WSJ Video - Opinion Journal: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage

Hamakua · 2013-07-05T15:12:21+00:00

WSJ Opinion: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage

Author Helen Smith on why men are boycotting marriage, fatherhood and the American Dream.

6/18/2013 1:58:02 PM 4:08

Mary Kissel: We're going to continue this show seam on the War on Men and I am very excited to have Dr. Helen Smith with me now, the author of 'Men on Strike', joining me now in the studio.

Helen, what do you mean when you say 'men are on strike', how?

Dr. Helen Smith: Um, men are on strike in terms of marriage, fatherhood and even the American dream in the sense that they are not even going to colleges often because, there are so many reasons. It's just become a very bad deal for men today and people don't realize it.

Kissel: Well, lets take, lets take marriage for example. Um, what is it about the way men are treated that would cause them not to want to date, not to want to make that commitment, not to get married?

Smith: People think men are immature, like there's all kinds of books written by Hanna Rosin like "The End of Men", and all kinds of things about the decline of men a- and manning up, or whatever. But I think the real thing is that men feel that, right now, it's just a very poor deal in terms of legal issues. Men don't get kids as often, they're, they are only about 10% of the time do they get custody, they're the ones paying alimony. We don't even-

I just did a radio show and the guys were talking about how they literally were pushed out of the room where their baby was born and told- a mother was told that- was asked questions about, um, you know, "is your husband an abuser?" and that type of thing. And it's just appalling what men go through who are married. We look so much at what women are going through in the work place and- but we don't turn around, we don't think "what are men going through right now, the modern man, what are they going through in terms of domestic relations?"

Kissel: Well, how, how did it get to this point? You know, how did it get to the point where a man is shoved out of the birthing room, ah, or asked these sort of intrusive questions? Is it as James Taranto argues, started with feminism gone wrong?

Smith: Um, to a certain degree. I mean, I used to consider myself a feminist, but I though feminism meant equality between the sexes, but now it seems to mean special privileges for women, so to some degree, yes. I think there are very powerful lobbies, there are things like N.O.W. or American Org-, University of American Women[sic] (American Association of University Women), who kind of look at these things and it's a political movement. In politics it's sort of like, you know, please women, and you know, the culture follows that.

I think also it's the media. We see all these bumbling dads and idiots on T.V. and, you know, men are so upset by the fact that they see this every day and nobody really cares, and so we see men as inept. They can't do the housework, and we hear so many studies, you know, coming out of universities, the academic world, the media world where men are just unacceptable. They can't do anything right, they can't clean correctly, and we don't look at what men do as important. If a man stays home and he is doing, um, yard work or something around the house, that's considered unimportant where as women's work is always considered to be more important.

Kissel: You have a nice phrase in the book where you talk about how we've lost, how you say "the wonder of men", um, men as construction workers doing the kind of physical labor that women simply physically can't do. um, How do we regain, as you called it "that wonder" of how they are different from us?

Smith: um, well, I think we just need to appreciate them and stop saying like "oh, there's construction workers that are leering at women, or whatever" we focus so much on what we think men are doing to women, but in reality there are so many men around us who are doctors, who are construction workers who are doing things to help men, to help women and I think what we do is we give some aspect of respect. I think that's what has been lost from the domestic relations is that feeling of respect that men used to have. And I'm not saying that in a way, like placating men or anything, but as a human being treating men with respect and realizing they are important too.

Kissel: What prompted you to write this book?

Smith: Um, many things. I have a blog and I started writing it in 2005, but 20 years ago when I started my private practice I had a man in a wheel chair who was being beaten by his wife and there were no-, there was no help available for him and it really got me thinking about "what do men do in that situation?"

[Editing cut]

And just the men on my blog, and the readers from all over the country just prompting me and helping me to understand what men are going through in this country.

And the last thing I want to say is men are not allowed to speak up. So I'm here sort of as their advocate because if men speak up they're called whiners, they're called, you know-

Kissel: Wimps

Smith: Wimps, "Man up", and they're not allowed to talk.

Kissel: Ok, well it's an important book. Helen Smith, the author of "Men on Strike", thank you so much for being here on the show.

Smith: Thank you.

Transcriber's note: I am not a professional transcriber or editor so I kept the transcript as close to verbatim as possible, including "ums" and such. Forgive any excessive commas. I also only corrected one mistake and made note of it. Helen Smith speaks very quickly and while she is easy to understand and follow, what you think you hear and what she actually says is very different.

[2nd posting note]

This video was submitted ~2 weeks ago, I figured I'd just re-post this as it was requested then and it was just a matter of ctrl-c/v ing this time around.

VeryWideDoucheNozzle · 2013-07-05T16:54:05+00:00

Marriage is so far down the line. Leta start with the fact that if I am ever alone with a female staff in our lab, I leave within 2~3 mins, come back around 10 pm to complete my tests.

I am scared of all professional and semi-professional contact with women, even more so since the last "dongle joke" in a public public space in a private conversation got a man fired.

Ms. Helen is still 10 years behind, the vowes of young men are worse then a so-called marriage strike.

2013-07-06T00:08:05+00:00

Good clip.

Always_Doubtful · 2013-07-07T03:28:29+00:00

The risk of losing money, assets, children and freedom because of a woman would make any man not want to be married.

You can be happy without marriage.

Title	WSJ Video - Opinion Journal: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	37
Comments	20
Date	July 5, 2013 12:23 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1horaq/wsj_video_opinion_journal_why_men_are_boycotting/
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WSJ Opinion: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage