tip, or asshole bankers if you lost money on the deal. Because dude, you're the one who bought the stocks, right? Nobody made you do it. And if you sank your life savings into it, well, the buck stops with you once your spouse finds out.

Agency is a double-edged sword. It isn't just about the right to succeed on your own merits. It's about the right to fuck up on them, too.

It requires individual liberty and individual power, as well as personal responsibility and accountability. It's not just the means to make your life kick-ass largely through your own talent and effort, it's the opportunity to fuck everything up and be stuck owning the steaming pile of crap that results. Whether it's a four-poster with tulle trim and Egyptian cotton sheets or a urine-soaked cot, you made the bed and you lie in it. Agency is being able to claim credit for your accomplishments, and agency is accepting blame for your failures. And for much of history, ordinary men didn't have it any more than women did, because for ordinary anyone, individual everything was constrained by social norms, economic reality, and very limited rights and freedoms.

Take sexual agency. This is something everyone wants, and something most of us believe men have always had, but let's examine the dynamics minutely:

1) Sexual Power--or the "goods".

Might surprise you all to hear that this is something women have always had. In fact, for many women throughout history, it was the only power they ever had, and it's always been rooted in their ability to bear children. In both social and evolutionary terms, sperm are cheap and plentiful, and eggs are scarce and expensive. An ejaculation is worth nothing unless it can find an adequate rental space to set up operations. As with anything in real estate, it's all about location, location, location. If men wanted to procreate in any socially acceptable way and have anything to do with their offspring, they had to get married. Women could be very choosy when selecting to whom they wanted to rent their uterus, and they still can.

It might also surprise you all to hear that sexual power is and has always been the weakest aspect of male sexuality. I understand, this does not jive with our collective cultural images of Matthew McConaughey, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and George Clooney all hanging out together drinking martinis, looking sexy and suave, and tripping over all the ladies who are dying to fuck them. News flash for you, girls. Most men are not Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Most men aren't even Steve Buscemi. They're Steve Buscemi without Steve Buscemi's fame, talent or money.

The difference between male and female sexual power is perfectly illustrated by this little clip.

2) Sexual Liberty--or the right to make decisions concerning your own sexuality.

Up until recently, only men had this option without risk of public shame and censure, and only if they were straight. This was because female sexuality was seen as a commodity, a woman's primary asset in life, and she was not to be trusted to make sound decisions concerning it. Her hymen went to her husband, and her fidelity was paramount within marriage, because in the days before DNA testing, the only assurance a man had that the kids he was hauling coal or digging post-holes to support were his was the fidelity of his wife. And while there have always been women who exercised a similar level of the sexual liberty allowed to men, they were women of disrepute, and unsuitable for marriage. Only those with sufficient wealth and social status in their own right could get away with such behavior and still hold their heads up in polite society, let alone hope to find a man willing to put his trust in them.

A man's peccadilloes were no one's business but his own, since he could easily assure his wife that her children were, indeed, her own. Of course, most men were more like Steve Buscemi than George Clooney, and the wife and legitimate kids had first dibs on whatever resources he had. So the number of men who even had the wherewithal to stray to any degree were pretty damn few. As you can imagine, though men may have had the freedom to dip their wicks wherever they wished, the majority of them had pretty much no real opportunity to do so without forking over a spare tuppence in exchange for services rendered. The only men with any meaningful sexual freedom were the wealthy rakes of historical romance novels.

3) Personal Sexual Responsibility--or guarding the treasure.

Men, by and large, have always been sexually responsible. Not only for themselves, but for their sisters, mothers, daughters, wives and to a large degree, any respectable woman they came across. For every cad who would dare to rape a woman, there were a dozen or more who would rescue her from his evil clutches. Men were just as aware of the rules of polite society as women were. While dressing to attract sexual attention has always been de rigueur for women, men were expected to restrain themselves at all time. They did so not out of concern for themselves, because they had no sexual treasure to guard, remember? Sperm are a dime a dozen--it's the eggs and uterus that are worth a fortune. Therefor there was no shame in being a womanizing rake, if one could actually manage it. Men restrained themselves out of concern for "decent women", and what decent women were worth to society. Decent women had a treasure to guard, and it was everyone's responsibility to help guard it. Rape was the direst crime a man could commit, because it was a crime against the warp and weft of the entire social fabric--a crime against man, woman and marriage itself.

Women who were not decent, those of disrepute? They were on their own. They had sexual liberty, but in exchange for it, they gave up any semblance of a traditional life, and the protection of society. No reasonable man would go running to defend her honor, because she had none. Nor did society see much point in protecting a woman's sexual value if she herself cared nothing about it.

Single, respectable women? Their only responsibility was to never do anything to bring their virtue into question. The circumstances under which they were permitted to interact with the world were very constrained--out of necessity--and the rules crystal clear. She need not exercise any form of personal, subjective judgment. The rules were such that no judgment was ever required, and as a result, in some cases the first moment a couple found themselves alone together was in their marriage bed. The higher social status the woman, the more valuable her virtue and the more closely it was guarded by everyone. An indiscretion could destroy a woman's prospects of marriage. A rape? Complete and utter social ruin for her, and often death by vigilante justice for the rapist. Rape was a crime against a woman's family, against her present or future husband, and against society--of all the injured parties the wronged woman was considered the least important of the aggrieved. If she and her parents were very lucky, the rapist was of reasonable social status and unattached and the rape not public knowledge, at which point they'd run him to the altar with a shotgun so that everyone in question could save face. And you thought rape victims were "punished" by society now, didn't you?

4) Sexual accountability--or "You break it, you bought it."

Ordinary men have always been stuck with it. Rich men could buy their way out of it, if need be. It wasn't that long ago in the grand scheme of things that a man who "got an unmarried girl pregnant" (as if he was the only one involved in said impregnation) was expected to step up, "do the right thing" and take responsibility for his transgression. Actual really and for true forcible rape? You know that dude is doing time, if the crime could be proved.

Because of the strict social mores that had, up until the sexual revolution, dictated, controlled and repressed sexual interactions between men and women, and because of outdated notions that a "fallen woman's" honor deserved no protection at all, women often faced an uphill legal battle if there was any indication she'd "misbehaved" in any way prior to the assault. Victim-blaming? Certainly. But a very great deal of the attitude behind it, IMO, was an outmoded thought process that still exists in many, many, many women today--that the sexual purity of a woman (at least in a traumatic situation such as rape) is a thing of great importance to her, to her future husband, and to society. And if a woman held that purity to be of no value--if she'd given it away willy nilly--there was no virtue for anyone to defend. It was not so much that a man had some right to rape a woman who dressed slutty or had slept with a lot of people, it was that the practical, real world value of her sexual purity was gone. A man who raped a slut was like a man who'd stolen the equivalent of a chocolate bar, not one who'd robbed someone of their entire life savings. Still a crime? Sure. A crime against man, woman and society? Not so much.

Women used to have sexual accountability, but it was expressed in very specific ways. And it wasn't much fun. Just think of that woman from the 1700s who'd been forced by her family to marry the man who'd raped her, and you'll get what I'm saying. The consequences she'd pay if she'd brought her dishonor on herself in any way? Absolutely life-destroying. A woman who'd put herself in a position where rape could occur was a woman whose behavior couldn't be trusted. At best, she might be foolish enough to do it again. At worst, she'd done it on purpose and her "rape" was actually consensual sex, in which case, she really couldn't be trusted.

I used to believe men had sexual agency, and perhaps a small subset of men--those who are/were the most sexually attractive--actually did and do. But remember, agency requires four ingredients: power, liberty, responsibility and accountability. For most men before the sexual revolution, the constraints of society and practical reality prevented sexual agency. And even now...well, the power to get laid when one desires it is not one that men possess as a class.

One of the few things that help ordinary men make up for their lack of sexual power is the healthy self-love lives they tend to unashamedly enjoy. Porn and masturbation are poor substitutes for real agency, but any port in a storm, right?

Men as a class were also missing another of the crucial ingredients: sexual liberty.

What's this, you say? But men have ALL the sexual liberty one could want! They always have. Except they don't--because liberty is worth nothing if one cannot exercise it. Men may be technically free to make any sexual decision they wish, to be studs without shame, but practical reality is another thing altogether. And for the Steve Buscemis of the world, sexual liberty often equates to the "freedom" to be repeatedly sexually rejected and to take solace in one's right hand. This has always been the case, and may always be the case.

Responsibility, on the other hand? And accountability? Men have those in spades, even more so today, because they're now held accountable for decisions that are not even their own. In the face of completely unrestrained female sexuality, men are expected to restrain themselves, and as unfair as this burden really is, the vast majority of men do it. That reports of rape have decreased by ~90% over the last 30 years is a testament to male sexual responsibility. Still, men are considered responsible, as a class, for the existence of rape, they are considered responsible as a class for eliminating it, are considered responsible for keeping their hands to themselves, their eyes on her face, never expressing interest that might be unwanted, and for saying "no" for both parties in many situations, even if a given woman is screaming "yes!"

And men are absolutely held accountable for their sexual decisions. There are teenage boys paying child support to the teachers who raped them. Slept with a drunk woman--even if you were also drunk? You've just raped her...maybe. I think. If she decides that's what happened to her, anyway. Conversely, if he feels violated by a woman--if he wakes up next to Alice the Goon with vague memories of the unprotected sex she pressured him into while HE was plastered? He's expected to stand by his drunken "yes", no matter how long a shower he needs to feel clean again, and just pray he didn't get her knocked up, because if he did, hello 18 years of child support payments.

Way back when, the question men asked themselves during the dance of courtship was, "Is her no really a no?" Now, he has to ask himself, "Is her yes going to stick?" There are men in prison right now for having consensual sex with their long term partners, because a woman's "yes" didn't stick when things got bumpy in the relationship.

A man's accountability for "ruining" a woman by getting her pregnant used to be an expectation of marriage, and she was expected to go along with the plan to restore her virtue. This has gone out the window. A man's accountability today--child support--is one that does not limit a woman's sexual liberty, though when you consider how important material success is to a man's sexual attractiveness, it certainly limits his.

If that's not sexual accountability for men, I don't know what is. He is considered the master of ceremonies, completely responsible for keeping all parties safe, happy and unregretful during sex, expected to never miss a red light even if it's actually green, and to stand by the consequences of his own "yes" even if he was coerced into sex, preyed on as an adolescent by an adult woman, or incoherently drunk.

Women, on the other hand...if anything, women have less agency now than they did before the sexual revolution. While before, they had a balance of all four aspects that was grossly restricted by the rules of society, right now, they have but two--liberty and power. The other edge of the sword is something they seem much more reluctant to embrace.

Well, ladies, I think it might be time for us as a gender to start growing up. Get some agency, because women are fortunate enough that sexual agency is actually possible for most of us, if we want it. But in order to have it, we have to acknowledge some fundamental issues we have.

Sexual liberty has always been a risky endeavor for men (just ask that Weiner dude, or Arnie, or any number of other men who've ended up fucking themselves over because of sex), and it's time for us to acknowledge that it is a risky endeavor for us, too. Sexual liberty can never be inherently "safe", because sex itself is not inherently "safe". Sex is gritty and it's intense and it's wild and it's fraught with all kinds of emotional and hormonal confusion and upheaval, before, during and after. Moreover, it has consequences, some of which we might not like, and some of which burden us more than men.

I hear all the time about how important it is for a man (never a woman, always a man) to make sure his partner is consenting. That many women don't actually have the wherewithal to say no, but that doesn't mean they're consenting. Women used to be expected to play a part in safeguarding their own virtue by following the rules of society and by saying "no" to, or resisting unwanted sex. Now? Nope. A woman who is in a man's bedroom, naked in his bed, is no longer even held responsible to tell him to stop if she wants him to stop. The onus for ensuring everyone really is into it is entirely on the man, even if it means reading her mind. And if both of them are drunk? Yup, he's still held responsible for saying no for both of them, even if she's saying yes.

Number one: some of us like drunk sex. Some of us think that a few of you girls out there are ruining it for the rest of us. There is no excuse for any man to have sex with someone who's passed out, or puking drunk, or incoherent (or for a woman to do it, either). But there's a lot of leeway between being drunk and being incapacitated, and if we expect people to drink responsibly when it comes to driving, we should at least be able to expect them--even women--to drink responsibly when it comes to sex. And if you don't think you should be held responsible for your sexual actions while drunk--that is, if your yes shouldn't be considered a yes--then WHY are men supposed to behave any more responsibly when they're drunk. We have a society that says a drunk man who rapes someone is still a rapist, but a drunk woman who said yes to sex can't be held to her "yes". Why? Because she's a woman and he's a man, so he should behave more responsibly? Are women babies now?

Number 2: ladies, please. If you do not have the sexual confidence and maturity to utter the word "stop" when you are lying naked in a man's bed after choosing to climb into it, then you had absolutely NO business climbing into it in the first place. Seriously. You've spent all evening moving from "maybe" to "I think so" to "probably" to "most likely" to "almost definitely" to "practically guaranteed" to "score!", moving out of the public eye (where you're safe) and into a private space (where I'm sorry, you're not), discarding inhibitions and bits of clothing along the way. The further along this sexual continuum you are, the more momentum has built up, and the more clear your 180 degree "no" needs to be. The closer you've come as a couple to the crease, the more definitive your save has to be if you suddenly decide you don't want the puck in the net.

Moreover, you're an adult. You're allowed to say no.

Moreover, sex is not a one-way street. It's something people share, and the responsibility for sex and for consent, for what does and does not happen wrt sex MUST be shared, too. You're there to have sex, not to have it done to you--you are a part of the entire process.

(Disclaimer: this does not mean that going up to a man's room means he is entitled to sex. What it means if you've repeatedly said "yes", by word or deed, all night, and you agree to go someplace private where you continue with your "yesses", you cannot rely on silence to convey a "no". I cannot stress enough, knowing a little about what turns people on and how they respond physically to stimuli--sex noises and pain noises are very similar, sex noises and pleading noises are very similar, sex faces and pain faces are very similar, women can be physically aroused and orgasm even while they're being raped, and when the momentum's been building all evening and everyone's excited and your body's signals can be so easily misinterpreted, the closer you are to "score!", the more you need to SAY SOMETHING if you've changed your mind. It is very easy to convey our "yesses" through our actions, but men AND women misinterpret those signals all the time. And if a guy misses those signals, well, no harm done, right? A "no", however, is a signal you do not want him to miss, and you have a responsibility to both of you to ensure he doesn't. Do you see how that works?)

Number 3: one of the things women absolutely MUST do is stop putting the responsibility on everyone else to safeguard our sexuality. It is not society's or men's responsibility anymore. We threw the rules that allowed society and men to safeguard our sexuality out the window, didn't we? Expecting men and society to do that job now is like expecting this guy to get this guy to the Greek. Which may be doable, but is less than fair. If we don't want unfair social restrictions put on our behavior, we need to be the primary agents in our sex lives and stop putting an unfair burden on everyone else to keep us safe from harm. Taking charge of our sex lives means taking responsibility for them, even when we don't like where our decisions lead us.

If we want people to stop judging us by the state of our sexual purity, we need to stop doing the same damn thing. Because the difference between a slut and a stud isn't just what James Jeffries so aptly put in his little bit of stand-up (sit-down?) comedy I linked to above. Another difference is that we, as women, still consider our sexuality to be sacrosanct in many ways, rather than a practical aspect of our lives and identities. This conflict of belief is no more apparent than in the insistence of women as a group that, "It's only sex. I'm not just my body, and how many men I've had sex with has nothing to do with my value as a person, and I can sleep with whomever I want because it's just sex, and how dare you shame me for being a sexual person!" because the moment a woman is raped, groped, or even stared at, we see just how deeply women as a whole truly believe their own rhetoric.

If women want society to place no special value on a woman's sexual purity as a function of her self-worth, they need to...well, grow up and stop placing special value on it themselves in the context of unwanted sexual attention. That rape is a crime and should be treated as such, I have absolutely no problem with. But that rape is still treated as an "extra-special, super-crime against the 'sanctity' of a woman's body, the worst violation ever, and one that should be treated differently than other crimes because it brings shame and a loss of self-worth to victims"? This is backward thinking in any sexually liberated society.

How individual victims feel after an assault varies widely, and yes, for many there are feelings of shame and devaluation as women. But right now, today, there is only one socially acceptable way for even women to feel about rape. Shame colors the entire public discourse on it. Frank discussion is routinely silenced out of a need to spare feelings, policies are in place that, while necessary to encourage victims to come forward, cannot help but reinforce the cultural notion that being raped is something a woman is supposed to feel ashamed about, and that it somehow diminishes her value as a woman.

