Movements, moods and political ideals

Following a bit more back-and-forth with my commentator, I've been thinking a great deal about what I've been looking at, and what I've been writing.

In the last month in particular, I've been spending more and more time on the MRA sites and boards. And stopping for a moment and looking objectively at where my mind has been going, I'm a little concerned.

I started exploring this because, when I found these sites, I found a lot of what struck me as genuine problems facing men and boys today which could do with close scrutiny. These were issues like health, divorce law, education, domestic violence and apparent cultural misandry.

I also found a lot on these sites I did not agree with. Many, if not most, of the men (and women) involved in the MRM are politically conservative - some extremely so. Not all, but a lot. Being a liberal myself, that can be problematic, particularly when it comes to their views on society, and also women. Sometimes, it feels more that what they really desire is a return to pre-femenist ideals. Either that, or women are just the enemy (I don't frequent the Men Going Their Own Way sites, but there are quite a lot of them). Then, of course, there's the whole tricky world of Game tied up with the MRM, something I'm not comfortable with at all, but seems to be gaining prominence, particularly with Paul Elam, who is one of the leading MRA figures. The pattern often seems to be more about victimising yourself and 'protecting' yourself, over actually working or campaigning to make things better (not always, mind - once again I will reference Glenn Sacks, whose Fathers&Families group is doing a lot of good in the US).

There is also the problem that a lot of the debates that occur with feminists come from the more extreme wing of the feminist movement (in honesty, they're the ones most likely to be blogging and commentating), resulting in a very real 'us vs. them' mentality - which quite often doesn't actually translate when you step out your door and walk into the real world.

But, besides all of this, I found issues raised that in my mind still stood. And so, in order to examine those, I decided to start this blog. The intention was, as I said in my introductory post:

really trying to figure a lot out of it in my head – how it affects my life, what I can do, whether I agree with or believe some of what is found in the MRA (men's rights activists) blogs and forums

[...]

Finally, one last thing, just to be clear: I am not here to play victim.

Having written that, I jumped back onto the MRM sites with renewed vigour, constantly reading them, checking up on them, and absorbing what they've been saying.

It would appear that over the last month, such dedicated following has removed my objectivity. I appear to have stopped looking at them critically, picking the wheat from the chaff of their discussions and ideas, and begun taking it all as read.

Interestingly, this appears to have impacted on my emotional state - I've noticed a sharp decline in my mood overall, and an increased tendency to get angry with little provocation. I sometimes feel as though I am looking or waiting for something misandric to rear its head so I can confront whoever or whatever it is. In short, I think I allowed myself to start believing the confrontational rhetoric constantly being pumped out, even whilst telling myself that wasn't the case.

Now, I wouldn't entirely say that this is a bad thing - for one, it gives an indication of quite how easy it is, and a possible further explanation for why so many of these men are so angry, egging one another on and on, day after day, month after month, year after year.

But mostly it was a bad thing.

Of course, what it has meant for this blog is that, rather than look at the issues that initially bothered me (aside from rape anonymity), I began trying to define the ideological beliefs of the MRM - many of which I had originally intended to question - in essence, to re-say what other people had said. Instead of critically questioning it, I have regurgitated it as absolute truth. In fairness to myself, I've not written anything which I necessarily believe to be factually untrue, but have automatically accepted the political and ideological explanations of them with increasing vigour (I may not have posted many yet, but there has been a check-list of posts waiting to be written up).

And then, suddenly, *snap*. Something changed. It was almost like waking up suddenly. I looked at what's here and just thought "That's not right. That's not what I wanted. It's not what's important. And it's not my thinking." And I felt a sudden need to redress the balance, hence Ribbons for Prostate Cancer.

So there we have it: a lesson in being careful in getting caught up in political and idealogical movements without keeping a check on yourself.

What's my plan now? Well, I'm going to keep going, though I'll take a short breather. I thought about deleting some of my previous posts, but actually, I'm not going to - it seems like cheating, somehow. What I will be trying to do from here on in is hopefully demonstrated better in my last post: a look at one of the issues raised in the MRM, hopefully some analysis of the problems, and my own thoughts on the issue.

*Sigh*. Nothing worth doing's ever easy, is it?

