Had a great time with my kids over the weekend, and paid no attention to the Internet. I’ve come to truly regret the “evergreen content” nature of so many sites. While it does keep the page views high, it detracts from quality of life and quality of content in the long run. Dalrock seems to have the right idea, but he probably has a better excuse to keep his posts infrequent than I do.
I was a bit surprised by the tone of the Newsweek article that came out on Sunday, but I got along well with the author, who is also a Northwest native and a father of two. I think it also helped that he liked my wife. An attractive, cultured woman can have a positive effect.
Some people may be curious to find I’m married. It shouldn’t be so surprising; I’m a father of two young children and a family guy, not a player. I didn’t mention it online (although I told a number of other bloggers in personal correspondence) for the sole reason that I didn’t want anyone to harass my wife. People – often other women – can be vicious to the wives of outspoken men. That’s pretty much all there is to it.
So, given what’s going down in the MSM, whither men’s rights?
I think the latest media episode has been something of a reality check. One of the things that drew me to the manosphere was the honesty about human nature and psychology as opposed to the wider culture’s ignorance. Unfortunately, as the MRM has grown it, too, has lost some of its perspective on these eternal truths about men, women and societies.
Over the years, I’ve taken a lot of heat from certain quarters in the MRM. A few people really seem to dislike me for being what they call a “tradcon,” which is well wide of the mark, but I suppose it encapsulates the feelings of a particularly pissed off sort of individual (I’ve been there myself). I wrote a post about how men cannot be mothers and shouldn’t try that earned me some enmity. To me, it seems like common sense. Saying that mothers and fathers are interchangeable is akin to the transsexual movement, which incorrectly holds that being male or female is merely a state of mind, or a “preference.” It also denies the unique, important things men have to offer children as fathers.
Likewise, the idea that men can somehow take an equal place alongside women in society’s sympathies is unrealistic. In an article written for AVfM, Warren Farrell admitted as much himself:
Is a Transition from “Men-as-the-Problem” to “Men’s Problems” Possible?
If feminism’s focus is on “men-as-the-problem” is there a way to make the transition to men’s problems?
There’s are [sic] two potential paths: one financial; the other, legal.
Financial first. Lakeland Community College in Ohio, and Pierce College in Washington State, found that men’s problems could get attention if couched as an issue of retention. James Shelley at Lakeland explained that the new Ohio funding formula is based on success rates, including graduation and retention. And since men are more likely to drop out, the issues putting male students at risk might be more widely considered if it meant more money from the state.
Similarly, after Pierce College’s Bret Burkholder elicited data from colleges throughout Washington State, and discovered male students about four times as likely to be dismissed as women at all of Washington state’s colleges, he got no traction when he presented it as a male problem. It too had to be presented as a retention problem.
Burkholder and Shelley face a problem similar to that faced by people trying to find a cure for AIDS. Only when it was reframed as a disease that could be also contracted by heterosexuals and women was empathy catalyzed and funding materialized.
Learning from this, Burkholder has framed his work less as about men per se, and more, for example, as about veterans, which clears through the patriotism filter; or work with single dads, since the beneficiaries are children.
This approach, while gaining traction, is still slow. As Shelley puts it, “the premise is still, ‘Men are the problem,” rather than “Men have problems.” And this from the man who directs one of only three university men’s centers. (The others are at the U of Oregon, and the Houston area Lone Star College-Kingwood, just approved in 2013). And as far as men’s rights organizations with college approval, the only one I’m able to identify is the new affiliate of the National Coalition for Men at Montana State University in Bozeman.
Farrell does identify one social pathology unique to the West: the idea that “men are the problem.” However, when framed alternatively as “men have problems,” people are immediately turned off. There’s an instinctive hostility toward men who “have problems” that, as far as I can tell, can’t be switched off. This is why, when in court, fathers who have problems (e.g. unemployment, gambling, drinking) typically face punishment or contempt, while women with identical problems are given support. This is a terrible, brutal thing, but it’s normal throughout the world.
So how do we deal with this dilemma? It’s actually not so difficult. But first we have to reject the false dichotomy that holds men to either have problems or be problems. Instead, we should focus on the fact that men can be, and usually are, the solution to problems. Women have always known this. When a woman’s car breaks down, who does she call to tow it and fix it? If her roof is leaking, who patches it up? When women want to deal with a problem, they very often go to men for help.
But it doesn’t stop there. Children look to men, too. So does the larger society. Men are good problem solvers. It may be our most valuable role.
So, if you want people to give men a fair shake, the last thing you want to do is give the impression that men “have problems” or are “the problem.” Not only women, but pretty much everyone, recoils from such men.
Take, for instance, the issue of single mothers. Single mothers are most assuredly a problem in society. They are expensive, hapless and often incapable of doing what it takes to raise children well alone. This is an issue that, sadly, has been successfully cast as one of men being “the problem.” However, people could just as easily accept men as a solution, and would be well-disposed toward the idea — we all love to see men solving problems. How about this: fathers who take on some of the burden of childrearing are not the problem, they are the solution! But it will never work if we frame the issue as one of these fathers “having problems.” Even if they do have problems – and lots of them most assuredly do – being seen as part of the solution is far better for these men and their children than being labeled problematic.
In order to create a society that is good for men and women alike, men must be given the opportunity to be the solution. Often, we find that giving a man a productive role causes his problems to go away. Take that role away, and as in the post-collapse USSR his problems multiply rapidly, and he tends to rot in place.
It is a very simple and universal concept, and one that has been applied successfully on many occasions.
So why don’t we apply it today?
Part of the reason for this is simply social decay. Large, complex societies tend to create many opportunities for parasitism and predation. Feminism, as it has developed in the West, is essentially a parasitic ideology that has been enabled by a predatory political and legal class.
People have found that by repeating the “widows and orphans” line over and over while casting men as villains causes a Pavlovian sympathy reflex. Just as a delicious hamburger on a TV ad can make us salivate and give us a desire to go spend some money on a burger, showing bruised women and angry men automatically prompts people to support the women, even if they are actually feeding lawyers and professional lobbyists. Or even scam artists: Anita Sarkeesian cashed in to the tune of a couple hundred thousand dollars using exactly this technique. Incidentally, this is why it’s such a bad idea to build a men’s movement around guys who come off as angry thugs who want to punch women. You might as well cut a check to the National Organization of Women yourself to expedite the inevitable.
However, just as people have grown tired of the costs of obesity brought about by indulging our reflexive responses to stimuli, the cost of illegitimacy and single motherhood is putting a strain on us as well. Obesity is partly a result of profit-seeking at the expense of national health. The epidemic of single motherhood egged on by feminist policy is hardly different. It’s time to frame this issue and other social ills related to radical feminism not in terms of men being the problem or having problems, but being the solution to our problems.
It’s just so reasonable that it might actually work.