As a matter of public and legal policy, we need to eventually pick one or the other, ladies, and stop insisting on having it both ways. Either a woman's sexuality is sacred or it's not. If having sex with a dozen men is nothing for you to be ashamed of and has nothing to do with your worth as a person, then being forced into having sex against your will--someone else's bad act, and one you had no choice in!--is really nothing for you to be ashamed of and nothing to do with your worth as a person. It's a violation of your bodily autonomy, a crime committed against you, and wrong wrong wrong. That it is often horribly traumatic and can kill a woman's trust in men and the world is perfectly understandable, for sure, just like any assault can. But an act of forced or coerced sex is nothing for YOU to feel ashamed about unless you're the one doing the forcing, and it's nothing that remotely--in any objective sense--diminishes your value as a woman and a human being. We're supposed to be more than sexual objects now, right?

There is nothing I would like more than for women as a group to reach a day when the most common reaction of a victim to being raped is: "I'm not just a body. I'm a sexual agent, not a sexual object, and my virtue and value as a person does not live between my legs. You took sex from me, but you didn't take my self-esteem or my value as a human being or a woman. You had no right to do what you did, but I'm not the one who did anything to be ashamed of, so I fucking refuse to feel ashamed. No piece of shit rapist gets to tell ME how to feel about myself. And now you get to sit in jail and think about that while I get on with my life, asshole."

But how are we to get there if we as a group don't start to own our own sex lives--our power, our liberty, our responsibility and the consequences of what we do.

Number 4: we need to start growing up and flexing our sexual muscle responsibly. Anyone who's been to see the strippers on ladies' night vs men's night and observes the behavior of the crowd will realize that men are held to a completely different standard of sexual responsibility and restraint than women are. What on earth makes any woman feel entitled to put her hands on a man in a way she would not tolerate someone putting their hands on her? I don't care how much you've had to drink. If you expect everyone to respect your bodily and sexual autonomy, you need to start respecting that of others' to the same degree. Because at the moment, women routinely get away with sexual misconduct, sexual assault and even rape, because no one is holding them to any kind of standard of behavior when it comes to other people.

This gender dichotomy is beautifully illustrated in THIS study, that determined forced and coerced sex among heterosexual couples was almost equal for both genders. How many of us, men and woman both, would consider a woman pushing sex on her partner as "asserting her needs and getting what she wants" while at the same time deeming the men in the study to be guilty of "spousal rape"? Likewise, that a sex therapist who dares to say "I've always said women have a right to say no, but men and women should think about the impact of rejection on their partners, and some may choose to say yes a little more often,'' could spark a feminist protest characterizing her as a supporter of spousal rape is also telling.

You as women have no more right to force yourselves on men as they do on you. You have no right to yell "hubba hubba" if you're going to get up in arms about whistles or catcalls directed your way. You cannot characterize viewing porn as "empowering" for women while judging it to be "creepy" when men do the same thing. You cannot feel entitled to grope a male stripper if you're going to get all offended at the idea of being groped yourself, or insist that female strippers are exploited because men dare to look at them.

Number 5: ladies, please oh please, take some responsibility for the quality your sex lives! I was talking to a young woman at work not long ago. She'd come to me to ask if, as one of the young male employees had informed her, her boyfriend actually masturbated.

Me: How old is he?

Her: 21.

Me: Oh yeah. He masturbates.

Her: OMG, that is so gross! No he doesn't!

Me: Sorry to burst your bubble.

Her: But we have sex every day! Why would he masturbate?

Me: Because he can, yo.

Her, making gagging noises: Ewwww! How often does he DO that?

Me: If he's like most guys his age, every day. Maybe more than once.

Her: That's so disgusting! I would NEVER do that!

Me: Why not? It's your body, you have every right to touch it any way you want. Besides, if you've never figured out how your own buttons work, how can you let your boyfriend know what you like?

Her, blinking: Well, he's just supposed to know.

Um...okay. That a young woman in today's supposedly sexually liberated society can still consider masturbating a disgusting act she would never, ever engage in, that she is still placing the entire onus for her sexual pleasure on whatever man she's with...this only illustrates how conflicted women still are about sex and their own sexual agency.

The sexual revolution means we're all playing by different rules. This is a very difficult transition we are facing as a society, and women need to take some responsibility for where it's all headed. We're the ones who tossed the old handbook out the window, and we're largely writing the new one. In doing so, we've made the rules for men contradictory, unjustly onerous and insanely confusing...and for ourselves? Well, there are no rules for us, apparently.

We've reduced men's role in our collective sexuality to a mad scramble to get us all safely to the Greek, or else, no matter how out of control we are, and that's something that seriously needs to change.

Rape and Slut-Shaming: Feminism's Biggest Hypocrisy

2011-06-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

Let's play a little game I remember from watching Sesame Street as a kid. It's called One of These Things is Not Like the Others:

"Just moved into a bad neighborhood? Invest in a good lock, and use it. Wouldn't hurt to get a dog or install a security system, either."

Wow, great advice, thanks.

"Want a nice stereo for your car? Think about getting one you can remove from the dashboard and take with you when you park your car. And don't forget to stow any valuables out of sight."

Good idea.

"Cars these days have chips installed in the ignition keys. They're super-expensive to replace, but the car won't start without it--a great theft deterrent."

$50 well spent, in my opinion, if it means my car will stay where I left it.

"Heading to the convenience store at night? Those places usually have lots of windows for a reason--it's a good idea to check out who's inside and what they're up to before you go in. Better to err on the side of caution than end up walking in on the middle of a robbery in progress."

Hey, I never really thought about that, but it sounds smart.

"Same goes for using an ATM--always check out who's hanging around, and once you've got your money, stow it and move along ASAP."

Oh, totally.

"Drive defensively. There are plenty of crappy drivers around, not to mention drunks. You don't just want to avoid causing an accident, you want to avoid being involved in one someone else causes."

You're right.

"Phishing scams are big money for fraud artists these days. No matter how legit an email looks, never give out personal info, or use the provided link to do it--always log into your bank's website or your paypal account the usual way."

Only common sense.

"Never buzz someone you don't know into your building. Not even if they claim to be a resident who's lost his keys--if he is, he can contact the landlord."

Yeah, no need to make it easy for burglars to get into the building.

"Oh, and if you want to avoid being raped, you should not dress like a slut. Especially if you're going to a party and there's going to be guys and drinking or drugs. I know you want male attention, but when you seek it out by dressing a certain way, you're can't control whose attention you're attracting--rapists or decent guys."

OMG! You slut-shaming, victim-blaming pig! How dare you tell me how to dress? You should be telling men not to rape women! How a woman dresses has NOTHING to do with rape! Little old ladies get raped! Rape is about power, not sex! I can dress however I want and I should be able to be safe from rape! Telling women they should behave in certain ways to prevent their own rapes is like saying that getting raped is their fault!!! Are you saying if I wear a short skirt I was asking for it??!!! ARE YOU!!???

Did you all spot it? If you need to go back and read through it again, go ahead, I'll wait. If you need help figuring it out (many women seem to need help understanding this kind of thing), all of the quoted bits in blue are advice you might get from a parent, a concerned friend or the police on steps that you, as an individual, can take to minimize your risks becoming a victim of a crime or catastrophe. The typical reactions to this advice are in red.

See it now? No matter what the crime is--whether it's burglary, robbery, fraud, theft, mugging, drunk driving, or sexual assault--there are measures an individual can take to minimize their risk of being victimized. Not only are people willing to spend money on security measures to protect their valuables, they take no offense when concerned individuals educate them on how to avoid being targeted by criminals, or how to make themselves crime-proof enough that a criminal will choose someone else.

Except rape. A woman who reacts benignly at the suggestion that she not walk alone at night in a certain neighborhood to avoid being mugged will often rail against any suggestion that she enact the exact same cautionary measures in order to avoid being raped. She'll insist that any suggestion that she act in the interests of her own safety when it comes to sex crimes is tantamount to blaming victims and shaming sluts. While she can reconcile the notion that locking your doors does not make a burglar any less a criminal, while she can understand that recommending people protect their property will not encourage society to stop taking burglary seriously or place any blame on victims of burglary if they slip up and forget to turn the deadbolt...when it's rape? Don't anyone even hint that women could take steps to minimize their risks, because that's blaming victims in advance for being raped.

Whaaaa??

So why does this bizarre logical disconnect exist in women? Why do we, as a society, treat rape as a "special crime", one that requires extra-sensitive dialogue, tiptoeing around reality, and an acceptance that the entire onus for preventing rape be placed on rapists, bystanders, popular culture, movies, comedians, and pretty much everyone other than potential rape victims?

The slut-walk, an exercise in pointless bullshit and the dumbest protest ever, tells you everything you need to know. Hordes of mostly young, mostly white, mostly middle class women marched in anger over the slut-shaming, victim-blaming mentality of a Toronto police officer who had the audacity to suggest that women who dress provocatively are at a greater risk of rape. Granted, his wording was tactless and overly blunt, but the knee-jerk reaction to it was telling indeed. The problem feminists seem unable to grasp, however, is that the march itself--as a response to rape-prevention advice--represents one of the deepest hypocrisies of feminism:

The idea that rape is the most horrible, despicable violation anyone can commit against a woman, but that women should never be shamed for being promiscuous.

Think about it. Suspend your emotional center for a moment and read the following with the most logical frame of mind you can muster.

Rape is the unwanted and forcible version of an act women by the millions happily consent to every day under other circumstances. In ~80% of cases rape involves only as much violence as is necessary for a rapist to subdue his victim, and the majority of the time does not result in serious physical injury. Barring the rare severe injury, and the even rarer death, rape's long-term physical consequences (pregnancy and STDs) are largely mitigated by modern medicine.

Yet rape is seen as a greater violation of a woman's bodily autonomy than being severely beaten, which is horrible and a crime no matter who's doing it to you, can lead to life-changing physical consequences like broken bones, spinal cord injuries, paralysis, brain injury, months or years of physical therapy, and, well, serious risk of death.

Why?

Because despite the sexual revolution and despite (and because of) feminism, when it comes to rape women are still living in the 1850s, when Victorian ideals told them that their sexuality was their primary personal asset, and that once it was sullied, most of their value as a human being was gone. Under "patriarchy", a woman's entire virtue lay between her legs, and it went to the first man who stuck his dick there, whether she was willing or not. A women's sexual purity was the responsibility of society, to be protected above life and limb, because a soiled woman was worthless. Therefore rape was the direst of crimes, and women who gave it away willy-nilly were abhorred, shamed and shunned.

Say what you want about patriarchy, at least it was consistent.

But feminism? I don't think they've thought through their views on the sexual revolution and how they simply cannot be reconciled with the way they wish rape to be seen by society and treated under the law. Because the idea that women who are victims of sex crimes are special, extra-victimy victims and that rape is the worst violation imaginable is rooted in the exact same Victorian morality that slut-shaming is--the idea that a woman's sexual purity is the most important thing she has, and that she becomes valueless once that purity is gone.

Women today may be dipping their toes in the post-sexual-revolution era where a woman's sexuality supposedly has no bearing on her worth as a human being and a woman, where women should be free to explore sex and sexuality however they choose. Yet when it comes to sex without consent, women's other foot is still firmly planted in the fucking 1850s, where a woman's sexual integrity is the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, where rape is the most shameful conceivable violation that can be perpetrated on a woman, and where victims must be treated with kid gloves even before they've been victimized.

And feminism doesn't realize its own hypocrisy on this issue or how much that harms women, or that we can't live in the past and the present at the same time--that treating rape as a "special crime more horrible than any other" is the exact same thing as slut-shaming.

Yeah, you heard me. Treating rape differently than you would treat any other form of assault is the same thing as saying women who sleep around are whores who should be ashamed of themselves and deserve to get treated like shit. Because both of these attitudes tell women their sexual purity is the only part of themselves that's worth a goddamn thing to anyone. If feminism wants to eliminate slut-shaming and open the door for women to be truly liberated in their sexual lives, it needs to treat rape like the simple assault it is rather than a violation of the holiest of holies. It needs to stop perpetuating the notion that half an hour of unwanted sex is in any way worse than being the victim of any other kind of assault. It needs to stop reinforcing the shame victims feel by indulging it with its systemic kid-glove handling of the issues, and allow for frank and open discussion with women as a group, while leaving it to counsellors and therapists rather than society as a whole to help victims reconcile their individual trauma.

Because if feminism is going to force all of society to treat women's sexuality as sacrosanct when they've been sexually assaulted, then society is absolutely justified in shaming women who give that sexuality away to just anyone. Do you see how that works? Doesn't anyone else see how pedestalizing rape survivors as the ultimate victims of the most heinous violation ever only reinforces the notion that a woman is merely a sexual object, whose greatest source of self-worth and most important virtue in the eyes of humanity is...well, the state of her sex? That constantly enshrouding every discussion of rape in a suffocating blanket of shame and violation is only telling rape victims they're right in feeling ashamed when they're assaulted, and justifying the assholes of the world who place women's value as sexual objects above every other aspect of their humanity?

If feminism wants women to be able to freely express and explore their sexuality, without shame, in the liberated 2010s, it needs to stop treating women like it's 1850 the moment they've been raped.

Good men, raw deal

2011-05-30T00:51:00.000-07:00

In my travels through the opinionated world of gender issue discussions, I often find myself feeling like a lone voice of female sanity in a wilderness of willful delusion. This delusion can take forms so elaborate and obtuse in nature, I can only wonder at the mental energy it takes to painstakingly invent convoluted theories and rationalizations for the sole purpose of not having to look at a simple and obvious truth.

It is this pathological need to circumnavigate the truth when truth interferes with belief that led feminist academia--when presented with solid evidence that women in abusive relationships are more likely to hit first than not--to apply bizarre and groundless contexts to women's potential for violence. Contexts such as, "Women hit first because they're defusing his rage before it reaches homicidal proportions," or, "Hitting first is a battered woman's way of asserting some control over her husband's abuse." That learned men and women would disregard the actual research subjects' far simpler and saner interpretations of their own violence--that sometimes women can be assholes and sometimes assholes hit people--says something about the human mind's ability to erect screens of ideology between its beliefs and reality.

My boyfriend is fond of telling me that no matter what people do, the most cynical interpretation of their actions is almost always correct.

I'm a bit of a cynic myself, but I prefer to believe that it is the simplest interpretation that is the correct one most of the time.

Which brings me to Kay Hymowitz and her recent WSJ piece, "Where Have the Good Men Gone?" From the top of the article, Ms. Hymowitz sneers at the readership, a modern day Xena, only without the sex appeal of long, flowing hair and a leather bustier, as she presents her perspective on a new demographic of males in North America: The Guy. Used to be, she claims, there were boys and there were men, so where have all these "guys" come from, why are they here, and why are they refusing to grow all the way up, settle down, and become husbands and fathers?

She presents rationalization after theory after speculation as to who these "guys" are, and what they hope to gain by paying their own bills, hanging with their buddies in their bachelor pads, drinking beer, hooking up and playing Xbox.

Part of the problem, she says, is the modern focus on education. Only recently--since the 1980s--has an education translated to drastic increase in earning potential for almost anyone. A higher education increases the likelihood of putting off "serious adult business" like marriage and kids until school is done, student loans are paid, and that earning potential has offset the required educational investment.

Yet at the same time, she lauds women's ability to finish school and get serious about adulthood--start wanting marriage and kids--much sooner than young men. So if women are growing up despite putting years into post-secondary degrees--which is a much more novel circumstance, in the timeline of recent history, for women than for men--why do guys choose to stagnate in a post-adolescent, not-quite-adult purgatory?

She also claims the nature of the labor market has changed our primary and secondary roles as human beings. We've moved into a phase of history where we define ourselves by our careers more than ever before. Where before we were man/woman, husband/wife, father/mother first and our careers served those roles, career now comes first, and the rest of it...well, what's the hurry? "For today's pre-adults, "what you do" is almost synonymous with "who you are," and starting a family is seldom part of the picture," she says.

So why is it that women, even those with exciting and fulfilling careers, don't seem to have any difficulty contemplating the whole "family thing", and putting energy into seeking it out, while men linger in that limbo between boyhood and manhood in ever greater numbers, disappointing legions of young women who are ready to settle down?

It's a shift in society starting in the mid-20th century, Hymowitz continues, when American teenagers started going to high schools rather than factories and fields. Adolescence arose as a distinct demographic during this period (apparently, we used to turn from children into adults overnight, once our odometers turned over and we embarked on working life). Between longer stints in school, and the influences of popular culture and modern marketing (Friends, Axe body spray, beer commercials, Seinfeld) that aim to keep young men and women spending money on cool shit rather than on diapers and college funds for the yung'uns, it is no wonder, she claims, that young men are confused about their roles in life. While mom and dad might be pushing you to settle the fuck down and get serious and start a damn family already, the changing culture is telling you to stay single, engage in sarcastic and witty repartee in half hour increments, drink beer, and slather yourself with cheap cologne in hope of attracting a hook-up. And these poor, pathetic not-quite-men have been doing it for so long, they've lost sight of the "real and admirable" goal of marriage and family...they get so busy and are having so much fun, they just kind of forget about adulthood.