Male Expendability Part 2 - news & informative media

Now, be honest: who, after my last post, felt a little (or a lot) like just sarcastically crying out "oh boo-hoo, men are killed more onscreen! Waaah, isn't my life just awful?"

To tell the truth, I did somewhat.

But as I was at pains to point out, it's not just about films. If it was, I wouldn't particularly care. As I said, though, I was aiming to highlight a larger problem when it comes to the perception of violence against men and male death in the media and societal collective conciousness. To continue this, let's have a look at the news.

*****

"Oh, come on! You can't be serious! All news is about men!"

Well, let's not get into an argument about that. News is what is deemed news-worthy, and yes, because of the prevalence of men in areas of politics, economics and the military in particular, you are more likely to encounter news stories that involve men ('involve', not necessarily 'are about', mind). But keep in mind what I was talking about in the last post, and look at some headlines from the last few days.

Did you see that? If not, look again.

For the record, I haven't gone out of my way to find these, I didn't have to go digging through the BBC News archive to find them, they were all very much top of the site as I write this.

Did you notice how the headlines which feature women or girls specifically identify them as such, in the headline? How about those featuring men? 'One', 'bodies', 'sledger', 'pub landlord'. Yes, they might get identified as men in the body, but to be honest if the headline doesn't say 'woman' or 'women', it's about men. Because the headline always makes sure to point out when it's a woman. In fairness, I did find one using the word 'man', but this does not appear to be the norm.

So, where's the problem? Well, it would seem to show a tendency to dehumanise men when something bad, like their death or injury, happens. Remember, I did not have to go digging for these - they're nearly all from today.

Incidentally, headlines will tend not to downplay men's gender when it comes to them doing something bad. A robber or a murderer or whatever bad thing he is, he will much more often be identified as a man in the headline.

I've been keeping my eye on this for a while, and it happens over and over and over - in incidents of accident, injury or death, men become 'workers', 'police officers', 'soldiers', 'security guards', 'miners', 'passers by', 'drivers', just about anything other than 'men'. At the same time, we make damn sure to be loud and clear when women are the victims - even going so far as to downplay men's suffering in comparison.

Remember Hillary Clinton? Well, despite the preposterous nature of that comment, don't go thinking it's only her who says things like that. Here's a nice long depressing read, a study about Kosovan men's gendercide pretty much being ignored in the western press during the war. Sample quote:

The Death March of the Kosovo Refugees
MORINA, Albania, April 18 (AFP) -- Among the thousands of refugees fleeing Kosovo, none suffer worse than those forced to travel for days and nights on end on foot {...} They also took away all the males aged 15 or over [!].

{Emphases not mine}.

Of course, what the article doesn't tell you is that those males were executed. So the systematic extermination of males is not worse than being made a refugee. Now, I don't mean to downplay the suffering those women did go through - and it was pretty bloody awful - but can you really legitimately say it was worse than being shoved on your knees and shot in the head?

Ok, so moving away from quite such nasty stuff, here's another video for you, this time about the discrepancy between what studies are saying, and what is being reported in the media, about gender issues in three areas. Again, the female side gets elevated, and the male side ignored.

What is this? Do we just not care? I have no interest in denying the issues that women and girls face, but where is the balance? How is this possibly just, right, or fair?

I'm sure at this point people will still be thinking "ah, I don't know, it still seems a bit cherry-picked to me. I'm sure you could claim all sorts of things with the right links at your disposal". And you know what? I'd agree with you. Of course you can. All I'm asking is that you bear this in mind when you look around you. See if you wind up agreeing with me or not. If not, fine, there's not a problem, I'm just on a high-horse. But if you do agree, then we've got a problem needs sorting out.

*****

There is another element in all of this: photographs. Photos are incredibly powerful tools of communication, and the right or wrong picture in the right or wrong place can very much influence someone's opinion.

On this point, I have in my hand an issue of a free local magazine that I picked up in a pub, clearly aimed at the large student population where I live. This issue appears to be focussing a great deal on starting university amongst other things. The bit that bothers me is the Education section, which contains 'The Educational Journey', about the choices one must make throughout their educational career, and 'The Personal Touch' all about how parents can help their children.