But if men's roles have changed since the "settle down and start a family" days of the 1950s, women's have REALLY changed--no longer is wifehood and motherhood their primary and best option. They have careers, independence, freedoms that their grandmothers never had...so why are only men having a hard time with this whole growing up business? She then goes on to characterize a last-ditch, reactionary abandonment of family life by women, or an embracing of single motherhood via sperm donation, as rational, reasonable and viable alternatives for today's woman.

She finishes her article on a flourish of cynical misandry:

Relatively affluent, free of family responsibilities, and entertained by an array of media devoted to his every pleasure, the single young man can live in pig heaven—and often does. Women put up with him for a while, but then in fear and disgust either give up on any idea of a husband and kids or just go to a sperm bank and get the DNA without the troublesome man. But these rational choices on the part of women only serve to legitimize men's attachment to the sand box. Why should they grow up? No one needs them anyway.There's nothing they have to do.

They might as well just have another beer.

The one thing she does not do, however, is examine in any way women's roles in this debacle, or the drastic and terrifying changes in the nature of marriage and husband-and-fatherhood since the first half of the 20th century. Nope. Not relevant. If men aren't making a mad dash to the altar, there must be something wrong with men, and if there's something wrong with men then it's something worth complaining about and beating over the heads of men.

Huh? I wasted ten minutes of my life--ten minutes I will never get back--reading an article on the reluctance of men to marry that doesn't examine modern marriage AT ALL.

Okay, Ms. Hymowitz, I'm here to set you straight. You listening? You focused? Okay, here goes:

Society has changed, and marriage has changed with it. It has always been a cost/benefit enterprise, and as the base unit for society throughout most of civilized history, the costs and benefits to both parties were relatively equal. This is simply not the case anymore.

From the dawn of monogamous marriage--the lifetime version of human prehistory's "pair bond"-- the institution has been a transactional contract. The terms have always been as follows: a woman provides a man with exclusive rights to her reproductive equipment and in exchange, he provides her with resources. For life.

You won't find these terms expressed in any marriage vows (religious or secular) or written into a marriage license, but the implicit social contract of marriage has always been thus. If you doubt, ask yourself why promiscuity might have suffered a gender double standard since the dawn of time, and ask yourself why a married woman choosing not to earn income outside the home is considered very differently--even now--than a man doing the same thing. Back in the day, the only social sin as vile as being an adulterous woman was being a deadbeat husband/father, because adultery in women and refusal to provide in men were violations of their respective obligations within the implicit contract of marriage.

Moreover, up until not too long ago, sexual activity outside of marriage was socially unconscionable. For a man to get regular sex through socially acceptable channels (no pun intended), he had to be married. Within marriage, he had a right to sexual relations with his wife, and she had a duty to provide him with sex. That at the time there was no such crime as spousal rape was less a reflection of women's oppression than an acknowledgment of sex as "part of the deal" women were signing up for when they entered into marriage.

And for both men and women, the consequences of divorce were prohibitive--a man who divorced his wife may have retained custody of his children, but he was vilified as a selfish man with no honor who'd abandoned his responsibility to his family and deprived his children of a mother. For a woman, divorcing her husband was not only socially stigmatized, it could destroy her financially and lose her her children. When one entered into the contract, one was expected to honor it until death. Full stop.

To today's young men and women, marriage looks *very* different than it did way back when. These are young people who were raised in an era of divorce. If their own parents weren't divorced, their friend's parents were. It's impossible to be unaware of the transient nature of what used to be a lifelong commitment--even now that statistics on the escalating divorce rate are no longer shocking enough to be fodder for newspaper articles and CNN soundbites, we have reality staring us right in the face.

So if the majority of marriages end in a messy divorce, the more relevant question Ms. Hymowitz might be asking, if she had the analytical skills to do so, would be why are today's women--even career women--still aching to get hitched?

Setting aside the emotional value of companionship and intimacy, the pooling of two incomes into one household means greater earning potential, greater disposable income and greater spending power. If she's lucky, it means twice as many people cleaning the bathroom, sorting socks and vacuuming the front hall. It means a bigger down payment on a nicer house. And for women who want children, it means not having to provide 100% of the resources and 100% of the care for those children. Other than in extreme cases, two parents are always better than one.

From a woman's perspective, marriage still provides significant benefits over single life--in fact, marriage as an enterprise has only improved for women since the 1950s. A woman now has the right to say no to sex with her husband. If he's abusive, she has an entire public-sector industry itching to help her. If a woman decides she doesn't want to be married to that jerk who doesn't help with the dishes, has mommy issues and leaves his dirty socks lying all over the place, well, she doesn't have to be. She won't be stigmatized, she won't be financially destroyed and she won't lose her children.

For guys, the picture looks very different, even--perhaps especially--for those who want children.

If stigmatization of divorce has gone out the window, there is now no social stigma attached to sex outside of marriage (or even commitment) for men or women, either. The phrase "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" is even more applicable now than it was back in the day. Moreover, if a guy's been paying attention to his friend's experiences at all, he'll realize that he's likely to get less sex after he commits than before, once his woman is feeling secure in the relationship and like he won't leave her if he doesn't get what he wants half the time. He's chosen her, he's committed, she no longer has to worry about the competition offering him a better deal. And she has every right under the law to say no.

And while the financial and emotional benefits of marriage can be much the same for men as for women, it is when the marriage ends that things get hairy. Although women are as likely to have grown up experiencing divorce firsthand or indirectly through their acquaintances, they will relate to the situations of wives and mothers. Women who were children of divorce likely lived with their mothers. Their mothers benefited from a family court system predisposed to keep children with mothers. Their mothers were often financially okay because of income equalization payments in the form of child support and alimony. Their mothers did not miss out on milestones, special events in their lives, and the joys of raising them. Their mothers often were able to remain living in the marital home, minimizing the disruption to their lives. Their mothers likely qualified for subsidized legal assistance in dealing with child support or alimony, and there were agencies set up specifically to ensure she received her court ordered child support and alimony payments. And the majority of the time, it was their mothers who'd initiated the divorce.

If today's women relate to the experiences of their mothers and their friend's mothers with respect to divorce, who are these despicable, immature guys identifying with, I wonder? Guys who were the children of divorce most likely did not live with their fathers--if they were very lucky, their fathers were granted generous access 2-4 weekends per month, and if they were not, they may have gone years without seeing their children. Upon divorce, their fathers were almost always forced from the marital home, and for most, their standard of living--including their digs--took a major hit. Their fathers were dealing with a family court system predisposed to deny them custody, and where the best most men could hope for was scheduled "access" to their children. Their fathers often financially struggled as they were forced to contribute financially to two households instead of one, and to maintain a domicile suitable for their children's visits so access would not be cut off. Their fathers often missed out on enormous chunks of their lives--soccer games, birthday parties, and prom nights. If mom moved to another state, it was dad's responsibility to pay the travel costs involved in visitation--while simultaneously making alimony and child support payments and contributing a share of "extraordinary expenses"--forcing many fathers to choose between living up to their financial obligations and seeing their children. Their fathers did not qualify for legal aid and other subsidies in negotiating child support and access, and there were no agencies set up to help them exercise their court-ordered access to their children. If dad got laid off, he'd better get another good job and fast, because until very recently he was required to maintain the standard of living that existed during the marriage--his financial obligations did not diminish due to changed financial circumstances the way they would were he still married. And the majority of the time, it was not their fathers who'd initiated the divorce.

Do you see the difference now, Ms. Hymowitz?

The problem with marriage is not that it is no longer seen as a lifelong commitment. The problem is that it is seen as a temporary enterprise for women with respect to their responsibilities to their husbands, but a lifelong commitment with respect to men's responsibilities to their wives. And the primary benefit of marriage for men--sex and parenthood--are no longer the exclusive privilege of those who marry.

In other words, the implicit social contract--exclusive access to a woman's reproductive equipment in exchange for a man's resources--is no longer what marriage is. Within marriage, women do not have to live up to their side of the age-old bargain--wives have every right to say no to sex--while for men, their part remains in place, enforced by law, *even after the marriage ends*. When you consider that men can get sex without marriage, and even get children without marriage--and that their rights and responsibilities to their children are often considered the same whether the child was the product of a one-night stand or the product of a decade-long marriage--well....you see the problem now?

For women, marriage is all benefit and zero risk, and that's why women are whining about men's reluctance to tie the knot. But for men, it's the other way around--no guaranteed benefit, and the kind of risk an adrenaline junkie would eschew.

A woman cannot get the benefits of marriage she's after without being married (either legally or common law). She can't get the benefit of his resources in the same way as if she was living with him, or of his assistance in raising her children.

A man can get all the benefits of marriage he's after without being married. He can get sex. He can get companionship and intimacy. He can father children. All without marriage, or even commitment.

But if he marries, he faces a 33% chance that his wife will leave him. If she does, his rights and responsibilities with respect to his children are often comparable to what they would be were those children conceived in casual hook-ups. He can and often does lose a portion of his assets to his wife (allocation of assets are generally not 50/50 when children are involved), and his financial responsibilities to his wife, in the form of a percentage of his income, can continue indefinitely, regardless of whether she is self-supporting, and regardless of the relative contributions each of them made towards the marital property and community assets.

If he doesn't marry or live common law with a woman, however, his house will remain his own, his liquid assets will remain his own, he will have comparable rights and responsibilities in regard to his children as he would had he married, and he won't owe his ex a living for the rest of her life. If she stops having sex with him or he decides he doesn't much like her, he can leave and not be penalized by the court. If she leaves him, his social and sexual value will remain much more intact with regard to attracting new sexual partners--he'll still have the social status that men derive from material success. If he falls in love with someone new, and even trusts her enough to move in with her, her income will not be used as a means of extracting more alimony from him. He will have no obligation to the mother of his children based on a few years of marriage where she might or might not have regularly lived up to her side of the agreement--his only obligation will be to his children, as it should be.

Do you still think it's immaturity keeping guys from settling down and getting hitched, Ms. Hymowitz? Really?

And my advice to women, to improve this terrible and untenable situation? Two things:

1) save yourselves until marriage. Because men won't buy the cow if they can get the milk for free. But it won't work unless all of you do it.

2) lobby for reforms with respect to the rights of fathers in family courts. Because even if men can't get the milk for free, they're too smart to buy a cow whose milk has a 33% chance of ruining his life. Men have become lactose intolerant, and for good reason.

Until one or both of these suggestions is widely adopted, men with any intelligence will find their Xboxes, buddies, beer and casual hook-ups to be the more rational choice.

Men are in charge of what now?

2011-05-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

patriarchy /ˈpātrēˌärkē/ noun

1) A system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. Patriarchy also refers to a system of government by males, and to the dominance of men in social or cultural systems.

2) A society or community organized in this way.

This is the social system feminism set out to bring down decades ago--a system where women's interests were subordinated to men's interests. For feminism to have an excuse for its existence, patriarchy must also exist. But does it anymore in the West? Really?

Feminists will point to the underrepresentation of women (therefore the overrepresentation of men) in top positions in commerce, business, and politics and claim that this means patriarchy still exists. At the same time, when someone points out that most of the homeless are also men, their response is usually that "homeless men are not all men", and that you can't dismiss the concept of patriarchy based on a small subset of men who are grossly disadvantaged. But it logically follows that you cannot, in turn, prove the concept of patriarchy based on a small subset of men who are grossly privileged, does it not? Not all men are CEOs of fortune 500 companies, senators, media moguls and heads of state.

Feminists will claim that men as a group are privileged, and therefore their enemy patriarchy is still going strong. However, this statement--even if true--is also a logical fallacy. To claim male privilege translates into systematic patriarchy is to claim that female privilege indicates a pervasive system of matriarchy.

And women are indeed privileged--in different ways men are, sure, but still privileged. The smallest examination of history tells us this is so--women have always been seen as innately more valuable than men. It was men who were sent to war, while women remained safe on friendly soil. It was men who were expected to go down with the ship, while women and children were loaded onto lifeboats. It was men who were expected to work dangerous, physically gruelling jobs in coal mines and on oil rigs and on fishing boats, while the arguably more boring but unarguably safer occupations of housewife, schoolteacher, sales clerk were the domains of women. While men were indeed placed in authority over their wives and children, they were also saddled with the burden of protection and provision, and responsibility for any failures in that regard. It was men who stood in front of the homestead with a shotgun, determining whether approaching strangers were friend or foe, while women and children waited inside.

The privilege women have is based in our biological underpinnings, and as long as we remain subject to that biology female privilege will exist. A species that sees its females--the carriers of its offspring--as expendable enough to be sent to war, to be forced into dangerous jobs, to go down with the ship, to have no entitlement to provision and protection, and to hold a shotgun and stand between children and possible marauders is a species that is doomed to die out.

One might look at patriarchy from the feminist perspective that it is a system of keeping women down and giving men "power".

One could also argue, however, that for a group of people who'd always been seen as expendable, placing authority and control over money and lines of descent in the hands of men was the only way to make them...well, worth keeping around. If men control the means of production, it is women who control the means of reproduction--and this is why they are in the simplest of biological terms, more valuable than men. One man + twenty women = twenty babies. Switch the equation around, and see where that leads you.

One could look at patriarchy as a lopsided system that gives all the power to men. But if you consider the biological basis of female privilege--and indeed, female power--one could see patriarchy in an entirely different light, as a balancing of that very lopsided biological power differential. Of what use would a man be if he didn't inherit his family's wealth, have legally and socially sanctioned control of the finances and decisions of his household, or have some form of ownership of his children? In a system that is not patriarchal, men would be little more than beasts of burden, cannon fodder and sperm donors.

That society still sees women as more valuable than men is without question. There's a reason why more men are homeless than women--it is because society has a vested interest in keeping women alive, while it does not have the same interest in regard to men, and social programs reflect this. There's a reason why a grossly disproportionate percentage of domestic violence services and shelters serve women--it is because society believes women deserve protection, while men should be able to protect themselves. The mere suggestion of women in combat roles in the military induces a visceral negative response in most people, even when we logically know that many women would be more than capable of the job and have a desire to serve their country.

Feminism has largely achieved its goal of dismantling the legal framework of patriarchy. Men no longer own their wives or children, men no longer wield financial power to the exclusion of women, women have equal opportunities to pursue their chosen careers, they can vote, own property, obtain divorces, and even have sex and children outside of marriage without social stigma.

That women still earn less, on average, than men is not something I will dispute. But women financially dominate in other areas--they control 60% of the wealth in the United States, and 83% of consumer spending decisions. 45% of America's millionaires are women, and there are more multi-million dollar estates controlled solely by women (48%) than men (35%).

More women are gainfully employed than men right now (only 66.8% of American men had jobs last year). Of people already in the workforce, more women graduated from high school than men, and more women hold bachelor's degrees, than men. Soon, more women will hold advanced degrees than men, as for the first time in history last year, more advanced degrees were earned by women than men.

Where does this leave men? Where will it leave them in 10 years? For millennia, human biological necessity held women as more important than men in almost every respect. So if patriarchy was a system of checks and balances to prevent men from becoming entirely irrelevant, where is society headed now that patriarchy is being so effectively dismantled?

We've already begun to see it in a family court system that now largely considers children the sole property of their mothers, and a father's role immaterial beyond forced financial support. From per capita health care spending, health research spending, social safety nets, education, anti-discrimination laws, erosion of due process when due process is seen to "harm" women...our social and legal framework has become almost entirely matriarchal.

Under today's system, fatherhood is all burden and no power. Under today's system, 40% of American children are being raised without their fathers. Under today's system, a man can be ruined by a mere accusation by an anonymous woman. Under today's system, women are routinely handed lighter sentences than men for the same crimes. Under today's system, female sexuality is unrestrained, while male sexuality is burdened with an unfair expectation of restraint. Under today's system, men's rights under the law are almost always subordinated in favor of women's rights.

If this is patriarchy, I'd hate to see what matriarchy would look like.

Society is arranged by checks and balances, rights and responsibilities. At the moment, women have the same rights as men, but they are rarely held to the same level of personal responsibility--if they were, 50% of the homeless would be women. Patriarchy was an answer to the grossly disproportionate biologically grounded power women wield just by being women, a way of artificially evening the playing field by granting men similar levels of different privileges.

A few people are looking into a future where women as a group hold most of the power, and where the top 10-20% of men in real positions of privilege (and who will always hold that privilege, because that's where women seem to want the top men to be) have little interest in helping their "brothers" because they don't see them as brothers--they see them as, at best, competition, and at worst, disposable. And that's a consequence of our biology, too.

I'm not sure what society is going to look like in another couple of decades. Whatever it does end up looking like, I've never been so glad that I'm not a man.

A man is a rape supporter if...WTF????

2011-05-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, let me see if I've got this straight... A man is a rape supporter if:

He has ever sexually engaged with any woman while she was underage, drunk, high, physically restrained, unconscious, or subjected to psychological, physical, economic, or emotional coercion.
Huh. I've had sex with a man while we were both drunk. Also, when only I was drunk. Also, when I was sober and he was drunk. Also, with a woman while I was drunk and she was less drunk.

He defends the current legal definition of rape and/or opposes making consent a defense.
I vigorously protest the watering-down of the legal definition of rape. Rape is serious, and it should be considered serious, and no one's gonna do that if 90% of human sexual interactions can be classified as rape.

He has accused a rape victim of having “buyer’s remorse” or wanting to get money from the man.
I am aware of several cases of "buyer's remorse" rape--usually based on things women have done while under the influence of alcohol or drugs that they would not have done otherwise, or things women have done while in relationships that they regretted, or things women have done thinking it "meant more" than it did to a guy.

He has blamed a woman for “putting herself in a situation” where she “could be” attacked.
I held myself partly responsible for my own sexual assault, and would prefer it if other women held themselves accountable for their own choices, decisions and actions, no matter what the outcome. This does not mean blaming a victim or saying she deserved it. It just means that, yeah, there were things she could have done that would have prevented her assault. Duh.

He has procured a prostitute.
Okay, I haven't procured a prostitute. But I wouldn't demure from doing so, or from being the recipient of a lap-dance performed by a female stripper. You know, if any of you all were interested in buying, since money's pretty tight for me right now. Just sayin'...

He characterizes prostitution as a “legitimate” “job” “choice” or defends men who purchase prostitutes.
I feel sex work is a legitimate job choice. Sure, it isn't the career I'd want for my daughter, but women have every fucking right to decide what to do with their own bodies. Don't they? Even if that means selling or renting out the use of them.

He has ever revealed he conceives of sex as fundamentally transactional.
Sex IS transactional. At its most basic biological level, it's an exchange of necessary male genetic material (sperm) in return for a man getting a shot at reproducing (9 month lease on a woman's uterus for his kid). Outside of that, it is pleasure in exchange for pleasure. It is also sometimes regular blowjobs in exchange for resources--like a nice big credit card, a roof over one's head, a diamond ring, etc.

He has gone to a strip club.
I've been to strip clubs. Been on ladies' night (never again), on men's night at a gay club (better than ladies' night in many ways), and typical strip clubs where women dance for men (frickin' awesome).

He is anti-abortion.
I am not anti-abortion, but I do feel kind of icky when I see the "abortions for everyone!" mentality that seems to be the norm in some feminist circles, as if it's just not a big deal. It should be a big deal. Apparently, even thinking that is somehow considered by some to be "against women", but it's how I feel.

He is pro-”choice” because he believes abortion access will make women more sexually available.
I am pro-choice. Not because I think women would want to have sex with more men (or with me), but because I'm a realist.

He frames discussions of pornography in terms of “freedom of speech.”
I write porn. Just because what I write is aimed mainly at a female readership doesn't mean men haven't read it, enjoyed it, or gotten off on it. In fact, the emails I get from male readers are the ones that tickle me most. According to this woman, I have no right to write what I choose to, because freedom of speech is no defence.

He watches pornography in which women are depicted.
I watch porn. A lot of porn. Most--not all--of it depicts women.

He watches any pornography in which sexual acts are depicted as a struggle for power or domination, regardless of whether women are present.
Oh shit, the gay porn I like best is a little rough and tumble, usually involves someone getting pinned down and...well, never mind. You all don't need to know the details.

He characterizes the self-sexualizing behavior of some women, such as wearing make-up or high heels, as evidence of women’s desire to “get” a man.
Good grief, what else is it? It's to either get or keep a man, ffs. The barest reading of any anthropological or evolutionary theory would tell her this. If I'm running out to the store for smokes, I barely get myself presentable. If I'm "going out", with or without a man, I put in a little more effort. If I'm looking to meet men, I want to look my best. If I'm with a man who's important to me, I also want to look my best.

He tells or laughs at jokes involving women being attacked, sexually “hoodwinked,” or sexually harassed.
Um...I have a sense of humor. A while back, someone used the term Rapey McRaperson ("men don't wear name tags that say Rapey McRaperson, you can't tell who's a rapist just by looking" or whatever) in an online debate on rape, and it became my pet name for my boyfriend. Yes, I'm that sick.

He expresses enjoyment of movies/musicals/TV shows/plays in which women are sexually demeaned or presented as sexual objects
Okay, the Real Housewives...nope. Baywatch...oh hell no. Chicago...also bad. Flashdance...shield your virgin eyes. The Oscar Awards pre-show with red carpet interviews? NO. Um...is it okay for me to think Angelina Jolie is hot? Is it? IS IT!!???

He mocks women who complain about sexual attacks, sexual harassment, street cat-calls, media depictions of women, or other forms of sexual objectification.
I've mocked women who've been offended by ridiculous, petty, trivial shit. A whistle? A guy who keeps looking at those boobs you've got all pushed up and on display even though, "My eyes are up here, asshole!"? Seriously? And I do mock women for hating the way women are "objectified" in the media--not because objectification is wrong, but because the real problem in objectifying women like Pamela Anderson or Tara Reid or whoever, sends the message that those women are the valuable ones, the ones men should seek out and pursue, when a princess who spends $1000/month on her appearance generally has nothing but her appearance and her burdens to offer anyone in a relationship.

He supports sexual “liberation” and claims women would have more sex with (more) men if society did not “inhibit” them.
I wish women would be less sexually liberated, because frankly, 95% of them can't handle the implications of it. Or rather, I'd like to see women liberated differently--equal measures of freedom and accountability. And if more of them ended up wanting to bonk me as a result, that's awesome!

He states or implies that women who do not want to have sex with men are “inhibited,” “prudes,” “stuck-up,” “man-haters,” or psychologically ill.
Women who don't want to have sex with men are 1) lesbians, 2) asexual, or 3) married to him. Pretty much.

He argues that certain male behaviors towards women are “cultural” and therefore not legitimate subjects of feminist attention.
Holding open doors for women is a cultural behavior. Giving up a seat on the bus to a woman is a cultural behavior. So is a lot of other gender relations stuff. Sheesh. And while cultural norms are under the purview of feminism, feminism does not have a lock on legitimacy. Other ways of thinking, behaving and viewing the world can be just as valid.

He ever subordinates the interests of women in a given population to the interests of the men in that population, or proceeds in discussions as if the interests of the women are the same as the interests of the men.
Okay, so feminism is okay for subordinating the interests of men to the interests of women. That's cool. Women should be women's first priority, just like I and my kids should be my first priority. But dudes? You should NEVER be your own first priority. Never ever ever--especially in a conversation with a woman--present your own feelings or PoV on the given topic. Never mind that your own feelings as yourself and as a man are the only ones you have direct and clear understanding of--if you speak to your own experience, you're subordinating the interests of women. And for god sake, DO NOT say anything like, "Hey, we're all people, right? We all have the same basic wants--to be safe, happy and successful and shit." So don't speak for yourselves, guys. Also, don't presume to speak for anyone else. Actually, you should probably just shut up completely. Got it?

He promotes religious or philosophical views in which a woman’s physical/psychological/emotional/sexual well-being is subordinated to a man’s.
In my experience, it's almost always the other way around. Men go without sex in their marriages for years, because they consider their wife's lack of sexual desire to be more deserving of respect than their own desire for sex. Same goes for all the other shit, too. Most marriages revolve around putting a wife's emotional, physical, psychological and sexual needs first. Same with general behaviors that are gender based.

He describes female anatomy in terms of penetration, or uses terms referencing the supposed “emptiness” of female anatomy when describing women.
Huh. Sexual terminology. I'll make sure to let my editor know there will be no penetration in my books, no mention of staffs, shafts, and the like from now on. And HOLES? OMG, no. Never ever ever mention anything about holes. You sick fuck.

He defends the physical abuse of women on the grounds of “consent.”
Annnnnddd...pretty much all the sex I actually enjoy is now categorized as supporting of rape. Pinning, dominating, spanking, struggle for dominance, consensual roleplaying. All of it, abuse, no matter how much I say I like and want it, no matter that I consider it not just enjoyable but a requirement in any long term relationship I will ever have, how hard I get off on it, or how much the tender "rock me gently" stuff bores the fuck out of me. Any man I would want to be with is by default a rape supporter.

He defends the sexualization or sexual abuse of minor females on the grounds of “consent” or “willingness.”
I lost my virginity when I was 15. I wanted it--I was kind of on a mission, actually--and don't regret anything about how it went down. But hey, apparently that guy raped me, and is a rape supporter. For doing what I asked him to do.

He promotes the idea that women as a class are happier or more fulfilled if they have children, or that they “should” have children.
Humans, like every other species, have a biological drive to procreate. Not every member will have this drive to the same degree--and the ones who don't will get selected out of the species, won't they? Moreover, not every woman should have children. I certainly hope the woman who compiled this list doesn't. That being said, I couldn't imagine a life without my own kids. I know a lot of women who feel the same--probably the majority.

He argues that people (or just “men”) have sexual “needs.”
I have sexual needs. Beyond perpetuation of the species--which is a fucking need, right? Every man I've been with has had sexual needs. Every woman I've been with has sexual needs. That people don't drop dead if their sexual needs aren't met doesn't make them any less of a biological and psychological drive. I mean, hey, technically I don't need a house, or an education, or a phone, I could survive without any of them, but they're still considered basic needs, important for my happiness and ability to function as a healthy individual. And so is sex.

He discusses the “types” of women he finds sexually appealing and/or attempts to demean women by telling them he does not find them sexually appealing.
I don't really have a "type" when it comes to men, but I sure do when it comes to women. They're generally petite, curvy but with small breasts, youngish, and have hair long enough for me to pull. But that's not to say I'm only attracted to those "types" of women, or that I'll continue to be attracted to all who fit the "type" once they've opened their mouths, either. I don't go out of my way to inform people I'm not attracted to them, though. I leave that to the 80% of the women in the bar who take joy in doing it to men.

He sexually objectifies lesbians or lesbian sexual activity.
Oooh! Lesbians! Lesbian porn. Mmmmmm....

He defends these actions by saying that some women also engage in them.
I defend these actions by saying almost all people, male or female, will hit at least a few items on this list. Most of us, male or female, will hit several. With the exception of Mother Teresa, Jesus, and brain-injured individuals hooked up to life support. And the fact that she is unconcerned with how many women fit this list, shows how bigoted she really is.

This woman compiled this list as a way of proving "all men are evil," by designing it in such a way that even my 8 year old son would fail (he's constantly telling the girls who "like" him that they're gross, after all). There is not a man alive who wouldn't fail, and she knows it. She demonstrates this by claiming:

So, let’s see how many women reading this know at least one male over the age of 18who does not fit this list. Anybody?

Of course, there's no one who can. That's the point. And if every man in the world is a rape supporter, I'd like to join them in solidarity by proclaiming: According to Evebitfirst, I'm a rape supporter, and I'm proud. To be otherwise is to deny everything that makes me human, everything that gets me wet, everything that pleases or fulfills me about life. My kids, my sexuality, my purpose, my relationships, my body and my mind.

Freedom or Obligation?

2011-05-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

Note: all stats pertain to the United States, unless otherwise specified.

-Among adults 25 and older today, more women than men have finished high school.

-Female enrolment in post-secondary education had surpassed male enrolment by the early 1980s.

-Due to decades of female dominance in post-secondary participation, 20.1 million women now hold bachelor's degrees, compared with 18.7 million men.

-Among adults 25 and older in the US, 10.6 million women now hold master's degrees or higher, compared with 10.5 million men.

-In the US, 57% of students in post secondary education are women.

-As of 2009, 58% of all bachelor degrees were earned by women.

-60% of students enrolled in advanced/graduate programs are women.

-In America's largest cities, single, childless women 22-30 out-earn their male counterparts by 8%.

Everything's coming up roses for women. Woot! You go, grrrl!

Okay, here's something else to think about: Men employed full time work more hours per week, on average, than women. Many experts insist this disparity reflects that "responsibilities for child care and other unpaid household work are still unequally shared among partners." In other words, women would work more, if they could. You know, if they weren't stuck at home with the young 'uns and all, changing diapers and scrubbing toilets.

However, in countries such as Sweden, where generous paid paternity leave is granted in conjunction with maternity leave, men tend to take only about 20% of their entitlement, and where possible, transfer the remainder of their leave to their wives/partners.

Consider this: when my ex and I were first together, and discussing the kind of life we wanted to have, we agreed that we both wanted kids, and that we didn't want our kids raised in a daycare center. We both worked in the same vocation (we actually met at work), and I had enough experience in the job to demand the same wage as he did. Still, I wanted to be the one to stay home with the kids for the first few years. That time at home gave me time to enjoy my children, to watch them grow and develop, and to give them the intangible things that money can't buy. It also gave me the time to get enough work done around the house that when my ex got home, he got to enjoy the children too. As a couple, we sacrificed half our income so we'd be able to see family time as something wonderful, rather than something onerous. It also gave me time to add to the million words of crap conventional wisdom says all writers must get on paper before they get any good.

When I went back to work--when my older two were 3 and 4--I pulled 16-20 hour weeks compared to my ex's 40 hour weeks, with us working opposite shifts so someone was always home. This was also largely my choice--no way was I going to work outside the home if it meant I had to hand over half my pay (or more) so someone else could raise our kids for us. In our low income bracket, between the savings I could generate by cooking from scratch, hunting down deals, and not hiring out home maintenance work, it would have made better financial sense for me not to work at all, if we'd had to pay for child care. When all the costs of working were tallied, the moment daycare got added into the mix, I "earned" more by staying at home.

As a single parent, I still only work part time outside the home. Between the 20 hours/week I wait tables, royalties from my four published books, and rental income from the house I still own in BC, I earn about $40k/year. My kids and I live very lean, but we're getting ahead month by month. I could, and arguably should, work full time--it would add over $20k to my yearly income if I did--but if I did that, I'd barely see my children. With two of my kids in their teens, domestic labor is not a serious consideration--they can and will do their part to keep the house tidy and get themselves fed, watch their younger brother, keep the grass cut, and they don't need anyone to cattle-prod them into doing their schoolwork. The only thing stopping me from working more is that I value my time at home and with my children more than I value money.

Other mothers can and do feel the exact same way. If men in Sweden are handing over their paternity leave to their wives...why are they doing it? Is it because they don't want to stay home and change diapers? Or is it because their wives DO want to stay home and read stories to their kids, cuddle them, rock them, bond with them, watch them take first steps and hear them speak first words? Is it because these women feel stuck at home, or is it because they want to be home?

Consider my sister. She's a medical doctor working in administration. She earns a fuckton of money, as does her pilot husband. They have four children and a full-time nanny/housekeeper to take the majority of the domestic burden off of them. My sister has consistently made career decisions that limited her income, advancement, and seniority level in her job in order to have a balanced life that sees her spending more waking hours at home than at work. She opted not to specialize in plastic surgery (as many advised her to do), because it would mean years of eating, sleeping and breathing surgery, only to have her biological clock start clamoring at the exact moment she'd be finishing her residency.

Even in administration, she has declined promotions that would likely have seen her earning 50% more at this point than she does now, but would also have required her to spend weeks at a time overseas, and 3+ hours more per day at work when she wasn't abroad. Even though, in her ginormous income bracket, the cost of hiring additional domestic help would be more than offset by the increased income she'd have received by making her career her top priority.

According to feminism, my sister's choices are a big problem. My sister's choices have led her to earn less than most men in her chosen profession, and apparently my sister has made these choices because she "feels stuck" with an uneven share of domestic and child care "responsibilities" compared to her husband, all because of gender norms.

However, my sister's husband has also chosen his jobs based on the number of hours he can spend at home with the kids. Rather than a "glory job", he opted for a stable position where the number of hours, and nights, spent away from home was limited, and which would allow him to relocate as his wife's career demanded. In other words, he's made the exact same choices my sister did, for the exact same reasons, and he sacrificed a good portion of his earning potential to do it.

Watching them at home is like watching a well-oiled machine, each of them taking on the chores that need doing and spending quality time in the evenings and on weekends with all four kids. Considering my brother in law earns $20+ every 6 minutes, his hours in the air are worth WAY more than any extra hours he'd have to pay someone to do laundry, cook meals and drive his kids around so the burden wouldn't all fall on my sister if he chose to work more. But the time he gets to spend with his kids is worth it to him.

I have a few issues with the way feminism weighs career success. 1) It assumes the only conceivable way to measure career success is through earnings. 2) It assumes any pay gap owing to women making different choices than men are a result of women feeling "stuck" with child care. 3) It assumes any pay gap owing to men making different choices than women are a result of men "being free" to make their careers their #1 priority. 4) It reduces children's relationship with their working parents down to a single characteristic: the obligation of domestic labor.

KIDS ARE MORE THAN WORK. For fuck sake, what's the point of even having them if you don't get to watch or help them grow up because you're working all the time?