Over several pages we have: one photo of a schoolgirl; one photo of a young woman, presumably a student; one large advert for funded positions at a public school, with picture of a smiling young girl; a college advert, picture of a studious young woman; a photo of a mother helping her young daughter study; another photo of a mother helping her two young daughters study. There are, in fairness, two adverts containing males: one for a nursery with a thumbnail picture of three boys and three girls; the other a technical college advert featuring two young men and one young woman.

What I want to know is, at a time when boys have been consistently behind girls in education for around 20 years, why are there no pictures of men or boys being run in this section? Where are the dads helping their boys or girls? Where are the boys smiling out of the page? Remember, the only two pictures that show males are adverts, not images to go with the actual articles.

Again, if this was a one-off I wouldn't have anything to talk about. But it seems to happen over and over. In fact, throughout the entire magazine, there are only two images of males in any of the non-interview articles. One is in 'Pub Fun', and is a tiny thumbnail of some guys at a barbecue, under a large banner photo of several women enjoying karaoke. The other is called 'Fresh Faced' - an article to do with starting at university - and the banner is a young woman, and a young man who is essentially being hustled out of the picture. Seriously, his face is practically cut off by the end of the page. I'd understand a bit more if they were trying to sell copy, but it's a free magazine. What about 'Staying Healthy as a Student', which contains two large pictures of smiling young women - shouldn't you at least try to appeal to young men in such a section? After all, they're the most likely not to take care of themselves, health-wise.

Of course, this is probably all about trying to appeal to a certain demographic - after all, those advertisers who fund it expect revenue... but hang on, the adverts and articles run don't seem to be gender-specific. There's gadgets and cars alongside make-up and fashion, there's interviews, competitions for festival tickets... this isn't a women's magazine, nor is it a men's magazine. It's just a youth magazine. So what happened?

The thing about breaking down one magazine as I have just done is that I can see a lot of people rolling their eyes right now, saying "yes, ok, you've proved your point with one little freebie magazine - you're just nitpicking now, aren't you". Well, perhaps. Yes, I feel a little absurd doing that breakdown, but I also believe that this lack of representation is very promenant. One magazine may not be a problem, but what about when it comes up again and again? At what point does it start to be a problem? Is it an issue when it's a BBC article about cancer, for example? What about if I mentioned that was published a day after this? Seems a bit odd in that light, doesn't it?

Feminists and ethnic minorities have fought for representation in newspapers, magazines, prospectuses and so forth for a reason - the image does hold power, can influence your perception of something. Perhaps not just the one, but when they're seen continually... or perhaps not seen. Once again, I don't want all pictures alongside these articles to be of men - but it would be nice if some were. It would be nice to feel welcome.

Well, let's take this to its inevitable unpleasant conclusion, shall we? Let's look at the website for the National Domestic Violence Helpline. There will be a post in future about domestic violence in relation to men, so I won't dwell, but have a look for a second. Look at the imagery. Read the language. Maybe you want to see how you can support a friend - notice anything interesting about the language they're using? For a national charity helpline, it seems a little one-sided, don't you think? How do you think, as a man, you would feel if you were looking for domestic violence support and came across this? Would you feel welcome? Would you feel like you were going to be helped? Would you feel like your struggle, your pain, was recognised? Hop on to YouTube and look at some DV PSAs. Where are the male victims? Do we care about their lives, their health, or their happiness at all? It certainly seems like no, we don't.

And it just seems to me, wherever I look, everything follows that pattern. We downplay, or outright ignore, male problems, male victimhood, male pain. It makes me sad.

*****

Well, that's that for part 2. Coming up in part 3: unemployment and the 'mancession'.

A video regarding the whole rape accusation business

Following my last post, I've had a couple of... heated debates... with people.

I don't want to dwell, and I have another topic which I intend to discuss tomorrow (probably before anyone reads this), but this video has been playing around my mind for days.

So, for anyone who is anti-anonymity:

Just watch.

Rape Anonymity Proposal Dropped

*Note: this post is going to be more direct and less exploratory than I intended for this blog overall. I will resume normal service soon, but I really do have to say this.*

You may not have heard, but a few days ago the proposal for rape charge anonymity was dropped by the Ministry for Justice.

Now, this is a very touchy subject, and I was not planning on talking about it for a while, but circumstances are what they are and it seems foolish not to talk about this one at the present time.