Blaming women's tendency to choose to spend more time at home on the fact that "responsibilities for child care and other unpaid household work are still unequally shared among partners," means feminism sees kids in only one light--as a burden on parents, rather than a joy. According to feminism, women work fewer hours because they feel they HAVE to be home more, when I'd argue that women work fewer hours because they WANT to be home more. Participating in your children's childhoods isn't a goddamn chore--it's a privilege, and one not everyone gets to enjoy.

Especially men, who often feel that putting their careers first IS the only socially acceptable way of putting their family first.

Warren Farrell coined the term "success object", and for many men, this is what their value in the sexual marketplace and in their own families boils down to. Feminism believes men have freedom and privilege because they earn more than women. But according to Farrell, "men often feel obligated to earn money someone else spends while they die sooner--and feeling obligated is not power."

Back in Sweden, where men tend to opt out of their own paternity leave after only a few months, one needs to ask why? If they simply chose to forfeit their leave and go back to work early, one might argue they wished to escape the drudgery of being housebound, changing diapers and scrubbing floors. But men in Sweden don't forfeit their leave--they transfer it to their wives. From this, we can assume that women not only want to stay home longer with their children, but that they feel it is socially acceptable for them to do so. And that even men who may wish to stay home during their children's first months of life, still feel pressured to go back to work ASAP, to not allow their careers to stagnate while they spend their days rocking their babies and smelling the tops of their heads and enjoying all the other intangible benefits that are not measurable by feminist standards, but which many parents consider to be worth more than dollars and cents.

And now to circle back to my original statistics. The feminist contention is that women make the career choices they do because they feel "obligated by gender norms" to spend more time at home, while men have the "freedom" afforded by gender norms to put work first. I would argue that it is the opposite--that women make the career choices they do largely because of the freedom current gender norms give them to make choices that are right for them, and that if men consistently put work before family, it's often out of a sense of obligation owing to those same gender-based expectations.

And what does that have to do with women's overrepresentation in post-secondary education? Well, if women make the choices they do because it's what they want...well, in Canada, we already have problems with shortages of physicians in many communities. How will that shortage be affected when 60% of the doctors graduating today take a year off work to have a child, and when they do go back to work, opt not to spend 60 hours/week in the office, but to spend more time with their families because they have the freedom to do so? If we can't get more men into post-secondary education, many professions will be in for a shake-up.

In medicine, everything from the number of available spots in med schools to the number of physicians licensed by provincial Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, is largely dependent on a traditional male "work-first" ethic that is going to have to change if we don't do something to eliminate the gender gap in post-secondary education. If male physicians tend to work more hours than female ones, it follows that the larger a percentage of women there are earning medical degrees, the more doctors we're going to need to provide the same services.

According to feminists, this problem is easily solved by collectively guilting women into making the same choices men typically do. But is this fair to women? Is it fair to kids?

And is it fair to men, who might make different choices in their careers if they didn't feel socially obligated to become "success objects", because everyone, including feminism, is telling them that money is everything and nothing else matters?

You lying liar

2011-05-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

Index case: the case of the original patient (propositus or proband) that stimulates investigation of other members of the family to discover a possible genetic factor. In epidemiology, the first case of a contagious disease.

Remember the movie "Outbreak"? You know--1995, Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, that adorable Capuchin Monkey of "Friends" fame? Remember how emergency medical dudes painstakingly traced--through geographic/epidemiological examination of the outbreak--the evil Motaba hemorrhagic fever virus all the way back to the "patient zero"--that cute little black and white monkey? Oh Marcel, how could you? Bad monkey!

What does all this have to do with Men's Rights, you ask? Well, in a 2000 article published in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, Edward Greer did his own epidemiological study on something MRAs are all too familiar with: the 2% false rape accusation statistic feminists use to defend their stance on the increasing erosion of due process in sex crimes cases.

You hear it all over the place: "Experts claim that false reports of rape and sexual assault make up no more than 2% of all accusations, which is comparable to the false report numbers for other serious crimes." Or, "According to experts, only approximately 2% of women reporting rape are falsely reporting, therefore the investigative standard should be to believe the accuser and pursue all cases to the full extent of the law." Or, "Because experts agree only 2% of rape reports are false, while at the same time the vast majority of rapes are not reported, prosecuting false accusers will only provide a further disincentive to real victims to report their rapes."

I have even had the odd feminist in an online discussion express to me that falsely imprisoning a few men is a small price to pay if it means victims of rape will be more likely to report. Never mind the fact that a man falsely convicted of rape is almost guaranteed to become a victim of rape once in prison. A small price to pay, indeed. This is how feminism balances the scales of justice--penalizing a women of a real criminal wrongdoing = net bad for society, while penalizing a man for something he didn't do (and for which he will continue to pay once he becomes someone's bitch in prison) = net good for society.

And it's all based on the "fact" that only 2% of rape claims are falsified.

So where did the 2% statistic come from? According to Greer, who picked through dozens of feminist academic papers and articles, and painstakingly followed the pyramidal pattern of citations they contained to their original source, the statistic originated in a 1975 book by Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. Ms. Brownmiller, in her book, attributed the 2% figure to a speech by Lawrence H. Cooke, Appellate Division Justice, Before the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Jan. 16, 1974.

According to Greer: "When I contacted the then-judge’s law clerk, and he made inquiry of all those directly involved in the preparation of Judge Cooke’s speech, their best recollections are that they did not rely upon any report but cannot remember precisely how they did obtain the two percent figure."

So there's no study. No report. No survey. No peer-reviewed examination of any data-set. Just a speech that is itself uncited, quoted in a book written over 35 years ago, then repeated as fact over and over and over throughout feminist academia until the misinformation infects the entire discourse.

Could the 2% false report figure be accurate? Well, depending on who you ask, the real figure is anywhere between 2% and 50%. An Australian study conducted between 2000 and 2003 found that of 815 cases, 2.1% were demonstrated clearly enough to be false that charges were threatened or laid.

In his 1994 study of one small, urban community where all rape reports were investigated and polygraph tests were routinely offered to both accusers and accused, Dr. Eugene J. Kanin of Purdue University examined almost a decade of rape reports. Disregarding all other factors (physical or testimonial evidence, police findings, etc) and going only by complainants' responses when subjected to or threatened with polygraph testing, the percentage of false reports between 1978 and 1987 was a staggering 41%.

One critic of Kanin's study--Dr. David Lisak of the University of Massachusetts, Boston--performed his own study, published in 2010 in Violence Against Women, which found a false report figure of 5.9%. Though significantly lower than Kanin's findings, it's still three times higher than the 2% figure we hear so often.

Much of what is believed about the 2% false report figure derives from a time when procedures for dealing with rape cases were very different than they are now. The figure itself originated in a 1974 speech by a NY judge, and may well have reflected reality at the time. What woman would falsely report a rape back in 1974, when victims were routinely put on trial themselves, details of their lives released by the media, and revictimized by the system? And yet, even in a social and criminal environment that stigmatized victims, in a time when they were pitted against a system biased against believing them, a time when victims really were blamed for their own rapes because they dressed like sluts or weren't "good girls" or were otherwise unsympathetic, and the likelihood of being criminally prosecuted for falsely reporting was much greater...even then, according to that NY judge and Susan Brownmiller, 2% of women made false accusations.

Even back then--when a plaintiff's testimony was almost never enough to put a man away, when physical evidence--bruises, vaginal tearing, semen, etc--that a crime had not only been committed, but that it had been committed by the defendant, was required to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and when a victim's identity was not protected--the rate of false accusations was, according to Brownmiller and other feminists, about 2%.

Fast forward to 2011, when erosion of due process is turning sexual crimes into a liability offense, where victims are assumed to be truthful and the onus is increasingly placed on the accused to prove himself innocent. Where accusers' names are withheld by the media, and accuseds' names are routinely released. Where cross-examination of the plaintiff in regard to her sexual history is forbidden. Where evidence of sex is not technically required, let alone evidence of violent or nonconsensual sex. Where false accusers are not to be punished, even when their accusations have been determined to be motivated by malice. Prevailing wisdom still insists that a large percentage of rapes and sexual assaults are going unreported, but can anyone reasonably argue that a woman choosing not to report now is doing so out of fear of not being believed, reluctance to have her life picked apart on the stand, or fear of public shame? And can we still presume that the number of false rape and sexual assault reports remains at a paltry 2%?

When my older two kids were small and my older stepsons would visit, my ex and I used to have a recurring argument whenever a conflict between the kids arose. His assertion was that "little kids don't lie" and therefore when our younger kids pointed the finger at one of their half-brothers, they were to be believed. My contention was that little kids lie like rugs, that empathy and conscience doesn't fully develop until kids are around school age and a four year old will happily let someone else hang for his own crime if it means he doesn't have to swing himself.

Considering the fact that a percentage of adults wilfully commit crimes--theft, murder, assault, fraud--knowing it's ethically and legally wrong...well, there are people out there who will do whatever is in their self-interest that they feel they can get away with. The more they feel they can get away with it, the more likely they are to do it. This is not rocket science. This is not 4th year psychology. It's fucking common sense.

Should we go back to the days before Rape Shield Laws existed? No. Should some instances of a plaintiff's sexual history be considered during a rape trial? Hell yes, if she has a history of false or unsubstantiated rape accusations. Otherwise, no. Should we protect the identity of the accused? Oh, fuck, yes, at least until conviction, because of the degree of damage a simple accusation, no matter how unfounded, can be to a man's reputation, livelihood and relationships.

But presuming that women don't and won't lie about rape because...well, because they're women? This is a logical fallacy and a complete departure from reality that astounds me. And basing the criminal justice system's entire approach to sex crimes on the absurd assumption that only 2% of women lie about rape, and that punishing them for lying is irresponsible...this is insanity.

What's in a Word?

2011-05-12T07:34:00.000-07:00

Words are important to me. Take "cunt", for instance. From my POV as a writer of erotica, "cunt" has to be one of my favorites, and I use it much more often than, say, "pussy". It's succinct. It's not cutesy. It's strong and workaday and when you say it, in whatever context, everyone knows exactly what you mean. It has deep etymological roots, dating back to Chaucer and beyond. A gorgeous, albeit guttural, word. And most women hate it, and are happy to continue to do so. I get away with using it in my fiction because I'm a woman, and therefore I have a "right" to. Most other women seem content to allow its positive definition of vagina vanish into obscurity, while only its negative alternate definitions, as an insult and expletive, remain in common usage.

But "slut"? According to these chicks ^^^, it's a word that requires "reclaiming". On the surface, this may seem like a positive thing and a removal of the negative power from specific words. The idea is to apply a specific word in a positive context enough to have that positive context become the dominant one. But that's rarely what happens, is it? Let's examine what's happened when other groups have "reclaimed" similar derogatory terms. We all know them, so let's not bandy around. "Queer." "Fag." "Dyke." "Nigger."

There's a reason I kind of cringed as I typed that last one. As a bisexual, my use of "queer" isn't going to raise any eyebrows. And despite rifts and infighting (inbickering?) within the LGBTQ community, my membership in that group entitles me to use "fag" and "dyke" with relative impunity. But "nigger"? I'm not black. That's not my word. Many people would question my right to even think it, let alone speak or write it.

The problem is, despite its reclamation, "nigger" remains a negative word in all contexts but one--when a black person speaks it. The same outcome applies to "fag" and "dyke", if not "queer". While they may be spoken within positive contexts by and amid their particular in-groups (and sometimes a few trusted non-members, once they've proved themselves allies), they're now off-limits to outsiders. Woe betide the white guy who speaks the word "nigger", even in a positive context.

The negative connotation of the word remains and is only reinforced by the in-group's appropriation of it. It has become a "forbidden utterance" for everyone else. And once a thing is forbidden, its power to wound is all the greater. And the ironic thing is, the word never really belonged to black people in the first place. The idea...I gather, anyway, was to take a word used by privileged white people to remind black people that they were "less than", and turn it into something different. Something positive. But has its meaning out of the mouths of white people changed at all? Can we claim that any of the negative power been removed from the word when people are forced to resign from public office over their use of "niggardly", a completely different word with a different etymological origin, merely because it sounded like "nigger"?

Moreover, reclamation of these words in this fashion is a form of social censorship. And while words can be easily censored, there is no way to censor people's hearts and minds. If someone hates black people, he'll hate them whether he can socially get away with speaking the word "nigger" or not. The only thing reappropration of the word has done is put the onus on non-blacks to never utter it at all.

So onto "slut". Unlike "cunt", this word's meaning has never been particularly positive in any context, though it wasn't always sexual. Its first traceable usages were basically in reference to "female slobs". But considering how words like "filth" and "dirty" and "smut" are used to describe sexual obscenity, and "unclean" to describe sexual immorality and a state of sin...well, its application in regard to sex is hardly surprising. Its redefinition as a sex-positive term has been going on for some time. Dan Savage--one of the most sex-positive media figures out there, a gay dude who understands more about straight sex than most straight people, and a personal hero of mine--regularly advises married or committed couples that they need to be "sluts for each other".

Mr. Savage is also very pro-sexual objectification, which I think lies at the heart of the problem the "Slutwalk", with its intended goal of "word reappropriation"--is fruitlessly trying to solve. Ridiculous modern attitudes around the sexual objectification of people--especially women--is the diseased taproot of a very invasive weed. In response to the uproar caused by protesters in Seattle in 2003 when a local sushi bar served sashimi and fried tofu off of a naked woman's body, he wrote:

Face facts, ladies: people always have and always will objectify the people they're attracted to. Men who wanna fuck women objectify women (at places like Hooters); women who want to fuck men objectify men (at places like Centerfolds). Gay men objectify other men (at places like Ashton Kutcher's asscrack), lesbians objectify other women (at places where Venus and Serena play tennis). The urge to objectify is universal, and so long as it's fairly and respectfully indulged, it's not offensive, not a problem, and not news.

There's an insidious conflict at work in modern women, largely due to the pervasive and erroneous belief that sexually objectifying women is wrong. I think deep down, women understand that sexual objectification is a natural human tendency and, taken on its own, a morally and ethically neutral proposition. If women did not want to be viewed as sexual objects, they wouldn't invest so much time and expense into turning themselves into beautiful and sexy objects, would they? They wouldn't dress in a manner that attracts male sexual interest. They'd rely on their personalities--it's the basis of their personhood, after all--to do the job for them. Whether you're a man or a woman, to be sexy is to be an object of desire. And for straight women, that means being objectified by men.

Women instinctively realize that their own objectification gives them sexual power. The more you tart yourself up, the more male interest you get, and the more interest you get, the bigger a pool you have to choose from, whether you're looking for a one-off or a relationship.

Where downside to this power is that when you present yourself in a way that encourages sexual objectification, you have no control over who objectifies you, do you? That means being mature enough to accept the fact that sometimes, a guy you regard as beneath your notice may hit on you, or even be masturbating to images of you when he gets home from the bar. That means guys WILL look at your boobs, and no amount of angrily telling them, "My eyes are up here, asshole," is going to get them to stop noticing your boobs. Grow up, ladies. If you want to be sex objects, then be sex objects. And be responsible ones--shooting a guy down in the most humiliating way, or treating him as if he's some kind of insect you wouldn't bother to scrape off your shoe after you'd stepped on him, for daring to look at you with the kind of interest you only really want from the hot guys? Not kosher.

The conflict arises when feminism encourages women to embrace and explore their sexuality, to have agency, to say yes or say no as they see fit...and at the same time, condemns one of the most effective routes to female sexual agency--the acceptance that someone can objectify a woman sexually while still respecting and appreciating her personhood, and that sexual objectification is, indeed, a necessary component of human sexual attraction, whether you're hooking up or happily married. It's no wonder women are so fucked up about sex that they'll falsely accuse men of rape when they can't reconcile their desires and their freedom to act on them with the bizarre marriage of Victorian era morality and female sexual liberation that is the schizophrenic brainchild of modern gender feminism.

And consider someone like me. I've always been sexually adventuresome. Hopefully my mom isn't reading this (she wouldn't understand), but I lost count of the number of men I've had sex with a lonnnng time ago, way back before I was married. And despite 15 years of monogamy, during the period after splitting with my ex and before settling into a new relationship with my current boyfriend, I briefly returned to my sexually free-spirited ways. I've always been open and upfront about my desires--when I want to sleep with a man, he knows it. And yet I've never been called a slut. Why?

Because sluts are shameless. But sexual free spirits? They're not shameless--they are unashamed. Sexual free spirits understand their power, and they use it responsibly, to choose their partners and have sex--or not--on honest terms, rather than to flaunt what they've got so they can shame or scorn members of the opposite sex for daring to look at them with sexual interest. Sexual free spirits don't have some obligation to fuck every guy who wants them--but they don't get offended by being desired by men they don't want, either. Sexual free spirits may even dress like sluts, but at the same time, they're in charge of their sex life, and hold themselves responsible for their decisions--whether wise or foolish--and don't put the entire onus on men to restrain their male sexuality in the face of completely unrestrained female sexuality.

Women who do flex their sexual muscle while relying on the opposite gender to never flex back, women who do not hold themselves accountable for their own sexual decisions, women who use their sexual attractiveness to crush the self-esteem of less than desirable men, women who feel victimized because a guy they don't find attractive dared to look at them with lust when they've got 2/3 of their body on display, and women like the Hofstra rape accuser, who willingly fucked two guys and couldn't deal with the emotional and practical fall-out from it--those women are the ones both men and women call sluts.

So why is the Slutwalk a pointless endeavor? Because it does nothing to reconcile the idea of female sexual freedom with female sexual responsibility. Yet again, the Slutwalk puts the onus on one gender--every goddamn member of it--to be responsible and accountable for the sexual conduct of the other.

Whether you believe a woman who advertises her sexual availability is increasing her risk of rape or not, the Slutwalk will do absolutely nothing to prevent rape. And it will do nothing to keep immature, power-drunk, sexually irresponsible women from being labeled as sluts, either.

Most women don't realize just how restrained male sexuality already is. I compare my experiences in strip clubs depending on whether it's ladies' night or Miss Mugs 'n' Jugs' world tour, and I'm always amazed at how well-leashed the men in the audience generally keep themselves relative to women's behavior in similar situations. This is because men are socialized toward sexual self-restraint and sexual accountability, while women...well, nowadays women get to do whatever and act however they want, and if they don't like the consequences--whether it's an ugly guy ogling them, or having to admit that going upstairs with that frat boy was a poor decision--they can shift all the responsibility onto men.

That's the opposite of sexual agency. And that's the fucking Slutwalk. And no amount of reappropriation of the word "slut" is going to do anything to change the behavior of the women who've earned the name, nor change the attitudes of the men who've learned by experience to be wary and scornful of them.

Data? Who needs data when you got belief?

2011-05-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

Years ago in my travels through the plethora of verbiage written by people both brilliant and retarded, I stumbled across this quote from American humorist Josh Billings:

"It ain't what a man don't know that makes him a fool, it's the things he does know, that ain't so."

While I don't agree with everything the man ever said, that one really resonates with me. Setting aside the questionable grammar and gender-specific wording, it encapsulates my concerns with a lot of modern society, contemporary feminism being just one thick branch of an enormous, blighted Tree of Ignorance.

Humans are inclined to believe what they are told by...well, by smart people. Especially so when what we are told reflects some or many aspects of our observed reality. The more sure those intellecshul, book-learned folk are in their convictions, the more convinced we often are that they're right. However, again Josh Billings:

"As scarce as the truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."

Quote one and quote two simplified: ignorance is less dangerous than misplaced or unfounded belief; and people just don't want to hear the truth a lot of the time.

These two concepts are effectively demonstrated by two facts that can be considered "common knowledge" among the masses, and which are held up as evidence by feminist academics when presenting their theories of how society currently works and therefore how it needs to be changed.

One is the 2% false rape report statistic we see repeated all over the place, and which I will deal with in a day or two. The other is the "patriarchal terrorism" paradigm of domestic violence, portrayed as typical in much of feminist academia and currently lopsided public policy, as well as in popular culture, through highly visible, big budget movies like "Enough" and "Sleeping with the Enemy."

In contrast to the above movies, 1993's "Men Don't Tell", starring Judith Light and Peter Strauss, was deemed fit merely for TV, has vanished into celluloid obscurity, and is the only film I can even think** of depicting a man as both a victim of domestic violence and in need of help to deal with the situation. That this movie, which aired two years after the release of "Sleeping with the Enemy", would have been considered controversial would be grossly understating the case. Yet it hardly generated a shrug from society before it quietly disappeared.

That even the prospect of controversy--which we're told sells like mad--was not enough to outweigh the resistance of society to have its long-held beliefs challenged in any way, indicates just how serious the double whammy of quote one + quote two really is when considering gender and domestic violence.

When the prevailing theory in much of academia, the prevailing focus of public policy, the prevailing gender bias in popular culture, and our own instinctive impression that men are aggressive and potentially dangerous, all tell us the same thing, it's no wonder society swallowed PT as the primary dynamic responsible for domestic violence. When this prevailing collective awareness of DV as primarily perpetrated by men on women is balanced by a single, obscure TV movie and this, it's no wonder that collective belief can overshadow a person's own experiences enough for them to write them off as "the exception that proves the rule."

Society thinks it knows how domestic violence works, because it believes what it is shown, not what is true. I still run across glib comments like, "What, you mean when she bruised his knuckles with her face?" all over the place, and from people I used to believe were intelligent.

In recently discussing this paper and my Female Privilege Checklist with a feminist and an academic (though not a feminist academic, if you will), I was asked to define "reciprocate" in a domestic violence context, the implication being the same tired, trite notion that women will only hit when they're defending themselves.

I replied "reciprocal violence = two people who beat the shit out of each other for whatever reason and no matter who started it. But if you want to define it as defending oneself, that's cool with me, since in the majority of cases where two people beat the shit out of each other for whatever reason and no matter who started it, the woman actually hit first."

The paper summed up the findings of dozens [now hundreds] of empirical studies done since 1985, with a combined community data set of 109,000 [now 360,000] subjects, that demonstrate:

both genders are roughly equally likely to be perpetrators of domestic violence
women are slightly more likely to be the instigators in reciprocally violent relationships
the vast majority of DV is reciprocal, and the most common contributors are personality disorders, poor communication and conflict resolution skills, mental/emotional instability, substance abuse, attachment issues and external stressors
women are slightly more likely to suffer severe injury from battery; however, women even the playing field by being more likely to hit with objects or use weapons
both genders can be deeply traumatized by their victimization
in cases where a partner is severely violent against a non-violent partner, the perpetrator is roughly twice as likely to be female than male. That a terroristic, controlling dynamic within DV exists is not in question, but "matriarchal terrorism" is twice as common as "patriarchal terrorism"

I then asked my online feminist debate partner to read the paper and bring up the findings in her women's studies class, and let me know what happens.

She said she'd bring it up with her department chair and her dissertation committee. I cried foul play--I don't want to know what a handful of people are prepared to say behind closed doors when they're presented with a mountain of empirical evidence that calls bullshit on the prevailing wisdom. I want to know what would transpire when the bullshit-calling happens in a feminist-controlled forum filled with young female students eager to learn about the struggles and concerns of women.

What I expect to happen is exactly what happened when feminist academics were repeatedly confronted with this veritable geiser of statistical information that did not conform to theories they'd developed decades ago through examination of biased data sets (arrest/report rates, conviction rates, self-selecting rather than random samples, etc). That is, as Dutton et. al expressed so eloquently in their paper:

The "belief perseverance" processes used against new data sets to maintain the feminist paradigm include the following: first, to deny female violence while generalizing male violence patterns from the "patriarchal terrorist" group to all batterers and in some cases, all men (disconfirmed by the Straus surveys). Then, to attack the Straus surveys for ignoring the "context of violence": suggesting that females were using violence defensively (disconfirmed by Stets and Straus and other studies cited above,) or that females were substantially more injured (disconfirmed by Archer). When all of these conceptual shields failed, the final step was to attack quantitative research in general (e.g. Bowman,1992; Yllo, 1988).

In other words, criticize the data that presents domestic violence as an equal opportunity offense. Then, when the data is demonstrated to be sound, argue that the reports do not provide "context" (which is where you start hearing ridiculous theories such as "women hitting first are hitting in pre-emptive self defence" or "women are triggering the violence because it's a way to feel they have control over an aspect of their victimization" or "it's like a safety release valve--she instigates before his violence has a chance to build up to homicidal levels"). Then, when women hitting men is contextualized by the female research subjects themselves (who frequently attribute it to anger, substance abuse, the feeling that their partner isn't listening to them, outside stress, jealousy, or their own need to control their partner), it's onto the assertion that "okay, maybe women DO hit men, and maybe they DON'T always do it in self-defence, but they're MUCH more likely to be injured", so men hitting women is still the bigger problem.

When empirical evidence disproves the idea that women are much more likely to be physically injured--even severely injured--it's onto the assertion that "okay, so maybe men get physically hurt as much as women, but the psychological effects are MUCH more damaging to women". When it is again demonstrated empirically that though insufficient data exists, what data there is indicates men often suffer deep psychological trauma from being battered, the hypothesis is then presented (in a 2002 article published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, no less) that the trauma men may suffer in reciprocally violent relationships could be from their perpetration of abuse, rather than their victimization. In other words, men hitting women traumatizes women, and men hitting women traumatizes men. The fact that this absurd and completely baseless hypothesis apparently did not apply in the opposite direction--that women could be traumatized by their own perpetration of abuse--speaks volumes about the agenda of the authors, and the peers who reviewed the study.

And finally, when everything has been painstakingly picked apart and shaken out and empirically proved or disproved, the response of some feminists is...well, to claim that the scientific method itself is a research methodology developed by the Patriarchy in a time when women were oppressed, and therefore not to be trusted.

This is comparable to a Creationist claiming the fossil record was planted by Satan to weaken people's belief in god.

The research that spawned the "patriarchal terrorism" paradigm was flawed at the outset. Data derived from biased samples such as arrest/conviction statistics, domestic violence shelters (where ~100% of adult victims, at least at the time, were women), and court-ordered abuse prevention programs (where ~100% of perpetrators at the time were male), gave academics a skewed picture of domestic violence as overwhelmingly perpetrated by men upon women. The biased data fit the feminist world-view of patriarchy as a system that encourages and condones the oppression of women as a group by men, as opposed to a system that oppresses men and women in different ways, and imparts different privileges on each gender. Still, feminism clings to its dominant paradigm of DV the way it clings to the idea that men were never historically oppressed and never can be oppressed due solely to their gender, while women have never and can never be privileged by virtue of their own.

But to conclude that men are the overwhelming majority of perpetrators of DV through analysis of crime statistics that show a prevalence of male abusers and female victims is to conclude from this that more rapes occur in Canada than in all but five other nations. On could assume that for every woman raped in, say, Japan, more than nine are raped in Canada, or one could assume that social stigmatization of victims are less daunting in Canada and a victim's odds of getting justice are higher, so Canadian women who are raped are more likely to report it. Without other evidence to contextualize the data, there's no way to prove one or the other conclusion, or some combination of both, is at work.

Sufficient empirical data, derived from random community samples, now exists to disprove the "patriarchal terrorism" paradigm of DV, and demonstrate that women are as likely to be offenders as men. However, criminal statistics are still the predominant method not only for formulating public policy (such as victim's services and shelters, crisis lines, etc), but also in continuing to erroneously portray to the public the nature of the problem as mostly due to male violence and mostly inflicted upon women.

When you consider the data derived from the CTS community samples gathered since 1985, this is a huge indictment of both our public health and criminal justice systems. Public policy vastly disproportionately allocates resources toward female victims of DV, leaving half of all victims twisting in the wind. And arrest and conviction rates that defy empirically gathered evidence can only mean that men are disproportionally held criminally accountable for DV, while female perpetrators, by and large, get away with their crimes. This is a system that re-victimizes male victims by pretending they don't exist, and victimizes both men and children by pretending that female perpetrators don't exist.

The lack of victim's services for men combined with the gender bias in the legal system's handling of DV can only perpetuate the cycle of men underreporting their victimization, leading to a more deeply entrenched societal belief that women are the primary victims and men the primary offenders.

This disparity between reality and what is reflected in criminal statistics could be alleviated through modest changes in public policy, a focus on more reliable, less biased data sources, and a less sexist approach to police enforcement. The only thing standing in the way is adherence to an almost religious dogma that, if it ever was accurate--which is highly doubtful--is certainly not reality now.

**If anyone can think of other good examples of movies or TV shows that portray DV in a more balanced and accurate way, please suggest them in the comments. :)

Women have the right to choose for themselves

2011-05-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

A lot of people who've read this blog and some of my contributions to online discussions think I hate women. I want to assure them that nothing is further from the truth. Some of the best people in my life are women, from my mom to my grandmother (who died in 2008 at age 99) to my sisters to my best friend.

Some of the people I admire most for their talents and skills are women. My boss is a woman, and one of the best bosses I've had--funny, tough, always fair, and you can't help but like her even when she's calling you on something. At my last job, the assistant manager was a woman. She was the one person in management who made the job tolerable for staff, and it wasn't because she baked us cupcakes and sang kumbaya. We used to call her Commandant Shirley. When she left the position, 2/3 of the staff quit.

A lot of people who've read this blog believe I hate feminism or the idea of equal rights for women. This might be a reasonable assumption given some of the criticisms I've offered of modern-day feminist theory and methodology. But I think the distinction can be made that just because someone has a criticism of a particular Vatican policy, this does not automatically make them an atheist or even a non-Catholic, or mean that they hate God, the Catholic church or all Catholics. It just means you disagree, maybe vehemently, with a particular policy or the mindset behind it.

And feminism has given me so very much. The progress of society from what was before to what is now, largely due to feminist activism, gives me the opportunity to provide a decent life for my children. It gives me equal treatment in the workplace, equal pay, maternity benefits and the legal guarantee that I will not lose my job because I had a child. Feminism gave me the right to express my sexuality openly, and the social freedom to admit to pretty much anyone that I write dirty books for money. Feminism gave me the right to decide who I want to fuck and who I don't, to say "no" and have it mean something, or to say "yes" and not have it mean I'm a whore. Feminism gave me the opportunity to work under some really wonderful women all my adult life, to not always have to talk to a man when it's time to talk to my boss. Feminism has given me choices about how much I want to work and how much I want to stay home. Feminism gave me a political voice and confidence that my voice will be heard rather than silenced or dismissed solely because of my gender. Feminism gave me the right to leave my husband even if he didn't ever hit me or cheat on me, and not have my life be ruined by the decision.

Feminism has given me a lot, and I would never, ever want to go back to the way things were before the women's movement. I feel extremely lucky I live here and now, in Canada today, rather than somewhere or somewhen else in the world where women don't have what feminism has given me.

And I think that's part of why contemporary feminism and I have come to our irreconcilable differences. Because I feel fortunate and blessed by all that feminism has accomplished in the name of women--and therefore in my name. And yet it seems that the better things are for women here and now in the western world, the more unhappy feminism seems to be about it, the more work they insist still needs to be done, the more criticism they have of society and how it needs to change, and how if you don't feel the same way you must be a bigot, or fooling yourself.

Christina Hoff Sommers very succinctly and accurately summarizes my own criticisms of contemporary feminism, when she says it first "takes a very dim view of men; secondly, it wildly overstates the victim status of American women; and third, it is dogmatically attached to the view that men and women are essentially the same."

Anyone less than inclined to consider the epistemological nature of contemporary feminism would do well to look at how quickly and thoroughly she was excommunicated (scroll way down to "anti-feminism", where she is lumped in with conservative traditionalists, and those who opposed women's right to vote) by the movement for daring to speak the truth as she saw it. Whether you disagree with her assertions or not, whether they are objectively true or total bullshit, when any organization becomes so certain of its moral or ideological rectitude that it cannot tolerate questioning or criticisms from within its ranks, when it feels the checks and balances provided by concerned or dissenting voices are not only unnecessary but something to be silenced...at that point, the mandate of the organization has become a totalitarian exercise in blind faith.

I've never been a religious person. Believing in something I cannot prove is anathema to me. I've never hated the idea of god or a higher power--I can see why it gives many people comfort and I sometimes wish I could simply feel the rightness of something without requiring some evidence that I am not wrongheaded in my thinking. Perhaps I have an overly analytical mind, because a few of the tenets of modern feminism, once you dig a little into what can be and has been proved with empirical evidence, what is and is not logical, what you see with your eyes and what you see with your eyes closed, require this type of belief. And contrary to what church elders of whatever religion would tell you, belief is something we should always question. Every day.

That modern feminism does not well tolerate the questioning of its ideologies is an understatement on an epic scale. It is even more troubling that feminism often tells us to "not listen" to the other voices out there, lest we become confused, especially the voices that present data in its raw form. That raw information must be "interpreted" and "filtered for context" before it is considered to be trustworthy...well, it reminds me of the days before Guttenberg, when the Bible was inaccessible to the great unwashed save through its verbal translation into the vernacular by church officials. Don't tell me your interpretation of the data is reliable and contextually correct--show me the damn data and let me make up my own mind what it might be saying.

And I'm not unsympathetic to women's struggles, even in this very liberated, wealthy, progressive part of the world. That women should be--indeed, need be--concerned with the issues, struggles and success of other women is only logical. But that women should not be, or need not be, also concerned with the issues, struggles and success of the other 50% of the human population, that somehow the problems of the other half of humanity are not our problems as well, that they will not eventually have negative effects on us as women, as workers, as wives, as partners, as daughters, as sisters or as mothers, or the impression I get that men's concerns should only be of interest if and when they DO negatively affect women...it's an isolationism of compassion and understanding that worries the fuck out of me as I do what I can as a single mom to guide my boys into manhood.