Rape is a horrific crime - I'm not going to say otherwise, and I doubt anyone else will. We should do all that we can in order to help victims of rape, and to take those who commit it to justice.

However, there is a serious problem when it comes to being accused of rape: in the eyes of society, you are not innocent until proven guilty. Once your name is publicised, you are guilty and you will not get that stain off, no matter what the courts may prove. It doesn't matter if you are acquitted, because once the suggestion is out there, you are highly unlikely to escape it. "No smoke without fire" is not a truism, but it is the unfortunate motto that the court of popular opinion carries.

Now, before I go on, I would like to make an important point. One of the primary arguments the opposition to the proposal have used, as stated in the above article, is that

"People are no more likely to be falsely accused of rape than of other crimes. Why this attempt to further discredit and discriminate against rape survivors?"

Well, here's the thing: in the public eye, rape is trumped only by paedophilia. No other crime accusation is going to cost you as much as that of rape, as I will go into below. And no other crime accusation is taken by the public on face value as much as rape; and even if one is (say, there is a high-profile murder and everyone 'knows' who did it) but then they are exonerated, everyone knows. It is trumpeted loudly, top headline on the evening news, front page in the newspapers. When one is accused of rape and it appears in your local paper, you bet it's on the front page - and it might even make the nationals. When you are exonerated? Chances are it will be buried in the middle of the local, and not make the nationals at all - nobody hears about it. And even when they do... no smoke without fire... he just got away with it...

I said no crime other than paedophilia is more reviled than rape, and I mean it. Even murderers may get excused by the public due to their motives. They may get excused to a degree by judges depending on their motives. There's even a subset of people who will send them love letters and proposals of marriage - to the extent that men as despicable as Charles Manson find themselves with fans and would-be lovers.

And, of course, there's always Lorena Bobbit. You tell me that wasn't as bad as rape and I'll show you an idiot. And she made it onto the chat-show circuit.

So, an accusation of rape sticks. Well, how bad can that be? Without going into too much detail, false rape accusations can and do lead to men losing their jobs, their friends, their families, their homes and even committing suicide. This happens more often than you would be comfortable knowing. And the kicker, the real twist of the knife, is that because rape accusers are kept anonymous no matter the outcome of the charge... they are able to do it again! There is such the thing as the 'serial rape accuser', and because she is kept anonymous even after her accusation is proved false, it means that not only does she usually go unpunished, it also means that juries in later rape cases cannot take her history of false accusation into account. That, at least, may be changing.

There are numerous arguments that groups protesting the proposal have brought forwards. I do not believe any of them justify preventing anonymity:

1) Anonymity will stop victims from reporting rape.

Anonymity for accused rapists under 18 exists, and that doesn't seem to have stopped anyone from reporting, charging and trying them. Even without that, there is actually no logic to this statement - there is no evidence whatsoever that anonymity will stop people reporting.

2) Anonymity will stop other victims of that particular rapist from coming forwards.

Whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'? This is based on the presumption that one accused is already guilty. If he (or she) is convicted, and his (or her) name is released, other victims who want to come forward can do - safe in the knowledge that they will be fully believed and the rapist won't be free to come after them or anything similar - and the new evidence can be used to re-try and extend the sentence.

3) Anonymity promotes the idea that the victim is lying.

How? This one I really don't understand - protection of one person's identity does not imply guilt of the other in any sane person's mind.

4) False rape claims only make up a small proportion of all claims.

So??? Is it now ok to reverse Blackstone's formulation so that now it is "better that ten innocent persons suffer than that one guilty goes free"?

Besides that, we really don't know how many rape accusations are false. In looking at various articles published on Sunday, I came across the figures of 2%, 9% and 10%. But other studies put it as high as 50%. HALF!!! The truth is, we just don't know.

5) Why should men accused of rape have special protection over those accused of other crimes?

Because rape is not like other crimes, and has far more potential to damage and destroy lives of those implicated. There is a reason the (alleged) victim is kept anonymous - because it is not akin to other crimes, and we all know it.

6) Women don't lie.

Seriously, I have encountered this one. Women don't lie, and especially don't lie about rape. This story, of a woman crying rape on a complete stranger who wouldn't buy her a beer, begs to differ.

The simple fact is that rape is a special case, and needs to be regarded as such. I have never seen a convincing argument against anonymity for the accused, whilst I have seen very convincing arguments for it's necessity - and I promise you, I'm only scratching the surface here. The implications of this proposal being dropped disturb me greatly. The new government has set a precedent, and not a good one - when faced with a very vocal but ultimately insubstantial opposition, they have backed down. Any progress for the issues I talk about here is now going to be that much harder to achieve.

There's a great deal of information, statistics and news stories to be found at The False Rape Society's blog. I strongly urge you to have a look.

Introduction

Hello, greetings, welcome and thanks for coming here.

So, why am I here and what am I hoping to achieve with this blog? To be honest I'm not entirely sure. I can, though, explain why I have decided to set this up:

Over the last few months, I have been pulled into the world of the men's rights movement. The principle tenant of the MRM is that male gender-specific problems are woefully under-considered in modern society. They believe that feminism has pushed too far, and that men and boys are now getting a very raw deal as a result. They believe that the current situation is unfair, unethical, and ultimately dangerous.

And, in honesty, when you look at what they're talking about it's hard to disagree.

Now, I know some of you probably already think I'm full of it, and before I continue I would like to make a very important point: I do not think that men and only men are victims today. I know that women have gender-specific issues, and I completely agree that they need to be dealt with and resolved as best as possible. What does concern me, however, is how little men's issues are considered in comparison to women's issues. They do not make the news, do not fill opinion columns, do not make it onto talk shows – or, when they do, the defenders of men's rights are often talked to as if they are simply whining and ought to 'man up'. Comparative research and support funding for men's issues in relation to women's is so insignificant as to be at times practically zero. Often it feels that, if the genders were reversed, we'd be all over it in a heartbeat.

So I am going to be discussing the ideas of the men's rights movement on here. I believe that the dialogue really needs to be opened up, to become more public. I think, frankly, that far too many people are just not aware that these issues even exist to begin with. So yes, I will predominantly be talking about men's rights – though probably not exclusively.

So what will I actually be posting? Well, as I said I'm a bit new to all this, and I'm really trying to figure a lot out of it in my head – how it affects my life, what I can do, whether I agree with or believe some of what is found in the MRA (men's rights activists) blogs and forums. I'm trying to process it all, so in some ways this blog is ultimately like some big therapy session... how lucky for you all...

The upshot of that is that I'm not intending to be posting example after example of every incident that ever occurs. There are some very good fact-based blogs and sites out there already, and all I would be doing in that case is copying what they've said over again. I may (probably will) link to them, use them as a starting board, but really, this is about me trying to figure out where to go from here – how to become not an MRA, not a feminist, but what I would call a true Equalitarian. Essentially, I don't want to be telling anyone what to think, what to feel or how to behave. I want to discuss it with everyone else.

Probable upcoming topics will include (though not necessarily in this order):

• Marriage & divorce: should you protect yourself?
• Domestic Violence: where are the men's shelters?
• In a world where women work, is alimony outdated?
• Ribbons for prostate cancer
• Gender roles and the Patriarchy
• Men and mental health
• Anti-male feminists
• Anti-female MRAs
• Anonymity for those accused of rape
• Male vs female expendability
• Minister for Men – is it time?
• The continuing decline of boys in education
• Equality at work: boardrooms vs basements
• Misandry vs misogyny in modern society
• Let's talk toilet seats: the Sitzpinkler effect

Finally, one last thing, just to be clear: I am not here to play victim. I know I live a very fortunate, comfortable and privileged life. White, western, middle-class, educated, employed... I know that. That does not stop me being concerned when I look out into the world and see other people's lives being damaged unnecessarily. And when nobody else seems to be willing or able to raise these issues, to talk about them, to ask “why?”, then I feel like I have to. But I am not about to play victim here.

Please, if you do not agree with me, do not try to argue with me by pointing out how privileged my life is, nor by pointing to history. History cannot be used as an excuse for the sins of the present, and pointing out my privileges does not help those who do not share them. I want to discuss these issues rationally and logically from different people's perspectives – not play a never ending game of 'who has it worse'.

Thanks for reading and, if you're interested, please do keep an eye on things; hopefully we'll get something interesting going on here!