When I think of all the men in the early days of the women's movement who listened to the concern and frustration of women, examined women's disenfranchisement, and helped those women do something about it, even if they worried it might disrupt their lives...those men were probably seen by other men of their time as misguided or even insane. They're viewed differently now, by both men and women, through the lens of 2011.

Now the roles are reversed, and I feel like it's time for women to return the favor. Some of the best people in my life are women, and many of them would call themselves feminists. But still, I look at some of what the movement is engaged in today, and my response is, "Wait...uh, whaaa...?"

I wrote a post the other day entitled "The Female Privilege Checklist", and posted it on a popular women's subforum on reddit. I got tons of hits, and took a lot of flack from some members in the comments there, who took issue with some of the examples on my list. Fair enough. Sometimes there is no common ground to be found on an issue, and I can live with that, I suppose. But what worries me the most--and the fact that it did not surprise me worries me even more--is that out of 377 mostly women who clicked over to my blog from a woman's issues forum on reddit, only six stayed longer than 5 seconds.

And by 9:00 that evening, the post on reddit disappeared from public view and the search engine, and no other visitors clicked over. Whether this was done intentionally by the moderators, or was function of down-votes of my post by members, in either case I'm kind of appalled. Because if it was done intentionally, my voice was censored as if I'd uttered some heresy. If it was a function of down-votes, well, you need a lot of down-votes to be obliterated like that, and since only six people stayed longer than 5 seconds, members were down-voting something they hadn't even read, let alone thought about.

The message was very clear: no matter what you have to say, if we think we might not like it then we're not listening. And we're not going to let anyone else listen to you, either.

I suppose I understand how feminists, and women in general, might feel the men's rights movement runs counter to the interests of equality for women. I don't believe it does, but yes, I can see how it would seem so. And the fact that many of the voices speaking today for men are...well, religious/conservative kooks, doesn't exactly help, either. I can only imagine how horrified Christina Hoff Sommers was, as a self-identified feminist even after the movement cut her loose, to discover Rush Limbaugh was one of her fans. Who likes to be associated with THAT, for crying out loud?

As far as some of the female voices that speak for men's issues? It's hard for someone like myself to take any woman seriously when they want to go back to the way things were 100 years ago, where gender roles were clearly defined and unassailable, a woman's reproductive rights did not exist, and women's sexuality consisted of the advice of brides' mothers to "lie back, close your eyes and think of England, dear." I don't want my daughter to have any boundaries but her own when it comes to exploring her sexuality as she grows into a woman, or to not have a choice as to the kind of relationships she wants. I want her to feel perfectly entitled to enter a physics program in university if she decides she doesn't want to be a kindergarten teacher after all, and not have anyone try to railroad her into nursing instead. I want her to feel like her body is something she owns that she can share or not, as she wishes. I want her to use her astounding talents in math and science exactly as would fulfill her best.

But I don't want her to forget that there's another half of humanity, either, or that we need to figure out some way to coexist with them that is healthy and fulfilling for both, or that we all have rights and those rights mean something, even when they're someone else's and they don't affect us as individuals. I don't want her to think that because she is told men have not historically been disenfranchised (which is inaccurate, but whatever), that men never CAN be disenfranchised. I don't want her to grow up to believe that the gender differences we've relied on for millennia for our survival as a species are a pathology to be cured, or an oppression to be eliminated. And I don't ever want her to stop questioning what she is told. Even by me.

I think one of the things that bothers me most about contemporary feminism is that it vilifies the Patriarchy for engineering society and gender roles to look the way it wanted them to look. But even if you don't believe, as I do, that human society took what differences already existed as biological tendencies and sort of agreed en masse to formalize and restrict them for the sake of social stability, even if you believe gender roles are 100% socially constructed--if engineering those roles into us was wrong, why isn't engineering them out of us also wrong?

That is, isn't any sort of social engineering kind of an exercise in megalomania for people in charge who don't entertain the tiniest possibility that they got some aspect of their vision wrong? Hell, half the time I'm unsure whether I'm making a right decision for my kids--I don't even pretend to be sure enough of my rightness on anything to decide for all of society. And it's one thing to adjust public policy to give everyone the freedom and opportunity to be who they want to be, and even propagandize the message by portraying men and women as successful and happy in gender-subversive roles and jobs. But when you try to cram society into a certain model--always 100% certain it's the correct one--through legislation, incentives, quotas, demands for equality of outcomes, etc...isn't feminism now putting unfair expectations on people to subvert gender norms? Isn't feminism saying, "sheesh, we don't see women in 50% of elected offices or chief executive positions, this means we've failed as a society?"

There seems to be no room in feminism to say, "hey, let's just open up opportunities for everyone, remind them that women can be truck drivers or executives and men can be kindergarten teachers or nurses and that's awesome," and then let people do what they want to do. The girl who grows up today thinking she can't be a doctor or a scientist or a welder if she wants to...well, that girl hasn't been paying attention, has she? So if that girl--heck, if most girls--just aren't doing those things, maybe we need to accept that it's because they don't fucking want to, you know? If those girls don't want to grow up to work 60 hour weeks and give up any semblance of a work-life balance, and they feel they don't have to because they've never had to before--what's the problem? Instead of trying to convince them to give up a decent relationship with spouse and children in favor of work, shouldn't we be holding them up as examples for men to emulate? "Hey dudes, you won't get quite as much career glory, and you give up $20k/year, but it's fucking worth it"?

I hear men in the MRM say women have a right to opportunity, but not to success. I would tell feminists women have a right to opportunity, but no obligation to take it. MRAs will say, women have a right to equal treatment, but not to equal results. I would say to feminists, maybe the results aren't worth it anyway, once you consider the cost involved. MRAs tell feminists, women have a right to pursue happiness, but not to find it. I would say to feminists, we all have a goddamn right to pursue the happiness that is right for us--even if it isn't the happiness men choose to pursue.

Why are we always judging ourselves against men's definition of success? I don't have any interest in that kind of success. I'll define it my own way, as I always have, and other women have every right to do the same, even if it means they'll tend to make different choices than men historically have.

Mother's Day

2011-05-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

No matter what many people might tell you, being a primary parent isn't the hardest job in the world. Even being a great parent is not that hard. The hours are long, but the work is not especially physical. It doesn't take a lot of brain power. The skills are varied, but not difficult to learn. It's really not as difficult as so many mothers make it out to be.

However. Being a good parent is an exercise in putting others before yourself much of the time. When I cook breakfast, whether it's eggs or pancakes, I am the one who eats last, every time. If someone needs something during dinner, it is me who goes to fetch it from the fridge. My first child was born in 1994, my second 15 months later. From the moment my son arrived, drinking an entire cup of coffee while it was still hot became an impossible dream. It wasn't until May of 1998, during my first day back in the paid workforce, before I enjoyed that experience again.

Your kids will feel that their things are their things, but will presume that you will share what you have with them. Even now, if I come home from work with a meal--even if they've eaten, and even though it's sometimes after 9 at night--they'll swarm me like locusts and pick my plate half-clean before I even realize what's happening. Restaurant food is still enough of a treat to them that they want in on it, any time they can.

Being a good parent means the same shit, different day, over and over. It means telling your kids the same shit, over and over, until you sometimes feel like you're talking to a brick wall.

Being a good parent means you have to say no, even when it makes your kids scream that they hate you. Sometimes you have to make them cry, even though your child's crying is a wonder of evolutionary biotechnology designed to be psychologically painful to the people who hear it. And you know, even when you're doing it for their own good and they'll one day appreciate that your discipline taught them right from wrong and good decisions from bad, well, that appreciation is going to be a long time coming. It's a deferral of thanks for all the things you did that they didn't like at the time, and that you didn't like to do either, but that helped shape them into decent human beings.

It's an exercise in frustration. The number of times my children have clamored for a specific food they love--be it pizza pops, yogurt tubes, a specific kind of breakfast cereal, pepperoni sticks--only to decide they're sick and tired of it two days after it went on sale at Costco and I bought two months' worth of it...well. It's years of hearing "just a sec" whenever you ask them to do something, and "but I want it now!" whenever they ask you to do something. And while parenthood isn't as intellectually gruelling as many occupations, well, the work is boring as fuck at times. If it weren't for the internet and TV, I'd lose my mind some days.

And you don't get paid for your efforts for years. And I'm not talking money, I'm talking about the moment your kids realize the breadth and depth of the job you took on when you had them, and how thankless a job being a good parent is at times.

So until that day arrives, the day my kids say, "You know mom, all those times you pissed me off because you wouldn't let me do what I wanted, all those times you put me in time out because you loved me enough to not indulge my bad behavior, all those times you didn't buy me that designer whatever because it was too expensive, all those times you ate last...well, thanks," I'll take a day a year to let other people pat me on the back.

Happy Mother's Day to me. And to all the other moms and dads out there who are the primary caregiver to their kids, Happy Mother's Day to you, too.

The Female Privilege Checklist

2011-05-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

In discussions of social and legal issues, I have frequently heard feminists (and gays and lesbians and transgendered people and people of ethnic minorities and, well, pretty much any identifiable group) tell others to "check your privilege", especially in cases where other individuals offer viewpoints that differ from accepted norms.

This can be valuable advice, when it is given in good faith. We should all examine not only the ways in which we are disadvantaged, but take the time to really look at the areas in which we have advantages others do not--even when those advantages are the result of measures taken by the law and society to alleviate a disadvantage. As I told the teenage busboy at work last night when he was complaining the truck his father had given him was several years old, "You should get down on your knees and thank your dad, you ungrateful brat. You know what my teenagers get? $20 shoes and a goddamn bus pass." He was offended at first, but after he thought about it for a while, he realized just how lucky he is and actually thanked me.

However, in almost every instance I see the phrase, "check your privilege," used by a member of a group that is considered to be disadvantaged, it is used to convey victim status in relation to the dissenter, and to shut down all discussion other than that which confirms the group's beliefs. Moreover, they will often insist that because they are disenfranchised by virtue of their membership in the group, there is no way they could also hold privilege due to their membership in the same group. This is so not the case.

Privilege is largely about the real-world consequences of stereotyping and prejudice. Stereotyping and prejudice may be disfavored as a way of determining the true characteristics of a given individual, and thus be a "bad thing"...but at the same time, they don't always result in negatives for the people stereotyped, and when they result in positive effects, many are entirely prepared to take advantage of their privilege. Consider: Asians are likely to be assumed to be bad drivers = negative effect on individuals. Conversely: Asians are likely to be assumed to be good at tech and math = positive effect for individuals in certain contexts, such as when s/he is applying for jobs in these areas.

And while privilege is a complicated thing--affluent, white, straight, well-educated, able-bodied males being "at the top" in most contexts, middle class black males inhabiting a huge gray zone with upper class, white gay males somewhere down the privilege ladder, and mixed race, overweight, disabled, poor, uneducated, transgendered lesbians stuck right at the very bottom...well, it all gets complicated when you start considering just who has more advantages and disadvantages than whom.

It's a contest these days, and to hear people talk, everyone's vying for the prized spot at the very, very, very bottom. Discussions of race, class, sexuality, gender and gender identity, disability, economic status, education level, all seem to devolve into a bizarre exercise in "one-downmanship", where everyone clamors that they are a more victimy victim than everyone else.

But some things really are black and white--at least they seem so. When considering things like male/female gender privilege, you need only consider the bilateral--that is, how does one play out in relation to the other? That is, what privileges do men enjoy solely due to their gender that women of similar economic class, education level, race, able-bodiedness, sexual orientation, etc etc, do not?

And conversely--and contrary to what many feminists believe--what privileges do women enjoy that men do not, all other things being equal? I was asked by a feminist to provide a list, and I did. She dismissed it as a "failed experiment." But I wonder what all of you might think of my female privilege checklist. Feel free to suggest more in the comments, if you think of any--I'll update the list as necessary.

Women are requested to consider whether they can answer "yes" to these questions:

1) People are likely to assume I am a warm and empathetic person.

2) People are likely to assist me when I must perform a physically arduous task.

3) If my car breaks down or I am otherwise in distress, people will be more likely to stop and help me.

4) If I am being physically assaulted, no matter the gender of my assailant, it is more likely that passersby will intervene.

5) People are likely to assume I am a competent parent, unless and until I prove otherwise.

6) People are more likely to respect my right to be offended by inappropriate or impolite behavior.

7) If I yell, people are not likely to believe I am going to hurt them.

8) Dress codes in the workplace and in leisure contexts are more likely to allow me to choose clothing that emphasize my most attractive features and minimize those I am unhappy with.

9) I am allowed by society to wear make-up to make myself more attractive without anyone questioning my sexual orientation. I am given a large social leeway in the kinds of hairstyles I can choose that will flatter my facial features.

10) If I work in a profession that is dominated by the opposite gender, people are likely to see it as "heroic", or a sign of social progress, rather than that I am deficient in some way.

11) If I show weakness, the first response of most people will be to console or help me, not criticize me, ignore me, or dismiss me as pathetic.

12) I am not expected to make the "first move" when meeting members of the opposite sex for the purposes of dating.

13) Members of the opposite gender are expected to make the first move; therefore, it is less likely I will be sexually rejected by those I come into close contact with in a dating context.

14) I am not expected to spend a significant portion of my yearly income on a token that accompanies a marriage proposal.

15) I am less likely to be expected to spend a significant amount of money on gifts, tokens, and activities during courtship and dating.

16) If I am having dinner with a member of the opposite gender in a dating context, and I do not reach for the check, people are unlikely to assume I am cheap.

17) If I am having dinner with a member of the opposite gender in a non-dating context, and I do not reach for the check, people are still unlikely to assume I am cheap.

18) If I earn less than my partner, no one will look at me funny.

19) If I earn nothing and my partner supports me, no one will look at me funny.

20) If I am unemployed and my partner is supporting me, people other than my partner are unlikely to pressure me because I am "not trying hard enough" to find employment.

21) If I earn less than my partner, people are unlikely to expect me to contribute equally to our living expenses.

22) If I am skilled in activities/hobbies that are commonly attributed to the opposite gender (kick boxing, operating power tools, shingling a roof, knitting, scrap-booking, floral arranging), people will see me as admirable. No one is likely to think I am a weirdo or wonder if I'm gay.

23) If I am completing a task with a member of the opposite gender, it will be expected that they take the greater physical burden--such as carrying the heavier boxes.

24) If I cry or am hurt, men and women are unlikely to tell me to "suck it up".

25) If I choose to stay at home with my children while my partner works, people are unlikely to think I am a deadbeat, unskilled, or shirking my responsibility to my family.

26) If I choose discontinue, temporarily leave, or reduce my participation in a high-status career in order to spend time at home caring for children, people are likely to consider it a "noble sacrifice" rather than a waste of my talents.

27) If I work and have a family, my employer will be less likely to require me to work overtime or bring work home with me. This will be the case even if I equally share domestic duties with my partner, or have outside domestic help (housekeeper, nanny).

28) If an employer claims to have "non-sexist" hiring policies, I can assume this to mean that members of my gender will be more likely to be hired, rather than less.

29) If I choose a career in early childhood or elementary level education, or volunteer to work with youth, no one will wonder if it's because I am a pedophile. They will trust me, even if they are aware that members of my own gender can and sometimes do use these positions to facilitate their sexual abuse of children.

30) If I commit a crime against children, even before details come out, people are likely to want to believe I have been falsely accused, was "failed by the system", or was somehow "driven to it" by factors outside my control (such as mental illness, poverty, lack of social services, childhood abuse), because members of my gender "just don't do stuff like that". It is unlikely they will automatically attribute my actions to unprovoked aggression or hold me entirely responsible for them.

31) If I am a victim of domestic violence, there are many services in my community that will help people of my gender. It is unlikely I will be denied services based on my gender.

32) If my partner physically abuses me, I will be believed by the authorities. Their belief will not depend on whether I have physical signs of injury.

33) If I physically abuse my partner, people--including the authorities and victim's services personnel--are likely to assume it was in self defence. Even if I tell them I hit first and my partner is non-violent, they are likely to wonder if my partner did something to instigate the assault, like cheating on me, yelling at me, or otherwise provoking me to lose control.

34) If I physically abuse my partner, and they reciprocate, they are as likely or more likely to be the one arrested as I am, even if my partner's reciprocation was in self-defence.

35) If my partner physically abuses me, and I reciprocate--even if I admit my reciprocation was not in self-defence but out of anger--it is unlikely that I will be arrested.

36) If I am divorced, and my ex-partner earns more than I do, it is more likely I will be awarded spousal support, even if am employed and self-supporting, than if our positions were reversed.

37) If I am divorced, the default assumption in the family court system is that I will have primary custody of my children. This will be the case, even if my ex-partner and I shared breadwinning and childcare duties roughly equally during the marriage.

38) If my ex-partner sues me for custody, they are unlikely to be as successful as I would be were our positions reversed. The burden will be on them to prove I am an unfit parent, rather than that they are more fit, before this likelihood tips in their favor.

39) If I am divorced, I will in almost every case be awarded child support. If my ex-partner does not abide by the terms of the custody/child support order, they will face legal consequences as serious as a prison sentence. They will face these consequences even if their reason for not paying is that their financial situation has changed since the marriage. They will face these consequences even if I do not fulfill my own legal obligations spelled out in the custody order to permit or facilitate their access to my children--my right to distance myself from my ex-partner is likely to take precedence over my children's right to involvement with their non-custodial parent.

40) If I am divorced and my partner is awarded primary custody of my children, I will only rarely be required to pay child support, even if I can afford it. If I am required to pay child support and I do not, for whatever reason, it is unlikely that I will face any legal consequences.

41) If I abuse the legal process during my divorce by obtaining a fraudulent temporary restraining order, misrepresenting my financial status, hiding assets, or otherwise perjuring myself, it is very unlikely I will be charged with a crime. In fact, my abuse of the legal process--even after it has been discovered by the court--is likely to benefit me in matters such as custody. Moreover, "the good of the children" will be treated as a reason to not penalize me monetarily--such as by reducing my share of joint assets.

42) If my ex-partner abuses the legal process in the above ways, they are more likely to be penalized criminally by being charged, or monetarily through reduction of their share of our joint assets.

43) If I have consensual sex with my partner and we are both underage, and a charge of statutory rape is filed, I will never be the one charged. This will be the case even if I pressured my partner to have sex and they objected.

44) If I am raped by a member of the opposite gender, and I am not below the age of consent, no one will tell me such a crime does not exist.

45) If I am raped by a member of the opposite gender, knowledgeable members of the medical and criminal justice communities are unlikely to consider my body's involuntary and automatic responses to sexual stimuli as "proof" that I gave consent.

46) If I am the victim of a statutory rape committed by a member of the opposite gender, and it results in a pregnancy, I will have a choice as to what my parental responsibilities to that child will be. I will not be legally required to be financially responsible for a child that results if I have been raped by an adult.

ETA:

47) irregardless of my parents' culture or religion or any small beneficial side-effects, I am protected by the law from any genital cutting until I am an adult and request it for myself. If I have been cut, my peers will universally agree that I have been a victim of a heinous crime.

48) I can openly state a sexual preference for members of the opposite gender who had significant portions of their genitals removed at birth, and not immediately be called out as crazy by most of society. I can request a sexual partner who has not been cut to become cut for me, and that partner would most likely not immediately leave me.

49) I can cite my own sexual preference for members of the opposite gender who had significant portions of their genitals removed at birth as the sole reason for requesting the same done to my newborn child, and my child's doctor will comply without arguing with me or reporting me to the police. My health insurance will even pay for it.

50) It would be career suicide for a doctor or politician to recommend cutting off significant portions of my genitals to reduce the chance of catching STDs or having other medical problems with my genitals.

51) There's little debate as to whether or not cutting my gender's genitals is bad.

***Please, if anyone wants to add more items, just let me know in the comments, like Beanie Appa did. This list is a work in progress. :)

When I proffered some of the second half of this list in an online discussion, one feminist scoffed, "Women's privilege is exclusively when we are raped, physically abused, or divorced? Wow, lucky me."

What feminists--and many groups claiming disadvantage in whatever area--don't seem to consider is that privilege is an inherently oppositional and proportional concept. In order for men, for instance, to have male privilege in a specific context, it requires that women's disadvantage in that context be in opposition in relation to that privilege. If everyone had equal status under the law and in the eyes of society in relation to each other, even if our circumstances were terrible, no one would be more privileged or disadvantaged than anyone else, right? Privilege of one group requires the disadvantage of another. And when you have gender privilege, it is the other gender that is, perforce, disadvantaged.

Feminists of today still see the wage gap as a serious problem that needs to be dealt with. Feminists believe that the wage gap is a product of sexism in the workplace and unfair social expectations placed on women. The more libertarian view is that it is largely the result of women's choices in regard to work-life and home-life, and that most choices involve prioritizing one thing over another, even if we may desire and value both equally. But whatever you believe, the wage gap has been narrowing and will continue to narrow, because feminists decades ago believed it was a problem, and other people believed them and did something about it.

Feminists may scoff that it's no great shakes to have gender privilege when they are being victimized, raped, beaten or going through the difficult and emotionally devastating process of negotiating custody agreements. I find it quite alarming that they don't seem to be able to look at the situation from the other side. That female privilege, by the very nature of what privilege is, lies in direct, proportional opposition to male disenfranchisement in these very same areas. The greater the female privilege, the greater the male disenfranchisement. And female privilege in these particular areas--sexual assault, domestic violence, divorce and child custody--is HUGE. And in some areas, it's only going to get huger as due process in rape cases erodes at the behest of feminists.

So in these areas where lives are often shattered, where people suffer enormous physical and emotional pain, where their relationships with their partners are dissolved and their lives turned upside down, and the their relationships with their children under threat, where they are charged with crimes or are the victims of them--where they are going through an already horrible experience--these are the very areas where men suffer the greatest disenfranchisement in our society.

Way, way, way up at the beginning of the post, I mentioned privilege in regard to an Asian applying for a tech job. It's foolish to think that if he beat out a black or white candidate who was better qualified for the job, even if he knows it's due to stereotyping and the privilege that derives from that, that he will he will take the boss aside and say, "Hey, you know, I think that other guy is actually better than me. Just because I'm Asian doesn't mean I'm great at fixing computers. You should probably hire him instead." The more of a positive effect a privilege has on an individual, the less they are inclined to give it up.

And in horrible situations, like divorce, DV or rape, how likely is any individual to say, "Hey, I think you're making your judgments of the situation based on gender privilege. I'd like you to be more fair to the man I say raped me and respect his due process rights"? How likely is an individual to say, "Well judge, you know, I realize everyone assumes mothers should get custody, and as a feminist I find that stereotypes based on socially constructed gender norms are harmful. So I'd like you to forget all that, even if it means I may lose custody of my children"? How likely is an individual to say, "Listen officer, I actually hit first. Arrest me too, please"?

Individuals take advantage of their own privilege. They do. And they do it all the more when the stakes are very, very high. Feminists--hell, all women--would be advised to consider what it would be like were the gender privilege reversed in these situations, if they suffered the same level of disenfranchisement men currently suffer in cases of rape, DV, and family law.

If women were assumed by the authorities to be making it up when they make a claim of rape, and predisposed to believe the accuser if they themselves were charged; if women were assumed to always be the aggressor in domestic violence situations and treated accordingly by the law, and if women were turned away from shelters because those shelters only serve DV victims of the opposite gender; if the family court system tore children from their mothers because the default assumption was that custody should go to the father and your rights as a parent--even a weekend one--didn't matter to anyone... ?

If women suffered this obscene and unconscionable level of disenfranchisement in these terrible and potentially life-destroying situations, and weighed it against the current wage gap, which would feminists consider the bigger problem?

Why I advocate for men's rights

2011-05-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

I'm not a traditionalist woman. I'm bisexual. I'm kind of a dirty old man when it comes to my attitudes about sex, and I'm masculine enough in some ways to pull it off without ever having been burdened with the label of slut. Moreover, I write erotic fiction, much of it with bi-male and bi-female themes (and no, I'm not telling any of you all my pen name, so don't bother asking). Though I was a stay-at-home mom for the first five years of my marriage, and though I found that role fulfilling and the work intrinsically valuable, I did not feel myself again until I got back into the paid workforce. I am the last person on earth who would wish to return to the world of a hundred years ago.

I've been sexually assaulted. I was sexually harassed as a 23 year old woman to the point where I left a job I'd held for four years. I would even regard the last six years of my marriage as emotionally and psychologically abusive.

I'm divorced, have three kids, and grievances against my ex that any reasonable man or woman would likely see as entirely justified. I still struggle with my anger over things he did during our marriage, and tried to do after it was over. The fact that after two and a half years, the only money that has ever changed hands between us has been from me to him only adds insult to injury.

During my travels online through the rugged and often inhospitable landscape of the Men's Rights Movement, I have been required to "prove my credentials" as a logical and reasonable human being more times than I care to mention. I have had to "prove my credentials" as a woman who did not screw over her ex during her divorce. I have had to "prove my credentials" as not merely a traditionalist woman who wants to go back to men supporting women while women stay at home. This is an environment that is often hostile to women until they have paid their dues. And even when your dues are paid (and paid and paid, lol) you pay in other ways.

I have had to sit and grind my teeth when men in the movement complain that "That bitch got MY house. It was MY property because I paid for it while SHE stayed home," and resist the urge to remind them that unpaid domestic labor has value too, and that women's denial of that value in the early days of feminism is part of why men and women are in this mess today. That if she was the kind of wife and mother I'd been when I stayed at home, and he'd had to pay her a fair-market wage for her child-care, housekeeping and maybe even home/yard maintenance duties, her income might have been almost as high as his own during the marriage.

As the survivor of a sexual assault that I suffered as a 14-year-old virgin who hadn't had her first period yet, I've had to sit and grind my teeth time and again at the glib attitude many in the movement have toward rape. If the system has a default assumption that all accusers are telling the truth and all accused are lying pieces of shit, many in the MRM have a bias that leans too far in the opposite direction. I am a firm believer in always believing an accuser--when it comes to providing victims' services such as counselling and medical treatment. I am also a firm believer in the due process rights of the accused during police investigations and criminal trials, feel a university's involvement in a sexual assault case should be limited to dialling 911 and letting the criminal justice system take it from there, and that the identity of the accused should be withheld by authorities until he's convicted. I believe feminism's elevation of rape-victim status to a bizarre combination of almost religious idolatry and kid-glove handling harms women in very insidious ways. But at the same time, the way some in the MRM talk about rape...well, it upsets me.

I've had to wade through dozens of news pieces about female perpetrators of spousal assault, stalking, hideously violent assaults on innocent people, sexual and physical abuse of children, infanticide, premeditated murder of husbands and boyfriends, atrocities beyond counting, held vengefully aloft by the MRM as proof that women are as likely to be sociopathic, psychotic, hateful, brutal, selfish assholes as men are. Story after story after story about yet another woman's unsubstantiated claims of abuse leading to yet another man losing his kids and yet more kids losing their father, more lives destroyed by women who weren't even the ones scorned because THEY are more likely to initiate the divorce. A steady diet of misdeeds perpetrated by women on men and innocent kids, enough to turn anyone's stomach.

It gets tiresome. It gets disheartening. It gets burdensome. It even gets a little scary sometimes, when I realize just how angry some of these men are. Given that many of my personal experiences with men have been...ahh...less than wonderful, given how initially hostile the MRM can be to anyone with a vagina, and how insensitive they can seem on issues that have affected me very deeply from the opposite side of the gender divide, why do I do it? Here's why:

I used to live in a tiny, isolated town with a resource-based economy--mostly logging and sand/gravel. When the construction industry in the US went kablooie in 2008, most of the jobs in that town disappeared. I work as a server--tips are a huge portion of my income, but that portion depends on how many people eat out. In late 2008, people where I lived stopped eating out, and my income started to go down. And down. And down.

My ex has never paid child support, and had always enjoyed unlimited access to our kids, at my expense, because my kids love their dad and have a right to see him. He exercised that access an average of one night every 6-8 weeks. My nearest family--my parents and sister--lived 2000km away in a city with a robust economy, but the few times I'd suggested moving there, my ex wouldn't hear of it. His assertion that "How do you expect me to pay child support? I can't even support myself around here. I don't even have food in my fridge," without extrapolating from that just how impossible it would be for me to support four people on my own in the same local economy, and how no food in my fridge would mean his own kids going hungry...well, the level of his tunnel-vision and selfishness was almost surreal to me. I felt like my ex had not only effectively abandoned my kids, he'd abandoned logic, reason, reality, sanity.

In February of 2010, I finally looked at my mounting debts and decided there was no way I could continue to live where I did, supporting four people on my own, and not go bankrupt. That staying solely so my kids could see their dad one night every couple of months, if and when he could be bothered, wasn't worth the price I and my kids were paying. My debts alone, not including my mortgage, had climbed to almost twice my yearly income at the time. I was paying the mortgage with my Visa card. There were no jobs to be had. And my nearest family lived 2000km away--I really was going it alone.

I finally had to concede that my choice was either move or starve. My ex's objection to the very suggestion was well-documented in the correspondence between our lawyers, and he had repeatedly threatened to bring legal action if I tried to move, action that would cost me thousands of dollars and might take a year or more to play out.

I was stuck between survival and my own honor. If I stayed, my family would be destroyed. If I did the honorable thing and informed him of my decision, he'd bring an action that would only force us all to stay where we were until I'd spent thousands I didn't have in legal fees just to get it on a judge's desk, which would only destroy us all the faster.

So I packed up my house and my kids and I moved. Without asking him. Without even telling him. And then I prepared for a legal Battle Royale to prove to a judge that I was justified in what I had done, that I'd had no choice in moving, and no choice other than to do it when and how I did. That my only reasonable option was to move to the city where my parents and sister live so I and my kids would have help and support nearby--a city where the economy was healthy, but that also happens to be 2000km away from my children's father. I'd documented the ways I'd encouraged my ex to spend time with his kids, and how seldom he'd actually done it, and how his right to see them every 6-8 weeks when he felt like it should not outweigh their right to not be raised in poverty. I had a six-page affidavit prepared, with which to argue my case.

And my ex's objections to what I'd done were dismissed out of hand. I'd moved his kids 2000km away from him, without even informing him I was doing it, and I didn't even need to present my affidavit to the judge--all I had to say was that I'd moved for work. She took it as a given that she should side with me over him, and made her decision with a sanguinity and certainty that I found appalling, even as I almost wept with relief.

Shortly before I had moved, I'd re-entered the sexual marketplace. I had a brief fling with a married man. I was his first affair, and he struggled with his guilt over stepping out on his wife, even though he'd been sleeping on the couch for two years. Conversely, his wife had been cheating on him for years--remember, this is a small town where everyone knows every bit of dirt about everyone else. I don't suppose she struggled very much over her own guilt feelings, since she didn't care to hide her infidelities. He was so unhappy in his marriage I can only describe it as despair because he couldn't see any way to fix it, but he stayed because he was terrified--not worried, not scared, but terrified--of losing his children.

It wasn't until after I moved and the judge made her 8-second ruling that I realized just how justifiable his fear had been.

I was raised by parents who told me to never only read the headlines or listen to the soundbites, but to read the entire article and think rationally about things before I formed opinions. To not only regurgitate the information I am fed, but to thoroughly digest it, apply logic and my own experiences to what I hear and read, and then decide if it makes sense. To question. To examine. To look at problems from many angles. To seek out differing points of view because, hey, you just might learn something--even if that something is that people can be full of shit.

They taught me words like "sophistry" and what it means. They taught me that evidence is everything, and statistics can be made to say anything you want, depending on your agenda. They taught me that sometimes people lie so convincingly to themselves, that even when they're lying to you they feel like they're telling the truth.

As a teenager, I mostly hung out with guys, because guys were more accepting of the ways I'm different. Because I'm more guy-like than girlie, they never guarded their speech around me, nor do any of my male coworkers now. And though I've been deeply wronged by a few men, I know from my other experiences with men that that the vast majority of boys and men are more good than bad. They're flawed, but they're still human. They're not women, but they're still human.

I have three children. Two sons and a daughter. And as much as I may complain about how much trouble they can be, and despite the fact that I've been known to threaten to knock their heads together when they annoy me, I love them and am as proud as fuck of them. I want them to be happy and to succeed in life, however they choose to measure their success.

But I look at the world they are growing up in, a world where my boys will soon be facing the same problems men face are facing now, only worse. A world where my daughter also will be reaping the consequences of living in a society that values the rights of one gender over another and no one seems to give a shit. A world where everything women naturally are is seen as admirable, and everything men naturally are is seen as a pathology to be cured. A world where even women who commit the most heinous and atrocious acts are instantly assumed to have been failed by the system or somehow justified in their actions, while men who commit similar acts are instantly assumed to have done it out of jealousy, anger, a desire to control, aggression, or just...well, maleness. I don't want my sons to live in a world where no matter how good they are, they will be told they are bad--or my daughter to live in a world where she will always be able to blame someone or something else for her decisions and actions.

I want my daughter to grow up to be a woman who owns her own shit, and my boys to grow into men who are not forced to own everyone else's shit on top of their own.

The voices that speak for feminism are millions upon millions. They are so legion, they need only whisper to be heard. The voices speaking for equality for men and boys are so few, they're drowned out by the opposition even when they scream. I don't know what I can do other than raise my kids to be able to think on their own, and add my voice to the issues I believe in that I feel are underserved. That more people advocate for, and sympathize with, animal rights than men's rights is a travesty that stymies me. I suppose if men could somehow make themselves look as cute and as helpless as a baby seal, things would be different, but they can't. Men and boys are in jeopardy--really and for true, honest, not just kinda-sorta jeopardy--and they deserve more voices speaking for them.

So that's what I'm doing.